With a groan, Dante pulled the sheets over him. Psychopomp was probably bluffing. This was all a part of her insane plan. A trap. He repeated it over and over and over in his head. And still there was this part of him that wanted to know. Even if what she said was true, if anything of what she said was true, it would not change what she had done. And still, he wanted to know.

  That awful grin of hers still on his mind, the image alternating with images of Eurydice. They all blurred together and faded into the background as he fell into a deep nothingness that is slumber. Fuzzy and thoughtless.

  Then suddenly, something grabbed him and yanked him from that nothingness. It dragged him up and up and up. And then it let him fall. His stomach felt like it was catapulted into his mouth. In a prompt motion he came to a halt. His face was hit with what felt like ice water. He gasped for air and looked up.

  A thick fog. No light, but he still could see clearly. A black space, the air heavy and clammy. He could make out every detail, but the colors seemed to have lost their vibrancy, as if some of the life was sucked out of them. Nothing was there, no buildings, no flora, no fauna, nothing but these hunched over figures wading through the fog, the air heavy and clammy. Rows and rows of silhouettes, walking towards the distance, eyes fixed on a goal he could not see, until they disappeared into the distance.

  His breath he had left behind as he was hurled into this place, this dimension, this absolute nightmare. ‘I probably should have told you that the journey to this place is not exactly pleasant. I’m sorry for that.’ Alarmed, he looked where the voice was coming from. Only a few feet from his, Psychopomp smiled at him sadly. Startled, he stepped back. ‘What do you think?’, she said as she gestured towards the space.

  No words could describe this, this feeling of both feeling trapped and lost in this giant fog. ‘Agoraphobia.’, he whispered. ‘You’ll get more accustomed to it after a while.’, Psychopomp mumbled back.

  Without saying another word, he started running. He ran, he ran as hard as I can through the mist. He ran, until the silhouettes started to fade into black. And for a moment he felt safe. But then the people faded back into being and without knowing why he found himself back at the start. ‘You’ll find that this place is surprisingly small.’, Psychopomp’s voice sounded next to him again. ‘Even though there must be thousands of people in here.’

  Thousands. He took a closer look at the expressions of the silhouettes, the people surrounding him. Glassy, dazed and despairing, they looked in the distance. ‘They are gone.’, she said. ‘Then we have to bring them back.’, he yelled. ‘These are the people you can’t bring back.’ ‘How do you know that?’ ‘Because I have talked to them.’ He turned to face her. ‘I have talked to them.’, Psychopomp said, her posture tense. ‘It did not matter. They were still here.’

  ‘Then you should have talked with them longer! We should do something. There has to be something we can do! Something!’

  With a shock, Dante woke up, gasping for air. For a moment his dream, that place seemed to be just that, a dream. But soon he noticed Psychopomp hunched over him. Everything seemed surreal. The world did not seem real anymore. He had woken up, but he seemed to be in a constant nightmare. While he tried to ground himself, tried to shake of the feeling of dread, she said: ‘Like I said, not exactly the most comfortable place in the world.’

  Rubbing the sweat out of his eyes, he said: ‘How can you be so casual about all of this?’ Before she could answer, he continued: ‘And why can you do all of this? And why am I here? What am I doing here? Why did you bring me there?’ ‘One question at a time.’

  He had so many questions to ask, but one was slowly approaching the foreground. ‘Why did you save me from the car wreck? It’s not like I, the person that is me, would have died, only my body. Yes, you said you wanted to tell me your story, but why me? What do you care if I hear your reasons or not?’ Head tilted to the side, her eyes swept across his face as to study him carefully. Then she smiled sadly. ‘Because I made a promise to someone who was very close to you.’

  His heart stopped in its tracks, lost for air. ‘I haven't told you the whole story of how I ended up in this place. I haven’t told you about the woman I saw in the fog in my dreams and who formed my guide all this time. Who told me about this planet. I haven’t told you about who she was. I haven't told you what she looks like.' No. 'Dark skin, dark, knowing eyes.' No. 'Curls painted red framing a heart shaped face.' No! 'Her name was…' 'Shut up! '...Eurydice.' Frantically, he covered his ears with his hands to block out the words. But he could still hear her.

  'She was different from the rest, already gone, but also in some way still tied to this world.' 'Before she went on, she told me that she wanted to move on, but not before she knew for sure, that her best friend would be able to live without her. "He's different from me.", she told me. "When I wake up I see the same old world, the same old situations I've experienced for centuries. But, when he wakes up… You should see his face. It's like every day is a new surprise, every experience his first and like there's something new to be discovered in every nook and cranny. I've tried my best, for ages and ages to see the world like he does, but I never do. It's like it isn't my world anymore, like I'm watching a movie and I'm not in it. I don't belong here anymore. But he does and I would never want to take that away from him. It’s just that I’m so tired.'

  'You have no idea what you're talking about.', he wanted to scream, but it came out like a whisper. Still, Psychopomp continued. 'On the day I killed her, she told me this: "Please keep an eye on him. I know he won't be able to forgive me for this, but I hope that one day someone might be able to tell him this for me: That day I saw you first, the day that then seemed like any other day. When I was on my way to uncle Grover who I’ve always fought with over the years but love to death, on my yellow scooter I’d gotten for my sixteenth birthday. From that day, the day I passed by your window, what seemed like an eternity ago and also like it was yesterday, I felt that our lives would be connected. And I know that they will always be so, even when I have moved on.”’ He shrank into himself as memories came flooding in, drowning out his thoughts, drowning out Psychopomp’s voice.

  Somehow he had known when had come to visit her that day in the hospital. Her face had seemed different, her lips, her eyes. All had seemed to be void of what had once given him so much joy. She was gone.

  The universe had started with a bang. That day it had imploded back into itself as he fell apart. Every piece of him that was not yet broken got shattered, grinded to dust. He held her in his arms, buried his face inside her hair. And he started crying. It was a long, sincere, agonizing cry, leaving him sometimes choking, sometimes wailing, but also at times weeping softly. In those moment he seemed as fragile and small as a child. Nothing was left of the unbreakable, unbeatable person he had become over the years, every defense he had built up destroyed and left was only that

  little kid, crying at the funeral of his mother all those years ago.

  He had sworn never to lose anyone again. And when the cure to mortality had been discovered he had thought that he would never have to again, that he would be able to love another person without ever feeling the pain of losing them. And then he got hit in the back with a shotgun when he least expected it.

  His head in his hands, he glanced up to find Psychopomp bowed over him with a look he could not quite place, something between concern and sympathy and pity and guilt maybe. He returned her gaze when he said, his voice hoarse: ‘You told me you came here to save these people. To free them of an eternity of suffering. You tried to make me believe that you’re not twisted and sadistic, that you’re actually acting out of empathy. And you make me think that you’ve actually convinced yourself of that. But how can you believe that? How?’ Like she had seemed to have done a hundred times, she cocked her head to the side: ‘Why wouldn’t I believe that?’

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  A shrill laugh sounded from his closed up throat. A laugh that soon turned into a roaring cackle. Was he losing his mind too? Had he lost his mind ages ago? ‘You kill people! Your great cause is to murder people! And you claim to do so, because they wanted to die!’ ‘Because they did want to do die.’ From a place of sheer exasperation he cried out: ‘Then why didn’t you kill me?!’

  His words echoed throughout the room. Like the shot of a piston, they seemed to hurt Psychopomp deeply, her face contorting into a grimace. Like the shot of a piston, they came out like a bang. They pierced a hole in the air. They left a silence in the room and in his mind.

  Wanting desperately to fill the deafening silence, he repeated: ‘Then why didn’t you kill me?’ She let out a big sigh. She did so without the dramatic flair he had gotten used to. ‘Because I can’t.’ ‘Why not?’

  For a moment, she seemed to look deep into his soul. ‘Because you don’t really want to die.’ He wanted to object, but he could not. Somewhere, he knew she was right. The question he had felt at the bottom of his heart for quite a while now, but had never had the courage to ask himself, rolled of his tongue: ‘But shouldn’t I want to?’ Without hesitation Psychopomp grabbed his shoulders firmly and answered: ‘No.’

  She sat down in front of him. ‘I know that I am the least appropriate person to say this, but I will say it nonetheless. Loving someone does not obligate you to tether your lifeline to theirs. We say ‘till death do us part’ for a reason. We might love them for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. But there will always be paths for them to take where we won’t be able to follow.’

  It felt like he was sinking into the ground and like Psychopomp’s voice came from far away. ‘Have you ever felt completely lost?’, he heard himself ask. ‘So many times.’ She moved to sit next to him, leaning her head against the wall. ‘Sometimes I ask myself whether I’ve ever not been lost.’ He nodded.

  Dante felt more tired than he had ever felt in his life. This whole experience had been exhausting, mind twisting, unnerving and deranging. A hurricane of emotions and events. Looking at his hands, he said: ‘You should continue with your story so I can get the hell out of here.’ Again, Psychopomp chuckled, though it sounded softer this time. She shifted around a bit to make herself more comfortable, before resuming to tell the story she had spent hours to tell.

  'You probably remember the day a large part of the Reapers were captured. I do at least. That day I came home to the compound from being away on a bit of a longer expedition. After having been away for a month, I thought I’d arrive to bring great news. We’d managed to hack into the broadcasting screens of one of the more distant major cities. Besides that, I’d enlisted a few more recruits into our movement. But as soon as I entered the building, my stomach sunk. It was so empty. Empty of crowd, empty of sound. The atmosphere was heavy and tight like the air before it is about to rain. And then I saw Beres, working on a task with a numb expression. He glanced at me quickly, eyes afflicted, before he looked away. I ran towards him. ‘Where is everyone? Where is Persephone?’ He stared at his feet as he said slowly: ‘They were on a mission to one of the smaller hospitals. Turns out, one of the new recruits was a mole. They were apprehended on the spot.’ For a moment, I felt numb, speechless. ‘When?’ ‘Just after you left.’ Beres looked me in the eyes, with the same look a stray dog has after its been kicked. ‘They’ll never get out, will they?’ It felt like I was stung by a thousand needles, battered, lacerated and crushed as the reality of it all hit me. They would not be killed. That would have been mercy.

  I should have been there for whoever was left in that moment. But I just couldn’t. Among the people who were captured, were a few of my closest companions, the first who I let into the fog. And among them was Persephone. I ran. I ran away and hid myself in a dark corner, a bit like vermin when it’s been threatened. Before I cried myself to sleep.

  But sleep brought no mercy. Of course I had to find myself there again, in that godforsaken place. The fog seemed to be even thicker, the air even more stifling and oppressive than usual. Everyone was walking into the distance as usual, except for two people. One of them was your Eurydice, of course. From the corner of my eye, I saw her look at me with what seemed like pity. I was more preoccupied with the second person, however. She was new to the masses, but not new to me. For a moment I thought Persephone was here to make contact with me. To set up a new plan so we could get her out of where they hidden her. But when I ran at her, I saw her expression clearer. Her face was hollow, her eyes devoid of that glimmer of determination. And with pain in her voice she said: 'Hey Psychopomp.'

  She was one of the crowd, stuck in eternal limbo, waiting for the unreachable end. ‘I’m sorry.’, I managed to spit out. ‘Don’t be.’, she replied. ‘But it’s my fault you’re here.’ ‘Don’t flatter yourself. This was my choice.’ Before I could object she put up her hand to shut me up. ‘Don’t pity me. You know I deserve to not be pitied. Keep my pride. I wanted this. I chose this path out of my own will. And if you look at it realistically, I’m lucky at least that at my age I found something I’m willing to die for.’ Ignoring what she said, I continued: ‘We’ll get you out. It might take a long time, but we’ll get you out.’

  She shook her head at me and bowed down. Through the hair that fell over her face, I could still see her desperate expression. ‘They are keeping me away at a place you would never be able to get to. I won’t tell you where, because you’ll try to get there anyway even though it’s futile. You know the movement does not have the resources, nor the power to get me out, to get the others out. Who knows how long we’ll be here.’ ‘So what, you’ll just wait for eternity?’ Again, she shook her head. I knew what she was going to say next, I knew it in my bones and it still broke me. ‘You taught me how to let those that desire to, move on. I’ve spend enough of my time aimlessly roaming around on this planet. I think I’m ready to move on.’ For a moment she smiled as if everything was alright. ‘Don’t let us down Psy.’

  I did not yell at her or ask her to change her mind. I’d seen her in this state before. She never changed her mind. Instead I turned away from her for a second. It seems that dark place did not allow for loud noises, because when I opened my mouth to scream, only a whimper of a sound came out. I did however, manage to wake myself up, exhausted as always. I felt hopeless, let down, even betrayed in a sense. But most of all I felt alone. Like I was screaming into a void and no one heard me, both literally and figuratively.

  Eyes focused on a point in the distance he could not see, she said: ‘I felt like it was the end. The end of the movement. The end of Psychopomp. The end of me.’ Her shoulders had sagged in, but she sat up straight again. ‘And somehow, another day came.’

  When I came back to the fog again, I could not find her. Maybe she was roaming around somewhere in the distance or maybe she was not there anymore. But my guide was there, your Eurydice. Somehow, she had realized what had happened. She came towards me and I expected her to tell me to keep the faith or at least move on with the cause. But she didn’t. Instead, she told me: ‘You can leave if you want to.’ Just one sentence, seven words, casual. However, I knew what meaning they held. I was free. I was free to go. And she would not follow me if I did.

  I could leave in the night. If I took one of the spaceships we capsized, no one would notice. I could leave this planet behind and act like nothing had ever happened.

  If anyone, before all of this had started, had asked me nicely to take part in this mission, I would have declined. If anyone would ask me now to take part in a similar mission, I would still decline. And when I had, reluctantly, agreed to take part in this, I did so believing I would take any opportunity to get out of this place.

  But the problem is that once you see something that shocks you to your core, it's very hard to unsee it. Those people, hopelessly lost in a world they did not belong to anymore, unable to move on. The moment I let that first woman go, the expression of pure bliss on her face as she finally moved on.

  Besides, I had made a promise to those people. I had made a promise to those that wanted to die and to those willing to kill if it meant others could move on. To Beres and Persephone and Eurydice. An unspoken promise, but it felt like a promise nonetheless. And I never break my promises.

  So I’m still here.

  Sometimes it seems like every step I take towards my goal, the ground is snatched out under me. Some days, I wake up and am reminded what I do day in day out and it hits me like a brick. Sometimes, I fucking hate doing this.

  But not all of it’s bad. I’d say the people make it pretty good sometimes. Pretty damn good sometimes.’

  She grinned. ‘And who else to play the part of Death than me? The one and only, the original Psychopomp?.