Its cold
The wind is cutting at my ears like a cold blade, gliding across my pale skin in crescent arcs.
Crimson pooled beneath my body, collecting into a thin yet large pool of sick, metallic liquid.
"Death, huh?"
Thinking about the entity's contract, I signed without hesitation...
I was starting to regret my decision.
There was no guarantee that he or she was lying to me, or if the contract I signed was a trap my teachers warned me about during high school.
The promise of it was too good to be true...
Maybe now, I could try doing something with my unfinished life.
...My throat had gotten rougher for some reason, like it had not been used for ages. I didn't have anything to stop it.
I felt parched.
So parched that I wanted the world to drown me inside its endless currents...
***
"Where am I?"
My voice echoed in the darkness, reverberating throughout the water in a weak ripple, going all the way to the edges of my consciousness.
What could be called a 'god' was nowhere near me, like the contract was just a means to an end before abandoning me somewhere in a ditch people called the afterlife.
'I doubt that I would even find him in this darkness.'
The world around me was but a cold, desolate place, filled with thick, inky water that reached up to my ankles. There were no signs of life, not that I could expect something to resemble anything living after already having experienced death.
No trees were present to leave a gray shadow next to my tiny body, no grass to spread your fingers across and feel the moist yet dry blades of snowy grass, and to top it all off, my vision could barely adjust to the surroundings!
"It's so damn dark."
"And whose fault do you think that is?"
The sudden answer startled me, making my whole body shoot up like a rusty spring.
Behind me stood the very being I had signed the contract with; this time, his shape was clear and straightforward, unlike the fog he had been covered in moments ago.
"Why can I see you now?"
I took a step back.
"And why the hell do you sound like that?"
The entity seemed to ponder for a second, scratching its forehead as if in thought, before, like in some sort of cartoon, a tiny lightbulb manifested above its head with light so bright that it seemed to illuminate the surrounding darkness.
"Right! You didn't read the whole contract, so let me explain."
His voice was carried by the wind, like the sound of a broken violin trying to form some kind of melody. It appeared inhuman under any circumstances and yet...
"So I'm like an instrument for you?"
He asked with a somewhat disappointed tone, though his blank expression seemed to say he didn't care what I treated him as.
Maybe that's why I think of it as a normal thing, the way he reacts to anything I say, even though he's a real god people never once saw in their lifetimes.
"Whatever..." The white man sighed before continuing with a lighter tone. "Since you hear me as such, you can call me Maestro."
I nodded without much thought; the name was fitting for someone who made such a comforting melody with his voice alone.
'Finally, some sort of name.'
"About my body, though."
My gaze steadied, focusing on his figure, which portrayed a tall white man.
"I dunno~"
He shrugged before turning around and walking away, taking with him the only source of light inside this dark place.
"What?"
"It's as I said."
Maestro turned around all of a sudden, making me notice just how far he'd gotten in the span of a few seconds. The light made the distance blur, but it looked as if he were over twenty meters away already.
"I don't know why you see me as a man."
The distance didn't seem to make a difference for him as his voice made its way into my ears.
A smile formed on his lips as he raised one of his hands in the air and-
- Snap!
Snapped his fingers.
'!'
In the blink of an eye, the tall man became a short woman with a petite build. Hair sprouted from his scalp while his face morphed into a familiar shape of someone I knew all too well.
My mother.
Clothes grew from his skin like another shell, slowly gaining color and smell that she carried around her.
Sadly, his skin was still as white as snow, leaving him without any eyes or a mouth. Just an empty mask with carved lines where they were supposed to be.
"No?" He raised his brows. "Then how about this?"
- Snap!
I heard a faint crack coming from his direction, but there was no time for me to figure out where it came from as his body morphed into an old man whom I worked for at the local convenience store.
"As you can see, I can change my body whenever I want into whoever I want."
"What you see, however, is something that your own soul decided to portray me as."
"My... soul?"
Maestro snapped his fingers once more, turning back into the dull, tall man from before.
"Didn't you notice it already?"
He looked up, to which I soon followed...
***
The old carriage rocked from side to side, making the three people riding it grumble and move back to where they previously sat.
In the thick pine forest of Ice and endless snow, they paved a path with their heavily battered carriage.
From the side, they looked like a group of wandering knights, sitting in the not-so-silent carriage, accompanied by the raging hail outside. But in reality, they were nothing but a group of sacrificial lambs who decided it was their job to risk their precious lives.
'Thank god someone thought of adding a roof to this thing.'
Someone whispered, to which the knight next to him chimed in, still holding his battered body together with a torn piece of cloth.
'No one died to a hail yet, don't worry.'
The younger knight who started the conversation sent him a glare.
'Exactly! No one died to it 'yet', so there's a chance someone could die to it sooner or later!'
Battered knight grumbled, shifting his body into a more comfortable position.
'You're just exaggerating things; we're under the protection of the tundra squad, so there's no need to worry about a passing hail.' He looked out for a second and added. 'A weak one at that.'
As their conversation started turning heated, or maybe it was just the young knight's face that gained a redder hue, something inside the carriage moved, gathering stares from the two as well as the driver.
The carriage wasn't small or big; it was enough to fit over eight adult men inside its wooden interior. Made of local pine wood that took months to cut down and materials one wouldn't be able to get using conventional methods, it was their only way out of this harrowing forest.
Next to the two knights at the back of the carriage was a thick set of armor too big for whatever was currently hidden inside its steel plates.
Something that looked like a human but not quite was sleeping in the old knight's armor, filling it with thick, gray fog.
All of them were now focusing on it, not because of the strange fog that occupied it, but rather the brief move of its fingers they sensed at the same time...
- Rustle
It shook all of a sudden, shaking the knights off guard as they backed away towards the other corner of the carriage.
'Who do you think we're going to get this time?'
'Shut up and just watch.'
Curiously, the younger knight ignored the old one's warning and chose to bring himself closer towards the set of sentient armor, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, tightened its grip the moment he saw it raise its hands towards its own foggy head.
"Ugh."
A murmur escaped from underneath it.
"Damn it."
'Of course, he couldn't do that as well.'
My eyes hurt like hell, stinging with throbbing pain I hadn't experienced since getting sand in my eyes during fights.
'Did I get transported again?'
Of course, it didn't escape my notice that my whole body felt strangely heavy...
'Huh?'
"Armor?-"
"Hey, you."
A man called out from the side, his face looking like he was having a rough day.
"You're finally awake."