Page 60 of The Endless One

They had failed the world. And with that, she drew those thoughts into the afterlife with her.

Everything turned golden and gleaming. The cave dissolved, and suddenly that fracturing feeling intensified. It was like she was herself, but in different forms.

For a moment, she was a child again. All her fears and insecurities flooded to the front of her mind. No one would like her if she didn’t fit in. She should pretend that she liked the same things as everyone else, because if she didn’t pretend, then they would realize she was different. She would be alone all her life, and she didn’t want to be alone.

Friends were important. They were the only ones who could prove her worth and value.

Suddenly, her mind shifted again. She was the angry version of herself. The Jessamine who had been stomped on her entire life. Told that she should be better, be more, and then ended up dead no matter how hard she had tried to prove herself worthy. She was enraged. She wanted vengeance and pain and all the world to burn for what they had done to her.

And then she was the softer version of herself. The quiet woman who was ready to self-sacrifice just so that others were happy. She wanted them to be happy. She wanted them to live their lives the way they wanted, and if that meant she was wounded or aching, then so be it.

Over and over again, she shifted through every version of herself. Sadness. Peace. Envy. All the good and the bad that made up who she was, until suddenly she was standing in the midst of golden light, and Jessamine no longer recognized herself.

She was naked, she realized, wrapping her arms around her chest to stay warm. She was already shaking in this strange place, uncertain of where she was or why she was here. Her eyes burned with the brightness of the light surrounding her.

She kept feeling something inside her change. Like she was still shifting between all those versions of herself and she didn’t know how to pull them all back together.

A figure appeared in the gold. A smudge of darkness silhouetted and walking toward her.

“Hello?” she called out. “I need help!”

The figure continued to move closer, and that had to be a good sign except… the closer it got, the more she realized that person was herself.

The shape of the body was a little different. Older. Softer. A version that she hadn’t seen before in her youth. Her stomach was a little more plush, her hips more round, her shoulders curved in slightly, as though her posture had taken a sharper turn in the wrong direction the older she got. And as the figure stopped in front of her, Jessamine surveyed the aged face.

She hadn’t realized the lines around her mouth would become so prominent. Though she had avoided the sun nearly all her life, it appeared the older version of her had not. There were freckles dotted across her nose, a few age spots on her cheeks, and wrinkles between her eyes and on her forehead from years of frowning. Her cheeks had sagged slightly, but this was a stately woman in front of her. An intimidating creature who had proven her worth time and time again.

It was surreal to be standing here, at her death, and see the future she would never have.

“Oh,” Jessamine finally whispered. “It’s… you.”

“There are many versions of me,” the old woman before her said. “Just as there are many ends to your story. I can’t say I expected to see you here so early, though.”

A shuddering exhalation shook her shoulders as another violent shiver rushed through her body. “And where is here?”

“The end. The beginning. The start of something new.”

She didn’t have time for riddles. Not when there was so much she could have done and that was all ripped from her by a single mistake. “Am I dead?”

“Yes.” The older version of her grinned. “And no.”

“You of all people should know I hate riddles,” she grumbled.

The older version of herself chuckled, and then something shifted in her face. A strange warping as her eyes turned from dark black to blue, and then back again. Her jaw moved, shifting just enough to make it look like there was another person in her body before, all of a sudden, she was back to herself.

Just that small shift was enough to warn Jessamine that something very, very odd was happening here.

Narrowing her eyes, she felt a person inside of herself answer. Rage burned in her chest, a sudden knee-jerk need to destroy and murder and kill everything that stood in her way or tried to make her see something that wasn’t there. It wasn’t fair that everyone was constantly trying to take advantage of her, even in death.

“Where am I?” she asked yet again.

“A crossroads. A time of choosing where you can put aside all of your torment.” The old woman reached out a wrinkled hand, unshaking and unwavering. “Allow me to guide you, Jessamine. We will walk through these decisions together.”

But as she watched, the hand shifted. It wasn’t her hand. There was a gaudy ring on one finger, and then a strange symbol burned into the palm that she could only see for a few seconds before it disappeared again.

Frowning, she took a step away from the version of herself that was supposed to be her guide into the afterlife. “What if I don’t want to go?”

“You have no choice in the matter. No one wants to go.” A soft smile crossed the old woman’s face. “I know you would have liked to see yourself as I am, years of life that would bring you to this time and this place, but it is not how it worked in your story.”