Chapter 3

Jason awoke with a frigid feeling in his lungs.

As his eyes adjusted, it quickly became obvious he wasn't in his brother’s room. His face had become flecked with snowflakes, causing him to wince.
How the hell did I get outside? He thought, rising slowly to his feet.

Despite the throbbing of his bruised cheek and his confusion, at the very least, the snowfall was peaceful.

The ringing in his head was gone.

…

Things felt okay for a moment as Jason walked through the snowy expanse, hazily trying to recall any familiarity with the area. As far as Jason knew, there wasn’t anywhere in the neighborhood this empty. He grumbled, wondering where the hell Yuzo had dragged him.

Then, he paused.

‘It's April.’

His feeling of comfort quickly melted away.

‘Shit.’

Jason's chest began to rise and fall rapidly before abruptly falling into his stomach.

‘What the hell is going on here? Is this a prank? No… this is too weird to be a prank, a dream maybe? But if that's the case, what caused me to pass out in Yuzo’s room? Was that a dream too? This is so stupid…’

As Jason struggled to wrap his head around his situation, it had quickly gone from bad to worse.

From behind, he could hear heavy footsteps approaching him.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

‘No way.’

…

Then, it screeched, slamming its fists into the ground in a grotesque display of flexibility, before charging at him.

‘I'm not in the mood for whatever nonsense is going on here, dream or not, so I'm gonna do this quick. Fight now, think later.’

Jason put his arms up, getting ready to square off with the creature. A deep breath heralded a sudden wave of adrenaline.

At a breakneck speed that can only be gained from years of conditioning, he lunged in with a left hook, swinging into the pig-head monster’s neck, causing it to stagger. ‘Never thought I'd get into a situation where all the push-ups I've done paid off.’

The punch was enough to knock the swine-man to the side, its torso bending briefly freakishly before snapping back into place, causing him to groan in irritation.

Jason then struck the creature's skull, making an awful cracking sound, as if he were breaking fingers. The sound caused Jason to gag before he quickly steeled himself.

In nearly a blink of an eye, a final loud snap could be heard as Jason cracked the creature across its jaw. Black blood spattered the snow, and the swine-man fell limp, cratering into the ground.

‘Shows you for messing with a D1 athlete instead of picking off nerds.’

Without giving it a second to recover, Jason raised his foot to stomp the creature’s neck. As his sneaker was about to land on its throat, Jason froze. The creature’s eyes looked up at him through leathery, empty sockets.

For a moment, all Jason saw was a pig. The same kind he’d see as a kid on farm field trips. Jason pulled his foot away from the swine-man.

If it were smart, it wouldn’t get back up anyway.

…

Jason started sprinting as quickly as he could into the woods ahead, opposite the direction the creature came from.

Before being able to take more than a few steps, though, a guttural squeal roared from behind him. ‘That’s what I get for being a softie—”

The creature, with a single swing of its arm and a guttural tear, tore its arm from its body, slamming its fist into Jason’s back with enough force to take him off his feet.

Jason hit the rocks on the ground hard, a crunching in his chest leading to blood immediately leaking from his nose and filling his mouth.

He could no longer move. At least now he knew that the experience was definitely real.

The swine-man, now towering over Jason’s paralyzed body, dripping blood from its severed arm, lifted its remaining hand over its head.

For a flash, Yuzo’s face crossed Jason’s mind.

“You’re a real monster, you know that…?”

Jason growled in agony as he reached around him, fighting pain and numbness to reach for something, anything, to use as a weapon.

‘Found it.’

The sound of stone breaking flesh and bone echoed in the air, followed by a screech. In a fraction of a moment, a rock flew through the pig’s eye and lodged in its brain cavity.

Immediately upon impact, the creature fell back dead.

Feeling his arm drop down as the numbness fully set in, the snow began to fall heavier as the two bodies lay still. Jason gritted his teeth with anger, trying his hardest to stand. No matter how hard he forced himself, his body wouldn't move. Eventually, he resigned.

He lay in the snow motionlessly; the white sheet below him was now coated in the red of his blood as his eyes narrowed to the black sky.

‘Dammit, what a pathetic way to go out, even if this entire situation is bullshit. At least…’

A final thought overcame Jason before the darkness overtook him.

‘I’m taking that thing with me.’

He started to drift off as the ground below pulled him down.

…

"Rise, Jason Raja."

Jason, in the moments before the light in his eyes dimmed, looked above his head to see a woman. Or at least the shape of one.

Her body was made of what looked like solid space: a black void filled with cracks of light creating intricate patterns across what would be her skin, covered by a robe of suspended moonlight.

She towered above him, looking down with three glowing white eyes.

The woman’s voice seemed to echo all around Jason, and yet. Her tone was soft, almost familiar. For a moment, Jason questioned himself if he was dreaming before shrugging off the notion as being irrelevant as he was towered over by the massive feminine figure.
Jason chuckled to himself, choking on the blood dripping from his mouth. “Are… you real? I'm sorry, I can't really tell because I'm pretty sure I'm dying.”

Her eyes simply narrowed at his attempt at humor. Slowly and deliberately, she lowered her arm to Jason’s forehead, tapping it lightly with a feather-light hand, barely corporeal.

In an instant, Jason bolted upright, gasping hard.

“You have been very casual for one faced with so much beyond your frame of comprehension, dear boy. I'm impressed; you are resilient for a human.”

“What? Who…?” Jason spoke as he gasped, breathing still shallow.

“I am the Goddess of Death, Ukali-no-Mikoto. And you, dear boy, are in the realm of Naraka.”

“... So, I'm in hell?” He said, laughing in disbelief as he looked up to the goddess.

“Not quite,” Ukali said, lifting the boy’s gaunt face to meet her own. Jason searched for some sort of emotion in the formlessness, but there was none to speak of. Because of her tone, though, Jason decided that she was smiling at him.

“There is no torture here beyond that which is inflicted by oneself. The beings here will incarnate in another world eventually.”

“The thing that just tried to kill me seemed pretty ‘demon-from-hell’-y to me. I would have been dead if it weren’t for… Whatever just happened.” His breath steadied as his face softened. “...Thanks, by the way.”

Jason, despite his shock and disbelief, bowed his head to the goddess on instinct.

“You will come to understand this place in time, dear boy. For now though, I request a favor. I require your assistance in sending some… rogue souls from this realm to the next.”

Jason’s comfort quickly turned sour as he narrowed his eyes at the goddess. “...I’m just a college student; how is that remotely in my depth? If that thing is the level of what you’re asking,” Jason laughed dryly as he stood, putting his hands in his pockets. “You should find someone else to help you out.”

“It just happens to help that we are compatible, and thus I can use you as a conduit to meddle. For now though, your brother being stuck here as well should be sufficiently grounding.” The goddess said simply, as her hand tightened on his face.

‘Yuzo.’

“Yuzo’s here too? Where is he?” Nonsensically, Jason began to look around him in a panic. Ukali simply took his face into her hands, causing him to flinch.

“I am not sure, but I will help you find him; simply trust me and be patient. In the meantime, I will give you the means to survive Naraka. Show me your arm, please.”

Softly, Ukali moved her hands from Jason's face out in front of him, gesturing for him to roll his letterman jacket sleeve up. Despite the circumstance, there was something comforting about Ukali’s presence that made Jason want to trust her.

With a shrug, he pulled up his sleeve before reaching out his arm to the goddess, letting her run her index finger across his wrist.

As she traced her finger up his forearm, black patterns the same color as her void-like skin started forming along his veins, creating geometric patterns.

The markings glowed for a moment with a resonant hue before flashing briefly with a white light. And then, nothing.

Jason looked up at the goddess, looking briefly at his wrist, then back to her.

“What did you do? I don’t really feel any different.”

“A gift; it will help you survive.” Gently, she released Jason's arm.

“How is this going to help me find my brother? Is it a map or something?”

Ukali’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she stayed silent.

“C’mon miss, I need something here!”

Jason desperately reached for the goddess’ wrist, but to no avail. His hand slipped right through, which was met with a sad narrowing of Ukali’s eyes.

“I apologize. I cannot answer your questions or help you more than this. But know, Jason Raja, that I will be with you.”

Fading into stardust, the goddess then faded into the darkness of the sky, leaving behind only the smell of ash and a trace of light that blended into the night.

“I have absolute faith in you, my dear.”

Although just a piece of her seemed to linger in the marking on Jason's arm, as quickly as Ukali had come, she was gone.

Jason stood still for a while, inhaling the cold air of the clearing he had found himself in. Her last words rang in his head. Words he hadn't heard from anyone since—

Memories began to flood back; he felt fingernails in his shoulder. The thought caught in his mind like a stuck word in his throat.

Jason fell back on the stones once more. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, he felt a tear fall down his face, stinging in the cold.