Gehenna was unlike any other planet in the Exodus System. It was infamously known as the world of contradictions, a mish-mash of realms where the future and the ancient collided in a strange harmony. Some places were an expanse of towering futuristic cities with skyscrapers that pierced the heavens, their shining spires gleaming with neon lights and technology that turned the impossible into mundane tasks. In other places, nightmarish ghettos sprawled for miles like a festering wound on the planets surface—places where the weak fought to survive, and rogue spirits roamed freely, gorging themselves on the despair of the living.
The planet itself was dotted with unfathomably vast, alien landscapes: deserts of gold dust with sands that shimmered like the stars, and swallowed entire groups of travelers whole; the forests of obsidian trees that sang hauntingly when the wind danced through; and the rivers of liquid light, glowing streams that powered the larger cities but twisted reality wherever they flowed.
Gehenna's inhabitants were as varied as the land itself. Some were born into immense power, gifted with Spectral Interfaces—the ability to merge with one of the many spirits that wandered the land, calling on their strength to manipulate the physical world. These Spectrals, as they were called, served in the Phantom Sentry the elite force tasked with keeping the fragile balance between the living and the spirits. A select few others were Memory Crafters, incredibly rare individuals who tapped into the memories of the dead, inheriting their skills and knowledge. These Crafters were feared and highly sought after, for their abilities allowed them to hold the past in the palms of their hands.
Then there was Kiehra Ashbluff, one of the many born without any sort of power, scraping by on the fringes of society. She was one of the individuals whose entire existence was invisible, overlooked and forgotten.
Kiehra wiped the sweat from her forehead as she set her bucket down, looking down on her own clothing in disgust. The grime clinging to her work uniform had soaked through the fabric, leaving her as dirty as the floors she'd spent the last hour and a half scrubbing. The Phantom Sentry headquarters was a towering display of futuristic, glassy architecture, perpetually humming with the noise of various people going up and about, talking about whatever rogue spirit they had captured. That was all on the higher floors though. Down here, in the lowest of the levels—where powerless people like her were all but shunned—the only sounds she heard were her own sighs and the relentless squeak of her mop against the tiled floors.
"Another day of nothing." she muttered through clenched teeth, pushing her mop along the edges of the hallway. Her entire body was sore as hell, and the day was only halfway over.
She stopped and looked around at the metal walls, clean enough to eat food off of. She'd been in the Phantom Sentry for about three months, and she found it hard to believe the same organization that utilized otherworldly powers and battled wayward spirits depended on people like her to clean up their messes. She was a nobody, despite the fancy badge clipped to her uniform—Phantom Sentry, Janitorial Staff, Class 4—as if the title made scrubbing toilets less humiliating.
She sighed, eyes drifting out the window and up into the sky as if looking for an answer from the universe. But nothing ever did. She was Kiehra Ashbluff, former gutter-rat of Abyss, barely useful enough to mop floors for the Guard. She had no Spectral Interface, no bonded spirit to borrow power from, and no rare gift of Memory Crafting that allowed her to use the abilities of those who had passed. She was just…her.
It didn't help that the actual members of the Phantom Sentry never let forget it.
Kiehra's grip on the mop tightened as she pushed onward, pushing the bitter thoughts out of her mind. She just had to finish her shift, just get through another dreary day.
The mop hit something—hard. She blinked in surprise and looked down. In her depressive musings, she'd knocked over her entire bucket of cleaning solution, spilling its contents across the floor in a spreading pool of dirty water.
"Fuck," she cursed, fumbling to set the bucket upright. She wasn't surprised the day somehow managed to get worse.
"What's all this mess?"
The voice that cut through the air was sharp and condescending, telling Keihra who exactly it was without the need to look up. Lieutenant Vela. His boots clacked against the wet floor as he approached her with a disapproving, yet strangely smug look on his face. Kiehra straightened her posture, her face burning with embarrassment as she clutched the mop awkwardly in her hands.
"My apologies, Lieutenant." She mumbled, bending down to clean up the spill.
"A task as cheap as cleaning, and you can't even manage that Ashbluff? It boggles me how the Phantom Sentry hasn't thrown you into the gutters where you came from." Vela's gaze bore into her, his disdain as palpable as the dirt underneath her nail.
Kiehra nodded, biting her tongue to hold back the insult that threatened to escape her lips. His words stung her more than she'd want to admit, even though she'd heard it all before. Born in Abyss, the biggest and most dangerous of all the ghettos on Gehenna, she'd only managed to end up in this position when a passing Sentry stumbled on her in the aftermath of a fierce battle with a spirit. Alas, luck didn't bring her any respect. Not in the face of people like Vela.
"Clean this up, and try not to make another mess before your shift is over."
"Yes, Lieutenant Vela."
With a nod of his head, Vela spun on his heel and strode off, leaving Kiehra standing in her own mess. She clenched her fists, fighting the overwhelming urge to throw the mop at his head. Just one more shift. She could survive.
And so she cleaned in silence, pushing through the last hours of her shift, each stroke of her mop heavy with frustration and tiredness. By the time the sun was setting, bathing the city of Vivaria in purple-orange light, Kiehra finally made her way out of the headquarters. The air was thick with humidity, the sky a dull but comforting color as she walked towards Old Oasis.
The streets were abuzz with the usual noise—traders haggling at their market stalls, the hum of low-flying hover transports above her, and the distant echoes of shouting and children laughing. Old Oasis was as strange as anywhere else in Gehenna, a decently sized town made from clusters of rundown structures that somehow stayed standing for years despite their dilapidated appearance. The technology here was advanced in some ways, yet old and patched together, just like the people who lived in its narrow alleys.
Kiehra trudged along the cracked sidewalks, kicking up dust as she walked until she reached her home. It was an abandoned camper van that somehow got trapped between two looming structures some time in the past. By the time she rolled into the town, its original owner was long gone. The door creaked as she gently nudged it open, revealing the small but snug space that served as her home. It wasn't much, but it was her's.
She stepped inside, flinging her bag to the ground and throwing off her boots. Exhaustion weighed down her limbs, and she was about to collapse onto her bed when a voice—deep and smooth—slipped through the room.
"I thought you'd never come home."
Kiehra stopped dead. Her heart jumped into her throat and her eyes darted towards the corner of the room, where the shadows seemed to shift. Out of the darkness emerged a figure unlike anything she'd ever seen.
It was tall, too tall, its frame twisted and uneven, like a puppet made of randomly matched parts. Its skinny limbs stretched and bent at awkward angles, while its joints creaked like rusted machinery. Pieces of its form glowed faintly, and other parts were completely translucent. Where a face should have been, there was…nothing—just a constantly shifting void, like the figure itself didn't know what it was supposed to be.
A horrifying combination of organic and mechanical was what it was, and not in a way that made any particular sense either. It looked like someone had taken hundreds of broken things and stitched them together, creating something that should never have existed.
"Who…what are you?" Kiehra stammered, reflexively reaching for the knife tucked into her belt.
The figure took one step forward, its entire body rippling with unnatural, almost uncontrollable energy. Its voice, when it spoke, was almost friendly despite its unsettling appearance. "I go by No.33," it responded casually, even dipping its head(?) down slightly. "But you can call me Three."
Kiehra's grip on her knife tightened as she pointed the blade up at the creature. "What do you want?" she asked, her voice coming out barely higher than a whisper.
Three tilted his head in a way that made him look amused. "Hiding, if you just know. From something far more dangerous than you or me."
Kiehra felt even more scared now. Something out there was enough to make this monstrosity hide out in her dingy camper van? What if it tracked it here? That wouldn't be good at all!
"Why here…why me?" Her voice was shaky, but she kept her eyes focused on the broken, shifting figure before her. "I'm not important at all. I can't even use a spirit interface…"
Three chuckled, a hollow, terrifying sound that echoed through the house. "That's why you're perfect! An overlooked, invisible nobody like you is just what I need. No one would ever think someone like you would harbor a creature such as I."
Kiehra's mind raced, ignoring the snide remarks Three made. It wasn't just creepy, it was dangerous, and yet, she found herself hesitating to refuse whatever point it was getting at.
"I don't want any trouble." She said, briefly wondering if she should push it out and quickly figuring that such actions would get her nowhere.
"Trouble? I'm here for the opposite of that," Three said, its form "glitching" slightly. "In fact, I think we can help each other out here. I fix your troubles, you fix mine."
Her brow furrowed. "How?"
Three's gaze—if it could be called that without apparent eyes—seemed to be focused intently on her. "I can sense of you have no spirit link. You're powerless. I can give you some. You and I. We could merge."
Kiehra stared at the twisted spirit with wide eyes, her mouth wide open in surprise. It was offering her what she'd wanted all her life—power. Real, tangible, power.
She tossed her knife to the bed. The right answer was no. She knew that. Anyone with a working brain would say no as well. But here was offered power on a silver platter! Others had to hunt down and baffle or befriend the specific spirits they wished to link with…while she was just handed it just for being a nobody.
Her brain screamed no, but her heart stirred the longer she looked at him.
"And what do you get out of this?" She asked, folding her arms.
Three's voice lowered as he leaned in close to her. "Survival my dear. I get to stay hidden, and you get to rise above being a mere janitor."
Kiehra hesitated for only a moment longer. Then she nodded.
"Good," Three whispered and his form began to shimmer. "Let's get to it then."
She didn't get a chance to react before the spirit surged forward, its smoky, haphazard form wrapping around her like a second layer of skin. She sputtered and dropped to her knees as its essence leaked into her, filling every inch of her being with warmth, light, and…power.
For the first time ever, Kiehra felt truly alive. The weight of exhaustion, the frustrations of work—gone like the wind, replaced by strength and a clearness of mind unlike anything she'd ever felt before.
For the first time ever…she felt powerful.