(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

I nodded, then twisted my head back and forth. With a satisfying pop, that
annoying pressure in my vertebrae was gone. "Indeed. Perhaps you should
not be so quick to abandon this life before knowing what the next life holds
for you."
The boy stared at me. "You were speaking truthfully." He looked at me in
amazement. "What is there? What did you see on the other side?"
I shivered to think about it. "I will not speak of that place to anyone. I have
said too much already."
He grew more insistent. "You must tell me! I must know!"
I stood up, pushing the chair aside. "I will tell you nothing."
"You must tell me!" He clenched his fist. "What would you ask of me?!"
"I would ask you to live."
"You mock me, sir. You make a fool of my questions..." his eyes grew watery,
and bitter tears trickled down his worn face.
"You are the fool to want to throw away your life so carelessly. It insults the
dead, and it insults the living." Dak'kon was staring now. Perhaps he saw me
kill myself for the first time. Ah, well. He had to learn sooner or later. Morte
seemed worried.
"Speak what you saw! What is the True Death?! What did you see there?"
His voice grew louder and more insistent, so much so that surrounding
Dustmen turn their heads. Perhaps there was no ward of silence after all, or
that it was limited.
I ignored their piercing stares. "Very well." Reaching into the depths of my
memory, I culled the vision of the lands of the dead back into being- the
nothing-place that lay between this world and the next. It was like
remembering a half-forgotten dream perhaps: faded, obscure. But once I
gripped the smallest detail, the rest burst forth in its full horror like the
rolling tides. "I lay on an island adrift upon an ocean of great darkness. The
island was formed of shadowed stones... but the stones were not stones, for
they murmured and whispered to me in a speech I could not understand.
There was no silence there, no comfort, and the chill burrows beneath the
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