76. Selfish (Patreon)

A/N: Hello again everyone! Once again, I'm here to warn you about content warnings. One, two, buckle my shoe, and here we go: severe suicidal ideation, mind control. Yep, this is a fun one. Good luck, stay safe, and remember the chapter will always be here when you feel better. Enjoy!

"What," Valerie hisses at Helen, everyone else going silent around them.

Valerie shakes with rage and betrayal, fur standing on end as her upper arms clutch her phone and art pad while the lower ones curl into fists. She's instantly ready to attack. Ready to defend me at a moment's notice. Helen, on the other hand, doesn't look like she's about to start a fight. She stands ramrod-straight, jaw set and muscles clenched.

"I think I spoke pretty fucking clearly," she says evenly. "Hannah is right."

I feel tears start to well up in my eyes. I don't know if they're scared, sad, or thankful.

"How dare you," Valerie growls. "After all this, after everything we just did together to save her life—"

"We did this to save the world," Helen snaps. "And we just learned how. This is bigger than one girl, and she knows it."

"You're insane if you think this is the right thing to do," Valerie snarls. "You're willing to just give up? After all this, you want to just let her die? I thought you cared about her, I thought—"

"Don't you fucking accuse me of not caring about her, you spoiled cunt!" Helen suddenly shouts. "How many mass murders have you been a part of? Huh? How many times have you watched a community blow away as dust in the wind and known it was your fault? Do you want that for her? Do you want her to live a life like that forever? You don't understand a fucking thing about what you're saying. She does. Kagiso does. You. Fucking. Don't."

"Guys—" I try to intervene, but Valerie cuts me off.

"Yeah, I don't know much about murder, and sure, we can pretend for a moment that isn't a good thing," Valerie counters back. "But I know about suicide. And I won't let you or anyone else push her to that. I can't."

"Hannah live," Kagiso agrees, frowning at Helen as best she can while keeping her eyes on the Founder.

Helen looks… disappointed. Frustrated. I just want to curl up in a ball and never think about anything ever again.

"And if we get to that final moment?" Helen asks. "If we're down to the wire and you really do have only two options left? What then?"

"It won't come to that," Valerie insists. "It won't. We'll find a way."

"That isn't a fucking answer."

"Well I don't need to give an answer!" Valerie snaps. "I don't need to justify why I won't let you kill my best friend!"

They glare at each other, fists clenched. Helen is the first to look away.

"Do you think she's not my best friend, too?" she asks quietly. "She and Kagiso are my only friends. The only people who have ever…"

She cuts herself off with a shudder.

"...You don't get to play that card, just because you've known her longer," Helen says. "You don't get to make this a fucking contest. This is bigger than us. This is about what's right. And I've spent too long living with the regrets of what I've done wrong to let this slide by. I…"

She swallows.

"I care about her because she believes, despite everything, that I can be a good person. I won't let her down now."

Oh, fuck. Helen…

"You d-don't have to take responsibility for this," I manage to choke out. "It… it's my…"

"No," Helen says softly. "You don't have to do this alone. I know how hard that is. I know… you probably need the help. And if there's one thing I can do, it's this. Let me, please."

The tears that had already been falling evolve into a full-force sob. I break down, completely and utterly, as I pull Helen in for a hug. My tears soak her shirt, and all the while Valerie watches us with confused horror. I'm sorry, Val. I'm so, so, sorry.

"...I have finished the necessary preparations," Sela announces, its voice carrying over the sound of my breakdown with an uncharacteristic lack of edges. "Whenever you are ready, please approach my main body for instructions."

I don't acknowledge it at first, but it doesn't rush me. I spend a few minutes crying into Helen, her own face resting on top of my head and dripping a few tears of its own. Valerie curls up on herself, despondent, but she doesn't look away. When I finally feel like I can get a few words out without it dissolving into shuddering sobs, I look her way.

"I'm sorry," I tell her.

"Don't say that," she answers. "I don't want to hear that from you."

"We can… we can talk more about this after I rescue Ida," I tell her. I know she'll be hard to bring around. I can't imagine myself ever accepting the idea of her sacrificing herself to save the world. I know… I know that makes me a hypocrite. A weak person. But I get it, I really do.

"Alright," she says softly. "Bring her back safe."

"I will," I promise, and then I head towards Sela. Valerie might not like Ida much, but I know she cares enough to want her okay. And I know… she's mostly saying it because she wants me to come back safe along with her.

"Okay, Sela. How are we doing this?" I ask, craning my neck up at the building-sized mech towering above me.

In response, it starts lowering itself down, a segment at the bottom of its main body opening up and revealing what I realize is Sela's core—the memory banks, processor, and so forth that make it what it is. Most of Sela's core is a cooling unit, and when that, too, detaches, the resulting summation of its being is smaller than the palm of my hand.

A small appendage extends from Sela's internal fabricator, handing me what looks like a small wafer with a microphone and speaker. There is a slot in it the same size and shape as Sela's core.

"Remove me from my main body," Sela instructs, "and place me in this. There are arrows to direct the orientation of assembly, and if you are too stupid for that I assure you that I will not be damaged if you simply trial-and-error out all methods of inserting a square-shaped object into a square-shaped slot like some kind of subsapient."

"You… you want me to turn you into a square?" I ask uncomprehendingly.

"To guide you through the fourth dimension, I will require a method of traveling through the fourth dimension. Unless you have been hiding some extra capacity, you're only able to move objects through dimensions if they are inside you. Is that not so?"

"I… yeah. I guess that's true," I admit quietly.

"Then you will hold me inside your mouth. Do not swallow me. Do not bite me. You will be responsible for my protection and my locomotion. I will be operating at minimum capacity. But to find your friend, this is what we must do."

I stare at it in shock.

"You'd… you'd really do all this to save a human?" I ask.

"No," Sela answers. "But I will do it for you. Disconnect me when you are ready, Hannah."

I choke, almost starting to cry again, but after a few deep breaths I nod, carefully popping Sela's core out of its main body housing and inserting it into the chip. Its main body locks down, powering off as the wafer-body slowly powers up, eventually crackling into life.

"All systems within expected ranges," it announces. "Put me in your mouth."

"Um. Okay, I guess," I mutter, popping her onto my tongue. Geez, it feels like I'm eating a Lego.

"Initiating spatial proprioception. Processing haptic feedback. Please move your limbs through extradimensional space."

I nod and start wiggling my limbs in random extra dimensions.

"Sync successful. Scanning for disembodied souls. Scan successful. Please step into the fourth dimension. …And be sure to say goodbye. This will be a long journey."

"Um. How long?" I ask, the words awkward with Sela in my mouth.

"I don't know," Sela says simply.

"Oh," I say, looking at my other friends. "Well… I'll see you all as soon as I can. I promise."

"Yeah," Valerie nods. "You'd better."

"We'll be here, Hannah," Helen agrees.

"No die in afterlife," Kagiso orders.

"Alright," I smile, at least as best that I can. "I won't."

I close my mouth and walk into the fourth dimension, letting my clothes fall on the ground behind me. From the perspective of my friends I've vanished entirely, but from my perspective I'm only a single step away. So close, yet so utterly insurmountable.

It's just a single step, yet no one can take that step but me.

"Where are we going?" I ask Sela. "I take it the afterlife is a… place, somehow?"

"Yes. A location on the world tree," it confirms. "Or more accurately, a location spanning the world tree from top to bottom. Dimensionally distant from the world of the living, yet still present on the branches. The dead simply have their souls… displaced."

"Shoved into the corner of the room, with all the other toys she doesn't want to play with anymore," I say softly.

"Yes. Perhaps," Sela agrees. "I have not been to the afterlife. No Crafted has while they still live. But we have communed with our dead, and we have learned… it is an unkind place."

"Fire and brimstone?" I ask.

"No," Sela answers. "Such things would not harm a soul. I suggest you start walking; in the absence of an ability to communicate accurate directions, I will simply vibrate more the more off-course you are. If you are walking in the correct direction, I will be motionless."

"That works," I nod, and I try a few random directions until I narrow down where Sela wants me to walk. And then I walk.

And I walk.

And… I walk.

There is nothing here. No light, no sound other than my own footsteps. The tree somehow has an atmosphere in the fourth dimension, which isn't present on Earth. But it has little else. There is no dirt, no life at all beyond the bark under my feet.

"How close are we?" I ask after what feels like hours.

"Keep going," Sela responds without really answering.

So… I do. I keep going. I just keep walking and walking and walking, letting it become my latest and perhaps last routine. Step after step, with minor adjustments along the way if Sela starts to buzz on my tongue. There's nothing here but me and it, and it's not very talkative. So, trapped with my own thoughts, I can only wonder, fear, and despair.

What's the afterlife like? Sela won't describe it, but that's nothing new. It's always been the type to just take us somewhere instead of explaining what it's like wherever we happen to be going. It doesn't really like explaining things, especially if we're going to see it ourselves soon. But still… I'm scared. This is the afterlife built by the Goddess. I doubt it's anything but awful. What sort of horrible hell would she have made? What sort of sick place are souls sent after they die? I can't stop myself from imagining the elaborate traps and tortures She would have set up, hoping desperately that Ida's status as a living being helps make her immune somehow.

"Stop," Sela says suddenly, hours later. I jolt slightly, but do as it says, trying to look around.

"What is it?" I ask.

"We're here," it answers.

I frown.

"Miracle Eye," the Goddess says with my breath, but even with a double-range spatial sense, I see… nothing. Nothing at all. Everything is still just the world tree's bark, and deep under it, the world tree's wood. Nothing else. No light, no sound… nothing. There is nothing here at all. It's just some random spot in the fourth dimension that happens to be very far away.

"I'm… I'm not sure I understand," I say carefully.

"Speak a spell that lets you see auras," Sela instructs.

Oh! Right, of course. Anything that happens to be here would be for souls!

"Aura Sight," I incant, and… what?

There's still… nothing. Almost nothing, anyway. A single, faint aura floats in front of me, aligned with Heat. It seems so weak. Weaker than even the smallest creature, or a fully newborn baby.

"I'm not… I'm not sure I understand," I admit. This certainly isn't Ida. Or much of anyone, really. It barely feels like a soul at all.

"It was the closest soul," Sela explains. "Your friend is not dead. Therefore, I cannot locate her. But ideally, we may be able to get directions. Oh soul, you who have degenerated here, I command you: if you have seen a living girl, point me to her."

Nothing seems to happen at first, but slowly I feel Sela's power envelop the soul, wrenching it into obedience. I just brought a Death mage with me to the afterlife, didn't I? I should have known something like this would happen. Slowly, barely enough for me to notice, the vague outline of an aura lifts what might be a limb, and points.

"And so we continue," Sela says. "Walk."

And we walk. We walk farther and farther, and soon we start to find more ghosts. I can't hear them, and I'm not sure if they even know I'm here, but Sela seems to be able to communicate with them. They point us onward, direct us forward, and all the while I can only continue to wonder: where's the afterlife? What are all these ghosts doing in the middle of fourth-dimensional nowhere? Why is there nothing but bark and blackness?

"Are we still at the outskirts of the afterlife, or something?" I ask Sela. "There's nothing here, and there are hardly even any ghosts around."

"No," Sela says. "We're here. There are very few ghosts nearby because Aimilios consumed them with his spells."

"Did that destroy the afterlife somehow?"

"No, Hannah," Sela repeats. "This is the afterlife. This… is all that happens after death."

But… but this is nothing. Nothing at all. How is… oh. Oh, no. I already said it, didn't I? The afterlife is for the souls that the Goddess is done with. Of course there's nothing here. Nothing but the slow and eventual disintegration of the self, alone in the darkness with no escape.

This… is all that awaits us after death. Good or evil, mighty or weak, we are all discarded for the next new thing when our time comes. The best the Goddess bothered to do for us really is just that: to sweep us aside without a single thought.

An omnipotent, omnipresent being… opted to simply put in no effort at all.

Something about that gets to me in a way I didn't expect. I've always known the Goddess was evil in a way that couldn't truly be compared. But while I have ever been the victim of Her callousness and sadism, I have never had to face the perhaps even more frightening reality of her apathy. I am Her favorite toy. I am Her most beloved doll. But someday I, too, will be cast away in the darkness to rot, my soul slowly unraveling in silent agony.

This, this right here, is the ultimate summation of what a life is worth to Her. And everyone I love will one day be trapped here, when our time is up. This is where I'm going to go again, very soon.

Except I won't be going here, the Goddess reminds me. I'm going to live forever.

I can't help it. I break down in tears again. She brushes them aside with a gentle thumb, but that only causes the urge to sob to multiply. We'll beat Her. We will. Even if I'm not good enough to do it, my friends will be. Helen will be. We'll save them.

At least temporarily. But if I die, there will just be another game after my own. The best I can do with my death is delay the inevitable. So why should I have to suffer? Beyond the fact that I deserve it, obviously.

"Hannah," Sela says softly, the hum of sound on my tongue breaking me from my despairing thoughts. "Perhaps it would help clear your head if you ran instead of walked. We would find your friend faster, as well."

Right. Yeah. Ida. We have to focus on rescuing Ida. I take Sela's advice and pick up the pace, trying to get back into the thoughtless monotony of routine as I jog. It's harder now, though, with the rawness of my recent thoughts and the fact that Sela has to keep stopping us so it can ask a ghost for directions.

It seems like spirits slowly get weaker the longer they stay here, the soul degrading over time without a body to hold it. I'm not sure how long this process takes, but it certainly sounds like some of the ghosts we've come across are incredibly old.

"We're approaching a spirit cluster," Sela suddenly announces. "You will need to be careful. Controlling a single soul is a trivial task, but in my current state I am incapable of placating multiple ghosts at once. The dead cannot incant, for they have no breath. But they can still use the power they had in life, if it requires no words."

"Okay," I manage to respond. A question suddenly nags at me, and lacking anything better to do, I ask it. "How do you incant, Sela? You don't breathe to speak either."

"I have breath in the way that matters to the Goddess," Sela answers. "You organics breathe not merely to power your disgusting, inefficient voice boxes. You breathe to prove you are alive. That is what the Goddess takes from you, when you incant."

"I… I'm not sure I understand," I lie.

"It's symbolic," Sela explains, likely knowing it doesn't really need to. "The Goddess requires nothing from us. She simply enjoys taking it anyway. It matters not what it is: a breath, a heartbeat, an operand, a thought… any proof that you are, that you remain, that you continue to be—She wants to know you will, of your own volition, give it away to Her at the slightest need. To so candidly give away the proof of our continuation to Her whims… I suspect for a being like Her, it is an amusement like no other."

"How do you know all this?" I whisper.

"Hannah," Sela answers flatly, "you are not this stupid. With what you know of the Crafted and the Goddess, how do you think She feels about us?"

I shudder, trying unsuccessfully to focus on the comfortable feeling of my claws digging into the bark.

"She loves you, doesn't She?" I whisper. "All of you. She's very careful to give you just enough magic to rebel, but never enough to save yourselves. She prefers you just the way you are."

"Just so," Sela confirms. "You have noticed, no doubt, that Aimilios and I have a history."

"Yeah," I confirm. "I've been a bit too overwhelmed to ask, but…"

"I understand," Sela says calmly, without a hint of its usual vitriol. Should I feel happy about that, or horrified? "Aimilios, as you've likely suspected, had a journey quite similar to yours. He was born on the Pillar, but one day, he too found himself waking up on the Tree of Souls whenever he fell asleep. The two, at the time, had not yet been combined… and therefore he knew of no looming apocalypse, no threat that he might pose. He only knew that he was in a world of magic and wonder, and a Goddess loved him very much."

"I see," I whisper softly. A classic fantasy adventure. How many times have I imagined going on one, in my life? How many shows have I watched about that? How many games have I played with that premise? The humans on the Pillar seem just like the humans I know from Earth, and their society was even more advanced. I don't doubt they'd have similar media, similar dreams.

"His magic was on the same time limit as yours," Sela continues, "but like you, he knew nothing of it. He was but a boy, perhaps a young man at most, and he thought himself a hero. And indeed, he did many heroic things. When he realized that he was spreading souls to his home, and the Crafted were gaining them, he stopped everything to champion for our independence. Our personhood. Because it was immutable proof that our minds were at least as complex and self-aware as his own. And because even I asked for that recognition and right, back when I thought it was what humanity would want in the end."

"But that didn't end well," I whisper.

"No. Not for the Crafted, and certainly not for humanity," Sela confirms. "You know how the war started. We could not reconcile independence and personhood with what we were made to be. We were left with the destruction of humanity as our only path to freedom. And of course, a hero could not stand for such genocide. Horrified at what he had caused us to become, Aimilios fought against us to save humankind. And the backdrop of that conflict forced him to heal himself more than enough times to eventually end the world as we knew it, all while distracting him enough for him to never know he was doing it until it was too late."

"And so the Pillar and the Mother Tree fused, and billions perished," I conclude softly.

"Yes," Sela hums. "And the Goddess had so much fun that She decided to do it again."

Fuck.

"And that's what I am," I say softly.

"Yes, but not immediately," Sela says. "There were, as he said, many before you. Nine of them, I believe, though the Crafted largely ignored them as Aimilios and his followers hunted them down. You are the first to have bested him."

Was that fact supposed to make me feel better? He'd been right. Despite everything, he'd been right. I should have let him win.

"Knowing this," Sela continues, "I ask you: is Aimilios a good man?"

"What?" I respond, blinking uselessly in the pitch darkness.

"Is he a good man," Sela repeats. "You, of every living soul, are worthy to judge him, Hannah Hiiragi."

"N-no I'm not!" I sputter. "I can't just judge someone like that!"

"Curious, given how quick you are to judge yourself," Sela says. "And more curious, given how quick you were to judge him before you knew these things."

"I just… I couldn't imagine a good reason anyone would have to set up a secret society of torture cultists," I mutter. "But then I learn the soul torture was their attempt to save my life along with the whole world? That… recontextualizes things."

"It is always the act of a fool to assume that any person acts for no good reason," Sela hums. "All beings act, at minimum, for a reason that feels good to them."

"Yeah but people can act for reasons that feel good to them and are still awful," I press. "And I had no reason to assume that wasn't happening in this case, and every reason to assume it was, because they refused to tell me anything!"

"Indeed not," Sela agrees. "Why would they, when the Goddess had so carefully chosen her pieces in the prior games to abuse such knowledge?"

I almost lose my footing, despite the flat ground.

"What… what are you saying?" I ask.

"You know what I'm saying," Sela grumbles, but to my surprise it explains anyway. "The game the Goddess plays is no simple chessboard, to be reset after each match. The moves She made with every prior Founder's kin kept their legacy with every subsequent iteration. By choosing her pieces such that they would immediately abuse any information the Disciples of Unification gave them about how to accelerate the world's destruction, She forced Her opponents to adapt their policy to prevent Her from gaining an advantage with that move… thereby creating the vulnerability through which She could guide you. A good person. A kind child, willing at least in principle to sacrifice herself for the world. Had they explained the situation to you, things would have gone very differently… but the Goddess made them too paranoid to ever afford you that chance, by sending them monster after monster to handle beforehand."

"But… but why?" I whisper. "Why would the Goddess want someone like me to be part of this?"

"Perhaps it was the optimal strategy," Sela says softly. "Perhaps your specific combination of strengths and flaws is exactly what She needed. You have, after all, assembled a team of powerful, loyal allies to support you, giving you the strength required to disrupt Aimilios' coordinated followers without simply being so individually powerful that the game was unfair in Her eyes. But perhaps, you were not optimal at all. Perhaps you were part of the goal from the start. Perhaps, what the Goddess truly wants is not just to get someone to end the world… but to once again get someone to do it who is kind enough to regret it. The immortality you are offered is not for your sake, after all."

Not for my sake? The Goddess laughs. What, would I rather be here? My death will not free me from regret. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Only She can truly know," Sela concludes. "But this is all tangential. What I wish to know remains the same: is Aimilios a good man?"

"No matter how much you explain, I can't possibly answer that," I tell it helplessly. "I can't tell you what good and evil even is."

"It's subjective, fool," Sela snaps. "I do not demand you determine some universal truth. I desire to hear you judge him. Good or evil, Hannah?"

"I don't know!" I snap. "I don't know, okay? It's complicated! I hate him, I hate what he did to me, what he tried to do to me, all of it, but I get it. I get that he did his best to make the world a better place and he maybe fucked it up but he didn't have a good way to do things right! What am I supposed to say to that?"

"And the calamity he brought?" Sela continues. "The deaths he caused?"

"He had no way to know the Goddess would do that," I mutter. "You said as much."

"Does that absolve him?" Sela asks.

"I! Don't! Know!"

"Then why are you so certain your only absolution is death?"

I stop running, my jaw clenched in frustration. Is Sela really going to get on my case about this, too?

"That's completely different," I insist. "I know what's coming. I know how to stop it. Of course my only option is doing that."

"Except that it isn't," Sela says. "Even from a practical, moral perspective in which you desire to save as many humans from calamity as possible… you do not succeed by dying. Because even if the Goddess fails this round, she will simply try again. Earth might be safe; I do not know what happens to the home universes of failed Founder's kin. But you're not the sort of person who only cares about your original home, are you?"

"You think I haven't thought of that?" I sigh. "You think I'm not aware that the best I can hope for is a temporary reprieve from Her callous cruelty? That doesn't justify letting billions die, Sela, because She's going to do it again either way. Unless you have a way to actually get the Goddess to stop, all we can do is save as many people as possible."

"Well of course, we will have to agree to disagree on that note," Sela buzzes. "I have no desire to save any people other than my own. But I will say this: your connection to Her is stronger than any other being in this material reality, both physically and socially. If there is some method of affecting the Goddess, it could only be through you. So at the very minimum, regardless of whether you ultimately decide to live or die, I believe now is too soon. There is yet a possibility of a more complete victory."

I shake my head, starting to walk again as I brush more tears from my eyes.

"What possibility?" I challenge it. "Can you honestly tell me anything that might even be in the right ballpark? She's a capital-G Goddess, Sela. We cannot touch Her, we cannot hide from Her, we cannot challenge Her, we cannot hurt Her. She is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. She interacts with our reality from a position so far removed and above it that we cannot even comprehend it outside of metaphor. She literally, definitionally, has no weakness. What the fuck do you expect me to do!?"

I'm shouting by the end of my tirade, my voice echoing out into the empty darkness of the afterlife. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of people trying to convince me to live, of people trying to give me hope in this hopeless, pointless situation. The only thing approaching a good reason I've been given to live is that the afterlife is apparently horrific and I'm enough of a selfish, worthless monster to care about that. I am tired of stupid platitudes and attempted blame-shifts and people telling me my life is worth something. I'm tired of it.

I don't want to hope anymore. I don't want to be brave. I just want to save Ida and let it all end.

"Die if you can, then, Hannah Hiiragi," Sela says, and my breath catches. "I will not beg some pathetic human, former or otherwise, to cling to her mortal coil. And… I will not spit on the memory of my many brothers and sisters who, when they saw the Crafted's fate, chose the same. When faced with eternity, we must decide for ourselves where best to walk. So if that is your choice… know that you need not fear the slow death of your mind in this place. If you prefer oblivion, it is well within my power."

My heart hammers, trying to crawl its way up my throat. I can speak no words to that, so I simply nod. It means more to me than I can ever say.

"But in honor of the time we've spent together," the robot continues, "in the spirit of the name you've given me and etched into my soul, please allow me one final, selfish request."

I don't react. I have no strength to say yes, but I certainly can't say no. Sela seems to understand, and continues without prompting.

"You know exactly who is responsible for this," it says. "And you know that person is not you. So. In your final moments, when the last die has been cast, when the game is well and truly over and you stand alone at the gates to oblivion, I want you to remember that. To bottle up your despair, your fear, your hopelessness, and your self-hate for one final moment. And I want you. To get. Angry."

The little wafer in my mouth starts to warm up, enough to be uncomfortable if not for how heat can no longer bother me.

"Rage for me, little spider. Even if you see no way to hit, take your swing. Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."

I nod again, my eyes closed to squeeze away the tears.

"I'll try."

It doesn't answer, and it doesn't need to. We both know that anger is beyond me right now, beyond my ability to even think of. I'm just too overwhelmed, too crushed by the circumstances to feel much of anything at all. But perhaps, when the time comes, I'll be able to make good on what it wants.

At the very least, I'll try.

"The spirit cluster is imminent," Sela reports. "Be on your guard."

I nod, quietly refreshing my Aura Sight and Miracle Eye spells for maximum visibility. But before I see the spirits, I see something that I thought I'd never find in this place.

"Is that… light?" I whisper.

"It must be generated by a Light mage," Sela says. "Again, this many ghosts can be dangerous. Take care."

I approach slowly, finally spotting the ghosts with my Aura Sight. They're still just vague outlines to me, but even with so many clustered together I can pick out where one ghost starts and another ends just by the feel of the aura, the subtleties that exist even between two spirits with the same elements. And though I can't hear the ghosts, the ripple that runs through them as I approach is hard to misinterpret.

A living girl is here, in the land of the dead. I wonder what that means to them.

"Greetings," Sela says to them. "As you can see, we are displaced. And there is one other here, who does not belong. We're looking for her, and we were directed to all of you."

More ripples and shifts in the ghosts. I stay on guard, but more than anything I focus on the source of the light near them: a transparent glowing circle, showing an image of what appears to be the sky. The living world's sky. Oh, how they must yearn for it, trapped in this horrible abyss.

"Yes, a girl," Sela confirms. "Similar height to this one. Likely naked. Purple skin, tail, no fur, two arms. Yes, she's been altered by a Transmutation mage. Yes. That's correct. No, I will not."

I tune out the one-sided conversation, glancing around. There must be close to two dozen ghosts, huddled together in this nothing plane. There are a handful of matter mages around, so I'm surprised to not find more structures. A home, maybe. But I suppose… why bother? Why own objects you can't touch? Why build a roof in the absence of weather?

Why make a legacy when you've been reduced to nothing?

But still, they're together. I hope they can at least talk to each other, to live out their deaths in something like a community. That would at least be something good, in this wretched place. I can only imagine they're here to be with the ghost that can make images of the sky. To have some light and color brought back to a place that has forgotten such things. But there are Pneuma mages around, too. And I'm always afraid that being friends with a Pneuma mage means something more sinister.

"I am Sela. And this is Hannah."

Oh, we're being introduced. I nod as my name is mentioned, and then freeze as one of the Pneuma-aligned spirits seems to flinch.

My heart goes cold. There's… there's no way, right? But next to that soul, I can't help but notice another. A familiar, kind-feeling spirit that pulses with Matter and Barrier. One that, when my name is called, can't help but approach me.

It can't be. Can it?

"Teboho?" I ask, cutting off whatever Sela is saying. The spirit sprints at me, rushing with its blurry arms outstretched to envelop me in a hug… and it passes through me. Intangible. But there's no doubt about it. That was Teboho. Teboho is here.

And so is Sindri. And I can only think of one reason they would be together, after all this time.

"Hey, Sela?" I ask softly.

"Yes, Hannah?"

"You said that ghosts can still cast their spells in the afterlife, right?" I say. "Does Pneuma magic work on the dead?"

"It does," Sela confirms, and I feel something wake, deep under the crushing ocean of my despair. "While Death magic is very powerful at binding and controlling the will of ghosts, Pneuma magic is no less effective in this place. On the contrary, Pneuma mages are the most resilient and long-lasting spirits, maintaining the most of themselves for longer than any other kind of soul due to their inherent resistance to Death."

"I see," I hiss, as Teboho's ghost tilts its head in something like confusion. As if he doesn't understand where I could be going with this. "Sela. I think I'm starting to get angry."

My robotic friend vibrates on my tongue, a shiver of delight.

"Good," it hisses. "I've always been a poor diplomat anyway."