I wondered if Blackwell showing up was due to The Keeper’s arrival. Even though Blackwell had been my mentor after I died, I hadn’t seen him in …, I had no idea. Time flowed quite differently in the Acedia. It could have been a month, a year, or a decade. I had no idea how long it had been.

Blackwell had a tall thin frame, although one completely covered by voluminous black clothing. The clothes were threadbare and worn, but without a speck of dirt upon them. A thick coat was draped across his shoulders and a scarf surrounded his neck like a noose. Long dark hair fell to cover his eyes, and the rest of his face was obscured by a thick beard.

I studied Blackwell intently. While he had been a mentor to me, that didn’t mean that I trusted him completely. Every spirit had a dark side, a shadow in their heart. Sometimes that darkness would emerge and take over the spirit. However, after a moment, I nodded to him and started walking again.

I moved past Blackwell, who fell into step beside me. Blackwell’s booted feet clip clopped, thumping away like a heartbeat, steady and unyielding. My steps left no sound or trace of my passing through. “Greetings,” I said quietly, my words soft, like a breeze, carried off to some other place, barely heard.

“Greetings,” Blackwell’s gravelly voice echoed back, heard once, then again and again before dying away. For someone whose appearance was cloaked in mystery, he certainly made his presence felt. It was like he wanted others to know when he was around.

“Did you wish to speak with me?” I asked, turning to glance at him. I had always felt there was something strange between Blackwell and myself, although I wasn’t sure what it was. I felt like I had known him for years. Perhaps it was because of recent events, but something about Blackwell was different.

Many of those who had passed away and found themselves in Acedia feared Blackwell. And because I was Blackwell’s student, they feared me as well. Because of this, I was generally left alone. Even those spirits losing touch with reality knew enough not to mess with Blackwell.

Power, in the Lands of the Dead, came in many shapes and forms. Some of the dead had connections with the living. Others had been dead for so long they barely remembered a time before death. A rare few were simply powerful in their own right. It wasn't because they were the oldest, or the youngest, but because their passions ran deep and strong.

Emotion, passion, obsession, whatever you wanted to call it, was where the dead drew strength from. For most, the memories that provided this strength tended to fade with time. With Blackwell, it almost seemed the opposite was true. It was like he was achieving his dreams.

“Yes, but let’s walk for a moment.” Blackwell said, his head turning as he walked to take in everything around us.

That was one thing I didn’t like about him. He always seemed to be keeping something from me. Not completely reassured, I lapsed back into silence, one of my few places of solace. I took the moment to glance at Blackwell once more, not really looking at him, but trying to understand something about him.

The other spirits were terrified of Blackwell, but the man had been nothing but kind and considerate to me ever since I arrived. I wondered, Why then did they fear him so much? Forbidden Arts weren’t enough to explain their feelings.

While it was true, because of his passions, Blackwell was strong. In fact, he was more powerful than almost any other spirit that I had encountered in Acedia, with the exception of The Keeper. Perhaps it was because of his passions that they feared him. As for the Oracle, I had never met her. I had just heard stories.

Before, I never tried to figure out what Blackwell's motives were, or what he ultimately wanted. I was just happy that someone was willing to help me without apparently wanting anything. Perhaps it is time to find the answers to some of my questions, I told myself.

We continued walking side by side. The only sound was that of Blackwell’s steps. I frowned, wondering what Blackwell wished to speak with me about. It had been a while since I had seen him. About the only times I saw him was when something had occurred or was about to occur. Yet this time, my mentor seemed to have no desire to speak with me about anything.

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I was wondering what that meant when Blackwell turned to me and abruptly said, “When you visit The Oracle, I want to go with you.”

My steps came to an immediate stop. There was so much information packed into such a simple sentence. While there were other oracles, there was only one Oracle. What confused me was that she had gone into seclusion years before I died. I stood there, my thoughts racing. Also, while I was curious how she had obtained the book, I really hadn’t planned on visiting her. Then again, I probably would visit her since I wanted to know how she had obtained my mother’s diary. I was definitely curious about The Oracle.

Did that mean she had come out of hiding? Was that even possible? There were rumors that her seclusion wasn’t exactly voluntary. Also, when did she give the Book of Poems to The Keeper? How did Blackwell know?

I turned to ask him when I noticed that he had disappeared. I didn’t even hear his trademark footsteps, that sounded like the steady tick tock of time, counting away the second left before oblivion. I repressed a shiver as the thought crossed my mind, wondering why even I was becoming uneasy in my mentor’s presence these days.

Something had changed, although I wasn’t sure what. Still, I was determined to find out what was different. Unfortunately, somehow I knew that I wouldn’t like the answers that I would find.

Trying to ignore such thoughts, I walked down the street. Actually, that was technically correct. A street did exist in Acedia, but it varied minute to minute. One moment, it was just barren, lifeless ground. Then it would become a newly paved street before deteriorating into a rubble strewn path.

The same was true for everything else I passed. The only constant was the presence of the mist, stretched endlessly in all directions. The sky above wasn’t dark or bright but a muted gray that seemed to press down upon the city like a leaden shroud. Faint whispers, usually indecipherable, sometimes formed random words. I had long since stopped listening to them. Some things were better left unknown in Acedia.

As I walked, I became acutely aware of the subtle changes in the fog. The whispers seemed louder, more insistent. The faint, sour scent of decay grew stronger, clinging to my senses like a memory I couldn’t shake. It wasn’t unusual for the mist to play tricks on spirits, but this was different.

For the first time, I wondered if Acedia possessed some type of consciousness.

As I walked, the mist seemed to thicken around me, almost like fingers curling around me. For a moment, I thought I saw movement within it. Of course, this wasn’t new. What was new was that the shadowy forms shifting and writhing in the mist appeared to kneel, their heads bowed low as though in reverence. The sight chilled me.

That’s new, I thought. While I had heard stories about the mist occasionally acting stranger than normal, this was my first time encountering such an event. It made me wonder, Why did it do that? What does it mean?

Before I could focus, the mist swirled violently, erasing the figures and leaving only a faint, metallic tang in the air. But even as the vision faded, I caught a glimpse of something beyond. It was a man encased in shadows that pulsed like a heartbeat. The image vanished as quickly as it came, leaving me with the unsettling feeling that Acedia was not just a prison for lost souls, but a reflection of something far darker, something tied to me in ways I couldn’t yet understand.

I quickly moved onwards, eager to put distance between myself and whatever had just happened. My steps took me toward the house where I had lived with my grandmother, my father, my sister, and him. I had a lot of fond memories of that place, but the house also contained memories that still haunted my dreams.

The thought disturbed me more than it should have. If Acedia was conscious, what did that make us spirits who dwelled within it? Were we simply memories ourselves, fragments of consciousness floating in a vast, ancient mind? I had seen how memories could be shared, shaped, and even consumed – perhaps Acedia itself fed on these exchanges, growing stronger with each transaction between spirits and the living.

I remembered something Blackwell once told me about the nature of our existence here. "Acedia," he had said, his voice carrying that familiar gravelly resonance, "is like a mirror that's been shattered and reassembled wrong. Each piece reflects a different version of reality, a different memory of what was or what might have been." At the time, I had dismissed it as one of his typically cryptic observations, but now I wasn't so sure. The way the mist moved, the way it seemed to respond to certain spirits more than others, it suggested a pattern that went beyond mere random occurrence.

These contemplations stirred memories of conversations with other spirits who claimed to have glimpsed something vast moving in the depths of this realm. Most had dismissed such sightings as hallucinations born of loneliness and fading memories. But what if they were glimpsing the true nature of our existence here? What if Acedia wasn't just a place between Heaven and Hell, but something alive, something that had been watching us, learning from us, perhaps even guiding us toward some unknowable purpose?

I didn’t know why I was going back to that house. I wouldn’t find out more about Blackwell or the book of poems there. In fact, the only thing that awaited me there was memories. I could already feel those memories swelling up inside me like a wave, crashing upon my consciousness, wearing away my will to resist. Finally, coldness seeped into my soul, as did memories of the past.