A FAMILIAR VOICE

Bang!

Normally his body would have acted involuntarily, but this time, it didn’t.

Clerk was shot.

Although the sounds of other gunshots could be heard, this one stood out particularly, the sound of the shot reverberated throughout the entire prison yard, following it was absolute silence.

Clerk heard a single shot, but five bullets tore through him, four shredded his lungs. Each breath a bubbling of his blood. The last bullet pierced his heart, spurting out jets of hot crimson.

Yet he did not fall. He turned back with a face expressing rage, pain and agony, his gaze fixed, not on the duo guard, but at the silhouette of a man emerging from the haze.

As if time had stopped, nobody dared moved, not even a flinch from anyone. They all acted like a deity had appeared. Looking at the silhouette-guy, the space around him seemed to be rippling as if he were a singularity, his entire existence screamed “Run Away!”. Clerk felt something take root in his soul. “FEAR”.

In a hurry, Clerk turned back slowly and continued pacing downwards the rubble. Each breath he took were filled with blood, choking him. His damaged heart kept beating, squirt out jets of hot crimson blood. He didn’t realize he was already dead.

Finally he made it outside the prison, only to realize that the prison had been on a very high cliff, surrounded by thick forest and very far from human settlement.

His eyes widened in dismay, from Random Mark’s memory, the prison settled on a valley, although it were surrounded by thick forest, but it wasn’t on a cliff.

Bang!

The silhouette-guy shot at Clerk, again, this time, the bullets tore through his legs. Falling to the ground, Clerk screamed in pain as blood poured out.

Tap!, Tap!, Tap!

The silhouette-guy walking elegantly towards Clerk, whom desperately crawled towards the edge of the cliff, living a trail of blood.

Upon getting to the edge he stopped and looked down, his face expressing  despair. Eyes wide open, fixed on the man approaching him, his body shook, lips trembling as tears streamed down his dry cheeks.

The silhouette-guy finally reached Clerk, whom kept puking blood through his mouth. Broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, long-legged, every detail starched and precise– radiating discipline, wealth, and authority. Looking at Clerk with pure irritation in his eyes, he said—in a mocking tone and smile.

“…I watched your fight with the guards, it was surprising that you beat them both, so I decided to test out my new toy on you, and this is how it turned out?!”

“So pathetic!”

“I really had my hopes high”.

He spat on Clerk, whom said nothing but stare at him, pure hatred burning in his eyes. Using his foot to Clerks face, the silhouette-guy kicked him off the edge and shot him on the head with a colt revolver.

Bang!

With a hole in his head, Clerk tumbled headlong, every bounce off the jagged cliff splitting him further apart. Skin flayed open on stone, bones snapping with sickening cracks that echoed through the valley. His blood sprayed the rock face in streaks.

When he hit the bottom, a thick branch drove straight through his chest. The wood cracked his ribs apart like dry twigs, spearing clean through. His heart burst from its cage, torn and pulped against the bark, hot blood gushing in heavy streams that soaked the tree. The stench of iron filled the air as his body twitched once, then sagged lifeless, dripping blood into the dirt below.

“Random Mark is dead…”

He heard the voice again, it sounded so familiar yet so strange. He awoke, only to realize he was in an environment that was neither bright nor dark. He wasn’t even sure if his eyes were open. It's a place where existence does not exist; but one thing was clear to him… he wasn’t in the physical world.

"Where am I?", Clerk asked

The voice didn't answer, instead started saying words he didn’t understand—as if chanting spells, the voice slowly shifting from a voice to a whisper. Hearing these chants, made shards of memories of a life he never lived nor experienced, come flooding into his head. From what he saw, they were horrible memories. He asked in a loud enraged tone,

“What are these memories, they’re not mine and why am I here?"

The voice didn’t answer.

He asked the same question again, then the voice said,

“Be quiet, Mr Clerk, do not disturb thee who is dead, for this is his resting ground.”

“He who is dead?”

Then he remembered, while falling into the heavens abyss, he heard a voice saying,' You have been blessed with… something about a dead god.

Then Clerk asked the voice, saying,

“Why am I here?"

The voice didn't answer.

Then Clerk said in desperation...

"Let me meet the god and ask him myself."

“Are you sure of your decision, you are aware that this decision comes with consequences, right?”,  the voice said.

“Yes I am.”

The black veil slowly unraveled, revealing a cosmic horror. Before Clerk, the corpse of a dead god laid. From the pressure alone, Clerk began to unravel, he screamed in pain, as describing what it felt like was impossible. Without hesitating the  black veil closed.

Clerk was gasping like had ran a mile without stopping, his body shaking like he had just gone outside naked on a winter morning, and his body sizzling like heated oil.

The voice made a mocking sound.

“Shut up”, Clerk said.

Although he couldn’t feel anything in the black space, he could particularly feel every single pain caused by seeing the dead god. He gradually arose standing on his feet, then he asked,

“…Do you have any idea where I could find my sister?”

“Yes, I do…”, the voice replied.

“That’s great, then please could you send me there?”

“No, I can’t do that”. The voice said.

“Why…”

“Do you wish to serve god?”. The voice said in a calm tone.

“No, no way am serving that corpse”, Clerk said with disdain in his eyes.

“Then you can forget finding your sister”, said the voice.

“Alright, I’ll think about it”, Clerk said with an annoyed face.

Then he asked,

“How do I go back, I'm already dead, right?"

Out of nothing, a huge, old looking book with a wheel on its front cover conjured in front of Clerk.

“Uhh...how am I able to see this book, I thought couldn't see anything in this strange space."

"You can now, you just saw a dead god and you survived, even if it was just for a second, most beings unravel instantly". The voice replied.

"What is this place?"

"It's a void space, a space dedicated to potential servants of the dead god." 

"Why is the god dead, I thought gods were immortal beings"

"Nothing is truly immortal." The voice replied with a slightly enraged tone.

"Just like you, gods are a species, they are different because they were the first creations of the void."

Clerk was quite in shock.

Refraining from asking further questions in order to save time, he asked,

"So what do I do with this book?" 

“Eat the book”, the voice replied.

“Seriously?”,

“Yes!, eat the book!”.

“Okay, Okay am eating it”.

Page after page, piece by piece, Clerk kept eating the book until he was done. He felt a sharp pain in his abdomen region and began convulsing violently. What will happen to Clerk?