Rays of light. Ringing ears. He’d finally woken up.
“Awake, stranger?” said a voice from a far. He couldn’t lift his head to see its point of origin.
“Where am I?”
“The end of time, space, and everything in between”
“After…afterlife?” He barely managed to say. He could hear footsteps over the diminished ringing. His vision had finally returned. He turned his head to see the stranger finally at his side.
“No such thing, mate”
After a while, all of his motor functions had returned. He sat on the bed with the straps. Across him, the enigmatic young man who had “saved” him. He was at a loss for words.
“What did he give you?”
“Nothing,…why am I still alive?”
“You didn’t actually die, what you felt was… an advanced parlor trick”
“Parlor trick?”
“The Traveler can influence your perception, at least he didn’t make you kill yourself for real, which is most interesting”
“How so?”
“It must be part of the conditions, a limit”
“You’re mad, you speak of this as if it were a game”
He smiled.
“It is a game”