The boy woke up in a pile of ashes. The sky was as the ash around him, a diminishing grey that caused him to blink away the dust in his eyes, eyelashes, as if he had been buried here for quite some time. Around him lay bare nothingness; the only stirr that moved was the tentative motions to sit up slowly and finally rise. His legs were numbing cold, but with a bit of movement they began to gravitate toward warmth, not without stiffness. His voice was dry and would no doubt choke if he tried to use it, if anything to break the soundless place he found himself in. Then there was a soft strumming in the distance.
Walking toward the song, and finally met a man clothed in the barest of essentials, rags in comparison to the boy’s shirt and shorts. At first he was surprised that he had no shoes, until he realized he didn’t either. When he looked down, he realized he mismatched his socks this morning.
The guitar man’s hair almost touched the featureless floor, even without a hunch in his back. As he leaned to stretch, a tree sprouted itself to support his weight. And on he strummed again, as if such a thing was quite normal, not noticing the boy until he began casting his own little shadow over him.
“Ah. You’re new,” was what he said, and his fingers stopped moving, “Don’t remember inviting you.”
The boy suddenly found a fly near his ear and swatted it away. It circled around and went back to parading the man’s shoulders, delving between strands of hair.
“Sorry. Old habit. You’ll find people like me have a bit more of a developed air around them the longer they’ve been here, and I’ve…”
He batted the fly off his shoulder, despite it looking like the only aged company that’s graced him in some time.
“Well, I’ve been here for a bit.”
He started strumming again. The boy took to sitting on the ground next to him, going cross legged as he listened to his song for a while. It followed a simple tune, turning into humming, and finally nearly mumbled lyrics.

Candle candle, did you go outside?
My, did you find it alright?
It was cold and windy, fierce and bright.
It was all the things you weren’t ready for.

Little candle, did you go out bright?
I’d like to think you managed.
There wasn’t much to see without you there.
Warming the grass gone so struggled for.

Candle candle, it’s a frozen land.
But I suppose that doesn’t matter to you.
All your life there’s fire and melting wax honey.
Dripping to mix down with the dew.

He stopped at the last line, propping the guitar with an arm as a boundary between him and them until the remnant of the song finally faded.

“Well, you seem confused,” he said, “You’re dead. Deader than disco. I hope at least you aren’t surprised?”
The boy shook his head.
“Mhm. Do you think you’re ready to go?’
He thought for a moment. Dead. He didn’t think it was right to be dead this early. But yet again, if this is what death was like, it wasn’t too bad. He wasn’t cold, he wasn’t tired. And for once, he could see the color, albeit unimpressive ones, on the man's countenance. The red in his cheeks, his sweating skin, the almost blackness of his brown, oiled, unkept hair. The tarnished chocolate of his guitar, he would have liked to stare at that color for at least a few more minutes. This question however, felt immediate, and the boy found himself less than hesitantly shaking his head once again.
“Alright then. You got a few options.”
He perched his hand proper on the guitar top before standing up. Two roads formed before him, and as they formed he looked a bit more sullen before swatting at the fly again that buzzed near his ear.
“Seems you really are dead, by the looks of it. Going back isn’t much of an option for you. The two other ones here are,” he pointed to an ashen road that led on ahead into the horizon, “One’s to pass on. It doesn’t look like too much because it isn’t. You’d eventually make that dust bunny over there that you fell into a little bit taller. And the other one here…”
He motioned to a road that gradually increased in color. As the boy looked down it, he began to notice brick etching themselves into the grey matter floor, intertwining with vines. There was the faint smell of grass, and if he had the opportunity to listen closely, the distant ambiance of birds and odd music. Tunes that so disproportionately misaligned with the man’s previous simple hums.
“That other path is something you might be interested in. A gateway to a waiting room of sorts. I made it for souls not yet ready to pass on, and it seems you qualify, even after all this time.”
The boy stared down the two roads. Even at simply looking down the ashen trail, he felt his lips dry as if stricken by a winter wind, numb and unpainful. When he began staring down the other road, the colors seemed to invite him as the vines became green, the bricks growing their dirty clay color. He didn’t notice, but the man was smiling at him as he picked up his guitar, hefting the bulk under his arm.
“Seems you got your place cut out for you then. I don’t blame you,” he said as he made a motion with his free hand. The colorful path before them expanded, transforming into a fully formed trail brimming with color. It almost pained the boy’s eyes to see it, yet he couldn’t find himself willing to blink.
“Just remember, you can always come back. I’ll be here if you want to return, maybe rethink your decision. The souls in there tend to forget that.”
The boy realized his mouth was open when the fly nearly flew in, and he snapped it shut. Then he looked at the man. He seemed to understand the state of his voice, or rather, the complete lack of one. The absent ability of a thank you.
“Remind them, would you?”
The boy looked up to nod at him, but the light had already absorbed his vision.
His feet were planted among the bricks, almost as if the vines intended to grow around him. Instead, they pointed to a new direction, and that was forward. Finally, he was here, at the beginning of his pathway to a better home.

When the boy woke again, it came not so welcomed or friendly. His eyes seemed two tiny marbles, a burden to open yet stinging to be closed. The noise here pestered his ears not unlike the fly from before, but in the form of grassblade ends and pollen sifting onto his nose. When he sneezed suddenly, his eyes opened to nearly a pop, and the blurry figure in front of him jumped back.
By the time he cleared his vision with a few good rubs, it was gone. And he was stunned, looking around at all the green. True green, intertwining with shades he hadn’t seen before. Brown trees, reaching up so high that they ventured into black, despite the sunlight that pressed down like a firm blanket.
And the pollen! He saw it sitting on the end of his nose, yellow, sticky, but fluffy. He reached out his fingertips to gather it up, and feeling his eyes sting in a different way. The man had done it, fully so even. Color, not dulled or blurry, but full and right here in his fingertips. He turned in his place, quickly spreading the pollen to another flower, where it belonged.
“Another friendly face!”
The boy looked up from his little duties to see a tall, haunched beast perching on one of the trees ahead of him. In the light, he looked to be a narrowly winged bat, his black body providing contrast to the fleshy backdrop behind him that gleamed through with the sun. Once he hopped down from his place however, much of that imaginary’s beast’s form dissipated. Instead he found himself looking long at a tall figure in a dark black suit, seeming to be all bones save for shiny, thin skin that only kept him together in his three piece attire. Complete with white gloves and a red bowtie, the tall figure bowed low to reveal the backdrop that the boy had mistaken for wings earlier: they were actually long, thin rabbit’s ears. Now in the dimmer light, they mimicked a rustic color, not so eldrich as before.
“One so cleanly kept as well. Don’t fear little sir, my name is Icarus, and I guard these woods for newcomers such as yourself. Me and my friend here in the bucket, you see,” he propped up his arm at an angle to reveal a rather large blue bucket, and inside was a small boy, cradling a tiny gaming device. Without looking up from his pile of chip bags and old cartridges, he gave a halfhearted wave.
The hasty introduction failed to make the boy recognize that his voice was no longer tight shut.
“Do you have a name?” Icarus asked, “Or rather, do you remember? Lots of folk forget theirs when they enter here, so it’s no worry if you can’t summon it now.”
“We could call you pollen nose,” a monotone echo from the bucket.
“Yes, we rightly could!” Icarus said.
“My name is Samuel,” he said. The hitch of hesitation came from the two, black orbs blinking at him from Icarus. He felt he should be terrified at such a creature, nothing but a gigantic rabbit’s skull behind a film. Yet, all at once when he landed here, he looked upon the tall thing as strangely normal. And the small boy in the bucket, there wasn’t a shock along with him either.