Trembling and on his knees, the ghoul gasped for breath as he retched the imaginary black goo, a disgusting taste of rot tightening around his tongue. Exhausted, he let himself fall, resting heavily on the ground until the hampering taste was a memory of a memory, forgotten and unable to be remembered. His eyes focused and he noticed the skull that lay next to him, purple light reflecting off the black bone. He remembered the screams of fury directed at the little girl, at her existence. He spit the excess saliva in his mouth to the side.

To be a ghoul, it seemed, meant to be accompanied by danger. Danger born out of fear and anger from those who were not ghouls. Danger that led to the destruction of a city, to the death of his kind. But if the little girl was the last ghoul then what was he? He didn’t know what to feel. He couldn’t feel anything, the lonesome void in his soul to big to catch anything but the loss for who he was.

As his eyes threatened to close, protecting him from the pervading sense of abandonment, white legs stepped into view. Whereas, the ghoul’s skin was incredibly pale, it contained the minuscule blemishes, unseen lines and pores that came with life. However, the person that bent to pick up the skull had none of that, only an unnatural complete even shade of white to cover the skin.

The ghoul turned on his side to look up into white eyes, the pyramid and its purple fire creating a halo around white shaggy hair.

“Come. There is no more time for memories to explain,” an outstretched hand was offered to the ghoul. An offer the ghoul immediately took. They stood together, surrounded by columns of black bone. The white figure moved to the closest one, carefully pushing the skull into it. Bones rearranged themselves to accept the little thing. A white finger caressed the skull and a slow, yet strong, melancholic voice that slightly elongated each word continued.

“Their souls are long gone now, elsewhere, reborn into a different state of being.” The pale eyes turned to the ghoul. “But I thought to remember them; make a grand tomb so I could never forget. Here I lie, a painful memory, a great failure.”

“Who are you?” the ghoul, confused, asked the only question that came to mind.

The white figure gave a tilted smiled at the question. “I feared as much.” Pillars of bone moved aside, the pyramid moved closer, the enormous purple fire loomed above them. “Come, let us make our way.”

The ghoul watched as the mysterious person began to walk up the pyramid steps, each engraved with different images, pasts trapped in the present. As the ghoul raised his leg onto the first step, the world distorted around him, his vision turned, colors pinched and spread, and his stomach twisted, feet and head trading places. A moment of chaotic turbulence and tangible lucidity. And the ghoul’s mind cleared, everything back in place, rightly encased; his leg lowered onto the ground.

A purple fire floated before him, a pillar burning downwards. The man stood to the side of the fire, staring into the flames before sitting on a simple stone chair. The little creature the ghoul had followed was snuggled underneath. Soft wailing from the fire made the ghoul flinch, stepping back onto an edge where he swayed, his body threatening to fall. Balancing himself, he turned to look at where the floor disappeared to see it replaced by the steps he meant to ascend. And the city sprawled before him, slightly visible before it was enshrouded by complete darkness.

The ghoul stood stunned, his sense of reality warped.

White void eyes turned to the ghoul, “Sorry, but I do not have enough in me to keep you completely there. Sit.” The sitting being slightly raises a free hand, a square stone easing itself out of the ground where the ghoul shambled to sit, straight and stiff.

He struggled to find his tongue and speak so he waited.

He stared at the fire, avoiding a look at the man next to him. Now that he was here, he could feel it: the grandeur of the city, the extreme pressure coming from the white man’s eyes, the enthralling energy that came from the purple fire, the fear in the men who Alison swiftly killed. All for him. Everything rang of importance and his chest tightened at the prospect of what it all meant. Who he was. He no longer yearned to know.

“I brought you here, given the opportunity, to show you what you are now. But you’ve lost your memory.” He paused before asking, “Do you not remember anything?”

“I won’t be able to visit the town that Alison and Arcadius went off to?”

The man raised his eyebrows at the question. “No, you won’t. The extermination of my family happened more than a century ago. The Reign of Light was established then and it only grew stronger since. Every being under their faith is taught to fear the sight of you. You will find few allies and even fewer friends.”

The ghoul was not surprised by the answer, remembering the execution, the mercy that evaded even the children. He sighed and peered at the brooding figure.

The ghoul tentatively licked his lips. “I have no memories before the day I awoke in that grove. That night, I fell off a cliff. There were these little—”

“Ah, yes. Quite an exciting arrival if not what we had planned for. Excellent work. I didn’t think you would be able to close a gate to the celestial space in such a short amount of time but that just proves there was no reason to doubt you. Now you can move on to the next gate, but this time try not to fall off a cliff into a batch of my dear Life’s essence. It cost me quite a bit of power to revive you and I don’t think Darfen would appreciate having to go deliver it again. Right, Darfen?”

A bark came from underneath the chair and the ghoul gaped in response.

“Nor do I think I could again?” The man silenced.

“Could what?” the ghoul asked.

“Revive you. But that doesn’t matter. From now on you can move carefully and, with the aid of allies, I’m sure you can complete your task. You’ll have to first find a way of travel but—”

“WAIT! Wait, wait wait! I don’t understand!” The ghoul stood and screamed: the flames shied away.

There was a heavy silence that settled, enough to feel on the shoulders. The ghoul stared upwards into space and rhythmically huffed. A man whose world bent to his will, who lived among slimy monstrosities, and spoke of revival as if it were common. That’s who he chose to yell at, but when he lowered his face to look upon what he felt would be certain rage, he found a solemn face that frowned into the fire.

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“At your arrival, every question should have been answered. It took so much to explain, convince, and teach you. All that preparation, we cannot repeat it here; I cannot create that amount of time. Your reason for being, you must have forgotten that as well.”

“Then tell me…what is my reason for being?”

The man stood from the chair and walked to the pillar of purple flames. He stuck a hand inside and pulled out a fistful of the dancing heat. It became light in his hands and with a swift turn of the arm, it was scattered around them.

The ghoul could feel his body become heavier, thicker, a solid that pushed against the ground. A thin veil of fog, the layer that dampens the dream and vision of the mind, which he had not noticed before, lifted and let his mind become clearer. He felt real and able to focus and an uncertainty of his surroundings blossomed as he questioned the existence of his environment. A pyramid amidst a city able to fit in a cave under a small ruin connected by a thin stone staircase that—

The man snapped his fingers and brought the ghoul’s attention back to him.

“Don’t leave me now. Not when I’m trying to explain.”

“Okay,” the ghoul responded, his eyes wide and mad with the unknown.

“This world is not one that you belong to, but you have pledged to save it.”

“What do you mean not—” The ghoul tried asking but the man only raised his voice.

“This world is one that was created after two distinct beings became one in an encounter that would break the current of eternity. This world, with its beings of life and time, is known as Anjande. Created from the celestial, it is a world that maintains form through the balance of the mundane and the energy used in its creation. Energy that flows through the land to be harnessed by its many intelligent creatures.”

“Anjande,” the ghoul whispered in awe.

“Yes, this is the world you are to save. For it is now overflowing with energy that was not part of Anjande’s creation. Gates have appeared all over the world forming a connection to the celestial space. From these gates, celestial energy seeps out into Anjande, mixing with the energy that was at its creation. If the gates are left alone, all that celestial energy will disrupt the balance of the world. That which is celestial will uproot the mundane and every living creature in Anjande will experience a world losing its form: a destruction so pervasive that there will not be a speck left to ruminate of what once was. This is the fate that you are to impede.”

The ghoul furiously nodded his head. “Yes. What is there to do? How do we close the gates? How do you tell the difference between energy and celestial energy?”

The man smiled and let out a sigh. An odd sight, the inside of his mouth as white as the outside.

“Well, the energy is known as Life’s Essence.”

The ghoul felt his heart skip a beat. He had heard him mention the word earlier.

“And you’ve already seen a gate. There are distinct white trees in the area and little pink fairies. When there is an overabundance of energy in an area, fairies with an affinity to its type of energy will materialize. The fairies of life are a distinct bright pink but don’t let that fool you. They are quite deadly and will attack with a ferociousness that is unlike any other type of fairy. The humans call them fairy groves and you will need destroy every single one of them. As to how to do it? Well, you may need to sneak into the grove and…”

“No.” The ghoul lamented. The hypnotic sense of grandeur he had felt at the thought of being a hero had already faded along with the exciting heat that had been rising in his cheeks. He could not forget the night he had awoken. The pink fairies, the mist they sprayed, the way his skin fell away like sand. It was not something that he could imagine going through again. Not twice and surely not several. He lifted his eyes away from his feet just in time to catch the beginning of the man’s frown.

“No? No, what?”

“I will not help you close your gates. I will never get close to a, a fairy grove ever again. Thank you for describing to me what they look like. I’ll never have to experience my face falling off ever again.”

The man seemed to wilt with every word he said. A hunch with a frown turned to look at Darfen under the chair.

“It seems I was not told everything. I believed you had arrived, destroyed the grove, and, in your foolish celebratory dance in the dark, fallen off a cliff.”

Darfen whimpered in response and the man continued.

“But you must understand. It is the world at stake. It is a promise you made. You are prepared for it. The body you have is strong enough for it.”

“I can’t.”

Such a simple response but one that made the pale man slump against his chair, a silent empty stare given to the flames.

The ghoul stood there silently while the man brooded over the flames. There was nothing more to be said. The man had explained the dire objective and the ghoul had made his unwillingness to help clear. So now they could only sit in silence as they wondered what the other was thinking. The man wondered if there was enough power left in him to forcibly inhabit the body of the ghoul, but he relented as he knew it would end him if he tried. And the ghoul wondered how much longer he would have to sit before he could go back to the ruin above, but he felt that it was up to him to come up with a solution for the man. The silence grew and grew until neither could ignore each other’s presence. And it may have been out of shame that the ghoul decided to speak and end the silence between them. A decision that would spark his journey through Anjande.

“You mentioned my promise; you know who I am. Tell me, how can I exist when all the ghouls have been exterminated? How do you know me? Why…why am I here?” He stood, strengthened his resolve, and stared into the white eyes. “Who am I?”

“Just a wandering soul chosen to save Anjande.”

“No! Not what am I—who am I? At least, please, tell me that…I have so many questions, but they are all unimportant in comparison to me. I know nothing about myself! Please!”

And it was then that the pale man smiled.

“I imagine I know why your memories were erased. In the process of placing your soul into your current body, we were duped, and it was still cleansed to a point. Just enough to keep your past from interrupting this world to a higher degree that what it already would be. But no such cleansing can be done upon me.”

He pushed a finger into his ear and closed his eyes.

With each tug, the ghoul’s vision distorts, the floor beneath him and the purple flame losing lines of color. The man keeps softly tugging at his ear, everything but the man gone from the ghoul’s vision. It is then that the man finally pulls his finger free from the ear, a trail of silver and gold dust fluttering behind. It collects in his hand; the silver particles wrap around the golden until a clear ball holding gold rolls in his palm. He extends a finger downward where the ball travels to hang at the end as a heavy droplet; a droplet of silver encasing golden flecks swirling at the center.

The man smiled.

“You did not fail to talk profusely about yourself. Every memory I have of our interactions is here, in this little droplet of my self.”

The ghoul extended a hand toward the droplet and grew rigid when the pale man drew back his finger to enclose the droplet in a fist. He didn’t need memories to know this feeling: expectation.

“I can give you my memories. But I need you to keep your promise. Then you can have my memories as your own.”

He was so close. To his actual identity. To who he was before all of this. But it was in the hands of a supreme being who asked of him the task of saving a world.

“How can I trust you?”

The man, who was covered in an even shade of white, without the blemishes and shadows of humanity, only smiled in return.

The scene before the ghoul is now a warp of moving colors, pure liquids that move into each other: black and white. Still they speak.

“You don’t expect me to carry out your will without a name. At least give me that.”

“Then carry my name. Take it for yourself: Dane.”

The colors have disappeared, any proof of substance gone with them. Only a pure empty darkness remained. Nothing.

But from the innards of the abyss the ghoul’s pale hand extends out to grab the face of Dane by the jaw. Half the ghoul’s face is seen as it glares outward, from nothingness to nothingness.

“No! If you want me to help you, you will give me my name! My name!”

The space shakes turbulent with the power the ghoul used to force his way back. Dane puts a finger to half the forehead the ghoul has pushing out.

“It is Kiboden, the last of it.”

And with a push of a finger, Kiboden feels himself being pushed back into reality.