Smoke clears in the distance, and at long last, I see the skeletal remains of a small city. Tears flood my eyes and I tell my horse we are going to make it after all.

I spoke too soon.

With near biblical precision, an arrow pierces me right in the heart and the taste of my own blood and the sight of my panicked horse become my very last moments in this worldly dimension.

Everything fades to black. There is no flood of memories, no feeling of accomplishment or peace. For a moment, or a millennia, I am drift and enveloped in nothingness.

Then, the feeling of a hand around mine. A tender caress of my cheek. My back in against the chest of another. A soft melody fills my ears before my eyes snap back to life. It is not a song I would ever have known, but it echoes true in my body, even as I just come to inhabit it for the first time.

“Come back to me, love.” A man coaxes me a long.

He hums the melody a little more. He runs his fingers through my hair. I feel the thump thump thump of my heart and then a blinding flood of light as I will myself back to him, largely out of curiosity and not at all out of desire to live. Death, even in the sight of a possible city and means to my survival, is preferable to a post-apocalyptic existence, especially one where you can’t seem to hand yourself over to the grave.

When at last my vision clears, I am in the arms of the most handsome man I have ever seen. We are in a place that is thunderously quiet, and yet, it is not peaceful and that is all I am sure of.

“Who the hell are you?” I ask, but I nestle a little further in his embrace regardless.

“It’s alright. You are safe now. We are going to take care of you.” The stunningly calm man whisks a small piece of my hair behind my ear. “You’re home.”

Confusion gives way to panic as I notice his glowing blue eyes.

“Shh,” he says, rocking me gently, “Welcome to purgatory, my love. You’re home at last.”