Chapter Two – Ceremony of the Broken

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“Can anyone out there hear me?” yelled a single voice from the edge of the tempest that roared in Hatasuko’s mind.

Though his body was fast asleep, Hatasuko still could not find peace from the orchestra of souls in his head. As soon as he heard these words, he tried to mentally sift through the endless darkness in search of the voice. He rarely heard coherent words in the tempest, and even then, it was almost always an exclamation of agony. It was almost always the sound of a lost soul screaming for someone who meant so much to them that it was all that they could think about, even in this disembodied state.

“Yes! Yes, I can hear you. I can hear all of you. I can’t hear anything else,” Hatasuko answered into the emptiness.

“I don’t know how, but I managed to piece myself together in that massive storm of souls. I remember screaming even when I had no idea why! But I found my memories, and I found pieces of the man I used to be. Please tell me, how can you hear me? Are you another soul in the tempest?” asked the frantic voice.

“I am not. My name is Hatasuko, and I am the one cursed to carry the weight of the lost souls. Their endless screams are my burden to bear.”

“Are you God? Are you a ghost?”

“I am neither. When I was younger, I once believed that I was a ghost left behind by the Interfectus. I can hear the voices of their victims; I carry the weight of the dead on my back. I really thought that I was one of them, but in time I came to accept that I am still alive. I am haunted by a chorus of screams and stuck inside a tempest of hopeless souls, but I am alive for a reason. I am alive so that I can kill the Interfecti and end the misery that created my curse,” Hatasuko explained.

Though he was still asleep and cursed to hear nothing other than the countless voices, Hatasuko heard the tempest grow quieter in the background. This conversation seemed to have a calming effect on the restless abyss.

“I can’t tell if you’re a fool or a hero. Maybe you’re both,” said the voice with a friendly laugh.

“At any rate, is this your first time trying to speak? When I last fought the Interfectus, I heard another coherent voice in the tempest. Was it you? Who are you?” Hatasuko asked.

“I don’t think that was me. My name is Sokaido, and I come from Catena Island Four. When I was still alive, in the days before our first visit from an Interfectus, I was a fisherman who saw beauty in everything! I could look at an empty net and smile; I could see a rising storm and sing a happy tune! I’m sure it drove my family insane, but nothing could get me down. Even now, I can appreciate the solace of this hopeless state. If nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to meet you. I’ve been given the chance to make a new friend!” answered the voice with an upbeat tone.

“But are you really content in here? It’s like a dungeon for severed souls.”

“I can make the most of it! I’ve always said that seventy-five percent of life is how you handle situations. We’re the artists of our own happiness! But the truth is that my heart is not strong enough to defeat fear. As soon as I pieced myself together in here, the first thing I thought about was my family. I don’t even know if they’re still alive,” Sokaido whispered as his voice started to fade.

Hatasuko opened his eyes as the tempest grew quieter in his head. The pulsing light of the stars in the sky illuminated the tree over his head. Every green leaf shimmered because the moisture upon them reflected the starlight. Hatasuko stared between the leaves and saw that the sky was a beautiful canvas of flashing lights. The stars pulsed with shades of red and blue, though they illuminated the land with only white light. It was the same white light that lit this world in every place and at every hour.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

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“That’s not good. I lost my bow in the fight,” Hatasuko groaned as he struggled to his feet.

When he glanced around, Hatasuko saw that he stood at the boundary between the meadow and the forest. He could see the silhouette of broken buildings in the north, however the city of Bartric was most likely abandoned. After the Interfectus struck the city, all the citizens were slaughtered or scattered. It would take many days for the survivors to emerge and crawl back to their homes, now that the nightmare had fallen silent. Hatasuko looked the other way and saw two people sitting beneath a tree, though they did not look at each other. They did not talk to each other.

“I can’t believe it. I think that’s the guy with the shield,” Hatasuko whispered to himself.

After quickly verifying that he still had his sword in a sheath on his back, Hatasuko started jogging toward this tree. As he approached, he saw that the large man sat in the grass with his warhammer in his right hand. He continuously curled and uncurled his right arm while lifting the weight of the warhammer. Hatasuko then noticed that the girl was eating a small fruit while staring listlessly at the meadow.

“Is that an albapomus? That’s my second favorite fruit,” Hatasuko said as soon as he ran up, though he immediately second-guessed his introduction.

The dark-haired girl looked up at him with a nervous gaze. She tossed the core of the fruit aside and grabbed another white fruit from the ground beside her.

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“Would you like one?” she asked with a shy smile.

Now that her face was not hidden by her hair, Hatasuko noticed that the right segment of her face had the same dark scar that stained her arm and leg. It was a massive scar, certainly a burn scar, and it went as high up as her eye. Her right eye was clearly dead; it stared forward but saw nothing. Her right eye was sea-green, but the other was blue. The girl quickly realized that he was staring at her face, and then her smile immediately disappeared. She quickly covered her face with her hand.

“I’m so sorry, um, I didn’t mean for you to see that,” she said with a quiet voice.

“No, I’m sorry! You don’t need to hide. I just woke up, so I’m not entirely lucid. I really didn’t mean to stare,” Hatasuko apologized.

“Tch, Vaida knows that. No one wants to look at her,” said the large man.

Before turning around to greet the large man with the warhammer, Hatasuko accepted Vaida’s gift. He picked the albapomus out of her hand and gave her a warm smile as thanks, but she did not return his smile. With her hand hiding the right side of her face, her blue left eye looked at Hatasuko and then looked down.

“Vaida… that’s a nice name! My name is Hatasuko. Thanks for the fruit!”

“You’re welcome. I like picking fruit,” she said. As Vaida spoke, a smile briefly flashed on her face again, but it quickly disappeared. Her left hand clawed at the dirt beside her leg.

“Hey, Vaida, you know that doesn’t actually help anything, right? Your hand’s been burned as dark as your face, so it just looks the same,” said the gruff man as he dropped his warhammer and climbed to his feet.

Hatasuko scratched his head at first; these two had seemed like friends when he first found them in the smoky city, though he knew it was too early to make any assumptions about them. Nevertheless, Hatasuko finished his albapomus in three bites and then walked over to the large man with a nonthreatening smile.

“Are you the one that pulled me out of the city? I can’t thank you enough. You saved my life twice,” Hatasuko said with a gracious glare in his golden eyes.

“Don’t mention it, boy. That’s what I do. I save the lives of idiots like you. I’ve been doing it for years, and I guess I’ll just continue until an Interfectus finally takes me down. It can’t be much longer, right?” he retorted with a hint of apathy.

“Please don’t say that, Lazaro. This world needs you,” Vaida muttered quietly.

Hatasuko looked over his shoulder at the girl sitting on the ground. She had moved her hand, and her dark hair danced in the wind. Her eyes both stared at Lazaro with a pang of sadness, though her right eye looked slightly off-center.

“If you two run through cities and save people when an Interfectus attacks, then where is everyone else? Did they leave already? Was I really asleep that long?” Hatasuko asked.

Lazaro shook his head and explained, “I don’t stay with the people I save because I don’t want to hear their worthless bullshit. I don’t like to hear people cry about the victims, and I don’t need people following me around like that stray girl over there. I carried you with me because you have potential. You’re naïve and you’re weak, but you have potential. I can tell that that wasn’t your first meeting with an Interfectus. I’m willing to take you on as an apprentice, but only if you understand that they’ll kill you in the end. No other conclusion.”

[Author's note: Please do note that this chapter is not over. There are two more parts to this chapter. I'll post it soon. For information about my AI-generating practices and the inconsistencies therein, please check out my blog, linked in my profile]

(additional note: The third picture (of Vaida) did not use any AI at all.)