Soul

Shai
He had been traveling. It wasn’t for long, but it hadn’t been very short either. He left his

hometown at some point. He left because there was nothing left for him to see. The stone

walls that surrounded those thatch houses and fiery anvils constricted his throat and left

very little room to breathe. It was enough for a short time, but it wasn’t enough for a long

time. The last thing he remembered was looking back at the damnable ‘mansion’ he had

been conceived in. The oriental stone walls smiled back at him in wicked contortions that

seemed to beckon his gaze.

In his old home, he had a mirror. His family had owned the thing since the creation

of the village; in truth, it was the artifact that the village had based itself upon. It was a

mirror of lies, truths, whatever you would like to call them. He often remembered the

stories his family had told him about how people used to fight over the possession of the

mirror, but eventually, they were always able to get it back. He didn’t quite understand

why so many people chose to fight over something that would tell them the future. His

family knew better than to believe the mirror - for every truth that had been told there

was madness that followed. It was foul, it was malevolent, and yet so many fell to its

demise. That was in the past when the family had given access to the public. He had been

told plenty of times by his family that no one would be granted access to the mirror, and

as a child, he believed this. He decided that knowing such things would bring nothing but

pain and suffering. He was afraid of the future, let alone wanting to know it.

It was when he met his teenage years that he became curious: he began to want to

know more. There had to be something to everyone believing in this gospel of a thing that

he had kept in his basement. The library of the village had several books documenting the

occult, but the archives on the history of the mirror were all gone. Should he had

confronted his parents, the whole ordeal would’ve been revealed to him a lot sooner than

discovering those secret affairs.

 When they told him that no one was allowed to use it they were only partially telling

the truth. No one was allowed to use it without a gift of ‘charity’. Whether that be

monetary values or the promise of different things pertaining to the occult, only then

were they able to use the mirror. He had been coming home from the library a bit late at

night when he saw the shrouded figures walking into the vault where the mirror was kept.

He didn’t know any of them, however, one of them did know him. They took off their hood

and moved towards him to offer an explanation. He stood still in panic. The explanation

was lackluster but, his father had thought him a fool. He knew the truth The mirror was

being abused; it’s existence as a cursed artifact was being used to exploit those with the

power and know-how for the family’s benefit. He was appalled, but he couldn’t bring

himself to be angered enough to leave.

The years went by and curiosity crept into his consciousness. It was like a voice that

whispered in his ears at night, crept around the shadows of every corner and on the cusp

of dialogue he shared between persons. He was too curious for his own future. The

conclusion came when he opened the vault himself. It wasn’t a difficult task to open. The

only requirement was a sacrifice of hereditary blood to get into, something that he was

graced with on birth. The stairwell into the bottomless pit was endless and ornate to the

point of appearing strangely demonic. It was carved into the side of the walls too. The

pattern could only be described as depictions of insanity and strangely personal horror.

The stairs went further and further down. It was grossly understated how deep the stairs

looked but the mirror was eventually in front of him. It made more sense that the mirror

would only be covered by a cloth if indeed was used as often as he believed. The meetings

with strange travelers occurred more and more as the word of access to the mirror was

spread like a dye in water. He had never seen the mirror, only depictions of its black and

twisted contours that surrounded the reflective center. He approached it more and more

with caution, fearing for the worse as he got closer. He questioned why he was doing this,

the voices in his head had gotten to the point of undeniable screams. He needed this.
 As the cover was removed the mirror rippled and changed to the likes of a

normal mirror. It was simplistic, but the aura was not. A convoluted mess of time and age

surrounded it, and eventually, the world melted around him. The glass broke open, and

black evil poured out. His vision faded.

He had been traveling. It wasn’t for long, but it hadn’t been very short either. He left

because there was nothing else for him left to see. The stone walls that surrounded those

thatch houses and fiery anvils were constricted his throat and left very little room to

breathe. It was enough for a short time, but it wasn’t enough for a long time. The last thing

he remembered was looking back at the damnable ‘mansion’ he had been conceived in.

The oriental stone walls smiled back him in wicked contortions that seemed to beckon his

gaze. Then nothing. The mirror moved him back into the world of his own. The voices in

his head had stopped. The screams became silent and the room’s aura changed. The

mirror broke.
Maria
The things you keep closest to you generally fall under a couple of categories for the

general public. You see, there are the things you love, the things you desire, the things you

need, and then the stupid things. Maria was one of the things I loved and needed. Her

golden blonde hair and fawn skin was something that I could not ever get tired of. Her

brown eyes blended in and made for the perfect recipe of a human being; one that I could

get lost indefinitely in. I told Maria I loved her; it was one of the last things I had told her.

Then that man came.

It was a long day spent in the sands of Retia. The town was nothing to be excited

about: it was simple. It had the feel of a place that sprung up out of accident rather than

intent. The majority of the content in the town had been the bar that I was in and the

mercantile district that had grown quite large due to its position on one of the larger trade

routes. I and the strange fellows I had picked up in that harbor town of Triscan only a

couple miles south of these ruins were expecting to be met by older threats; not that man.

They called him the Demon King. It was a fitting name for all the people had sent down

into The Abyss. Rumors had it that the two flintlocks he kept strapped to his chest were a

curse, and that’s why he was where he was then. He lead a group of modest warriors that

followed his blind command in hopes of not being turned into a lifeless body like my wife.

I knew the name - rather - I knew of him. He had grown up in one of the poorer cities

in the Kingdom of Yytria and had received those pistols from his father. The start of his

spree began sporadically. When money was needed; people went missing. Eventually, the

lines connected him into the mess and his identity became important. Poor as the city

may have been - he certainly wasn’t by the end of it. He claimed it as his home. Something

had compelled him to burn the city, something that, ironically, I knew about. The city was

built upon a temple. It turned out that the Demon King was in on the same business I was:

treasure hunting.
 My crew and I didn’t expect him to be following us; looking back on it, I should’ve

known why there were so many strange interactions. The Demon King had been waiting

for us. The sunlit interior of that sandstone tavern with mosaic windows completed the

treachery of the situation. She had been sitting next to me and the shots rang off. Just a

point and crack - I heard the footsteps of my crew coming into the tavern as she was

blown into me. The bullets that he fired weren’t anything mundane, they were cursed.

They rang out and hit with deadly precision but left a foul smell of sulfur as they

developed signature flame. I saw her grow pale and then her midsection ignite. I dropped

down just fast enough to avoid his next shot and tuckered away under a nearby table. I

presumed the bartender to be dead, though I refused to believe my wife had been killed.

The blazing corpse that lay against the sanded counter wasn’t his wife. He had to believe

that for the next couple of moments.

The laughter of the Demon King came and went much as he did. It was a second of

terror and then just the waste. I ran beyond the counter of the bar and got a bucket of

water to douse my wife with. Luckily it was enough for me to see her disfigured body. Her

brown eyes had grown dry and that fawn skin had become charred. I looked towards the

door to find my crew member pinned against the sandstone wall via spear. I had lost

everything.
Step
I had not eaten for days nor had I drank any water. I was under the impression that I had to die to

experience the sensation of nothing but I had been walking upon my feet with it for months. I was

finally here, the place that I had read about in cursed tomes and extorted from old men. It was

within reach. The old room was surrounded by porous stone that was probably formed by some

ugly igneous eruptions years far gone. The entrance was encapsulated by the world of corruption

that had seeped in from the portal but I had a way in. From my hands, I muttered but a few words

and the cracking began to whiz through my fingertips. With a flick of my wrist and conclusion to

my words, the tainted stone had broken. It was evaporated by the broken zig-zags of lightning

that extended out of the tips of my fingers and reverberated around the cavern walls. The peacock

colored portal blared white noise that echoed throughout the treacherous place and had almost

put me unconscious to sound alone. I stepped through the portal without fear.

The least of my concerns at this point was my wellbeing. The other side was exactly what I

had wanted. There was a static charge in the air that breathed some sort of life into me. It was the

place of pure neutrality and a pause to the chaos around me. The swirl of floating masses and

smogs of toxic clouds warped around my person. I breathed a long inhale and found myself

sputtering to the delight of the world around me. I had finally arrived in Limbo.

I began my stroll along the plane’s traveling masses and awaiting a course of direction. I was

here for a phylactery. Not one of my own, but someone’s to steal. In order to get back at the man

that had caused me so much trouble, I went out on this journey. The face of the stupid man has

kept me going this whole way and finally, I was so close. As much as they would like to say I am, I

am not. What you are reading is not of an evil man - I am a product of my environment, and there

is nothing that is inherently evil. There was nothing that was going to stop me: nothing at all. The

gray world revolved around me now, and I had to make that known. The first settlement appeared

within the next couple of miles and I was greeted by dreadful looking guards to whom of which I

opened my bracelet to and evaporated them. They disintegrated and so I made my way to the

tavern. The smell of fear was something that I had missed.

Pity
“Help me, please!”

“I am stuck.”

“There’s this thing that keeps coming after me.”

“It’s giant and green with a disgusting smell that won’t go away.”

“It has the eyes of a demon and the hunger of a vampire!”

“I beg of you, please, it has to be stopped!”

The man in front of her began to change shape. His skin grew scales and

porous as a foul smell trickled out from him. His eyes began to twist and change from

hazel blue to a feverish yellow with reptilian irises. His once small and frail body began to

enlarge and fill the space of a small wagon. It began to gain sentience as it’s hand

grabbed at something that had fallen off of its body. The beast scratched at the stopwatch

and then -

“Help me, please!”

“I am stuck.”

“There’s this thing that keeps coming after me.”

“It’s giant and green with a disgusting smell that won’t go away.”

“It has the eyes of a demon and the hunger of a vampire!”

“I beg of you, please, it has to be stopped!”

She ran away.

Going Forward
I slept quite well last night.

It was a nice night.

There were the chimes and the smell of delightful fires.

The giggles of friendly folk could be heard on the other side of my thin bedroom

walls on the street below.

They didn’t bother me.

I slept quite well today.

It was a nice night.

There were no chimes and no smell of delightful fires.

The giggles of friendly folk were gone and now all I could hear on the other side of

my thin bedroom walls were crickets on the street below.

We were blessed by that strange shadow.

It came with our pleads for help.

The unnerving dreams that crept into our minds night after night.

It came with a promise.

One that it kept.

It’s blue eyes lit up like a nightly storm and smiled.

I was glad that I didn’t have to look forward to any more nights after this.
 Resources

- “Soul Ascending.” DeviantArt,

www.deviantart.com/joshhutc
hinson/art/Soul-Ascending-
442038306.