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I emerged from my lethargic awakening, my mind slowly shaking off the remnants of a deep slumber before I could even fully register my surroundings. Through a process that I could only describe as ‘somehow’, I now found myself sitting in the midst of a distant memory. My body was resting on a pristinely polished obsidian throne crafted from the finest of volcanic glass, its smooth, dark surface reflecting the ambient light with a mesmerizing sheen. To my right was a dazzling scythe, over two meters long, planted firmly in the ground and slanted at an eastward angle.
Unsurprisingly, the body I was inhabiting right now wasn’t made of flesh and blood, but rather, bones. It was a fairly simple skeletal frame, almost similar to that of a human’s except for the floating crimson sphere locked in place at the base of my ribcage.
It wasn’t just a decoration, but rather, a seal imposed upon me since the very moment of my creation but seeing as I hardly ever needed to undo the rigid shackle, it could easily pass for just another gimmick given how this seal was the very thing imbuing my eye sockets with such an ominous red gleam.
Luckily, that orb was never on full display thanks to the dark mantle blanketing this body of mine, it was practically impervious to all forms of illumination. After removing the chalk white knuckles supporting my jaw, I examined the state of my spindly hands under the eerie glow of crimson moonlight. This body of mine felt natural yet alien at the same time; the duality of that sensation also went for the bland monotony of my surroundings that seemed to span all the way beyond the horizon’s edge.
This place was Eden and at the same time it wasn’t.
It was Limbo, an inversion of the celestial realm of Eden, and also the space created to house the souls of the damned. Simply put, it was an alternate dimension created by Akasha to serve as a storage unit for the souls that were undeserving of reincarnation. Calling it an ‘alternate dimension’ was wording it nicely, it was more like an impregnable prison that was crafted just for the sake of convenience and order.
Since the entire purpose behind the creation of this place was confinement, not much thought was given to anything else, as long as it could hold the souls of those that were deemed to be vile, just about anything would do.
Only evil spirits were ever sent to this place, the souls that were set to reincarnate or pass on weren’t confined here, they were simply reduced to small orbs of light during the day, but often times they would get lost in their subconscious behaviors from when they were alive and end up roaming about, but in that case all they needed was a bit of guidance to steer them in the right direction.
The landscape here, curiously shaped like a giant canyon, was barren and devoid of any semblances of life, this place was locked in a perpetual nighttime cycle, so the light of day had never once pierced the veil darkness shrouding the sky. Since it was an inversion of Eden, just about everything here was flipped on its head; eerie terrains were swapped for lush planes of grass, vile spirits were swapped for angelic beings...even the color of the moonlight was switched from being an azure glow to a crimson hue. The only thing that didn’t seem to be affected much by the inversion here were the beaming dots in the sky.
Considering the state of my surroundings, the sight of me sitting so pompously on a polished throne in the middle of this hellscape must have seemed like a sick joke. Regardless of the circumstances, it was still the role I'd been given so there wasn’t much to complain about; in a way, the anguished cries that often filled this place were much more soothing than the panicked stares I would have gotten in Eden.
The throne was perfectly positioned on a large, jutted rock formation to give me a clear view of crimson moon in the distance as well as the hellish landscape down below, though the only things to be seen were a few shadowy figures writhing in the dirt like worms amidst a pitch-black lake situated at the center of something that resembled an impact crater.
My role in all of this was to maintain order among the restless souls fervently seeking a way out of here, but I was just as much of a prisoner here as any of them. They were simply acting out of an unconscious desire to return to the living plane, meaning that they were sentient, but not conscious.
When a human died, their soul typically left the body to journey through the higher realms and enter Akasha’s cycle of reincarnation. However, souls with strong lingering attachments or an 'ego' could resist this natural order and anchor themselves in the human realm. While these souls could still wander Terrania, their attachments, if too strong, would necessitate regulation.
In cases like that, I was forced to descend to the lower world and subdue those souls before bringing them back to Limbo, but that wasn’t the end of it. Developing a strong ‘ego’ was the first step towards becoming an evil spirit, and any soul that crossed the line couldn’t enter the cycle of reincarnation, so they were confined here until their ‘ego’ dissipated, regardless of however long that was going to take. Depending on how malicious the ego keeping them rooted here was, after it evaporated, they would either be cleansed of their lingering desires and finally gain access to the cycle of reincarnation, or if their intentions were too malevolent, they would simply cease to exist the moment their ego faded.
A strong ‘ego’ was the catalyst required for a soul to regain its original form and it was also the key to escaping the shackles of Limbo and re-entering the living world for a brief period, but that was only if the ‘ego’ was centered on the place of death, or an ‘unfinished task’ related to the place of death since souls couldn’t move between geographic locations. Egos that were centered on individual people had a weaker connection to the outside world, so it was much harder for souls with hateful desires stemming from past transgressions to cross between worlds.
However, there was a workaround to this.
Since the souls here that shared similar egos brought about by repugnant desires such as revenge and murder had a much harder time breaking into the realm of the living even when the boundary between the two worlds was at its weakest, the only chance they had at making it back to Terrania was through a cooperative effort. That cooperative effort just so happened to be cannibalism.
For the evil spirits here with vile egos the easiest way for them to boost those desires was to simply devour the other spirits with weaker egos. It was an arduous process that spanned decades to centuries to produce any viable results, but if it was successful, the resulting amalgamation of souls containing the boosted egos of thousands of evil spirits could easily brute force its way into the realm of the living once the appointed time came.
After escaping this place, they were free to wreak havoc for about two hours until the boundary closed, at that time they would be forcefully pulled back into Limbo but until then, they would go on to devour both living humans and the wandering spirits of the world.
Such a thing hardly ever came to pass though, since I was specifically placed here to prevent them from needlessly devouring each other. Even if they weren’t completely conscious, my presence here could still inspire fear and obedience since I was the one that brought them all here.
“Mmghmm! Come on, Come onnn...” The struggling sounds of a particularly meddlesome girl echoed from a short distance behind me, without even turning around I knew exactly what she was doing right now.
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A swift snapping sound whizzed by me, signaling the end of her futile endeavor.
“Almost thereee...Finally! Phew, I came to hang out Shinigami!” She gleefully strolled around my right side with that carefree remark.
“What are you doing here, Luelle?” I asked in a daze fueled tone
“Hm? Like I said, I’m here to hang out.” Puffing out her chest in a prideful display, her blonde hair fluttered gracefully as she walked by me with an earnest grin on her face.
“Hang....out?” For some reason my mind couldn’t quite process that sentence. “You always say that, but there’s really nothing to do here you know.”
“Of course there is, I mean we could pass loads of time just talking like this – Oh! before I forget!” She spun around and leaned forward to glare at me with puffing cheeks “Can’t you make it a little easier to get in here? I almost tore my dress just now you know.” She said with a sneer of annoyance, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“That’s not my fault, this place is directly connected to Akasha so that’s who you should be asking for favors.”
“I’ll pass.....hardly anything is worth that journey.”
“Then bear with it.” I retorted, lowering my gaze to the scenery below.
“Well never mind that! Today I’ve actually got something even you might enjoy.” She completely ignored my reply just now.
“The last time you said that you brought me an evil spirit in a jar.” I replied, scanning her face as the once proud expression plastered on it began mellowing out into a visage of embarrassment.
“Pffft! T-T-That was an honest mistake! I mean, that’s what everyone else told me to get you.” She frantically replied, flailing her hands in the air as if trying to dispel that memory.
“Well? Since you’re already here at least show me what you’ve got this time.” I said, correcting my posture in the bulky throne.
“Oh right!” Clapping her hands together, she tilted her head back and pointed a finger to the sky. “The stars, let’s see if we can find any constellations.”
“Constellations? Wait, isn’t that something the humans get up to?”
“Mhm, Mhm.” She nodded in excitement like a curious child.
“I found out about it the last time I went down there – It's a good way to pass the time, besides, you’re just brooding right now.” She said with a sarcastic smirk lining her lips, before extending a hand towards me.
I accepted her gesture, though she was having anything but an easy time pulling me to my feet. In the end, the only thing she managed to do was tire herself out.
“Y-You’re...pretty heavy....” Those words stammered out between labored breaths.
“We both know you’re not physically gifted.” I replied from beside my huffing companion. “So, are we going to do it here?”
“N-No, let’s go down to that lake.” She affirmed after regaining control of her breathing. “Meet you there!”
Without even waiting for my approval, Luelle hastily leapt off the large rock formation and began flying through the moonlit skies, she wasn’t using wings or anything of the sort, it was something far more majestic than that. The evil spirits writhing below in the depths of darkness immediately started to flare up in discontent the moment they caught wind of her radiant life force.
For some reason, the girl didn’t seem to particularly mind the countless tendrils of malice that were now reaching for the skies.
“Made it!” Her elegant descent along with that bold declaration spawned cascading ripples along the lake’s surface.
“Now what?” I asked in an eager tone, her shoulders jolted in confusion as soon as my words reached her ears.
“H-How did you get here before me?” Flustered, she frantically spun her body around to try and confirm my presence with her own two eyes, that narrowing gaze was practically begging me for an answer.
“I just got here, you won.” I said flatly, giving way for her ego to inflate.
A hint of satisfaction immediately usurped her features in the wake of my response. “Of course I was going to win, after all – W-What is that!?” Just one brief glimpse at the murky waters beneath her feet was enough to send her floating in the air again. Circling our position in a whirlpool of malice were amorphous, vaguely humanoid figures with twisted features and an iridescent indigo glow.
“They’re evil spirits, I have to thin them out a bit or else they’ll start eating each other. I didn’t think it’d catch you off guard like that, you didn’t seem very upset when you were flying over them just now.”
“These things are everywhere so this place kind of dulls my senses. Since you’re keeping them trapped here, does that mean they have really strong ego’s or something?” She asked with her tilted gaze now floating in the space above me.
“Yeah, there’s only a few of them in here, but they’ve all consumed thousands of other evil spirits so it’s easy for them to escape this place. Their egos will dry up given time but until then, its best to just keep them here like this.”
For just an instant, her melodic expression loosened into something much more serious.
“.... This is a lonely path, isn’t it?” She murmured, her eyes reflecting a hint of sorrow.
“We all have our roles, you’re supposed to watch over the humans, and I’m supposed to keep these guys from getting in your way.”
The blank stare I was getting from her completely vanished as soon as her usual demeanor regained its dominance. She placed a hand to her chest as if to elaborate on the subject, before once again reigniting the mischievous gaze in her eyes that was prone to flicker on at times like these.
“I’ll have you know that quite a few of them have gotten in my way, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.” A confident smirk followed that prideful declaration.
“Of course, there aren’t many Celestials as strong as you.”
She let out an embarrassed chuckle before adjusting her posture to properly face the starlit sky.
“Anyway, let’s get started. Oh! There’s my favorite star! Look, Look, right between those two constellations.” She exclaimed in excitement, using her hand to beckon me over in a bid to share the joy.
Regretfully, I had no idea what she was even pointing at, the stars all looked the same to me.
“What are you-”
“Ohh! There’s Orion! Pegasus too and Sagittarius!”
My voice clearly wouldn’t get through to her right now but that was fine. Even as I stood atop a literal maelstrom of evil, the sight of her frantically pointing out stars amidst this crimson backdrop seemed somehow fitting. I never took notice of it before, but even the surface of this pitch-black lake could sparkle like diamonds under the moonlit veil.
“Luelle....” I called out, my voice echoed softly against the stillness of the night.
She turned to face me with peach-colored cheeks and blatant excitement on her face.
“Tell me ........the name of your favorite star” That question wasn’t warranted, but I decided to ask anyway since I’d already been dragged all the way over here.
Her lips curled up to form a half grin before she responded -
“Vesper.”