The cup was poured over me.

Once again I was completely wrong about something I had assumed about her. The last thing she had said before pouring the cup had not been a white lie, it had been nothing but the truth.

It hurt, but only a little.

Even when a piece came out of me. It didn't explode, it wasn't ripped out of me. It came out just like that. But it didn't leave a hole behind. My body put itself back together without a problem, filling the hole. Still, it was kind of creepy, both the image and the sensation.

A thousand times worse than the pain. That was what she should have warned me about.

In any case, what had once been part of me floated a few feet above the ground. Plague looked at it curiously. I was sure I wasn't mistaking it for some other nearby emotion. If it was hunger, she'd have thrown herself on that by now, and what else was she going to feel?

It was good for everyone that it wasn't hunger.

“What now?”

“Now we follow it.” I didn't know what answer I had expected, but certainly something longer than four words. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but the truth is that I got excited very quickly, like a fool.

“God, can it really be that easy?” But I was smiling.

“We'll see it on the way.”

Lucia didn't exactly throw cold water on my hopes and dreams, he was kind as always. But she'd told the truth and nothing but the truth.

Only time would tell, like everything else in life.

At least she had a better idea of what they might encounter along the way. At

Only time would tell, as with everything in life.

At least she had a better idea of what they might encounter along the way. For the most part, this world was unfamiliar to me. It had many similarities to typical fantasy books and video games, which caught my attention, but not enough to feel comfortable or familiar with anything.

The fragment of my being finally took flight. It flew out of the church through the bars of the window. Fuck, it was fast. Fortunately the very reason I needed it allowed me to follow it by simply walking through the wall.

Taking the shortest route to anything. A straight line.

Plague and Lucia came out after me, although a little later. Good thing she hadn't gone off the deep end. If she'd thought of knocking down the wall, well, it wouldn't necessarily have revealed her identity. But it would have made it harder to pretend Plague was more or less a normal person.

I didn't have to run far.

The piece stopped, still floating, in front of a tree shortly after it started. I stopped abruptly, on my heels, and briefly thought about the Olympics. Those events where they did big jumps and skidded across the ground when they landed. What were they called.

“What now? Is it here?” I asked only half seriously. But half seriously was already too much, it couldn't be true that my soul was so close to the person that by chance I had found to look for it.

“Give it time. It's like... a compass. But it takes a lot longer to find the north.”

“I see.”

Only I wasn't sure I saw, but it didn't matter. It made some sense, I trusted her (just not blindly, I wasn't that stupid). Besides, I didn't really care how the process went as long as it got me to my destination.

I was excited and therefore even more impatient than usual. But at last the thing got going again, freeing me from my torments.

Just as quickly as before. It had no intention of waiting for me, even though it had been part of me until less than a minute ago. I was ready to run again, but Lucia stopped me with her voice.

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“We should take a wagon.”

We should. She was getting in on this, huh?

“Are you going to come this far with me?”

“I told you. I'm on your side.”

I looked away quickly, my cheeks burning a little. It was especially hard to hold the gaze of such a kind and sincere person for shady critters like me.

I was worried that we'd lose sight of the fragment of my being while Lucia made preparations, while we got on and she set the wagon in motion, but it turned out that the only hurry this business had was the excitement inside me.

That thing had stopped again in midair, and continued shortly after we approached. Maybe, being a part of me, it couldn't get too far away.

Maybe it had simply stopped again. In any case, we didn't lose it, which was the important thing.

The mystical compass made of a piece of me led us to the outskirts of, of course, another city. New city, new problems. But it wasn't a pseudo-medieval city, with no running water and full of old taverns where the drunkest of them all smelled not much worse than the average citizen.

Nor did it seem modern.

Neither one nor the other. More like a futuristic city. Fortunately what gave me that impression wasn't that it was adorned with ugly and tacky neon lights, like a bad movie in the eighties, nineties or today, because everything old was new again and some traditions didn't die.

I was talking about what looked like robots flying through the sky. Drones watching the people.

It gave the impression that this city belonged to another world entirely, a third world.

But it was here and it was real.

“I don't want to go in there,” I mumbled. Whatever it looked like, whether medieval or cyberpunk, the fact was that it wouldn't contain good news. Finding my soul was only the first step.

Getting it back was the second and worse.

“Shut up and go on,” Plague said to me, giving me a little push on my back. Only she didn't measure her strength too well and almost knocked me over in the process. I managed to regain my balance, at least I didn't look like an imbecile in front of our new partner, falling head first into the grass.

“Miss Elizabeth, you should be nicer.”

True and reasonable, for a human being. Too bad she wasn't talking to one. Plague simply gave her a blank stare and asked:

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“It's all... a transaction, isn't it? No one does anything for no reason.” True, but still it was becoming more and more obvious how weird she was. I hoped Lucia would take her for just that, a weirdo, instead of becoming suspicious because of her lack of common sense.

“Well, people are more likely to listen to you if you're nice to them.”

“Really?”

She had to insist, of course.

“Really.”

“I see,” Plague replied, very seriously, nodding his head.

That ended the conversation before she could put her foot in her mouth, so deep that not even God could pull it out. Oh, by the way. We didn't stop moving at any point for Lucia and Miss Elizabeth to perform their little comedy routine, of course.

As we entered the city, more than one of them panicked, running away or hiding behind a newspaper or something like that, and gave me dirty looks. If looks could kill, I'd be dead.

Well. You know what I mean.

If looks could exorcise, I might be exorcised. It counted for ghosts, it wasn't just for demons, was it? Anyway, whatever.

The only reason the police weren't on their way was the presence of a nun to my

The only reason the police weren't on their way was the presence of a nun by my side at all times.

“Is there really nothing going on?” asked a citizen, who was clearly close to being a senior citizen.

“This poor soul is under my care. I promise you there is nothing to worry about. The Lord guides my path.” Lucia spoke like, well, like a model nun. Like an exemplary nun. It was hard not to trust her honest face and that beautiful smile.

“Of course, Sister. Forgive my nerves.”

And the citizen withdrew without further ado. Not happy, not entirely at ease, but without causing any trouble.

Lucia did the same with so many others along the way, and it was irritating in more ways than one. The fact that it slowed our progress a bit wasn't the worst of it. Those constant encounters were making me feel like some kind of freak on display at the circus for people to come over and stare open-mouthed and throw tomatoes at.

But I wisely kept my mouth shut and let her take care of things.

Anyway, I cared more about the progress of my body part and watching the moment when it would stop for real, once and for all, even though I knew it would only be the beginning of the real trouble.

It would also be the beginning of the end of my problems, though.

Once I had my soul and could pass over to the other side, I would take care of them. So they couldn't lay a hand on my sister. I wasn't sure how to do it, not yet. But I would get it done.

I would get stronger and I would make it.

We continued to follow the compass for a good chunk of the city. With each passing second my impatience grew, but so did my fear. Although Lucia was reassuring everyone she encountered, that could change at any moment.

I also feared that the drones patrolling the city would swoop down on us at any moment.

Before we got to my soul.

Tormenting me at the last moment, as if I hadn't already suffered enough kicks in the nuts. But none of that happened. We followed it until it finally came to a smooth stop.

“Here?” Only after that word passed through my mouth did I realize that I had been holding my breath.

“It looks like it,” Lucia said.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath, waiting to see if that thing would move again or not. To see if this was the end of the road or just another stop in the middle.

The compass disappeared.

My heart skipped a beat. I know I didn't have a heart, but it really felt like it stopped beating for a few long, painful seconds.

But it wasn't what I thought. In fact, it was the signal.

“Yes, this is it,” Lucia said.