“How does one cheat death? Can death even be cheated to begin with? What does it mean for someone to escape death? There might as well be an infinite amount of answers for all of these questions. Death takes no prisoners; it plays by the rules and expects everyone else to do the same. Yet some of us just refuse to move on, refuse to accept the inevitability that is death. Hell, some of us bastards have contingencies for death. Now, how exactly are we going to escape this mess?” Silas told himself.
He looked at his surroundings, everything around him was glossy white. This wasn’t the Abyss; this was something different entirely. James pulled a journal out of his pocket and began to skim through the pages. Nothing but contingency after contingency, and none of them were the one he wanted. James closed the journal and groaned before putting the book back in his pocket. This waiting room, this pseudo-purgatory as it were, was just another prison. Yet another way to keep the living safe from the dead, safe from him. But why, why would the living fear the dead, what threat was he to them? He was dead after all, and there was no chance of him ever returning to the land of the living.
That would be the case, unless his sister had decided to try and bring him back. Well, why wouldn’t she want him back? He was the only person that could keep her in check. James didn’t care what she did to him so long as she was happy with herself. The only thing for him to do now was to wait. Wait for his sister to bring him back from the dead. He knew that she wouldn’t be able to grasp his entire soul, no that would be impossible for someone like her. James closed his eyes and began to whistle his sister’s lullaby. She would set him free, she would bring him back, no matter the cost. That was how she worked, it was who she was, someone who couldn’t cope with death.
Back on the island Bethyinine stared at her brother’s soul. It was still faintly pulsing with light, even though his body was long gone. How long would James’s soul hold out for before it finally accepted death, an eternity, no it couldn’t possibly last another day like this, could it? Bethyinine snapped her fingers and the soul faded back into the ether. If she wanted to bring him back, she would need to go and see Luxcious. The two of them had only just met a week ago, so her visit would be rather awkward.
Bethyinine sighed, rose to her feet, and sharpened her claws. She raised one of her claws and slashed at the ocean in front of her as if trying to cleave it in half. The very fabric of reality tore at the seams as a portal opened in front of her. She could make out a door and a sidewalk cluttered in dark orange leaves. She smiled and stepped through the portal, no longer feeling the sea breeze on her face. She gazed at her surroundings, just houses and trees as far as the eye could see. All of the trees were placed within the same distance of one another. The houses, despite their clashing visual differences, blended nicely beside each other. Bethyinine approached the door to the elm wood house in front of her and knocked.
A few moments later the door opened to reveal Luxcious standing on the other side of it. He bowed and gestured for her to step inside.
”So, what brings the Apex to the house of a Scholar?” Luxcious asked.
“You know full well why I am here, do you not, Scholar?” Bethyinine replied.
“You wish to discuss with me the nature of your kind?” Luxcious answered, there was a slight twinge of confusion in his voice
”No, I do not, last time I checked you already had answers to those questions. What I am here for is more important, more urgent.” Bethyinine responded, summoning James’s soul into her hand
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Luxcious looked at her and then at James’s soul, he could see a faint light flickering inside it. The sequence was all too familiar, it was yet another example of James deciding to use Morse code. He sighed and beckoned for Bethyinine to follow him upstairs to his office.
“Would you mind handing me your brother’s soul for a moment?” Luxcious inquired as he sat down at his desk.
Bethyinine looked at all of the diagrams and notes plastered around the room. She nodded and absentmindedly handed over James’s soul to Luxcious who began to furiously write down a series of notes on a piece of paper. By the time she had finished looking at the walls he had finished writing. Luxcious looked up at his guest and handed her the piece of paper. She took it and looked at it, her face went pale white as she read the words on it.
You saved me from death once before, you can do it again. So, we shall step beyond and into the infinite, ascending together, you and I
Bethyinine understood her brother’s words, and she refused to accept his request. There were more ways than that to bring him back, she knew as much. James’s response flew in the face of everything she knew about him. There was no way that she could possibly bring him back using that type of magic, no chance whatsoever. Ascension was only to be used to strengthen an already living being. There was no way in which it could bring back the dead, not at all. Ascension, however, did not require the full soul in order to work properly.
“You have the other half of his soul do you not?” Bethyinine asked.
“Yes, just let me fetch it for you.” Luxcious answered.
He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out the other half of James’s soul. There was no light left inside of it, the once pale blue color was now extinguished completely. Bethyinine grabbed it and placed it next to her own half. The two of them merged at once to form a complete circle to the naked eye. Yet on further inspection there was a small piece missing, small enough for it to not matter in the long run. Bethyinine smiled and gestured for Luxcious to leave the room. The Scholar nodded and shut the door behind him as Bethyinine knelt on the floor. Her brother’s soul laid there in front of her, all she had to do now was fetch the body. So, she began to sing her lullaby again, this time doing so in the proper manner.
The makeshift grave back on her island began to shift as the corpse disappeared letting the sand sink down, burying the blade in the process. Bethyinine smiled and closed her eyes, letting her darkness take control. She would be unconscious during the Ascension process. Ascension was like surgery to her; she would be out for several days as the process went along. She breathed a sigh of relief as her mind began to darken and her consciousness started to dim.
Her brother’s body and soul were gone now as the process of Ascension had begun. Luxcious sat in the foyer downstairs sipping a cup of tea. He knew what she was doing, frankly it had been a long time since she had even done Ascension. The last victim, as it were, was ironically James himself. Luxcious chuckled at the situation and sat there in the foyer for a few hours. Once the sun had gone down, he went back upstairs to head to bed. He could barely open the door as Bethyinine’s body was blocking half of it. Luxcious struggled to lift her into his bed, he covered his guest with a blanket and the two of them went to sleep. Luxcious woke up the following morning only to find that his guest was still asleep. She would probably be like this for a either a few days or a couple of weeks.
Bethyinine couldn’t see or hear anything around her. She was trapped in her own mind until the Ascension process was over. The only thing she could sense was James; she could sense his soul. Though she couldn’t reach him, something prevented her from doing so. She smiled and let her darkness take control again, letting the song flood her mind. The last thing she sensed was James, she could sense him, his life returning to the world.
James saw the light around him die as the chair he sat in dissolved. The room itself began to fall apart as darkness slowly started to consume the room. His sister had done it, she had brought him back from death. Though it would take a while for him to even be in the land of the living. He screamed in pain, falling to the floor as the darkness began to drag him down into it. His consciousness slowly disappeared as he began to sink deeper and deeper into the darkness. James could just barely make out the orange light of an eternal eclipse on the horizon as the darkness claimed him.