The Divinity's Curse

Ely's eyes immediately opened, and the uncomfortable feeling in his esophagus quickly made him hack out the-

'Water?' He kept coughing until it felt like his airway cleared out a bit more, before holding onto his throat with his hand, 'What in the-?'

His other hand felt the fast pacing of moving water.

Surveying what was around him, he concluded that he was laid flat out in the middle of nowhere. The only thing there was what he made contact with, cold water. Which appeared to only be four feet.

Looking up at the sky, a shade of obsidian black.

Ely's suit was completely immersed and damped from the water. His skin felt cold and his head felt heavy.

He harshly rubbed at his eyes, the irritation must've meant it had looked like a reddish pink.

His mother would always massage both of his temples if he ever appeared sick or sluggish. He was missing his mother's comfort, but at the same time he wasn't only trying to escape his father but his mother as well.

Wei suffered many hardships but that didn't mean it made her a better person. She still lacked in her motherly duties. Her son didn't expect her to serve as a good wife since Liu didn't deserve that.

But Ely did expect to understand and distance.

He remembered how Briar said he must've been a doted child since his mother regularly called him.

She'd mummer, "I wish I had that," while facing away from him and then quickly tell him to do some impractical task in the cafe.

He felt the drumming in his heart return, 'How long have I been laying here?'

There was no way to get a sense of time. Or know how long it had been since Kirsch pointed his firearm directly at his skull.

Unexpectedly, the acholic had good aim. The bullet didn't go astray—it was dead-on.

Ely raised his arms to push himself up from the water but immediately came back down from the pressure of his head. It throbbed and rang throughout his mind and body.

'I did die,' Ely lay in the water watching how it became discolored from his bloody head.

He rolled onto his back, wherever he was—there was no end. The water kept going filling the entire place as if it was limitless.

'A place with no destination, huh?'

He didn't take the circumstances seriously, he could still be alive physically. High off the hospital anesthetic or some other thing that was keeping his heart beating in the 'real' world.

Tamari was rich, her family would've had him in the hands of the best doctor no matter the location.

That was the greatness of being handsomely wealthy. Whatever you want, whenever you want.

Upon remembering his wife's name, Ely's skin felt a crawling sensation. His feet were still scruffed from the running but the cold water soothed his aches.

He found himself wanting to forget about his deranged wife. It was a mystery to him that someone's appearance could change that drastically, her screaming was something that would keep him up at night.

This wasn't the first time Ely encountered something strange, it was like that moment back at the parking lot.

What would he have done if everything he saw, was something he had made up? If that was the case then he had done something worse than his father had ever done to his mistresses.

He had put his vulnerable wife in the same room as Kirsch.

It was plausible, Tamari was screaming so loud—how did no one else hear it but him?

'Am I the crazy bastard?'

The throbbing started pounding his head harder at this, but he still managed to sit up.

Ely felt futile, it didn't matter if he could care less about Tamari. He could've hated her for all he cared. Yet he still had enough humanity to not be a shithead about it. He was good at quietly putting his resentment off to the side.

Nevertheless, if he was imagining everything then he locked his wife in a bathroom and gave a key to her room to a devil orgre.

He slowly got up taking a deep breath, Tamari might curse his name for as long as she lived. Though what could he do now? What's done was done, he can't apologize to her in this place.

In a way, he's already paid the price—what more could she ask of him? He's practically already dead.

The pain in his head started to lessen as Ely cared less about it.

At a further distance, he could make out a figure illuminated by a bright light, 'There's someone else here?'

He expected this place to be somewhere in his mind, like a waiting room until he was resuscitated back to life. If this wasn't his waiting room, then what else could it have been?

There was nothing else to do in this place so Ely rationalized going to figure. He ignored the fact they had a glow outlining their figure. For all he knew, he was imagining this the same as he did with Tamari.

Ely began dragging his feet through the water to this person, the water felt heavy at his every step. His breath became more rugged, every bone in his body felt like a weight. Forcing him to take breaks to rest every few breaths, he'd cup the water from below him and drink it easing the dysgeusia taste in his mouth.

He decided it was better to go all out and started running for it. Breathlessly trying to make it to them, he didn't have a good reason to but it felt necessary.

"Fucking hell it never ends," Ely dropped to his knees, and sweat started to pour out from his skin. He had decided to take off his blazer and collar-up shirt a while back since it tightened on his chest.

It was only then did he became frustrated with the journey he partook in. Everything felt endless, and he believed that no progress was being made. The figure seemed to get farther away than closer to him.

The blood from his wound started to gush out more, 'How am I supposed to know I'm going the right way?'

He raised his head, one side of his face had been covered in the same color as the roses from his wedding. Looking up once more to get a good look at the glow he had seen since the beginning, the figure remained motionless.

'Are they even alive?'

All of Ely's motivation started to drain back into the liquid. He didn't get how he could feel pain or tiredness in a place that didn't feel real.

None of it mattered now, he didn't understand why he was hopelessly trying to go after the person. There was no need for that and no one was making him do it either. His body began to float in the water as he relaxed.

He began to enjoy the sound of the water and the softness of how it carried him. Like an old man in a kiddie's pool, Ely started to laugh to himself. It felt like the burdens on his shoulders were being lifted, his life was fulfilled.

There was nothing left for him—and that brought him peace.

He could've repeatedly screamed, "I'm dead you bastards!" Over and over for all he wanted.

It brought a big smile to his face as his eyes remained closed, 'This was it.'

His guesses about there being no afterlife must've been right since this place looked like nothing at all or did it feel like the insides of a pregnant woman's stomach?

This could've been the 'paradise' he imagined for himself. It fitted him nicely; quiet, still, and for the most part—isolated from others. He felt himself started to doze off.

As Ely took a restful nap, the figure began moving towards him.

In a few steps, it got closer to him, and the water shook vibrantly at its massive weight. Its appearance appeared feminine through its figure but wore no clothes. Instead, its body shone in its smooth blurred skin.

Standing at a height on par with a skyscraper, it looked down at Ely's small body reverently floating from its arrival. Its face was like looking into a void, you didn't know where it started or where it ended.

However, when it decided to speak to Ely, he felt a woman's hand caressed the side of his face.

He slowly opened his eyes to the unfamiliar touch and a woman's face was smiling back at him, 'So I have gone insane, now I'm imagining another woman.'

She softly responded to him, "No, you're not."

He immediately sat up straight and pulled away from her, 'You can hear me?'

"Yes, I can," her light blonde hair spread out in the water as she crouched in front of him. She was dressed in a-

'Nightgown?'

Her eyes traveled down at what she wore. Then back at him with her finger pointing back at him, "The same as yours."

"When did I?"

The woman was right he was wearing a nightgown identical to hers.

The two sat in the quiet current from the water, Ely noticed how the sky started to look like it was mixed with a light purple. He didn't know when that happened either.

She watched him with easygoing eyes, that were the same shade as the purple he saw in the sky, they both matched accordingly to an amethyst.

Ely's eyebrows furrowed, "Who are you?"