Death was strange.

  The burning cold tore through him. It felt like he was wading through thick, black oil, all of it searing his skin upon contact. It was all he could do to keep that sludge from drowning him, from consuming him.

  There was a voice speaking, so ethereal and so loud he thought it must be God, here to confirm he’d in fact died. But the voice was buried by all that sludge, muffled to an odd distortion he couldn’t make out.

  But he knew it was calling to him. Calling for him, to be more precise.

  Then, as he watched, the oil started moving. Like someone had unplugged a drain in a bathtub, all of the oil flooded in one direction, leaving him stained black from his chin down, and remarkably, taking his pain with him.

  The liquid solidified midair into the very same wall that kept him from his memories. Once every last drop had gone into forming that wall, the entire thing slammed itself firmly between whatever it was that was calling him, shutting off the murmur completely.

  His eyes started feeling heavy, his neck unable to support his even heavier head. Before he knew it, he was falling through the black ground... falling... until he opened his eyes and found himself back in the bathroom. Back in that bathtub that was meant to be his coffin.

  He had a disorienting feeling that he had been unconscious for a while, but his actual senses told him he’d closed his eyes for only a second. He looked around the tub, noticing the demons were no longer there. In fact—

  Wait.

  He could move his eyes! Move his head! Painstakingly, he lifted both his arms, bracing them against the sides of the bathtub, and worked himself upright. It took a minute for the dizzy spell in his head to pass, but when it finally ceased, it made way for clarity.

  The pain in his left hand was also gone!

  He lifted it to his face, but could only see a vague outline. The bathroom was too dark to make anything out. Had it been that dark before? No. No, he’d been able to see the tiles on the wall opposite him. So time had passed.

  Back in the apartment, he remembered seeing the boards over the windows. He could recall that during the few moments he’d woken up at night, the boards had made the apartment far darker than it should’ve been.

  Slowly, he pushed the shower curtain aside, his joints feeling stiff from days of going unused. That simple act already left him feeling weak. He wanted to lie back down in that tub, just for a few minutes. But... he had to get out of here. Immediately.

  Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet. It took even more effort to remain standing, weak as he was. When that vertigo passed, he took in the darkness before him. He could make out the sink, the toilet, and the door. The demons were truly gone!

  “Okay. Just make it to the door,” he told himself. “Just the door.”

  Better yet, just step out of the tub.

  Breaking it down like that made it easier. He raised his left leg first, bracing his hand on the wall for support. As laborious as it was, he somehow managed it. He moved his right leg next.

  “Now the door,” he sighed out. “Just make it to the door.”

  The bathroom wasn’t large by normal standards, but at that moment, it might’ve been palatial. It felt like he had to take a hundred steps instead of the ten it actually took. When he finally reached the damn thing, he set his head against the door, his hand curled and gripped around the doorknob.

  It wasn’t rest that made him pause; it was the sound from beyond the door.

  There was crying and a low, unceasing moaning. It terrified him. Were there people on the other side of the door? Was it Ava? Or that enforcer who’d been with her? If they spotted him, walking now, and able to speak, how would they react?

  Damn it, well, I can’t just stand here and wait! Inviting those creatures in didn’t send me back. I have to do this.

  Zach almost found that decisiveness laughable. For some reason, he felt nothing but deep frustration when he thought about decision-making. More emotion coming from beyond that oily wall. So, I need confusion to be decisive? Great.

  An utter joke.

  He gritted his teeth, excited and happy he could do that after the paralysis he’d been forced to endure, and opened the door. It was nighttime, going off of the darkness slanting in through the boards.

  The apartment beyond was empty, except for a woman who sat on that same green couch he’d been subjected to, crying and groaning. From the smell in the air, she had a wound as well. Most likely one of her hands.

  There was another scent in the air. A sweet, earthy smell. Like trees wet after a thunderstorm. He followed that smell all the way to the small table set in front of the couch and the woman. There was a small metal cup half-filled with some liquid.

  He picked the cup up, taking a tentative whiff. It smelled like a very strong tea. The medicine Ava wanted to give me. It certainly smelled strong enough to block pain. Curious, he took the slightest sip.

  “Ugh,” he spat it out before it went down his throat.

  If there was a stronger word for bitter, it would apply to whatever that liquid was. The taste stayed on his tongue no matter how hard he scraped at it with his hand.

  A modern building, but they’re living like they’re in the Middle Ages, he noted. This was clearly some kind of plant-like drink used for medicine, strong enough to be some sort of opioid, perhaps.

  Immediately, another of Oliver’s memories told him it was poppy seeds. They were using poppy seeds for medicine!

  He looked back at the woman who did not react to his presence in the slightest. No. She just cried and made small choking, gurgling noises at the back of her throat, as if that was about the extent of what she could do.

  Did I make these sounds? “No wonder she looked at me like that,” he said softly.

  He looked around the room, his eyes landing on the apartment door. It’s nighttime. This seems like some dystopian apocalypse. Maybe they don’t have the manpower to post guards at night.

  Before the rational part of his mind had a chance to dissuade him, he crossed the apartment and pulled open the door. The instant he stepped out into the hall beyond, he remembered there were close to thirty thousand people in this city. Camp Twelve, they called it.

  Faces he’d never seen before started flooding his mind. Neighbors. Councilmen. Those in the Medical Function, those in the Agricultural Function, those in the Sanitation Function, and those in the Security Function. All of them faces Oliver had seen, and not him. Not Zach. Not me.

  The hallway was just as dark as the apartment, if not darker. For some reason, the two windows at the ends of the hallway were also boarded up. Nothing in Oliver’s memories explained the boarded-up windows.

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  But by this point, his eyes had grown somewhat accustomed to the darkness. One quick glance showed him that to his right, the hall led to a dead end. Down to the left, there was a stairwell gaping black and foreboding.

  Not much of a choice.

  There was no denying his body felt lethargic. He worked for every single shaky step. A low rumble echoed around him. Before panic settled upon him, he became aware that it was his stomach. He was hungry.

  The hunger he’d fought off sat somewhere in his presence like an animal he’d forcefully caged. With it were powerful ideas like dehydration and deep starvation. Somehow, when he’d caged that sensation, he’d staved off those effects.

  He knew the subtle weakness he felt now should’ve been a full-on collapse. His organs should’ve been shut down as well, going without water for as long as he had. There was an answer for that, and something was trying to tell him what exactly it was. But the oily wall shut all out. Either way, something was sustaining him.

  Still, there was no telling how long life’s strange act of mercy would last. The first thing he had to do was find food.

  He hoped the sudden headache sitting right behind his eyes was a result of that hunger and thirst. He froze. He’d been doing it subconsciously, but now that he felt the burning headache, he knew what it was. His mind was trying to recall his memories.

  Once he actively focused on it and managed to stop himself, the headache faded as if he’d taken the strongest pain reliever out there. Which in this world would probably be that tea.

  He came to the stairwell. Switchback and carpeted with a black material, at least, it looked black under this light, it was so thick with dust, the softest inhalation sent him into a small coughing fit.

  There was a small orange glow at the end of the staircase. Someone had lit a small, controlled fire at the base of the stairs. He took a cautious step and landed on something that cracked under the weight of his foot, weak as it was.

  The sound made him jump back, the silence amplifying it. He bent down and found a bundle of dead and dry branches. He looked back down at the fire. Had someone put this here for light?

  He picked up one of the branches before continuing down the staircase. When he reached the fire, he lit the end of the thick branch. Immediately, it illuminated the pages on the stairwell wall.

  Around ten pages were stuck there, a short message written across them. For a brief moment, the script looked alien to him. But Oliver’s literacy kicked in, and he read the message.

  “Come to the seventh floor! Door at the end of the hallway! There’s food! They will kill you if you try to leave!”

  Zach sighed softly, sticking his head around the corner and looking down at the floor beyond the lower staircase. The darkness told him all the windows down there were boarded up, too.

  Food on the seventh floor.

  He was inclined to distrust such a random turn of events. But this was the first time he’d been offered any sort of help. And his body did need it. So, branch in hand, he turned around and made his way up the stairs.

  And paused.

  He stared at the fire on the branch. There was no smoke curling upward like there should’ve been. He glanced back at the fire burning at the end of the staircase. There was no smoke there either. No smell.

  Oliver’s experiences said this was normal, but Zach couldn’t help stare at the strangeness of it before he continued on.

  The stairs were even more tolling on his body than the journey from the bathtub to the hallway had been. But he kept going because what was the alternative? Going back to the bathtub? Leaving certainly wasn’t.

  Evidently, all the floors were shrouded in the same darkness as his had been, and just as stuffy, too. The hallway of the first floor he passed stood empty and echoed with an unnatural silence.

  He half-expected all the floors to be the same way, but the instant he stepped onto the second floor above his, he found mounds sitting sprawled out in the hall before the apartment doors.

  They were moaning and muttering in a different sort of way. At one stage, he tried listening and making out what one of them was saying, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not when it might’ve easily been him.

  To drown them out, Zach started humming some song spat out of Oliver’s memories. The lyrics were some dim recognition, but that didn’t really matter. He knew he had the melody correct, and that did the job. It drowned them all out.

  Unfortunately, with every step, more of Oliver’s memories flooded in. It was like that song had built a bridge between their consciousnesses. A bridge that was far from stable, but a bridge nonetheless.

  The differences between this world and the one Zach called home. That's when he realized he could remember bits and pieces of his home world. So, his amnesia only extended to his personal life. That’s nice to know. Still, the differences that did exist were more than astonishing.

  Like the fact that there were more countries in this world by far. More histories and cultures than he could actually recall. Their religions were different, too. Their deities' names, their holy doctrines, their core, foundational beliefs. What had Oliver believed in? For some reason, that wasn’t clear.

  Their country was Tettralis, its climate and geology near similar to the Oceanic regions back home. Remarkably, they called this region the same thing. Oceania. He frowned as he walked, his right hand still pressed against the wall for support.

  That was so odd.

  Zach felt passion. A true and unbridled burning passion. What’s more, it was his own, not Oliver’s. So, back in his world, he’d had an appreciation for history and geology? There were emotions there when he tried to think about it, but no more than that.

  That elated feeling surged softly when he scanned Oliver’s memories of this world’s history. God had been freer and more creative when creating this world. That much was certain. Even parts of the landscape were different!

  Though a lot of it, Oliver had only encountered from the stories his father had shared with him, what with the apocalypse shutting Camp Twelve off from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, those memories were blurry and weak. Oliver hadn’t had a reason to ingrain that knowledge into his mind. Those were things he’d simply known.

  His nose and stomach told him he’d reached the seventh floor before his eyes did, so lost had he been in the world’s recollection.

  The scent of food quickly banished all those thoughts away like leaves in the wind, and he paused, standing in the hallway.

  All the doors were closed, save the one at the far end. Like the first hallway he’d walked down, this one was empty. There was no moaning coming from any of the doors. No incessant mumbling.

  If this hall had the same wrongness that the others had, he couldn’t feel it. Not with that lovely aroma wafting up his nose.

  It spurred him on, sending him down the hall in a stumbling run. He fell once before he made it, but he got up and continued.

  When he reached the end of the hall, he turned into the apartment and found the food sitting on the table. There was no one there.

  “Hello,” he said hoarsely. He swallowed and tried again. “Hello? I-I found the note.”

  He stepped into the apartment and noticed the bucket of water sitting behind the door. In the light from his burning branch, he saw a large branch sitting beside it, its blackened end wet.

  Without hesitation, or better yet, with the food on his mind, he dunked his burning branch into the bucket where it sizzled out.

  He hit the branch against the rim to remove the excess water, then tossed it on top of the other one.

  The food was nothing special. Three, no, four bowls of creamy oatmeal, three plates of mashed potatoes served with some kind of meatless stew. The food had no seasoning, but as he scarfed down bowl after bowl, he swore it was the best meal he’d ever eaten.

  There was a jug on the table as well, with small cups set around it. Greedily, he’d switch between eating and drinking, holding everything in his mouth for a good few minutes before swallowing.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glancing around the room. The windows were off to his right, and like all the others, they were covered with wooden boards. Bowl in hand, he approached one, still chewing on the potato and stew mixture.

  One of the boards looked loose enough to remove. He swallowed the hearty meal, reaching for the board, when the air behind him whooshed outward, pushing against his eardrums.

  Zach spun and found someone standing in the room. The man looked to be in his early twenties. With his black hair plastered to his forehead, he shook his head, muttering under his breath, “I thought I was getting better.”

  He walked to the door.

  “That was too close. I have to learn to do it more quickly. And the hunger’s still pretty bad.”

  He stuck his head out the open doorway, squinting into the darkness.

  “No one?” he said softly. “I could’ve sworn I felt something.”

  Zach watched, not moving a muscle, as the man shook his head and stepped back into the room. He openly debated closing the door, but finally decided against it.

  When he turned, he noticed the extra branch Zach had set on the floor.

  He paused, and only his head moved as he slowly looked up to where Zach stood by the windows, the last plate of food half-eaten in his hand.

  “You ate all the food?” the man asked in shock.

  Zach looked down at the table and found that he had eaten all the food. All the bowls were empty, the plates clean, and the water jug was drained as well.

  He looked back at the stranger guiltily and offered him the plate that still had a small portion of mashed potatoes and dregs of stew in it.

  “I need help,” he said weakly.

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