In a quiet alleyway, a pile of garbage moved as two people under it tried to get to their feet.
One was a tall, thin woman with black hair, black eyes, wearing a white shirt, a black glove on her left hand, a black knee length skirt, a black bow and heeled boots. The other was a teenage girl with brown hair, blue eyes, wearing a satin grey dress and floral headdress, with barefeet.
That girl was me.
"That fucking pig." The woman muttered in pain as she pulled herself out of the filth.
"Oh, my head." I winced at the zapping headache running through my skull.
"I can not believe I was blind sided and lost the soul. I'm going to have to hunt that boar down again before sunrise. This is going on my record, I can feel it " The woman clenched and unclenched her fists restlessly, her eyes getting darker.
"Excuse me," I raised a hand," Can you help me up please?"
The woman froze and looked at me for the first time, from head to toe, her face cold and sharp.
"What?" She said slowly.
Did she not hear me? I wondered and opened my mouth to repeat but before I could speak, a translucent grey limb shot out from behind her and grabbed my wrist, pulling me up like a piñata.
"Ah!"
The hands grip felt like dipping my hand in arctic water, my nerves were frying from the bitter icy cold. I couldn't think, as the feeling in my arm grew less and less, numbness crawled up my flesh like worms under the skin.
Fear and panic started to rear their ugly heads again.
"There you go." The woman said apathetically and the icy ghost hand let me go, to fall on my butt. I quickly gripped my wrist in agony and fear.
Or, I would have, if the pain had still been there.
However as I held my hand, I felt nothing, the freezing chill I had experienced a moment ago seemed like a dream. My hand was completely fine and well, and I couldn't help but look at the woman with confusion and a bit of terror.
"What?" She tilted her head at me, her eyes going pitch black, making me gasp and pull back till I hit the wall.
"Huh? Why do you seem scared?" The woman raised her gloved hand and the ghastly hand rested in her smaller palm," You said this was a Vessel, Antoinette, even though at glance I see a human."
The ghastly hand rested on its wrist and a mouth opened on its palm, taking my breath away. The mouth was small, filled with sharp needle like teeth, a wet green tongue, and I felt a mixture of revulsion and horror.
Glob, I was scared in everyway.
"This is a Vessel, Mistress, just... an odd one. I can see the vacancy in her essence such as my own, but there's... fog." The mouth spoke with a female voice and a subtle accent I couldn't place,"However, she arrived via the gate of The Hades Eye, so she surely is what I think."
"Very well, then if she is a Vessel, what is she doing here, why did she smash into me, and where is her Companion?" The woman asked the hand crossly (Antoinette?) and the hand swallowed, somehow.
"I do not know. Although, she seems coherent enough to ask Mistress." The hand said softly and the mouth shut closed. Antoinette vanished back into a grey belt around her mistress's waist.
"You," The woman looked at me with her pitch black eyes and I felt really scared out of my life.
"Who is your Companion?" She asked me and I thought really hard and fast.
Companion? Did she mean friend? Like a best friend? Or is there more?
I was so confused, I couldn't grasp what she meant but I decided to take a guess, my mind thinking of only one person.
"My Companion... His name is Lucas." I replied carefully and the woman tilted her head.
"What is his rank?" She asked and my confusion grew.
"Rank?" I asked her and she frowned.
"His rank, his station, his status. What is his rank in the World?" She asked and I didn't know how to answer.
Should I lie? I thought but quickly snuffed the idea. Whatever or whoever this lady was, I definitely couldn't mess with her and shouldn't attempt it.
"I don't know." I answered honestly and she scoffed.
"Useless. Your brain must be decayed already." Her voice was condescending and cruel," Forget this, where is this Lucas? He'll answer for your disruption of my duties today "
"Oh, Lucas, he's... he's... Oh my glob!" I screamed in horror, everything finally coming back to me. The cards, the falling, that scary place, the giant eye, Lucas and me, him falling into the red chasm below.
"Oh my glob, oh my glob, oh my glob," I covered my mouth as tears rushed to my eyes," He's dead. Lucas... Oh my glob... Glob, he's dead." My voice broke down into sobs as I wailed in grief.
"He's what?" The woman asked with incredulity," Are you insane? If he was dead, you'd be... No. I can not deal with this while that pig runs off with my soul charge."
The woman walked up to me threateninly, but I couldn't care less, I was too heart broken to give a damn to what she'd do next.
My best friend was freaking dead here! Compared to that pain, her hand trick was a tickle.
"Antoinette, take her to a church, find a Chancellor and tell them to find the owner of this Vessel, demanding compensation for obstructing my duty." She said softly and the ghastly hand appeared next to me," Use ERA too, to stop this crying thing when you're there."
I barely realized she had vanished before I felt a gentle tap on my left side. Looking down, I gazed at a ghastly hand reaching from the ground, like a clawing spider.
"Excuse me, dear, but you need to brace yourself. The nearest cathedral is a ways off, and you don't seem like you're in the mind to walk." Antoinette said softly," Either way, off we go."
Multiple arms shot out from the ground, like the damned possessed and grabbed me whole, encasing me in a shell thicker than spider webs, leaving no room to see, feel or breathe.
My stomach dropped as I felt the ground under me crack and fall into itself, inertia making me feel as if I'd plummeted into an abyss. However just as quickly, the sensation vanished, as did the ghastly arms, leaving only the singular Antoinette next to me in a new place.
I sat on the pulpit of a large cathedral, wooden benches lined accordingly, reaching from the beginning to end, with the windows , colourful and resplendent, making them nothing short of masterpieces.
The walls were stone grey like graves, with archways on the sides serving no purpose but pleasing aesthetics.
There was an array of candles hanging on the ceiling from chandeliers of rough metal painted gold, and red candles for the dead right behind me. It was majestic, imposing and righteously intimidating like a pious tyrant demanding submissive devotion.
My eyes barely registered it though, fear, grief and loss were clashing in my chest like raging storms. Who had time to admire shiny and bright things when mourning was all the mind allowed?
"Here, let me just," Antoinette floated up and clenched herself , making a fist," ERA Codex:{Ritual} Numb Gathering."
Gasp!
As if a switch was flicked in my soul, all my grief and pain was smothered, quieted down and silenced, like a fire covered with a cone.
I clutched my chest, confusion over this numbness overpowering the instinctive fear I should be feeling.
"Much better, dear. Now, go and light a candle and the a Chancellor will come and help you find your Companion. " Antoinette crawled on the air, floating and deftly moving on nothing I could see.
What bothered me them strangely, was that her voice was coming through even though her mouth wasn't there anymore.
But first things first.
"Lucas? I can find him?" I asked hesitantly and Antoinette gave a thumbs up.
"I don't understand your confusion but believe me my dear, if he was dead, so would you. So, go, light a candle, then my Mistress can spare her record too much bloodstains."
Antoinette crawled towards the candles and I followed behind, my fear feeling insignificant with what she had said.
Lucas, alive?
Could it be true, I wondered hopefully, could he really be alive?
Did I really have to believe the words of a talking ghost hand? Hearing myself ask that question made me cringe but that barely mattered.
If there was a chance, a tiny miracle of a chance, I'd take it.
If there was any chance... I had to know.
If Lucas was okay, I just had to know.
I reached the candles, some alight and others snuffed, symbols of prayers and wishes for those no longer in this world. The light eerily raised the shadows on my face, giving me a pale harsh look.
I raised one candle and light another candle with its flame, before placing the other one down. The candle flame swayed and flickered, my hopeful and fragile reach upon the supernatural for aid.
Glob this was crazy, I thought.
"Oh, you truly are confused. Dear, you must say; 'My lord, grim is my plight, help me in the dead night'. Then the Lord of this Grave Space will answer by sending a Chancellor." Antoinette crawled to a seat waiting for me patiently and I nodded my head.
This was really incredibly crazy, I thought irritably, but after all that stuff earlier, I can't say it isn't happening. It was way past crazy now, this is straight up insane on the upside down pumpkin train.
But... Lucas.
"My lord, grim is my plight, help me in the dead night'." I repeated the phrase slowly and everything went cold.
The warmth in the cathedral, the warmth from my dress and my body just vanished, devoured by a numbing paralyzing coldness that reached my core, penetrating my pores and leaving my hair standing on end.
The flames of the candles flickered and changed before my eyes, from resplendent orange they dulled to a sickly yellow. As this occured , all the colours were drained away, wretched from everything in the cathedral , from the benches, the windows and light itself, leaving it all black and white like an old photograph.
I gasped ain fright and took a step back, before I could take two steps though, my back bumped into a hard solid chest.
"Why are you Vessels here?" A calm and steady voice spoke from behind me and I turned around quickly.
An middle aged man stood before me, his skin filled with cracks like time had been breaking it piece by piece without mercy. His hair was grey like crumbled granite, it was straight and well combed in a sharp humble style on his head.
His face seemed hard and mean, with a medium build peeking out from a thin muscular frame of limbs. He wore a pristine white shirt with a black fitting white collar jacket, trousers grey and a metal skull hung around his neck with a sword piercing its head coming out the mouth. His eyes were-
"Oh my glob." I covered my mouth from screaming.
He had no eyes!
"It is rude, to stare, very much. Unbecoming aswell." The man said with a small frown that made his face crinkle like a hardening crust.
"Chancellor,, I've brought this confused Vessel on the orders of Mistress. She seeks compensation from the Companion for this Vessel's interference and breaking of the Death Codex Regulations."
Antoinette drummed her fingers on the wooden seat," The Vessel's Companion is called Lucas, but she claims ignorance about his station, rank and claims he is... Truly Dead."
"What?" The Chancellor looked at Antoinette with wide empty eyes , literally vacant holes, then he looked back at me,"Dead? Resting Vessel, you must truly be confused if you are thinking that, or cursed."
"Your Companion must surely be alive, or you'd be gone aswell. Answers, that is what is required here." The Chancellor walked to the candles and took the one I light up, holding it infront of me.
The flame danced with its sickly yellow light and red wax flowed like slow blood to the tiled floor. Then slowly it turned darker and blacker, until a pitch black fire layed before my eyes and the wax stopped melting.
"See? He is very much not Truly Dead, else this flame would not have changed. I can and will summon him here, is that alright with you?" He asked me and I opened my mouth feeling hope, confusion, fear and resignation.
Was I crazy or was this was going really really fast. From teleportation , to ghost hands and now summoning?
Crazy! I thought hard, but I needed to know if Lucas was alright, was alive.
This Chancellor sounded so sure.
Fudge it, I thought, crazy stuff I'm giving you a chance, don't let me be wrong, please... not again.
"Yes, please." I replied hopefully and the Chancellor gave me a smile , showing black teeth and I resisted the urge to cringe at the sound of his skin crackling like dry leaves aswell.
The Chancellor turned the candle upside down and the wax was charred black, the heat melting more of it to the floor. Slowly a circle formed with the insignia of the Chancellor's necklace in its center.
"Dead One to Dead One, Warden and Vessel, Death beckons you." The Chancellor said this with a soft and hypnotic tone, his voice was solemn and I felt am energy gathering to the circle on the floor.
The Chancellor then dropped the candle letting it fall down towards the ground and I gasped, reaching out to catch it.
Grab!
"Chancellor, none... would dare summon me, why have you?" A quiet and still voice echoed across the cathedral walls, as the candle was caught by... a shadow?