A Strange Afterlife

[ginger_firebird]

 It had to be impossible. He could feel his skin. A pulse beat under his neck. He stood in front of a store window and regarded his reflection in the glass. Same black leather outfit. Same brown trench-coat. The fabric weight down on him and he rubbed his arms as he tried to figure out what was going on. A wandering spirit had doors to enter and exit when it came to the world of the living, but he'd never achieved something like this. It was alien and wrong and he had no idea where anyone was.

Mantis sighed, marveling quietly at the way his chest rose and fell with his breathing. It didn't matter. He'd keep moving and hope for the best. If this was some punishment for a misstep, he knew exactly who to take it up with.

"Sorrow!" Even his voice carried an echo. Mantis pointed himself into a new direction and began to walk. "What did I do this time, old man?"

Comments

[harness_the_harness]

"Oh, hallo! Excuse me, sir," a voice calls out. It comes from an older man with severe-looking features dressed in clean, professional attire. He's holding a glowing data tablet in one hand and waving with the other. Even with his stern appearance, his tone is friendly: "A moment of your time, please?"

[ginger_firebird]

Another person! A rather strangely dressed person. Mantis isn't one to adhere to notions of respecting one's elders, but it's the first step to an answer in this...wherever he is.

"If you really need it. I have no idea where I am right now."

[harness_the_harness]

"Ah! Hmmm." His brow furrows and he brings a knuckle to his chin. "My request might be a bit strange out of context, then."

His face brightens with an idea. "Perhaps I can preface with what I know about this place. I'm a new arrival myself, you see."

He pats the pockets of his coat and comes away with a pamphlet, already heavily creased and annotated. "This contains all of the relevant information. But suffice to say, this place is the multiverse. Or more accurately, the liminal space between universes. It's truly marvelous."

[ginger_firebird]

He understood only some of what the man had said, but what did register in his mind brought up a multitude of questions. Naturally, he knew of the spaces the dead could pass through, but this was spaces that affected the living as well.

Mantis nodded slowly and took the pamphlet. "Between universes. Like parallels and places where history is completely different..." He opened the pamphlet and glanced over it. At least someone was trying to make sense of wherever the hell this was.

"Can this place restore life to the deceased as well?"

[harness_the_harness]

The man's thick brows raise in surprise. Quite the heavy question. "For the purposes of your argument, would you accept the deceased from another timeline as 'restored?'

"If this place functions according to the many-worlds interpretation, we can assume there exist realities where an individual does not die. All possible outcomes exist at once. Schrödinger's cat, if you will."

[ginger_firebird]

Mantis considered the rebuttal and nodded slowly. If there was a timeline where he knew he had died, then one where things had worked out surely had to have happened. That, of course assumed that this multiverse idea was ultimately true.

"I've been dead for a long time. This is the first time I've had my own skin in over ten years." He took a deep breath in and sighed. "Is there really a version of myself who went on to see that kind of world...?"

He retreated a bit into his own thoughts. It's a lot to take in.

[harness_the_harness]

He's quiet for a moment, respecting the man's moment of shock. However, ferocious curiosity makes him antsy after a moment. He leans in slightly.

"What was it like? Ehm ... death?" he finally asks in a measured, delicate tone. Is the question insensitive? Probably. But he can't not ask. "How did you know that was your state of being?"

[ginger_firebird]

Mantis is far from offended. It's an odd thing for most people to hear, and he can imagine why someone would want to know a little more about the process. His status as deceased had become a constant, and he rarely thought back on what it had felt like to be alive.

"It's not as glamorous or profound as you might hope. I lost consciousness before I died fully and woke up to a medium who was stronger than me in every respect that I knew of." He's a touch too old to be as impressed or as frightened as he had been at first, but there is a weariness when he talks. "I knew I was dead because I was face to face with a man who had died about sixty years before I did and hadn't been remotely close to my body since."

[harness_the_harness]

"Medium ... as in someone who communes with the dead? At least, allegedly?" his voice now has a flippant edge. "Did he shepherd you back to your corporeal form? Isn't that how such spiritual matters are said to work?"

[ginger_firebird]

"In actuality. He conversed with the dead on battlefields to help turn the tide against enemy forces." Mantis shakes his head. "The last time I raised hell with the living, he drew me back to the side of the dead. Apparently I'm too stubborn to be allowed on my own."

[harness_the_harness]

"I see." He doesn't see, but he also doesn't let it bother him. He reminds himself he's talked to vampires and martians. Leave skepticism aside in this place.

"So you're a soldier of some sort?"

[ginger_firebird]

"Was. Call it forceful retirement." A certain amount of annoyance seeps into his voice. Mantis still doesn't like thinking of the brown haired Snake.

[harness_the_harness]

Sigma acknowledges the joke with a grunt. "My condolences. I can't imagine you met a peaceful end in that line of work."

He gives the other man a once-over. "At least your current form appears unscathed?"

[ginger_firebird]

Mantis holds out his arms and pats at his chest and lower back. "As far as I can tell, everything is just as it was before I died. It's...odd, having senses again."

[harness_the_harness]

"What do you intend to do now? Try to return? Avenge your own death? That would be quite dramatic." He scratches at his jaw and muses: "I wonder if quantum mechanics would even allow for a body to return to that timeline."

[ginger_firebird]

He scoffs at the word 'avenge'. "There's nothing left to avenge where I'm from. The one person left who I had any reason to hate is as dead as I am. All I need is to stay with my Commanding Officer and keep an eye on the living world."

[harness_the_harness]

He frowns deeply. "It seems like a waste, what with the breadth of the multiverse now at your disposal. Why not move on and discover something new?"

[ginger_firebird]

"I wouldn't know what to look for. Do I find a world where I lived? One where I wasn't the bad guy?" He shakes his head. "How many other worlds could there be?"

[harness_the_harness]

"Oh, an infinite number!" he declares, excitedly. "If the Everett model is to be believed."

Sigma tilts his head. "Most people don't self-identify as a 'bad guy.' Did someone judge you as such?"

[ginger_firebird]

Mantis is going to nod along with that explanation. He has no idea who this Everett is or what model he made, but the general idea makes a little sense.

"Call it a lifetime of bad choices. Every time I tried to get away from hurting people, I got dragged in again. It was easier to be a more efficient villain than a reluctant one."

[harness_the_harness]

"An interesting choice, but thoughtfully made." Plenty of people are villains without even recognizing it.

"If it was always your intention to do good, maybe this is your opportunity. Whatever was 'dragging you in' is no longer a factor?"

[ginger_firebird]

Damn depressing situation to be in, but Mantis is starting to make peace with it. He shrugs at the man's suggestion. "I can try? I barely know anything about this place, least of all the kind of people in it."

[harness_the_harness]

"I encourage you to keep an open, scientific mind. That's always helped me in times of confusion."

He extends a hand. "That said, a proper introduction is in order: I am Sigma."

[ginger_firebird]

"That I can do. Maybe not well." He takes Sigma's hand and shakes it. It's weird feeling how thin his fingers are again. "Psycho Mantis. Former soldier and spy."

[harness_the_harness]

The state of his hands don't go unnoticed. Sigma's grip is not as tight as it might usually be.

"Psycho ... Mantis? A code name, I assume?" This a fairly recent concept for him, including the use of his own. Like the stuff of Bond movies and super heroes.