40. Is This The Afterlife?
When Nova opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a dark void that seemed to go on forever. The space around him was completely pitch black, giving him no sign of anything else.
It made him feel as if there was nothing except him and the darkness in this world.
He tried to speak, but no sound came out of his mouth even though it opened to try and produce any words that formed in his head. He couldn't even make any noise or any sounds at all, for that matter.
It was weird and unnerving. Nova tried to move around, but nothing happened; he couldn't move either!
He could only stare into the distance, which felt like forever. The silence was deafening; it made him panic more than he'd ever thought possible. Everything was dark. He was scared, frightened even, of this darkness around him. He was in complete emptiness; everything was gone.
'Is this what happens after one dies? Is this the afterlife?' Nova asked himself those questions with great uncertainty.
However, something about this feeling gave him a strange sense of familiarity. Like he was supposed to know it. This void seemed strangely peaceful and soothing to Nova in an unexplainable way; it made him wonder if he should stay in this place.
Suddenly, a crack appeared before Nova in the darkness. A brilliant flash of light pierced through the void and blinded Nova's vision, followed by a booming voice that thundered into the emptiness of the void.
"Nova! Open your eyes! Please!" The voice desperately begged.
The voice seemed to echo, becoming louder and louder. Each word made Nova realize something inside of him that was missing.
'Mom...?' He mumbled quietly inside his head.
With the sound of his mother's voice resonating within his head, the crack opened wider and wider before exploding into countless fragments, scattering throughout the darkness.
Everything turned into a blur of shapes and colors while he felt something soft touching him everywhere at once. He couldn't understand what he was experiencing right now.
But somehow, he instinctively knew that whatever was touching him felt familiar and comforting. And with those sensations in his mind, Nova's eyelids fluttered open.
The first thing he saw after opening his eyes was his mother's worried face looking back at him from above while she was on top of his body and his cock deep inside her pussy.
The warmth that enveloped Nova's lower region as well as the wetness surrounding it made him realize that the sensations from earlier were in fact, caused by his mother riding on top of him.
The look of relief on her face was evident to him right after seeing his eyes open. However, her face was also pale beyond compare; her cheeks were stained with tears, and she was still moving on his cock like her life depended on it.
Even though she saw Nova regaining his consciousness, she didn't stop and continued moving. And the way she was doing it was quite slow; it felt like she had no energy left in her body whatsoever.
Seeing this, Nova realized what she was trying to do. And that realization made him panic in an instant. "Wait, Mom, stop! I... I'm awake now; you can stop. I don't want you to push yourself too far and risk hurting yourself more."
However, even as he spoke those words, Alicia ignored Nova's pleas and kept moving on her own instead of stopping as requested.
Alicia felt relieved seeing Nova alive and well now; however, she wasn't sure if Nova's condition was stable or not yet. So, she was worried that he would die anytime and not wake up again.
Therefore, Alicia wanted to do whatever she could to prevent that from happening and had been using all of her life force to do so.
Nova knew that he needed to stop her, but his body wasn't fully functioning yet after coming back to consciousness, leaving him incapable of doing anything except watching her continue to ride him.
Just then, Nova noticed Hilda nearby sitting on the ground, leaning against the trunk of a tree for support. She had a blank expression on her face as if she had lost her soul and was staring off into space.
"Hilda, please help! We have to stop her from using all of her life force for my sake. Please... stop my mother before it's too late..." Nova yelled out to Hilda.
With those words being said, Hilda turned her head in his direction and met his gaze before shaking her head and hurrying to his side to help him out of his dilemma.
Hilda grabbed hold of Alicia and pulled her off of Nova's body despite her protests.
Alicia screamed out as she fell off of Nova's body onto the cold, hard ground. Her face twisted into a scowl as she glared daggers at Hilda.
"What are you doing?! I'm trying to save my son here! Let me go and let me keep doing it! Please, I can't lose Nova..." Alicia shouted at the top of her lungs while trying to escape Hilda's grasp.
Hilda ignored Alicia's shouting and managed to pull her away from Nova without too much difficulty since her strength was already beginning to fade away.
"Look, Nova's awake now; there's no need to keep doing what you were doing anymore, okay?" Hilda tried to explain to Alicia in a calm tone of voice. "Besides, if you continue what you are doing now, you will be the one who ends up dying, not him. And I'm sure that Nova wouldn't want to see that happen; it would make him sad."
Those words caused Alicia to stop her struggling and freeze on the spot, staring at Hilda for a couple of seconds before turning around to look at Nova lying on the ground and struggling to sit up.
"Mom..." Nova called out to her in a weak voice full of concern. "I'm alright now, so don't worry about me, okay? Don't waste your life energy trying to save me anymore. Instead, you should focus on recovering yourself."
Alicia didn't say anything in response as she walked over and knelt down beside Nova, lifting him up so she could hug his head tight against her chest.
Tears trickled down the sides of her face while she sobbed in relief, mumbling softly, "Thank God! Oh my God! Thank goodness you're alive. Please don't ever scare me like that again, okay? My heart can't take it... If anything happened to you, I'd... I'd..."
"Mom, don't say that! Even if it came down to that point, you need to live. For I would come back again even from the depths of hell for you..." Nova exclaimed as he hugged Alicia back and held her close to him in a comforting gesture.
Meanwhile, Hilda sat back on the ground beside them with her knees folded in front of her chest and buried her face in them while tears flowed down her cheeks in an endless stream.
Hearing those words made Hilda remember how the village chief was killed in cold blood earlier, and it made her heart ache knowing that she would never see him again.
Although they had just confirmed their relationship earlier, she still couldn't get over the fact that she was now all alone in this world once more, having lost the person she thought was special to her.