I take a moment to collect my wits while watching the blond hair sway on the man's shaking, half-bald head. I bluff, "I don't understand your question."
"Interesting, you're pretty resilient. However, we'll see how much resistance you have when you're only a soul." He tosses aside the now empty glass bottle and pulls out a spiked instrument. It's a series of coiled tubing wrapped around a spear. Its inscribed with runes and a jade container is fixed on the far end.
"What do you mean?"
He jolts into motion stabbing the spiked end of this implement into my stomach.
"GAH!!!" It's extremely painful, but I can't do anything about it since I am bound. My energy is draining from my body. Perhaps the instrument is puncturing a vital organ?
"{It's not looking good, kid. You'll die at this rate. Do something!}" says the Void-Soul Spirit-Housing.
"The potion you drank before will allow me to extract and contain your soul… using this." He throws a switch made of a metal rod and leans back while flipping his hair. The runes of a giant formation centered around my chair light up. The implement skewering my stomach vibrates and its runes light up as well.
"{Slag of the firmament! (1) Why is my luck so awful? I thought you would be my ticket to escape but your awful luck is going to get me trapped in a cage and torn apart by this crazy man! How will you make it up to me you zounderkite?}"
My strength fades and my body becomes unresponsive. I lose the sense of my body and try to walk forward, but the harder I try, the stronger the sinking sensation pulling me backward.
* * * * *
The man who was extracting the mysterious soul claiming to be Reinhold idly leaned on the wall next to the switch playing with the rings on his fingers. After a few minutes, he frowned. "Hmm… Something's wrong. Why hasn't the soul been captured yet?"
He reflipped the switch and walked to pull a jade rod off the bench. He walked over the dimming formation circuits and waved the rod over Reinhold's body.
"The soul dissipated?" He stomped the ground angrily and walked to a bench with a trumpet-shaped tube on the wall. He picked up a new jade slip from the bench and it lit up.
He spoke directly at the jade, "This is a first-priority command from the research division. From now on, all of Lord Reinhold's used bodies must be destroyed immediately after use. Their destruction must be verified by at least two eyewitnesses." After he finished speaking the jade in his hand stopped glowing and was stuffed into a cylinder. He stuck the cylinder into the trumpet-shaped tube.
Thwunk. The pneumatic system sucked in the tube and it shot upwards through a system of pipes.
* * * * *
I am back, frozen in Castle Everest for the third time. However, before I can gather my wits the horror formed from my brother's face bites into me.
"ARGGG!" I scream.
"{Holy Hell! What is this abomination? Nooo! Don't let it eat me!}"
Figments from my childhood fly by. As they disappear into the distance, I forget what they were. The time my father took me out hunting now unfamiliar. What was it that happened?
The strange musical instrument my mother taught me to play floats by. What was it called?
A nearby screaming voice interrupts my thoughts. "{Son of a zounderkite! ARGGG!}"
Who is that? Oh, that's right! I accepted a spirit into my soul! Why? I need to go back! I need a do-over… How did it go last time?
"{akwaasslooopppnnoooaaasssddwwaaadddaaaa}" the screaming of the Void-Soul Spirit-Housing became convoluted.
Wait, screaming? That's right I need to scream.
Gasp! My head feels like it's breaking through the surface of the water. Breathing in, I think about the terrifying face devouring me and scream with all my might.
"AAAAAHHHH!"
* * * * *
A pudgy man was dragging the body of a 12-year-old boy to the top of a cliff face. He reached the top and kicked a loose rock off the cliff. The man peered down toward the falling rock counting under his breath as it fell.
"…Eleven… Twelve… Thirteen…"
Crack! The sharp sound of rock hitting rock echoed up the walls of the canyon below.
"Should be good enough…"
He turned to the motionless boy. "I don't know why they paid me to do this but at least it's just a corpse. No hard feelings… Don't come back to haunt me. It wasn't I that killed you."
He reached down and…
"AAAAHHHHHHHH!" The corpse sat up screaming with widened eyes!
"Have mercy!" The man scrambled backward in surprise. "Gah!" His foot slid on some loose rock and his ankle hit against a root exposed at the edge of the cliff. His momentum tipped his body backward. "Noooooo!" The man fell off the cliff arms flailing.
* * * * *
"AAAAHHHHHHHH!" My scream is disconnected from me. Before me, a man's figure tips backward and disappears into the ground, but it doesn't register in my mind. Pain wracks my psyche. It's like I was torn apart. I sit holding my head and staring forward blankly until the sun sinks low enough that my eyes start to feel like they are burning.
The pain stimulates my mind and I ask, "Where am I? Who am I?" I close my eyes.
In my mind, the ragged form of a phoenix flaps its wings. A sparkling ring of light surrounds it like the ring of a planet. The ring slowly rotates as bits of light fall from it.
The points of light forms a curtain and the vague image of a human appears inside it. "Rose… my beloved, I offer… thi-," crackle, "-it of my soul to you. I wish for you to… to step into my world and experience life with me… me. Please, take in these spirit herbs… should you agree with my selfish request… Void-Soul Spirit-Housing please activate soul nourishment." The image fades.
{Activating…}
{Host consciousness detected. Satellite soul has sustained massive damage. Attempting internal reflection…}
{Error. No Qi present. Requesting for the host to absorb a spirit herb and cultivate Qi.}
{Soul nourishment and repair are active.}
The specks of light falling from the ring begin to rain inward onto the body of the Phoenix. Little flames start to wrap the body of the Phoenix.
My shattered psyche relaxes. Warmth spreads over me and I fall asleep.
I dream that I'm in a room. All the details of this room are blurred. A group of faceless boys billows from the ground like rising smoke.
"Look what I've found!" The figure of a boy gestures at the vague image of a table with a square shape on top of it. "This book uncle brought back from Alphonso's mentions a great alchemist who disappeared leaving a treasure."
"What do you say? Let's go find it together," says another vague figure.
"We've trained a few years already it's about time we go out on our own."
"Yeah let's follow the first clue. It says there's a freestanding stone writhing with worms."
Hmm, I remember this… This is back when I decided to search for that alchemist's treasure. It became a competition. But, who were those boys? Were they my competitors?
The scene dissolves and a faceless man appears in the void. His back remains arched. His posture imposing.
"You left on your own and got beaten by a stranger. Now, you have the audacity to ask me to find the culprit and settle the score for you. A Mallory must always solve his own mess. Learn from this mistake. Find the culprit on your own if you're capable. Now get out of my sight!"
My surroundings change yet again. I'm in my familiar Castle Everest. All the details of the castle are clear. I'm in my study facing a bookshelf filled with scrolls, jade slips, and books. I pick up a jade stick and remember the details of the
My good brother is here… but his face is missing. I step back in shock. A sharp pain appears in my chest. The jagged dagger is in my chest pulsing with dark shadows.
Gasp! I wake from the dream and sit up.
Who were those people? They seem like family, but I cannot remember... Didn't I want to protect my family? Why can't I remember them? Who raised me?
Oh, that's correct, that horror in the castle stole my memories when I died for the third time… It's taken most of my childhood memories and bits and pieces of other ones.
Let's focus on the present for now. Where is this? The starting point is different this time. Why is that?
(1) "Slag of the Firmament" is a phrase used for cursing with a long history. It was first coined while residents of a geologically active country were fleeing from an erupting volcano that shot a few billion tons of pumice stones into the air.