“Anten.”
“This has to work… it has to work this time… come on…”
“Anten.”
“Am I doing something wrong? What do I have to do? How—”
“Anten!”
“What?!”
Anten, who had been busy focusing on the Particle, lifted her head up and glared at the devil who was calling her name out.
She was incredibly tired from all the effort she had been putting into her task, but she was still frustrated enough to snap back at him and put on a menacing air that could frighten a small child.
She had been incredibly snippy at him the past few days whenever he had tried to get her attention, and she had made it very clear that until she had successfully revived all the villagers, she would not be entertaining any other requests from him.
This time however, there was something different.
“So, this is an angel? That is certainly interesting.”
Beside him stood a tall lady with an even taller backpack, looking at her with equal parts amusement and curiosity. He looked away awkwardly as she stepped forward eagerly, introducing herself while stretching her hand out towards her.
“Good day to you, angel. My name is Kara. I’m a doctor by profession, but you don’t have to call me Doctor or anything, ue he he. I haven’t been doing much doctor stuff nowadays anyway, more tinkering and creating new things, so there’s really no need to treat me as a doctor. I take it you’re Miss Anten, right? Your male friend over there told me that was your name. I’m sorry if I’m rambling, I tend to do that a lot, ue he he.”
Thoroughly confused and overwhelmed by all the information dumped onto her at once, she cracked out an awkward smile and shook her outstretched hand before looking at him.
“Who is this?”
“I thought you would know,” he turned his head back towards her and replied, “she seems to know quite a bit about this village, so I thought you might have heard of her from the other villagers.”
“No, I haven’t heard anything.”
“Aw man!” the lady who called herself Kara sulked in response, crossing her arms, stomping her feet, and huffing dramatically, “and here I thought I would be welcomed back with hugs and smiles. What a letdown!”
Seeing her throw such an immature tantrum made the two of them look away, feeling strangely guilty that they did not know her, even though they barely had any say in the matter.
“Still...”
Suddenly, she switched her tone, and she went from friendly to serious as she looked around the shelter, where the villagers’ bodies lay, still unmoving and lifeless. Her face was a mix of anger and sadness, and she spoke slowly, stressing her words out with meaning.
“It’s a shame. Dauma told me what happened here, with the Particle or whatever you’re calling it. If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know. I do have an attachment to this village after all, and I would do anything to save lives. If you have a plan, I would gladly share any information if it could help.”
“Hold on a second.”
Anten raised her hand to stop the speech.
“Hmm?”
“Who’s… Dauma?”
“Oh,” she casually remarked, her tone instantly switching back to friendly while she scratched her head and pointed at the devil next to her, “your devil friend? That’s the name I gave him. Don’t want to call him devil the whole time, you know?”
“Really?”
The devil now known as Dauma looked away again, unwilling to meet her gaze as she questioned him.
“It’s… a long story.”
**********************
“What… did you say?”
“Huh? I said, maybe we can talk about what happened to this village.”
He immediately took a few steps back, activating his sword and pointing it at her.
“Whoa there,” she responded, seemingly unfazed by the weapon, “I don’t mean any harm.”
“Are you sure?”
“Listen.”
She started to walk forward towards his sword, and he quickly swung it away, surprised at her sudden action as she began to explain herself.
“I’m just as surprised as anyone about what happened here. Well, except for whoever or whatever caused this. If I had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t have had to introduce myself to you, I would have just attacked you instead. And trust me, even if you’re… whatever you are, you wouldn’t want to know what I have on me.”
She was now standing right in front of him again, and he swung his sword down, pausing just before her neck.
This lady was certainly something else. There was something off about her, and if anything, it made her ominous threat sound genuine, and he did not want to think about that possibility.
Right on cue, she tilted her head towards his sword and gave a mischievous smirk. It was almost as if she was encouraging him to finish his attack and end her life.
His hand shook as she just continued staring at him, unmoving and unblinking.
Ah, damn it!
After a few tense seconds, he put the sword down and sighed.
“Alright, you win, lady. What do you want to know?”
“Ok. What exactly are you?”
Right as he finished his question, she immediately asked hers, and with a completely unexpected one to boot.
“Erm,” he mumbled as he struggled to come up with a reply, “I… don’t know exactly what I am. The other people call me a devil though, so I believe that’s what I am.”
“Huh, interesting. Makes sense, you do look like a devil. Got that real devilish look on you and everything.”
She reached out and tried to grab his face, but he instinctively ducked out of the way. With her action rendered futile, she pouted.
“Hmph. Well, I guess just visual confirmation is fine. I am curious about something though, but I guess I’ll wait until you’ve told me your story first.”
“The whole thing?”
“Yes,” she insisted, her eyes brimming with anticipation.
“Fine.”
**********************
“Wait, so you told her everything?” Anten asked, abruptly stopping the recollection.
“Uhh…” Dauma paused, unsure of how to respond.
“Not all of it,” Kara answered for him, “he only told me what I wanted to know. Your name and what you guys did for the village. I’m not going to ask about who you guys are and why you are here, yet. As I always believe, I’m always curious, but as you know, curiosity killed the cat.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you came up with the name Dauma.”
“It’s simple,” she replied, “your name is Anten, right? It isn’t hard to figure out how the villagers came up with that name for you. ‘An’ from ‘Angel’, ‘Ten’ from ‘Tenshi’. Kind of crude, but if that’s the case, then I came up with ‘Dauma’ for the lovely devil. You can probably figure out how I came up with that one on your own, ue he he.”
Finishing her explanation, she promptly turned to face Dauma.
“That reminds me. I forgot to ask earlier. You told me your story, and it was interesting, to say the least. However, that brings up a very important question.”
The two of them watched as her hands shot up to her head and mimicked the horns he had, while she gazed at him inquisitively.
“You say you’re a devil. You control fire like a devil. And yet… based on what I have heard, you haven’t really done anything particularly devilish yet. So then, what makes you a devil?”
Silence. Her question hung in the air for a few minutes. He had no idea how to respond. He turned to face Anten, but even she shrugged.
The one question they had not considered, the one doubt that didn’t concern them, was now out of the box.
“…”
Eventually, Anten broke the silence.
“He’s a devil because he was chosen to be that. That’s all.”
The reply came soon after.
“Who decided it?”
“Him.”
“Who’s him?”
“God.”
Much like what Dauma had done, Kara laughed at the answer, but this time it wasn’t a dry, sarcastic laugh like his was. She had thrown her head back, and she began to laugh loudly.
“So, let me get this straight,” she replied in bursts as she continued laughing, “you consider him a devil… based on some guy’s choice, even though he doesn’t act like one? You mean to tell me… that it’s all based on some whim? That doesn’t sound very… logical at all.”
“Hey!” Anten angrily snapped back at her. It seemed like she had crossed a line, as he noticed that she was visibly getting more frustrated as she listened to her laughter.
“Listen. I don’t care how friendly you were with the villagers before we came here. I also don’t care who you are. But I warn you, do not joke about him. I trust what he says, and I don’t have time for your ridicule or insults. If you aren’t going to help us, you can just go.”
Seeing her incredibly annoyed expression, Dauma stepped forward between the two of them to try and mediate the situation.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Alright, alright. We’re getting off on the wrong foot here, so I think it would be best to start over from the beginning, ok?”
“She seems more like a devil than you, honestly.”
“Regardless,” he interrupted Kara’s snarky whisper and continued, “if there’s anything you could share with us, Kara, please let us know.”
Both of them went quiet. Anten glared at him momentarily before calming down, even though she still crossed her arms and refused to look at Kara.
“I’m sorry. I was having fun, but whatever,” Kara responded, shrugging as her crafty smile slowly disappeared, and she became serious again, “onto the more serious stuff then. Is it possible that you can show me the Particle you two have obtained?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea…”
“Relax, I remembered what you told me. Don’t worry, as long as I see it a bit more closely, I can offer my insight.”
“Here goes then.”
Anten slowly lifted her balled-up hand from the villager’s lifeless body and opened it. The ghoulish green light filled up the room again, illuminating Kara’s eyes as she stared intently at the glowing orb.
“Fascinating…”
She seemed to be incredibly mesmerized by it, so much so that she began to subconsciously walk towards it, her eyes still fixated and unmoving, her hands slowly reaching out to touch it.
“Right, I think that’s enough.”
As she continued to walk dangerously closer to it, Anten quickly closed her hand again, and the light left her eyes. Just like that, she stopped, the trance-like state vanishing.
“I think… this is still quite dangerous, especially for normal humans,” Anten cautioned as she covered the Particle with a nearby piece of clothing from one of the villagers and hid it behind her.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Kara cleared her throat and replied, “but I think I have a clearer idea of what it is, and what I believe it can do.”
“You do?”
“Maybe,” she emphasized, “I still don’t have the full picture yet, but I do have a theory. This theory, perhaps, could save the villagers if I can act on it.”
“…really? What is it?”
For the first time, Anten’s tired eyes lit up with hope as she considered the possibility.
“Calm yourself, Miss An.”
She reached behind to grab her large backpack and set it down on the floor of the shelter, where it landed with a loud bang. Zipping it open to reveal multiple much smaller but incredibly deep compartments, she rummaged through one of them.
After a while, she pulled out something large from it, and as she showed it to Anten and Dauma, they were confused by whatever it was.
The best way to describe it was a container, coated with thick glass on all four of its sides, and looking almost similar to the one the village attacker had used earlier, while a jumble of tubes of various sizes and lengths covered its sides. It almost looked like some small alien spaceship of some kind.
“I call it the Energy Extractor. Gives a lot of energy depending on what you put inside it.”
“Ok, and how does this correlate to us saving the villagers?” Anten impatiently cut in.
“Like I said, calm yourself, I’m not done yet.”
Tucking the strange Energy Extractor machine under her arm for the time being, she pointed to the Particle that Anten was holding behind her back.
“You see, you talk about these things being Particles, am I right? That means that they can most likely gather a lot of energy from various sources, and in this case, from what you’ve told me, I believe the energy is… the souls of the villagers, so I would call it some kind of Soul Particle,” she explained while shooting a long look at the lifeless bodies Anten was standing next to.
“However,” she continued as she started to pace back and forth, her finger wagging in the air, “all atomic particles will transfer their energy out onto other particles, creating a neat system. So, I believe this Particle follows the same principle. Otherwise, if it gathers too much energy… I don’t know what exactly will happen to it.”
“So, you’re saying it needs more souls, to make it release the excess out and hopefully that could fix the situation? How do you know that?”
“Just a hunch, ue he he.” she shrugged and remarked, adding in her corny laugh at the end.
What the hell…
It sounded like a casual response at first, but as soon as Dauma heard it, he felt a chill go down his spine. The same feeling he had felt when she had walked up to him, mere inches away from being cut by a sword.
A sense of superiority. The air of amusement. It was as if everything was all just a game to her.
What is she?
“There’s one problem with your plan though,” Anten argued, interrupting his thoughts, “Gathering souls requires more people, and that cannot happen. Not on my watch.”
“Tsk tsk tsk,” she shook her head and tutted, “humans are not the only places where you could gather souls, you know. There are other means we can use.”
“Like what?”
“Why don’t we step outside for a bit, and I’ll show you?”
**********************
After walking a short distance away from the north end of the village and into the wastelands once again, Kara stopped and pointed ahead at something in the distance.
“There.”
Following her direction, Dauma and Anten both looked at the thing she was pointing at.
“…what is that?”
They couldn’t seem to make it out at first, although the longer they stared at it, and the clearer it became, they realized that that vagueness was more accurate than either of them had expected.
Firstly, it was not one thing. There were quite a few of them, approximately nine or ten, all standing in various different places but still somewhat huddled together, like a packed crowd that had been dispersed but still stuck around, separated individually from each other.
Secondly, their features were not just covered or too far to make out. There was nothing about them that stood out at all.
The only thing that prevented them from being invisible at all were their vaguely human shapes that emitted a slight white glow. Based on that, it seemed like nighttime was really the only way one could see these faint figures clearly, as the bright day would essentially make them too hard to make out from the surroundings.
Lastly, they all stood still in the same place, even after they were noticed. They were silent and unmoving. They were just there, in the middle of nothing.
One could probably be forgiven if they thought that these things were perhaps just an illusion, a mirage caused by the extreme weather and desolate landscape.
One could even posit the theory that they were something supernatural, like ghosts or spirits, lost in the wastelands forever.
“That, or I should say those,” Kara answered as she fiddled around with the Energy Extractor tubes in her hands, “are people. Well, what used to be people. I think it would be more accurate if I said those are remnants from The End. Hollow shells. Wandering souls. Something that should not exist. I call them The Lost.”
Without moving her gaze away from the strange idle beings, Anten asked more questions.
“I don’t recall seeing them before. How is… this happening? Why are they here?”
“Well, I have you to thank for that, Miss An.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t exactly know why, but these Lost are attracted to things emitting high amounts of energy in their immediate vicinity. The higher the energy, the further these things can sense it.”
Pointing at herself and Anten, she continued.
“For example, a human being like me emits a small amount of energy. That means that, unless I am very close to them or I am carrying around something emitting high energy, like a few metres, they won’t notice me at all. However, you, on the other hand, can emit high amounts of energy as I have seen just now. Dauma told me that you have been using all your energy for the past few days, is that correct? In that case, those continuous energy discharges have attracted the Lost here close to your village. If you had continued, I’m sure they would have located you guys, and that would not be good.”
“Why would that not be good?” Dauma asked.
“The same reason we are here and not over there where they are. Picture a swarm of bees or piranhas who have just located their target, and you get the idea.”
“But we are different. How do we know for sure that they would affect us?” Anten retorted.
“That is true. In fact, I do believe that you two might be able to destroy them. Unfortunately, for the plan to work, we need to capture them alive, not destroy them.”
After seemingly making a few adjustments and taking out a few tubes from the Energy Extractor, she promptly handed it over to Dauma.
“Here’s what we need to do. Either you or Miss An has to discharge a large amount of energy at once to lure them over here. Once the Extractor is placed down and all set up, and the Soul Particle is placed inside the receptacle, all we need to do is absorb them into it, and hopefully this should overload the Particle enough that it can release all the trapped souls inside.”
“And you’re sure this will work?”
“Not at all!” she instantly replied with glee, “but I do trust in myself, and I trust in the miracles that science will provide all of us with, ue he he!”
Yeah, that doesn’t inspire confidence at all.
He looked at Anten, who was also skeptical of the whole affair, but after a few moments of silent contemplation, she sighed and reluctantly brought out the Particle.
“I guess we have no other choice anyway,” she admitted, and Kara immediately reacted joyfully.
“Splendid! Now, before I leave—”
“What?”
“—well, I can’t afford being too close to them after all. I will leave behind one of my flybots to assist, but I will be far away. Anyway, as I was saying, before I leave, I should warn you guys that while the Lost may look like statues now, they can move very, very fast, so you two have to move fast as well. Just follow my instructions in activating the Extractor and everything should be good!”
“…alright then.”
“Then, let us begin!”
**********************
True to her word, as soon as she had divulged how to set up the Energy Extractor, she put on her goggles, immediately turned, and walked back towards the village as quickly as possible while giving them two thumbs-up.
“Good luck, you guys!” she shouted as she quickly became just a small figure, although she stopped just far enough away to not completely disappear from their view.
The ‘flybot’ that she had mentioned was one of the robots that Dauma had tried to catch earlier, and it was now flitting up and down excitedly, eager to begin the experiment.
When she was clearly out of earshot, Anten turned and faced Dauma, her face in an equal state of confusion and slight frustration.
“I still don’t trust her,” she whispered to him, her hand shielding her voice from the bot.
“Well, you said it yourself,” he whispered back, “we have no other choice. Besides, I don’t think there’s any harm in trying this.”
“Do you think she’s lying?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you guys gossiping about, huh?”
Suddenly, the flybot flew in front of their faces, with Kara’s curious voice loudly blasting out of its mouthpiece.
“Nothing,” Anten quickly deflected the question before turning back to the Extractor and squatting down, her eyes shifting away from the flybot which was buzzing in circles around them, “come on, let’s start the thing already.”
“Mhm,” Dauma nodded as he finished his preparations.
The plan was simple enough.
“I mentioned before that the Lost are attracted to high energy sources, right? All we need to do is provide them with one,” Kara had explained.
“So, you want me to be the bait and lure them to the Extractor?”
This was slowly sounding very familiar to the plan they had to fight the crab-beast, but she shook her head, dispelling the idea.
“Not needed, my dear devil. All that is needed would be something like that sword of fire you made when I first met you. I believe that you can use something similar to attract them. Kind of like a flare, or signal fire, though in this case, it might be more literal than metaphorical, ue he he,” she concluded, adding in a cheeky wink at her own ‘clever’ joke.
“Yeah, I think we got the idea.”
“Splendid! I’ll be rooting for you!”
…I just hope this works.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated. In no time at all, flames engulfed his hands. Standing absolutely still, he moved his left leg backwards, wound up his arm from behind him, and with a fierce step forward, he threw a ball of fire up into the sky right above him and Anten.
“…”
The fireball soared up into the sky, lighting both them and the night sky up, making them become easily visible for miles.
“…”
The Lost, who had all been idly standing by, reacted all at once.
They had noticed the high source of energy in the sky, and even though they could not reach it, they could sense where it came from, and they made their move.
They ran quickly and silently, their body shapes remaining static as though they were gliding along the sand. In just a few seconds, they had almost closed the gap between themselves and him.
“For god’s sake!”
Suddenly realizing that she did not have as much time as she thought, Anten moved in front of him, raised the Energy Extractor with the Soul Particle neatly inserted up to her waist, and held one of the tubes that was attached to it towards the approaching Lost, bracing for the inevitable impact.
“…”
They had now noticed the two of them, the beings with surprisingly high amounts of energy, but most importantly, there was something else they had sensed, something incredibly powerful that was near those sources of energy, and they set their sights on it, with all of them quickly converging towards the Extractor, eager to get a ‘taste’ of that mysterious energy.
“Here goes nothing…”
As soon as the first one approached the opening of the tube, she flicked a switch on the receptacle, and the Extractor roared to life.
One by one, they all began to get sucked into the machine, with the sudden recoil of the activation pushing her back a little.
“…”
Even as they were pulled in by the tube, and their bodies disappeared, the Lost remained silent to the end.
“Is it… working?” Dauma shouted over the din of the Extractor.
“I think… so!” she shouted back as she fought to keep the machine steady while it slowly sucked in more Lost.
Indeed, it did seem like it was all going well.
All of them watched as the number of Lost running towards them were getting smaller and smaller, the Extractor was rumbling along with no issues, and above everything else, the Soul Particle was glowing brighter and brighter as it absorbed all the new souls entering the receptacle.
“Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.”
However, after the sixth Lost had been sucked in, the Extractor began to emit a strange buzzing sound that grew louder with each passing second, and the Particle glowed brighter than what the two of them had ever seen before.
“…oh dear,” the flybot flew down to Anten’s ear and whispered with slight urgency, “I have never seen this happen before.”
“What are you… saying?”
“I don’t know what will happen now. The Extractor might explode.”
“Oh, for god’s sake!”
Despite the warning, Anten still persisted, even as the buzzing grew deafeningly loud, and the receptacle began to swell ominously, as though it was filling up with gas.
“Anten…”
Dauma stepped closer to her.
“Don’t worry! I’ll handle th—”
“BOOM!!!!!”
Before she could finish her sentence, the Extractor exploded.
Caught in the blast radius, the flybot was destroyed instantly, the Lost who had not been absorbed yet were overwhelmed by the sudden burst of energy and were blown apart, while she and Dauma were sent flying backwards along with chunks of metal and tubing.
Without thinking twice, Anten used her wings to slow her fall, although having not had enough time before impact, she still hit the ground hard.
Meanwhile, Dauma, who had been falling out of the air for an annoying number of times already, reacted by twisting his body quickly, causing him to land on his hands rather than his back in an attempt to lessen the impact, but he still ended up landing on his face as his arms buckled under the force, resulting in his mouth being filled with sand.
“Gack! Cough, cough!”
As he desperately cleared his mouth of sand, he could hear two things getting louder and louder.
The first was the approaching footsteps. Having had her flybot destroyed, Kara was running towards them to try and figure out what had just happened.
The second was a noise coming from something above them. It was a pulsating noise, shifting in intensity and volume.
As he turned his head to look, he noticed it.
The sound was coming from the Soul Particle. Having been freed from the receptacle in the explosion, it was floating in the air without support, bobbing up and down and glowing strongly, as though it was a miniature star or sun, all while it emitted the strange noises.
He slowly got to his feet, eyes fixed on the strange occurrence. Close to him, Anten had also recovered and was staring at it as well. Kara’s footsteps slowed as she abruptly stopped behind them.
The three of them watched silently as the Particle let out a sudden flash of light, then another, then another. With each burst, a vague human-like shape was materializing around it. It looked like a Lost at first, but as it continued, the shape grew clearer and more focused, and they could see more details.
Could this really be…
As the colors of the humanoid being slowly faded in, the Particle glowed less bright. It eventually went completely dim, causing both it and the being to fall to the ground.
However, instead of landing strongly and painfully, the being floated down and landed softly, as though they weighed no more than a feather. True to that fact, there did not even seem to be any change to the ground that bore the impact.
Following their ‘landing’, the being immediately began to look around in a panic. They did not say anything at all, despite their sudden and bizarre appearance.
As they slowly stood up, with their features slowly settling into permanence, their full details could now be clearly seen.
They looked like a girl. She had shoulder-length black hair, with her surprisingly long bangs covering her sharp brown eyes. She wore a white robe with a high adjusted scarlet skirt and white socks with no shoes.
Her entire body seemed to be slightly transparent, giving her an ethereal feel, or perhaps more accurately, a supernatural one. To round it off, the Soul Particle was buried in the middle of her chest, glowing faintly.
“…”
As her quickly shifting eyes settled on the three people staring at her, she still did not say anything, and neither did them.
“…”
Eventually, Kara broke the long silence with a loud and smug declaration.
“I do have to say, science has triumphed once again!”