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Seawatt remembers what he read in a book kept on the highest shelf in his family's home. It must've been a decade ago.
When someone dies, they disappear. Pieces of flesh fly off their body and dissipate into dust. Turn into fog that clears and leaves not even a trace behind. There is nothing to bury. There is no body to mourn over. Just a memory.
That is not what has become of him.
When Seawatt died, he experienced the standard. Right after his confession, he dissipated into nothing. But, he remains conscious and he remains in Parkour Civilization.
What Seawatt expected was an afterlife at most. Whether it was alone or with his dead loved ones, whatever his wishful thinking allowed.
This isn't fair. He has been wandering in this form, agonizingly, for what feels like hours. And he hasn't found a single other person in a similar situation. He wonders for what he is different.
Thankfully he can float, because if he was forced to walk he would have given up after the first step. Every movement that strains his muscles leaves an otherwordly ache behind. Even when he flicks his fingers, it feels like his tendons get peeled off and torn from his body. His bones creak, his eyes burn, his throat is dry. He doesn't assume he can speak.
Left with nothing else to do, he has been watching Evbo. He doesn't know why that's his first choice. But it's a good choice. Evbo's life is endlessly entertaining, a drama built from the ground up to keep its spectators on their toes with their mouths watering for the next twist.
It hurts to keep his eyes open, but he does it anyway. It's better than the endless boredom squeezing around him and following him, slouched over his shoulder as if a huge lump of void. As its nothingness only grows and consumes.
Evbo triumphs. Evbo becomes God. Evbo is left in a diametrically opposite situation to his. Seawatt can only swallow the dryness in his mouth.
Later on, Evbo speaks to him, sometimes. Seawatt doesn't reckon Evbo knows he's there, but somehow he does. He's confessed a lot more than Seawatt did. Seawatt's head swims with all of the different things Evbo has said.
It hurts to know he, in a way, has thought of him with such reverence. He could have even cared. It sucks that Seawatt is stuck here. It sucks that he can't just disappear after death.
Perhaps that is his punishment. He wasn't meant to disappear. He was meant to watch just how little he deserved to be a part of the happy ending that could only come after his death. It jingled in his skull as the universe laughed at him, with it Evbo's efforts to bring him back becoming futile.
Seawatt could only irritate his throat with a sigh.
I'm still here. I'm still watching. He couldn't tell him any of it.