The papers in my hand felt like a death sentence. "Discharged due to non-payment." I stood on the hospital steps, a ghost with a plastic bag that held his clothes, belonging nowhere.
I walked. The city noise was a roar in my hollow chest.
"They discard you so easily," a voice said, a chill down my spine. Kephriel fell into step beside me, a glorious and terrible specter. "Your utility to me is just beginning."
"Leave me alone," I whispered.
He laughed.
"A demonstration is required. A lesson in the economy of your new life." He nodded toward a city bus. "Watch."
A chain on his wrist uncoiled, shooting across the street to pass through the bus's metal hull. The vehicle glowed with a sickly blue light for a split second. A distant, faint gasp echoed in my mind. The chain retracted, pulsing with energy. The bus rolled on, one passenger now dead among the living. Nobody noticed.
I stumbled, dry heaving on the sidewalk.
"A soul," Kephriel said. "The fuel. The currency. Now, observe the expenditure."
A delivery van jumped a red light ahead, tires screeching. It was going to T-bone a sedan crossing the intersection. A sure, brutal death for both drivers.
Kephriel didn't even look. He simply raised a hand.
"One soul spent... ONTO THE NEXT ONE."
The world wrenched. The nauseating sensation of being pulled through a tunnel of screaming metal and shadows. The intersection vanished.
I stumbled, landing on my hands and knees on the rough asphalt of a different street, a mile away. Safe. The van and the sedan were nowhere to be seen.
Kephriel stood over me, pristine and untouched.
"One life taken, pays for lives saved. In this case, two. A net profit. Your life will be a ledger of such transactions. Get used to it."
"Raf!"
I looked up. Dao, Niran, and Preecha were running toward me, faces etched with worry.
Niran reached me first. "Dude! We saw you vanish! What's going on?"
He grabbed my arm to help me up.
The moment he touched me, a sickly blue light erupted from my skin, licking up his arm. He yelped and jerked back. Dao and Preecha arrived, touching me in concern, and the light flashed over them too. They stumbled back, horrified.
Then they saw him.
All three froze, eyes locking on the terrifying figure of Kephriel. Niran, brave and stupid, stepped between us.
"Get away from him!" he roared, fists clenched though he trembled.
Kephriel smiled with condescending amusement. "The puppy has teeth. You poured your strength into the void to save him. Now you challenge me? The architect of his breath?"
"What are you?" Dao whispered.
"I am the answer to your desperate prayers. You offered your joy, your silence, your hope. I caught them. I made them a lifeline. His heart beats because your hearts now have empty spaces. He sees because you chose to look away. You are bound to him, and he is bound to me."
The truth landed on them like a physical weight. I saw the understanding dawn.
"We didn't know…" Preecha said.
"Ignorance does not void a contract,"
Kephriel replied smoothly. "Now, come. Your education is not complete."
He began to walk. We followed, compelled by his will.
We turned a corner toward a quieter street. The air grew heavier.
Then we saw it.
Outside a dilapidated free clinic, a figure stood watch. It was humanoid, made of polished, warm stone that gleamed with a gentle inner light. Its face was a smooth, placid mask, and it held a shield of shimmering golden energy. It radiated an aura of immense protection—a direct counterpoint to Kephriel's devastating grandeur. This was a Soul Defender, one of many, but this particular guardian was the protector of the hospital's poor and suffering souls.
Kephriel stopped. His magnificent aura sharpened into pure, unadulterated hatred.
The Defender did not move, but a feeling washed over us: You are not welcome here, Eater of Joy. This place is under my protection.
Kephriel's chains rattled.
"The little light that lingers in the gutter," he hissed.
"Guarding scraps I would not bother to consume."
Their suffering is not a scrap. It is a testament. You will not feed here.
For a long moment, the two entities stared each other down—the glorious God of Death and the humble Defender of the Poor Souls. The air crackled with opposing powers.
We could only watch, trapped in the middle of a war we never knew existed.