It is freezing-- was the first thought that came to mind. It’s quickly followed by the sensation of what I can best describe as life flowing through me. It's like I had just burst through a body of water after being submerged for so long and took my first breath of air. My head felt as light as air, almost as if it wasn't on my neck, but I knew that couldn't be so.

In a daze I patted the space around me, feeling thin tendril-like things tickling my skin and moisture seeping into my clothes. My body doesn’t quite ache, probably too numbed by the cold to properly understand what I’m supposed to feel. My eyelids were a different thing. They feel like lead smouldered shut together. I rub at them, pushing up with my free hand to get up on my knees. When I do finally pry my eyes to open I take a good look around me and what I’m seeing I hoped to God wasn’t real.

I pull my legs up to my chest to try and keep whatever’s left of my body warmth to myself. The area feels familiar, but at the same time, it doesn’t.  A thick fog obscured most everything from my sight for more than a few feet. I have never seen a fog as thick as this in my life, but I have been told of them. I recall from Stephanie’s stories –passed down from generations, so she claims – of foolish people daring the fog and never to be seen again. I had scoffed at it before, the areas around town never had fogs so thick. Now, I fear there may be truth to her stories.

“You’re up.” The gruff voice had me gasping in surprise and my neck whips around so fast something must have snapped and a burning pain forces me to curl up and clamp my clammy palms over the back of my neck. I stay that way until the pain subsides enough to be tolerable, but it has me stiffly looking back.

An orange light bobs up and down through the fog and the sight is so familiar that his face automatically pops into mind. My heart leaps at this and I scramble off the ground but stagger like a newborn deer with my wobbly knees. Brushing my hair back I carefully make my way to him, my sights going around as the fog disperses the closer I get to him. I see his silhouette first, leaning against what seems to be the only tree around. It was a large tree, looking knobbed and mangled all over without the lush, green leaves to cover its skeletal like frame. The branches seem to extend upwards, diving up to thinner twigs that shot upwards. A chill shot down my back when I realized what it looked like - a man crying out to the sky.

He doesn't seem to mind, his tall frame hunched over as he lights up another stick. He doesn’t look at me at first, taking his time exhaling the smoke from his lungs, watching the thick, grey puff as it wafts up and infuses with the opaque fog.

“Brings me back.. almost like it was just yesterday.” He says wistfully. I don’t understand what he means by it. I stare at his face, trying to catch some sort of answer but all I can see is the weariness of his years on the lines and creases, and those onyx eyes staring into nothing.

“Where is this place?” I take another look around and see if I can spot something that would register in my mind but he fog hinders my attempts. It almost seems like a miracle that I can even see the master this clearly.

He sighs, pulling the stick from his lips. He runs one hand along his messy hair, pausing at the top like his fingers were knotted up. Then he lets them drop. “I don’t really have a name for this place.. it’s not somewhere anyone can simply go to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this isn’t a place known to most man. But we, we’re not like most men.” He takes another drag, longer than the usual, and then lets it all out in one smooth exhale. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

I shake my head, rubbing some warmth back into my arms. His vague riddle was not even the least bit helpful. I really just wanted to go back home. “Not at all.”

He nods his head as if he knew all along I wouldn’t understand him. “You and I, we don’t get to cross over to the realm of the dead- not as easy as everyone else. We end up here, in this God-forsaken place, to be tested and judged before we take up the job officially.”

I don’t speak for a while. Just stare at him like he had gone insane. I think he has, but that straight-faced look he had, the same one that meant business, makes the small hairs on my arm stand to attention. My head starts pounding, magnifying as the second's ticks by, crushing my head from the inside. I press the heel of my palm against my temple, gritting my teeth as I physically try to push away the pain.

“What? What do you mean to cross over to the realm?” The pounding in my head eases a little. Enough that I could concentrate on other things, such as how I was feeling colder the longer I stood out here. But there was this feeling though, the feeling like somehow something was being taken away from me. There was just this feeling of wrong, but how and of what I don’t know.

I don’t think I can make sense with all the things I’m feeling coming at me from all sides, but a singular thought does float up and take precedence over everything else.

“Am I dead?”

He sighs, stubbing the lit part of his cigar onto the bark of the tree. He looks me over, “You’re dying.”

Swallowing suddenly became some sort of foreign thought and as I breathe my body forgets how it is done and I inadvertently begin chocking on my saliva. Curled over I cough out the droplets out of my lungs, the cold air unmerciful as every intake of breath cools my throat and burns my lungs. When I get every drop out my breathing continues its erratic pattern. It’s accompanied by the loud hammering of my heart, which only intensifies the pain in my head.

Somehow this eases my nerves.

I shouldn’t hurt when I’m dead. That’s what death is right? The absence of life, therefore, the absence of everything that made us human. Even pain.

I fall back on my , grasping my shirt over my beating heart. “I don’t feel dead,” I tell him. Or am I telling myself? “I can’t be dead. That hurt! I feel completely fine! A little out of sorts, but I’m… Thi- this must be a dream. No- this is a nightmare.” That’s right, there wasn’t any sort of logic behind this. I was just tired, that’s why my head was pounding. There’s nothing wrong with me.

“Taeyeon.” He says gravely. I grit my teeth and clasp both my hands against my ears. I didn’t want to hear any more.

“No! This isn’t real! You’re not real!” I look to him, to the lowered gaze. He’s never looked so apologetic before. I hate it.

“Please, tell me this is just a dream.” I say. I look him in the eyes, willing him to repeat what I had just said.

A look of pity takes over his haggard face. He sighs, pushing off and moving close to me. I don’t want him to. I don’t want him to look at me like that. His large hand falls on my head and he crouches to get to eye-level with me. I avert my gaze. If I don’t look then maybe he’d disappear. He’d go away and I’ll wake up from this horrible nightmare.

But the weight of his hands lingers, falling down to clutch at my shoulder, firm yet gentle. Tears springs from my eyes and my breathing turn haggard. This can’t be happening.

“It’s time Taeyeon. This is how it has always been done. Now, I need you to listen carefully,” his voice turns urgent, it shocks me enough to have me look to his dark eyes. His hand brushes the tears from my chin, a rare act of fatherly love, “there will be three people you’ll meet, I can’t guarantee you’ll know or remember who they are, but they’ve been in your life in one way or another. Some maybe be a test for you, some might pass onto you some nuggets of wisdom. It will not make any sense for you at the time, maybe ever, but you have to meet all three of them before you can return.”

I don’t know what he’s on about. What is it with these riddles? I press my cold hand to my face, pressing harder against my eyes. My hand is roughly pulled back and a whimper leaves my lips at the rough handling.

“Listen to me, Taeyeon, it’s important. Aside from the three, there will be another, one you’ll be speaking to for the first time. He’ll be playing with your mind, he might use one or two of the people you’re supposed to meet and it is going to hurt you, but you have to believe in yourself and your judgement. Do what you think you need to do and not what anyone else says you need to do.”

This is way too much to take in. What the hell is going on? What people? “What?”

He brushes his calloused thumb against my cheek, his whole body hesitating before leaning down. My eyes automatically shut to a close as a light pressure presses up to my forehead, firmly at first then lifting gradually as if he was ebbing away. When my eyelids fly back to open the master has disappeared, and with him the little bit of warmth that had been keeping me up.