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The liquid was bitter and cold. It left a biting taste as it went down Alex’s throat. Alex dropped the ceramic cup he'd been drinking from and it shattered as it struck the floor.  His vision went blurry, and then went dark. Alex collapsed to the floor, with his breathing very shallow. After a few moments of blindness, his breathing halted to a stop ending his life.
~
    “So, how was it this time?” The voice asked curiously. It took Alex a few moments to recognize it. 
    “Daniel? What the hell you doing here?” The light blinded Alex as he opens his eyes for the first time. Lanterns were scattered around the room haphazardly, specifically near flammable objects. Alex looked around more closely. A tavern room. It had the typical furnishings: a bed, (which he lay on.) a chair and desk, and a closet. “Nothing too special,” he thought, then he focused his gaze back to Daniel. 
    Daniel was what someone would call a lurker. He was taller than average, giving him a slightly more intimidating presence. Daniel didn’t care, “I only need to be taller than the women,” was his typical response whenever his height was mentioned. Of course that was his response, since women were his only concern most of the time. 
    “I wanted to see you off. After all you are nearing your goal, aren't you?” His lips turned up into a smirk. “You didn't answer my question. How was it?” 
    Alex sat up on the bed and threw his legs over the side of the bed, but not before shooting a glare to Daniel. “Why do you always want to know about my deaths? That is quite morbid you know.” Daniel didn’t respond so he continued, “This time it was poison. It was horrible. I went blind then died,” he punctuated that remark with a sigh. “Slow deaths are the worst, they always have you wondering if you're actually going to wake up.” 
    Daniel regarded him for a moment thoughtfully. “I still don't understand why you go through all the trouble of dying when you could have just as much fun partying your mind out.” He smiles again as if he brought up a brilliant idea. “Yeah do that. Just stay here and we'll both find ourselves a fair lady.” 
    Alex glared again. He seemed to do that a lot lately. “I'm not going to be a lurker. I wound much rather die.” He paused and smiled at the joke he made. 
    Silence filled the room for a moment, before they both broke into laughter. “I hate your jokes. You never do them on purpose,” Daniel spoke after he calmed himself down, then switched his tone to a serious one. “We'll I tried to talk you out of it. Don't say I didn't try.” He regards Alex again solemnly. “I've decided to do this with you.”
    Alex’s response was immediate, “No, you can't do that. Dying isn't really your cup of tea.” He shook his head slowly, then nodded. “You aren't coming with me.” 
    Daniel smiled again, “Sorry, my lurking days are over. I'm even prepared.” He gestures around the room to the lanterns, then picks up a lantern for effect.
    “No. Don't.” Alex shakes his head again. “You're going to hate it. It's the life of an outcast, don't separate yourself from society.” 
    Daniel lifts his shoulders and shrugs. “I'm not about to argue with you. I'm going to die within the next five minutes. The only question is whether or not you're coming with me.” Daniel raised an eyebrow questioningly. 
    Alex hesitated. Daniel’s eyes were filled with determination and fear. Those eyes reminded Alex of his own. The eyes that Alex saw every time he looked in the mirror. “Fine, as long as you're sure.” 
    Daniel’s eyes changed from determination to surprise, and finally joy. Then it all stopped abruptly. He was about to say something when his hand slipped. The lantern fell towards the floor. It shattered apart by the bedside causing the bedding to go aflame. Alex reacted immediately. He stood off of the bed and kicked the nearest lantern into the chair setting it on fire. 
    “What are you doing!” Daniel shouted. His face lost all determination it held before. Fear was in its place, causing Daniel to freeze in his place. 
    Alex broke another lantern on the floor. “He really was prepared for this,” the thought came to Alex’s mind before responding. “You killed us the second you dropped that lantern. Unless you want to die a slow and painful death of suffocation, then help me.” Smoke was already rising to the top of the room to prove Alex’s point. The temperature in the room was quickly rising as Alex continued breaking the lanterns around the room. Daniel moved to help after a few moments of indecision. 
    Soon enough they had all of the lanterns broken, the room was nearly fully ablaze now, except for the corner that both Daniel and Alex were standing in. Their skin was blistering, and there hair was actually beginning to catch on fire. Alex turned to Daniel. His face looked absolutely horrible, and since neither of them had actually been caught on fire there wasn't anything to cover the burns. Even worse then that was the smell of burnt flesh that was beginning to spread through the room. Still, Alex had his arm covering his mouth so he could speak. “Are you ready?” Alex shouted over the fire and the burning wood. 
    His voice was raspy, but Daniel still managed to hear him. He shook his head in denial, then opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out. Instead smoke choked his throat, and he started coughing horribly. 
    Alex watched as Daniel fell to his knees on the burning floor and began to suffocate. Under normal circumstances Alex might be against killing his own friends, but Daniel was suffering too much, especially for his first time. Alex placed his foot onto Daniels’s back and shoved him into the flames. A horrible scream came out of the fire moments after. 
    Alex grimaced, and then dove into the flames after him.
~
    Fresh air made its way into Alex’s lungs. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He was no longer in a tavern room like he was moments ago. Instead he lay in a lush glade. Massive trees surrounded it providing shade, and underneath one of those trees was Daniel. His face was paler than usual, and when Alex walked closer he saw him sweating. He’s in shock, Alex realized. 
    Daniel slowly looked up to Alex. He was in a fetal position, and was even rocking back and forth. “How?” His expression showed disbelief. “How do you do that? Just dying again and again…”
Daniel continued rambling, but Alex had had enough. He slammed his foot into Daniel’s side sending him to the ground. “You chose this.” Alex emphasized each word. “You did. So get the hell up, and stop complaining. Least of all you need to stop worrying about me.” He raised his eyebrows at Daniel. “Do you understand?” 
Daniel nodded slowly and made his way to his feet. He was obviously still shaken up. Alex turned away from Daniel and looked again around the clearing. “Now we search this place. If we're lucky then, we’ll be in a small world. If not…” Alex glanced toward Daniel again. “…then we could be here quite a while.” 
Daniel nodded again. He wasn't quite ready to use his voice yet. 
Alex turned away. “Let’s go.”

I'm not sure why I wanted to write this except that the idea was intriguing. So here is a writing piece. It has nothing to do with the other writing that I have posted thus far. As with anything else I write, criticism is very welcomed. How else can I improve? Anyway thanks for reading.

Whatever's going on with these guys being able to die over and over (and get transported to new places?) is interesting, but it's never actually explained at any point as far as I could see. Needs some more context about the characters, the setting, something. Looking at it like it's an excerpt from a much longer piece and it's not bad at all though, I liked this more than the other thing you posted awhile ago, anyway. 

Seems really weird that burning to death would be considered a preferable way to go over smoke inhalation though? The latter is what you'd be praying for if you were ever trapped in an actual burning building, I'm pretty sure. I'm thinking you're probably not understanding how agonizing being burned alive would be or what it does to a person's body...

Oh and next time you post one of these, can you please break up your paragraphs? I remember last time you went with a painfully tiny font, so you're kind of establishing a pattern of writing excerpts that are physically difficult to read. 

Everything I write seems like that. I guess it's subconscious, because I don't really try to make it apart of a larger story. Actually I have no real intention of continuing this idea, although I find it interesting as well. Did you like this one better because it was written better, or the basis of the idea? I didn't really know how to implement more context. I was mostly focused on making the dialogue seem natural. I didn't revise at all except when I took a break from writing. Even then I only revised the sentence that I had to pick up off of. So I didn't really check the context. I have a reason for not revising if you actually think that is relevant.

I can't remember what I wrote exactly. But I was thinking of making it so that Daniel would have to suffer the more painful death. Meaning that Alex was lying to Daniel to make him die a worse death. Daniel wouldn't have known any better, and Alex wanted to immerse him in the idea of painful death more quickly. I'm not sure I made that come across in the text though. Probably just in my head. 

I copy pasted from a Word document and then didn't really check how it looked for either. I'll fix the formatting from now on. Personally I just like typing in a Word document.