Since no one answered, Killian decided to keep moving. He took small, careful steps forward, heading in the direction he believed was home.
He looked around slowly, turning his gaze from one wall of fog to the other. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a quiet thought settled in "this must be the road to heaven." And perhaps that was why he did not resist.
He simply walked, arms loose at his sides, surrendering to wherever the path was taking him.
The thick fog swallowed everything around him. He could not see more than a few feet ahead. But he did not stop. He did not flinch.
"I don't know," he whispered into the white silence, his voice barely more than breath, "whether I'm going to heaven or hell." He paused. "But please. Just let me see Mom and Dad one more time. Please, Just that."
His expression was a portrait of pure surrender, and a slow, unstoppable stream of tears began to track down his cheeks, pooling in the wrinkled fabric of his uniform collar.
He walked on.
Then something changed ahead of him.
From a distance, something looked wrong. The fog was thinning, but not in the way fog naturally dissolves at the edges. It was retreating, pulling back as Killian approached, like a curtain being drawn to one side.
He slowed his steps.
And then he stopped entirely.
Where a road should have been, a forest now stood. Dense, towering trees pressed against one another so tightly that almost no light passed between them. The canopy overhead was a dark roof of leaves. Thick roots broke through the earth at his feet.
Killian stared.
"Wh... what is this?" he breathed. "There was no forest here. There was never a forest here." He took a small step forward, then another, until the tip of his shoe touched the edge of the soil where the pavement ended and the woods began. He stopped there, looking up at trees that seemed to lean slightly toward him.
He stood there for a long moment.
Then he stepped back.
"No," he murmured, shaking his head. "This isn't the way. Dead people aren't supposed to go through places like this." He turned around and began walking in the opposite direction, faster this time.
He spun around on his heel, intent on backtracking to the main station entrance, moving with sudden urgency. As he walked, he absently reached into his pants pocket, and his fingers immediately brushed against the slick, stiff surface. He pulled it out, and the mysterious playing card was in his hand once again.
He stared at it again, turning it slowly between his fingers. The edges shimmered gold in the pale light. On its face was an illustration of a farmer, a figure drawn in the style of an old woodcut, walking away from a small village down a dirt road. The words printed beneath the image gleamed so brightly they made him squint.
The Cursed Villager.
"This has to mean something," Killian murmured, tilting the card one way, then the other. "but what am I supposed to do with it?"
He slid it back into his pocket and kept walking, muttering under his breath.
"Seriously? Even getting to heaven requires dealing with obstacles?"
He passed the entrance to the underground station he had come through earlier. His steps grew quicker, more purposeful. The fog thickened again around him, pressing close, and he pushed through it, his mind churning with regret.
"If I had just listened to Mom," he said to himself. "If I had just gone home earlier like she told me to..." He exhaled through his nose, a short and bitter sound. "None of this would have happened."
He walked. He breathed. He kept moving.
Then, gradually, the fog began to thin again. The white walls around him softened and faded, and Killian squinted as shapes emerged ahead of him through the clearing air.
He stopped dead.
Rising from the center of what should have been a Tokyo street, framed between two glass office towers, stood the Eiffel Tower.
Not a replica. Not a poster. The actual iron lattice structure, enormous and unmistakable, planted right there in the middle of the city as if it had always belonged there. Around its base spread the Champ de Mars gardens, manicured lawns and gravel paths cutting cleanly through the urban architecture on either side.
"What..." Killian opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. "What is that doing here?" His voice came out small and confused. "Why is there an Eiffel Tower in Tokyo?"
He took a slow step forward, eyes wide, scanning the impossible skyline.
He never heard it coming.
Behind him, something erupted from the side of a building. Glass exploded outward in a glittering cascade. Steel groaned and buckled. Chunks of concrete tumbled to the ground like boulders.
Killian spun around.
The thing that stood there was enormous. Its body was built like a gorilla, broad and hunched, arms thick as tree trunks. But where a head should have been sat the long, flat skull of a lizard, scaled and mottled green and black, with yellow eyes the size of dinner plates. A tongue, thick and wet and far too long, unrolled from its open jaw.
It looked down at Killian.
Then it grinned.
"Finally," it bellowed, its voice a sound somewhere between thunder and a rockslide. "A human. A real, living human, just standing right there." It threw its head back and let out a sound that was half roar, half laughter. "Hahahaha! Come here, little thing. I haven't eaten in days!"
"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me." Killian turned and ran.
His legs pumped hard beneath him, feet slapping the pavement in a frantic rhythm. He vaulted over a low hedge without thinking, crashed through a flowerbed, and kept going, his lungs already burning.
"What is happening?!" he gasped as he ran. "I'm dead! I'm supposed to be dead! Why is there a monster?! Why is there a monster in Paris in Tokyo?!"
The creature behind him did not walk. It lumbered, each step shaking the ground beneath Killian's feet, cracks spreading through the pavement in wide, jagged lines. Its saliva hit the ground in thick ropes, hissing faintly where it landed.
"Little rat!" the monster roared. "Where do you think you're going?! There's nowhere to run!"
Killian's heart was hammering so hard he could feel it in his throat. He leapt over a park bench, stumbled on the landing, caught himself, and pushed forward. The Eiffel Tower loomed ahead of him, growing larger with every step, its iron legs spread wide across the ground.
He ran beneath it.
And then something hit the monster.
He did not see what it was. There was no warning sound, no flash of light. One moment the creature was directly behind him. The next, it was gone, launched violently to the left as if struck by something massive, something traveling fast. It crashed into the far edge of the park with a sound like a building collapsing, sending up a thick cloud of dust and debris that rolled across the gardens in a slow, heavy wave.
Killian's feet stopped moving before his brain told them to.
He stood there, chest heaving, hands braced on his knees. He stared at the cloud of dust where the monster had landed. He listened. The sound of destruction faded slowly. Something deep in the wreckage groaned, then went still.
Killian straightened up. He pressed one hand against his chest, feeling his heart slamming against his ribs.
He looked at his hands. He looked at his feet, still on the ground. He looked at the dust.
"That was..." He swallowed hard. He almost laughed, but it came out wrong. "I think I'm actually still alive."