[ WP ] Confronted with Death , he offers you a second chance at life upon completion of a trial . He lays in front of you three paths to choose from : blood , sweat , or tears .

The sea is wild, alive. Fish fly from wave to wave, crabs and barnacles blossom along the rotted hulls of ships in mottled beauty. The breaching whales are titans, grey flesh slick, gleaming, the jewel of the deep. Ripe tide tosses the ship, crashes on its beams. The mast groans. Thunder breaks the sky, lightning casts dizzying shadows into the waters. From the prow I see the maiden, beckoning, full lipped and dripping brine. She has missed me so. Clinging to the wet rope rigging I scream laughter, heart beating, nerves alight in the delight of near death. 
 
 Stars blink in sleepy movements. Amongst them are giants of platinum, rainbow coated iridium bodies, the honeycomb hive of radium moons. Dwarf stars grown fat and red in void soft death beds, radiating the secrets of divinity. A rickety vessel takes me to the pillars, best viewed from lightyears away. Sickly blues and lurid yellows, lusty red and proud greens, melding, melting, molding into endless streams. The finger strokes of creation. Left over paint from when the stars were infants. Beside my ship, a roaming dark matter squid strokes the metal; it longs to feel the warmth of mortality. I can only look so long. Other stars, the planets and asteroids, sing to me in crystalline notes. 
 
 Heroes and villains sit around an oak table, trading drink and tale. Greatness enfleshed, one and all. Nations have danced from their fingertips, lives on their tongues. Destiny bows to them, made nubile and supple by their craft, and I sit with them. Greedy for their legends, I sip bittersweet ale and devour words. The Queen of Peaks, raising mountains from the barren lands to make cloud coated paradises. Knight Lord, dancer of blades, slaughtering millions in tests of bloodthirst. Resplendent in tangled hair and wrinkled robes, the Harlot Court gleams with honeyed afterglow. The table laughs and applauds, and I with them, accepted by the human gods. 
 
 Then Death is before me again. 
 
 `` That was n't so bad,'' I say, giddy on those visions. 
 
 `` Choose, then.'' Death's voice is sands and tundra wind, emptiness in a noise. `` Your second chance, or your dreaming.'' 
 
 Without thinking, I say, `` Second chance.'' Things left unfinished, unsaid. Greasy, salty hotdogs call to me; they have been on my mind since the car accident. 
 
 Death gestures to a plain door beside him, a key in the lock. `` Go. You will remember everything you have seen. And you will weep for the impossibility of it. Drink, food, and flesh will not satisfy you. Achievement will come hollow. Even your fondest dream will be a sorrow, so belittled by these memories.'' 
 
 The door opens without my hand, takes me before I voice my regret. A heart monitor beeps. My sister holds my hand, teary eyed. I look at bleary pale walls, the drab colors of a painted beachside. Sis thinks I'm emotional over my recovery.
