The gold filled the circle then grew brighter. And brighter. My body physically told me that I needed to blink, and yet I didn’t. Or… I couldn’t? It was hard to say. It was what I imagined being sucked away by a transporter beam in Star Trek was like—which had some concerning aspects to it.
While I was still debating if technically the reconstitution of teleportation sci-fi style was a combination of dying and being cloned, I was suddenly lifted off the ground by an unseen force. As one might imagine, that pretty much cleared my backlog of thoughts as every single one focused on how my feet were getting higher. And higher. And higher.
It wasn’t like flying, not at all. I was definitely in more of the ‘floating’ territory, but that didn’t make it any less disconcerting. I opened my mouth to say something, but then the blinding light all around me barreled down my throat like a physical force. I could feel it flowing into and through me with an unnatural warmth.
My body choked on instinct, except there was nothing to choke on and I sort of just sputtered. It took a moment to calm the physical reaction, but once I did, I realized that I could still breathe and swallow just fine, despite the light pouring into me.
How bizarre.
But as the seconds ticked on during my own personal internal light show, I began to feel something. It was subtle at first considering the ever-present droning of the Lord of the Dead, the lights, and everything else, but it steadily grew. It was a shimmering sort of warmth that matched the light, but there was something more to it.
It spread out all around me, spilling across the floor, climbing across the walls. I couldn’t see it, considering that I was currently blinded by the sheer amount of illumination within the circle, but I could sense it.
And I kind of wanted to follow it.
But that was impossible, of course. Especially with how I was stuck hovering, pinned in place like I was between two giant magnets.
Then again, considering everything I’d witnessed, maybe it wasn’t so impossible for my senses to spread out far from my physical body, chasing the sizzling sensation that was beginning to make the hair of my arms stand on end.
Sure enough, it took some effort, but I felt a strand that stood out to me, leading out of the room. I let my mind follow it and was surprised when I felt another burning mass of energy.
What… what was that?
It didn’t have a set shape that I could discern, but I knew that I needed to go to it. To observe it, poke it, or drop kick it, I wasn’t sure. The only thing I was certain of was that I needed to investigate.
So, I concentrated and sent my senses through the energy, fizzing and simmering, until I reached that burning mass. And once I reached it, I could have laughed at myself for not realizing it earlier.
It was a Reaper.
How could I have ever not known? It felt as obvious as breathing, if only because their energy was almost an exact echo of mine.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Well, maybe not exact.
I could feel like there was something different within me. Something at my core. It was kind of cold, but only in the same way that touching wet metal felt cold. But it wasn’t slimy like so many things had been lately.
“That’s me,” the voice in my head said, and it was like her words appeared in dark colors in the corner of my vision.
“Why do you feel like that?”
“Because I’m dead. I can’t channel the life energy that Reapers wield nor am I connected to any of the gods of death. I’m just…”
“An echo…” I murmured, remembering words that she’d used before.
“Yes. Just an echo. Nothing more.”
And yet, I swore that there was a deep melancholy to those words. That the echo of my dead Reaper companion felt far more than any half-baked copy ever could. Maybe one day we would be close enough that she’d open up to me in that way, but then again, how long did I want to be carrying around someone else within my own noggin?
I focused my attention back on the Reaper, trying to wrap my mind around everything that I was sensing from someone who wasn’t even in the same room I was. And yet, to me, it felt as if they were kneeling beside me, calm, and resolute, and eternal.
The more I observed about them, the more my senses began to bleed around the edges, until I noticed that while this Reaper and I both shined a resplendent gold, there were still tendrils of the brilliant light spreading in all directions. Some crisscrossed each other, some wound around each other, and some were as tangled as the clearance box of discontinued yarn at the craft store. I felt as if I could reach out and touch any of them, then be whisked all the way around the world to the source of it.
“This is the web that connects us all. Every Reaper that’s alive is a part of the design of death. It may take you quite a while, but once you master sensing this web, you will be a powerful Reaper indeed.”
“But I'm sensing it now, aren't I?”
“You are, but this is your initiation. You’re being woven into the web now as we speak, so this will be the most you’re able to sense it for quite a while.”
“Oh.”
“In fact, I think you're almost done. The last part is—”
The voice cut off without so much of as a pause, and the brightly glowing world around me winked out. It wasn't the strangest sensation I'd experienced in the past week, but it certainly was alarming. One moment I was surrounded by blinding light, and the next, I was in nothing.
“Uh, hello?”
And then, like the lights slowly flicking on in succession in a long room, the world around me illuminated again. But this time, it wasn't blinding, or even gold. No, it was more of a pure white, but there was a subtle sort of haze to it. Like everything surrounding me was a strange sort of intangible. I wasn’t hovering, per se, but I also wasn’t really standing on anything, either. I just existed in a way that my mind had an incredibly difficult time understanding.
But then, like Aphrodite being birthed from the ocean, a huge, magnificent being appeared above the horizon, growing larger and larger until they could have given Godzilla a run for his money.
This new being was… ethereal in a way I hadn’t been prepared for. Riding on a giant, black bull, I couldn’t quite tell if they were a man or woman, only that they had a noose in one hand and a mace in the other. Their skin was dark, so incredibly dark, but also tinged the most beautiful, other-worldly blue I’d ever seen. Their clothes were red and flowing, almost seeming to disappear into smoke at the ends like an echo of a dream instead of actual fabric.
Welcome new acolyte.
I didn’t hear their words, at least not physically. It was almost as if I had been sent a message that physically hung in the air before me for a moment until I comprehended the words. I swallowed hard, more than a bit cowed as the massive deity leaned down to look over me.
Because I had absolutely no doubt the being before me had to be a god. God of the Reapers, perhaps? Somehow, I wished that I had asked even more questions, because I’d really gone into this whole initiation thing trusting pretty blindly.
Then again, Gildebrak had saved my life with that phantasm and also had vouched for me to the Lord of the Dead, so why would she waste all that energy if this was some strangely elaborate plan to do me in?
Choose your gift.