It was a strange sensation. She couldn't see, yet it didn't simply feel like darkness. She couldn't hear, yet it felt like more than just a lack of sound. She tried to move, but nothing happened.

"I didn't expect death to be exciting, but I'm somehow still disappointed."

There was nothing. Or at the very least she was quite sure she had no body. Nothing to move nothing to feel, just pure consciousness. She was a patient person. She could wait. And so she waited and waited.

She first thought that she'd rather just prefer to cease, so as not to be condemned to boredom for the rest of ever. But she felt cheated. Some people told her she would spend an eternity in heaven or hell. She personally believed and hoped there would be nothing and she'd just stop thinking. Somehow reality was the worse parts of both. She was bored.

 

--

 

After what felt like days of trying to do anything, she had a breakthrough. She began to feel her surroundings, but it was rather underwhelming. In a small area around herself, she felt as if there was something. When she tried to focus on it more to figure out what it was she ran into a problem. It felt like it just was. As if it was just simply existence and nothing more. She tried to reach out to move it only to get what felt like a massive headache. This however was reassuring as strange as it was. Any stimulus from the outside felt like a blessing. And so, she continued working.

 

--

 

Progress was steady. She still couldn't move…. whatever it was surrounding her, but she could grab it and drag herself instead. It was tiring, but she felt her stamina increase. She could move for longer and longer, she could "see" further and further. She had no clear target, she just went in straight line, hoping to find anything.

 

--

 

After what seemed to be weeks of moving around, her excitement started to die down. She attempted to make a mental note of direction and went back to experimenting. She mainly had three goals: try to enhance her ability to sense, her ability to move, and to try to grab the surrounding….existence and do anything with it to alleviate some boredom.

The third one was mainly just hopeful thinking, but she still didn't think it would be so hard. She started by simply moving it around while grabbing her surroundings so she wouldn't just drag herself. As she progressed she no longer had to grab her surroundings to prevent movement, she just felt heavier. Or more like harder to be moved. Surprisingly, it increased her overall speed, which made little sense for her. She then tried to turn the surroundings into something different, trying to give it shape. She felt like her head was split...again. It brought back some unwanted memories of getting shot in the head. She imagined it would be one of the most painless ways to die, but she felt pain incomparable to anything she has felt before. Until now that was.

When she came to consciousness she still felt some pain. It dawned on her. She was hurt. Even after death, she could be hurt. Even after death, she could be killed again. She thought she wouldn’t care, having already died, but a small voice cried out from deep down: “I want to live.”

 

--

 

Progress was far from smooth. Almost every time she tried something new she was knocked out again. It was far from ideal, so she tried to split her conscious in order to be able to be able to keep working after one side was knocked out. This was her greatest mistake yet, as it left a pain that would not leave. It took her what seemed like months of trial and error to advance: to make her senses more accurate and her reaction time faster, to morph her surroundings into sharp objects she could throw, and shields to stop incoming attacks. She also discovered her ability to heal herself in an extremely slow and energy consuming way, finally patching up the damage she did to herself before.

 

--

 

One day while just experimenting she felt something get closer very fast and so she dodged. When she had gained some distance she “looked” at her attacker more carefully. It was a strange being: a skeleton without legs clad in torn black clothing and wielding a large scythe. It swung again and although it was faster than her it was far too predictable. Such an unwieldy weapon couldn’t attack in rapid succession, couldn’t change direction very easily and the part of it that presented a danger was far too small. She knew she couldn’t flee the entity so she decided to try something.

“Is that all? Disappointing.” She called out.

While there seemed to be no reaction, the skeletal being’s swings became even wider, even easier to dodge, if maybe a bit faster. She decided to push her opponent further.

“It’s a really shameful display, you know? Failing to kill an already dead little girl.” She continued in a voice and tone as condescending as she could muster.

It continued swinging the scythe, but at this point there was almost an entire second of delay between the end of one swing and the start of another. After one dodge she got closer to the entity where the scythe couldn’t effectively reach and, before her enemy could increase the distance, she lashed out with multiple glass-like pointed shards she threw into her aggressor’s skull point-blank. The skull caved in revealing only black mist on the inside which began to swirl around her before it just disappeared as the body turned to dust.

 

--

 

Unknown 1 "Yeah, it's this way."

A voice rang out. It was coarse and grating, giving the impression of a 90 year chainsmoker.

Unknown 2 "Now, where is that damned stray?"

A similar but different voice echoed into the nothingness that surrounded them.

Unknown 3 "Hello, good gentlemen, how may I be of service?"

Something called out from between the two others, it’s tone layered with sarcasm. It sounded as if voices high, deep and all in between were layered on top of each other, giving a strange chorus like sounding to it.

Unknown 2 "Stop right there!" One yelled.

Unknown 3 "I'm not moving." Came the reply with mocking tones.

Unknown 1 "Who the hell do you think you are, sneaking up on two reapers?!"

Unknown 3 "So that is what you are. Thank you for sharing." The voices suddenly became cold and emotionless.

Before the other two could regain composure, they were quickly pierced by spears and dissipated into black smoke which was soon absorbed by an ominous silhouette.

"Might need to leave the area soon, I'm running low on prey."

She has undergone significant changes in what she assumed to be a decade or so. She managed to create a body out of the energy that surrounded her. Calling it a body might be a bit generous, it was mainly a humanoid shape of thick grey gas with pitch black eye sockets. She had gained something which reminded her of sight, but was actually much more. She had a sense of energy before, but this was incomparable. What she had now was not a substitute for sight but rather something far superior. It was too bad that everything seemed to be filled with dense fog that prevented sight beyond half a mile in any direction. She could also create spear-like objects anywhere near her in moments and hurl them at speeds that she herself would have trouble dodging. 

Her proudest invention however was her invisibility. She didn't even understand it completely, she just felt like she could hide her presence. And so she hid. She got better and better, allowing her to escape time and time again, fleeing to fight another day. To her, survival meant victory. 

At this point she could kill dozens of reapers at once while they could not touch her as her barrier blocked their scythes. She had always doubted the unwieldy and cumbersome design. It was laughably easy to dodge. She could no longer see the floating torso-like specters in ragged cape as anything more than prey or a mild inconvenience interrupting her internal monologue. She had seen other souls, other strays during her time in the void. Some were aggressive, some were terrified, and most just didn’t react to anything. At first she retaliated against some of the aggressive souls' attacks, but they gave no sustenance and couldn’t hurt her so she just ignored them now.

 

--

 

Hoarse yells could be heard as the scythe wielding specters were squashed one after another.

"What is a greater demon doing here?"

"Who cares, just kill it!"

"It's way too big!"

The conversation between the reapers was interrupted by a guttural roar let out by the demon. It was barely humanoid, its large arms made it resemble a red gorilla. It roared when it got hit by one of the scythes. It roared when it hit one of the reapers. It also roared when it felt a presence, but was cut short as dozens of spears impaled it causing it to dissolve into red smoke.

"Say…" a mix of voices said in unison before a grey silhouette appeared in front of the reapers. For the first time, she saw the reapers show emotion: they were scared. Not like she usually gave them enough time to converse or express themselves. "If that was a demon, is a gate to Hell nearby perchance?" The voices asked playfully.

After some time, one of the reapers broke the silence by pointing in a direction "It's that way.".

Without as much as a moment of delay, the grey silhouette disappeared as fast as it came.