[Espy]

There were voices. There was shouting, sobbing, an inescapable chill. Something cold pulled him along the even colder ground through a foul-smelling...slush? Pressure. There was pressure on...where was it? Somewhere...

And then the pressure faded. Wait, come back. Dante tried to grasp...whatever it had been, but his arm was lodged in a heavy shell. Immovable. All the coldness in the ground had apparently turned his body to ice, frozen his limbs stiff.

Just a bit of warmth should do it. And mentally, he willed the icy shell to melt. After a few moments, he stopped. It certainly didn't seem any warmer. But...oh. He could lift his arm. Or at least, it seemed to move, along with the rest of his body. Dante sat up and looked...

...No, not looked. There was nothing to see. On second thought, this doesn't feel quite right. Am I sitting? What was that shell? ...Did I lose my "vision" again? I can't see...No. Not only could he not see, there was also no applicable orifice for speech. No coldness or pressure. For the time being, he simply was.

Strange. He could feel...no, that wasn't quite the right word -- he seemed to have lost all sensory receptors...various beings around him. As sentience rose up through the murky fog, Dante found the mind of the girl close to him. Closer still was the strict man. Their names...? I think...there was a way I could talk...

"Can...can you hear me? What's going on? Are we still..." No, wait, where are we? It was dark...a cave?

The events of the past several minutes rushed towards him, an unavoidable tidal wave of terror. As the pieces clicked into place, panic gripped Dante's consciousness, threatening to overwhelm him. ...Dead? That coldness was me...?! He tried to turn around, to reach for Kadia, Thomas, Diogenes...The concept of turning around, he quickly learned, was something only applicable on the physical plane.

And he was not on the physical plane. Dead. The idea echoed in his "mind".

Dead. I failed. ...Gabe! He'll know... A flash of yellow. His brother walked towards him, holding out a welcoming hand, but Dante had no hand to proffer, no means by which to move forward. And just as suddenly as he had appeared, Gabe was rent to ashes, flying away into the aether. The brief hope turned to hollowness. No, I killed him. Twice. I...Don't...wait...! Don't leave me.

Dante no longer felt panic. His very essence WAS panic.

...No! COME BACK. Why is everything so quiet?! COME BACK! HELP ME! I...I don't want...I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE. THOMAS, DIOGENES!

...Don't leave me.