"Sit," instructed Karma#2, maneuvering to Lance's flank. "Repeat after me: 'I will do as I'm told.'"
"I will do as I'm told," echoed Lance, folding his legs onto the cold, marble-tiled plateau.
"Though I will feel pain, my eyes shall remain open."
"Though I will feel pain"—shaky inhale—"my eyes shall remain open."
"If my eyes close, they will not open."
"If my eyes close ... they will not open."
"Excellent." Karma#2 laid his palms on Lance's back, casting a net of colorless, aqueous flame. "These flames beget Nirvana—anathema to extermination. So long as you remain conscious, they will restore you."
In front, Karma#1 crouched in a curious pose: His arms resembled bestial claws clamping onto empty air. The same Nirvanic flames coated his splayed fingers, burning silently under his—and Lance's—harsh scrutiny.
"Sound off," intoned Karma#2.
"Ready," said Karma#1.
"Ready," sounded Anlîthëma.
"R-ready," murmured Lance.
"Then let us begin. Lance, locate and report the price of Convalescence Thistle under the Miscellaneous column."
"... 800 Culling Merit."
"Add one. Validate your reward, Anlîthëma."
"Valid."
"Add two sets of Coalescent Legume and Diametric Chrysalis. Validate your and Lorenzö's rewards."
"Valid."
"Good. On my count, take three deep breaths. Upon hearing 'go,' only then will you checkout. Understand?"
"Yes."
----------------------------------------
Order Details
----------------------------------------
+ 2 x Diametric Chrysalis—900
+ 2 x Coalescent Legume—900
+ 1 x Convalescence Thistle—800
----------------------------------------
Checkout? (-2600)
----------------------------------------
"First."
Sharp breath.
"Second."
Heavy breath.
"Third."
Steady breath.
"Go!"
Bam!
Five items condensed on Lance's lap as Karma#1's hands thundered shut. Lance stared—uncomprehending—at the flickering golden thread caught between his palms. One end disappeared off into the great unknown, and the other—
"ARRGGH!" Lance's lungs strangled, heaving his everything into a maddened cry. Beginning at his chest, a fractal of searing agony wormed through blood and marrow in ranks of ravage. His skin felt the breeding grounds of raucous mites, his muscle the flecking ash of firewood. Drearily, he watched himself unravel akin to blooming lilies, only for a sightless breeze to piece him back together.
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Again, and again, and again.
A hazed breach stained an oval about Karma#1's hands, its bellied fringes no larger than a tea kettle. "Anlîthëma, four breaths!"
Without delay, Anlîthëma beamed through the capricious aisle.
Three.
Its diameter shrunk with every moment.
Two.
Barely would an orange fit in its center.
One.
It zipped shut, rescuing the thread and its macabre torture.
"Did you get it?" choked Karma#1, his knees buckled amid a sweaty soup.
Anlîthëma, dim of luster and shed of layers, weakly vomited a white, fluffy sphere. "Maybe ..."
Squeek?
Two pointy appendages sprouted from the fluff ball, twitching in tune with soft chitters.
"You didn't!" feebly gasped Lance, his aspect a bitter web of crimson cracks.
Swirling yin-yang pupils locked onto him, radiating a visceral chill ... The chill of death.
"Death Bunny!" whooped Karma#2, vaulting over Lance and swaddling the fluff ball in a loving embrace.
Suddenly, both his and the bunny's neck snapped back. "Shit-shit-shit! Phase II—everyone but me, get in the bunny!"
"Wha—"
"No time!"—a fleeting spatial tear stole Lance's vision, plunging him into a hoary tract.
**
Karma froze, morosely relinquishing his adorable treasure to the cowled, cobalt-robed potentate opposite him.
"Stealing from your fellow peons, I can tolerate. Stealing from the Orthenian Courts?" They loosed a hoarse chuckle. "Speak your last, boy."
Finding his lips unsewn, Karma sniffled, "I—uh—hadn't expected to live this—Never mind. Could this depraved menial presume a trifling request, O Venerable Overseer?"
"Very well."
"If you kill me, would I—unequivocally and throughout this and all universes—be dead?"
"Yes. Is that all?"
"Could you say the words? Please? For a soon-to-die, pitiful orphan's sake?"
"If I kill you, you will be dead."
"Ah! You forgot the—"
Splat!
Karma popped.
Like a balloon.
A very red, chunky balloon.
**
Lance retched unto deadened soil, forfending the gory scene Karma had jubilantly shared. An earl-grey vault loomed overhead, tinting the realm's scarce inhabitants an unearthly pallor.
"See! I told you the Death Bunny would work," gloated Karma, leering at Anlîthëma with his arms crossed about his breast.
"Shh! That's a Celestial Overseer! Over. Seer. What if they hear you?" hissed Anlîthëma.
"What? That oaf?" snickered Karma, peering side-to-side. "Nah. I divined their main body remains in deep meditation. Monotone over here is more Overdramatic than Overseer."
"I see." Anlîthëma rolled a nod. "Could you replay your remnant's death scene again?"
"Sure! Want it in slow motion?"
"Very much; thank you."
...
"And there's my kidney—well, part of it. To think, after only 127 replays, we've spotted all 79 organs!"
"Mhm," muttered Anlîthëma, lolling in cathartic bliss.
Blegh, vomited Lance, reeling in wan sorrow.
"Did Phase II Article C succeed, by the way?" airily inquired Anlîthëma.
"You tell me," said Karma, blaring his aura.
Anlîthëma hummed. "Mm, mid-stage, not bad. You might have jumped to late-stage had the Overseer not omitted your universal clause."
"I tried, but the codger blew me up, so ..."
"Um," blustered Lance, "I'm sorry: In what world was that abasing charade cultivation? You two are fucking with me, right?"
Judging silence.
"Frederick didn't teach you?" finally replied Anlîthëma. "While this witless fool is no stranger to folly—"
"Hey!"
"—his most recent feat was nothing short of impressive, even by my standards."
"Teach me what? And, forgive me, but who are you? How do you know my father's name?"
Judging silence.
"First, cultivation past the Qi Formation realm. Second, I was your father's"—cough—"locket."
Lance blanched. Thrusting a wayward finger, he hollered, "The Absolute Exchange Locket!" He stumbled. "Huh!? But you're—wait, did you say that was standard cultivation?"
"Please refrain from mentioning my discarded Dao," Anlîthëma mumbled sourly. "Standard ... yes and no. Cultivating the Embryonic Inquisitor realm is, per its title, an inquisition unto the embryo of one's Dao.
"Such is the prerogative of the Embryonic Avatar; through expression without comes reflection within. An Avatar takes a name, and that name is a cipher. When your actions speak its name, the cipher is solved—albeit slowly.
"The louder your actions speak, like our mutual hatred's 'performance of Contradiction,' slow becomes fast and cipher becomes Dao."
**
The carrot and the stick—eternal arbiters of inspiration and deprivation.
One is the snack of champions, the quarry to all that is perfect.
Bunnies.
The other is a tale lost to epochs lost unto themselves.
Bunnies, in their divine cuteness, are beings of life. Of vitality. Of love.
There is a bunny who absconds the carrot. Some call them ... the reverse.
Those some are dead. Slaughtered for upbraiding a bunny who calls itself by name.
Death.
For Death is a bunny, and that bunny is Death.
Death does not eat carrots. Death eats life, and so its stomach, too, has a name.
A name whispered in the hushest of tongues. Darkest of nights. Hapless of piteous.
The realm between life and death. The haven between Bunny and Death Bunny. The great tract of mortality.
Purgatory.