Death, Taxes, and Cookies: to Rule an Underworld - INTERMISSION 2 END

Death.



There's nothing so invisible, nothing as swift and sudden, as death.

So many treat it as a ghost; a specter, from far away. Doom in the far-flung hills, in the far-above clouds, in the secret places beneath the earth. Always far away, yet watching.



Not here. Not now.

Never here. Never, ever here. And yet ...





My name is Colin Wardenclyffe Cowden.

Somehow, someway, I have died.




I don't know how, I don't know why.

I don't remember the event of my demise. I don't remember anything about today - when I try to remember, my mind comes up short...

But somehow, I *know* that I have died. The same way you simply know when you're hot or cold... the same way you simply know when you're sad or angry.

I'm dead. I know this to be true... It is just so. I can't explain it.

This is probably going to make it harder to start that bakery.

I don't know what's happened, but I like to think of myself as a smart kid. So I know that I should gather information before doing anything else. I look around myself and find that I'm in a cave, probably somewhere underground. There doesn't seem to be anything else here with me, nor any obvious entrances or exits.

Dead people probably don't have to care about walls, when entering or exiting somewhere.

That's one perk of this, I guess. One pro.

I blink on reflex. Despite being in what I assume to be a cavern in the ground, a bubble in the world mantle, I can see just fine. As if the cave is illuminated... no, not illuminated. As if darkness itself simply could not get any darker than "vaguely dim" in this place. Weird...



Speaking of weird - I wasn't wearing these when I died. Well, I don't think I was. I don't own these, and I hope I didn't shuffle off the mortal coil in something this ostentatious.

Maybe this outfit is the key to figuring out this whole  situation... ?

Maybe not.

---

So that's the situation I'm in. I'm dead - I know this to be true, as naturally and as casually as one would know that they were alive. But I don't remember how that happened, and I don't know where I am, why I was brought here - or what to do next. I shiver a little. The cave feels cold, but, strangely, it doesn't feel wrong to be so, either - like it'd be more weird or uncomfortable if it was warm here instead. It's silent in this place, without even my heartbeat to give a sense of sound - or of time.

I'll need to decide on what I want to do now, I think. Don't have any reason to wait until later - I don't feel sleepy, so napping's a bit of a no-go.

[ ] Ruminate. I can't remember the events of my death, but maybe I can remember something else that could  give a clue to this situation. It doesn't feel like it's been a long time since I was... well, alive.
[ ] Explore. I gave this weird little cave a once-over, but maybe a closer inspection of the various surfaces will reveal something helpful - like a trapdoor. Or a message. Or a sugar cookie. (The latter would helpful in its' own way.)
[ ] Experiment. I have this.. skull wand thing. I know wizards use something like this to cast spells, but I'm no wizard, and I don't recall hearing about ghosts doing the same. Maybe I should give it a few swings.
[ ] Something creative.
- [ ] Write here what you wish to try!at