Two stars, orbiting around each other since ancient times. They are the polar opposites, one destroying all life with deadly gamma rays, one preventing it from happening by shielding part of the solar system with its own body.
It is a delicate balance of life and death … one which may never be broken by anyone. Not even the two stars themselves.
It was a rather weird dream I had. These exact words were voiced by me, while I saw a scene of two binary stars orbiting around each other. And then, the weird dream cut off and I felt how someone was pressing on my chest rhythmically.
Once. Twice. A third time. During the fourth time, I felt a little current of electricity entering my body, hurting me somewhat, but also bringing me back from my deep slumber.
Choking violently, I opened my eyes and directly pushed myself up while leaning over to the side. A swath of water exited my mouth right away, driven by my contracting lungs. For seconds, I coughed up more and more water until strength left my body once more and my cheeks touched the beach. Once more, I was drifting of into sleep without any chance of stopping it.
The scene of my dreams didn’t change much. It showed the same two stars, orbiting around each other. This time though it did look as if more time had passed since the earlier scene. The two stars were closer together then ever and nearly touched each other. Matter was already exchanged between the two, but it didn’t look very normal. The green particles hitting the burning red sun seemed to create cracks along the surface of the red sun. The opposite way around didn’t look healthier either as dark, nearly black spots had appeared across the surface of the green sun.
I honestly didn’t know why I was dreaming such bullshit. This wasn’t a message by any god trying to get in contact with me, that was for sure. It also wasn’t one of my memories, meaning it was a weird fever dream that I somehow couldn’t explain. Dreams where there for our mind to process the experienced … but I had no clue what this experience was.
Well, sometimes dreams were weird as well, so I didn’t put much thought into it as I woke up in a comfortably warm bed. I laid halfway on an adult woman, who didn’t wear anything else but her underwear to warm me up as much as possible. Stretching myself a little, all these horrible feelings hit me like a sledgehammer once more. At once, tears began to stream out of my closed eyes, making Hannah beneath me very aware that I was awake.
“Can I help?” She asked and hugged me tightly. She knew very well I wasn’t in the best state of mind, but even she couldn’t have guessed the storm of emotions I felt.
“You … I …” I said, finally pushing myself away from her to kneel on the bed. My emotional state was a wreck, even more so than usual. But this time, I knew the reason for my state of mind. “Fuck. I’m so dumb.”
I had overlooked the lesson I learned after using my godly powers too much.
“Hmm?” Hannah asked, her voice full of worry.
“Degradation of the soul means emotional instability amongst others … and emotional instability means degradation of the soul.” It was a vicious circle I had experienced which was very hard to get out of through normal means. “And using my powers also means destroying my soul … I’m so fucking dumb.”
The whole time, I had steered straight into this situation and the water in the surroundings only made it worse.
“Hey…” Hannah said and touched my exposed shoulder. Anger shot through my veins all of a sudden. I was furious about myself, about the world and Aska.
“Don’t touch me!” I shouted out, only to regret it immediately as the anger vanished as fast as it overtook me, replaced once more by this overwhelming sadness. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to … ahh!” I held my head and shook it violently. Just like the binary system I had seen in my dreams, my soul was ripping itself apart. In a split second, I cancelled the magic I had used since coming back to this world right away and immediately felt how my soul stopped splitting apart. Still, that didn’t mean everything was alright, especially because I was overwhelmed by searing headaches and couldn’t think straight anymore.
“Hannah … the graveyard …” I muttered and drifted off into sleep once more, seeing exactly the same scene as before, but with a slight change. The stars were further apart once more and looked far less damaged. It was probably a symbolism for my well being, at least that’s what I could understand from it. I spent very little time dreaming once more, especially because the distance between those stars started to widen quickly after some time.
Opening my eyes once more, I felt strangely refreshed, even though my soul was still damaged. But it wasn’t over the point which was problematic anymore, so I could breathe out relaxed and with a calm mind. I was in then middle of a graveyard, surrounded by a lot of tombstones. I even leaned against one of them with a very concerned Hannah by my side.
Closing my eyes once more, I turned my attention inwards and noticed in satisfaction that my soul was healing incredibly fast thanks to all the death around me. I was basically taking it up in my like a sponge and used everything I got to heal myself instinctively.
“Shouldn’t have used magic the whole time…” I muttered and stood up with wobbly legs. “… I’m sorry, but the mines may have to wait a little.” I said a bit saddened. I had really looked forwards to bashing a few demons with Hannah, but I didn’t think I was capable of that.
“That’s the least of my worries right now.” She said and handed me a flask which I gratefully accepted. After fiddling with it for a little, I handed it back to her to open it for me. Only then could I drink every bit of blood inside in one go. “I want you to stop using your magic for the time being. During your sleep, your nose bled quite often … Lucy, I-“
“I’m not using it right now … and I learned that I shouldn’t be using any magic at all if I’m around water. I hate to admit it, but seeing water alone is enough of a burden and without any healing … well, you saw what happened.”
“And you are alright again?”
“For the most part. My soul should be fully healed at the end of this trip…”
“Please don’t work yourself to death.”
“… I will give my best.” My soul would reassemble itself anyway and I would resurrect without a doubt. I couldn’t promise her anything, but I wasn’t keen on going through this phase of emotional turmoil again either. Thus, I would need to make checking on my soul a habit, even though it was troublesome. “Checking on my own health was never my strong point though…”
“I know … so everything is back to normal?” She asked and looked around while frowning.
“Hm? No, I’m going to kill Schwarz now.” I said, whistling in approval of her. She realised that something was up, but couldn’t discern the cause right away.
“He is in Hotel Everdale.” She said finally realising that someone dug the grave to her side open … from the inside.
“… that was supposed to be a joke and don’t know if it tells more about you or me that you didn’t get it.” I said, strolled over to the grave and took the hand sticking out of the dirt. Half rotten, it was a bit disgusting to touch, but the sense of death around it made more than up for that. With my help, the corpse finally saw the night sky once more and directly expressed its gratitude by kneeling down in front of me.
“Do you need this zombie for anything?” Hannah asked a bit disgusted by the stench and held her nose close.
“I’m going to see all these kiddos tomorrow and I really wish I could punch every single one of them … but I can’t. They are just kids … they know nothing about the world … and hurting them would be illegal. So I’m going to vent my anger at this poor soul.” I explained and stepped on his left hand with my heel.
“You might need to wash yourself afterwards.” Hannah said in apparent disgust as the zombie vomited out a few living worms right in front of my other shoe.
“You do have a point with that.” I said and stepped back from the zombie. Touching him was really disgusting in the long run, no matter how good it felt as I gripped his deathly hand. “Well…”
Ripping him apart myself wasn’t the only option I had. Stepping back, I soon found a rather nice tombstone to sit on and crossed my legs happily. Smiling brightly, it didn’t take long for the zombie to bite into his own flesh.
In front of our eyes, he was eating his whole right hand, only spewing out the bones in the process. But that quickly turned out to be boring. Imagining Schwarz in front of me didn’t work out at all, as he definitely wouldn’t eat himself. And it also looked as if the zombie was way too eager to follow my every command which honestly put me off a bit.
“That’s all? I thought you were more creative.” Hannah commented dryly to my side, also sitting on a tombstone and watching the spectacle.
“Next time, you pick out the torture method, alright? And quite frankly speaking, it pisses me off that he isn’t showing any emotion.” I said and kicked the zombie angrily.
“Isn’t that the whole point of mindless slaves?” Yeah … kind of. But I didn’t want them to be emotionless. Sadly, every soul I could get back from purgatory was already broken beyond repair and most of them had no sense of self anymore.
“Yeah … but not when I want to torture them? It’s impossible to enjoy hurting others like this. Selfish prick …” I muttered and concentrated on one of the many other dead beings around us, looking towards us with red eyes.
At first it was only one rat which ran towards the zombie and started chewing on his legs. After a few more seconds, it were already two. More and more rodents stared gathering at the zombie, eating his very flesh and burying him beneath them.
In the end, it looked like a pile of rats and other rodents in front of us, each in a frenzy to get their fair share until all of them stopped eating at once and dispersed into the surroundings … well, all but one. That rat was missing part of its belly and both hind legs, which meant it crawled away from the pile of bones unnaturally.
None of these creatures were alive.
Every single one of them had been resurrected by a spell I had run constantly since I had visited the cemetery way early on. For tens of kilometres around me, I resurrected every dead being possible. All of them had a single task though which was to hide and wait until I gave them further orders.
They were my trump card … but sadly not against Aska. He would simply take control of them in his own hands. But they could be used against everyone else, even though it meant discarding my life as Lucy Dove which I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
Two stars, orbiting around each other since ancient times. They are the polar opposites, one destroying all life with deadly gamma rays, one preventing it from happening by shielding part of the solar system with its own body.
It is a delicate balance of life and death … one which may never be broken by anyone. Not even the two stars themselves.
It was a rather weird dream I had. These exact words were voiced by me, while I saw a scene of two binary stars orbiting around each other. And then, the weird dream cut off and I felt how someone was pressing on my chest rhythmically.
Once. Twice. A third time. During the fourth time, I felt a little current of electricity entering my body, hurting me somewhat, but also bringing me back from my deep slumber.
Choking violently, I opened my eyes and directly pushed myself up while leaning over to the side. A swath of water exited my mouth right away, driven by my contracting lungs. For seconds, I coughed up more and more water until strength left my body once more and my cheeks touched the beach. Once more, I was drifting of into sleep without any chance of stopping it.
The scene of my dreams didn’t change much. It showed the same two stars, orbiting around each other. This time though it did look as if more time had passed since the earlier scene. The two stars were closer together then ever and nearly touched each other. Matter was already exchanged between the two, but it didn’t look very normal. The green particles hitting the burning red sun seemed to create cracks along the surface of the red sun. The opposite way around didn’t look healthier either as dark, nearly black spots had appeared across the surface of the green sun.
I honestly didn’t know why I was dreaming such bullshit. This wasn’t a message by any god trying to get in contact with me, that was for sure. It also wasn’t one of my memories, meaning it was a weird fever dream that I somehow couldn’t explain. Dreams where there for our mind to process the experienced … but I had no clue what this experience was.
Well, sometimes dreams were weird as well, so I didn’t put much thought into it as I woke up in a comfortably warm bed. I laid halfway on an adult woman, who didn’t wear anything else but her underwear to warm me up as much as possible. Stretching myself a little, all these horrible feelings hit me like a sledgehammer once more. At once, tears began to stream out of my closed eyes, making Hannah beneath me very aware that I was awake.
“Can I help?” She asked and hugged me tightly. She knew very well I wasn’t in the best state of mind, but even she couldn’t have guessed the storm of emotions I felt.
“You … I …” I said, finally pushing myself away from her to kneel on the bed. My emotional state was a wreck, even more so than usual. But this time, I knew the reason for my state of mind. “Fuck. I’m so dumb.”
I had overlooked the lesson I learned after using my godly powers too much.
“Hmm?” Hannah asked, her voice full of worry.
“Degradation of the soul means emotional instability amongst others … and emotional instability means degradation of the soul.” It was a vicious circle I had experienced which was very hard to get out of through normal means. “And using my powers also means destroying my soul … I’m so fucking dumb.”
The whole time, I had steered straight into this situation and the water in the surroundings only made it worse.
“Hey…” Hannah said and touched my exposed shoulder. Anger shot through my veins all of a sudden. I was furious about myself, about the world and Aska.
“Don’t touch me!” I shouted out, only to regret it immediately as the anger vanished as fast as it overtook me, replaced once more by this overwhelming sadness. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to … ahh!” I held my head and shook it violently. Just like the binary system I had seen in my dreams, my soul was ripping itself apart. In a split second, I cancelled the magic I had used since coming back to this world right away and immediately felt how my soul stopped splitting apart. Still, that didn’t mean everything was alright, especially because I was overwhelmed by searing headaches and couldn’t think straight anymore.
“Hannah … the graveyard …” I muttered and drifted off into sleep once more, seeing exactly the same scene as before, but with a slight change. The stars were further apart once more and looked far less damaged. It was probably a symbolism for my well being, at least that’s what I could understand from it. I spent very little time dreaming once more, especially because the distance between those stars started to widen quickly after some time.
Opening my eyes once more, I felt strangely refreshed, even though my soul was still damaged. But it wasn’t over the point which was problematic anymore, so I could breathe out relaxed and with a calm mind. I was in then middle of a graveyard, surrounded by a lot of tombstones. I even leaned against one of them with a very concerned Hannah by my side.
Closing my eyes once more, I turned my attention inwards and noticed in satisfaction that my soul was healing incredibly fast thanks to all the death around me. I was basically taking it up in my like a sponge and used everything I got to heal myself instinctively.
“Shouldn’t have used magic the whole time…” I muttered and stood up with wobbly legs. “… I’m sorry, but the mines may have to wait a little.” I said a bit saddened. I had really looked forwards to bashing a few demons with Hannah, but I didn’t think I was capable of that.
“That’s the least of my worries right now.” She said and handed me a flask which I gratefully accepted. After fiddling with it for a little, I handed it back to her to open it for me. Only then could I drink every bit of blood inside in one go. “I want you to stop using your magic for the time being. During your sleep, your nose bled quite often … Lucy, I-“
“I’m not using it right now … and I learned that I shouldn’t be using any magic at all if I’m around water. I hate to admit it, but seeing water alone is enough of a burden and without any healing … well, you saw what happened.”
“And you are alright again?”
“For the most part. My soul should be fully healed at the end of this trip…”
“Please don’t work yourself to death.”
“… I will give my best.” My soul would reassemble itself anyway and I would resurrect without a doubt. I couldn’t promise her anything, but I wasn’t keen on going through this phase of emotional turmoil again either. Thus, I would need to make checking on my soul a habit, even though it was troublesome. “Checking on my own health was never my strong point though…”
“I know … so everything is back to normal?” She asked and looked around while frowning.
“Hm? No, I’m going to kill Schwarz now.” I said, whistling in approval of her. She realised that something was up, but couldn’t discern the cause right away.
“He is in Hotel Everdale.” She said finally realising that someone dug the grave to her side open … from the inside.
“… that was supposed to be a joke and don’t know if it tells more about you or me that you didn’t get it.” I said, strolled over to the grave and took the hand sticking out of the dirt. Half rotten, it was a bit disgusting to touch, but the sense of death around it made more than up for that. With my help, the corpse finally saw the night sky once more and directly expressed its gratitude by kneeling down in front of me.
“Do you need this zombie for anything?” Hannah asked a bit disgusted by the stench and held her nose close.
“I’m going to see all these kiddos tomorrow and I really wish I could punch every single one of them … but I can’t. They are just kids … they know nothing about the world … and hurting them would be illegal. So I’m going to vent my anger at this poor soul.” I explained and stepped on his left hand with my heel.
“You might need to wash yourself afterwards.” Hannah said in apparent disgust as the zombie vomited out a few living worms right in front of my other shoe.
“You do have a point with that.” I said and stepped back from the zombie. Touching him was really disgusting in the long run, no matter how good it felt as I gripped his deathly hand. “Well…”
Ripping him apart myself wasn’t the only option I had. Stepping back, I soon found a rather nice tombstone to sit on and crossed my legs happily. Smiling brightly, it didn’t take long for the zombie to bite into his own flesh.
In front of our eyes, he was eating his whole right hand, only spewing out the bones in the process. But that quickly turned out to be boring. Imagining Schwarz in front of me didn’t work out at all, as he definitely wouldn’t eat himself. And it also looked as if the zombie was way too eager to follow my every command which honestly put me off a bit.
“That’s all? I thought you were more creative.” Hannah commented dryly to my side, also sitting on a tombstone and watching the spectacle.
“Next time, you pick out the torture method, alright? And quite frankly speaking, it pisses me off that he isn’t showing any emotion.” I said and kicked the zombie angrily.
“Isn’t that the whole point of mindless slaves?” Yeah … kind of. But I didn’t want them to be emotionless. Sadly, every soul I could get back from purgatory was already broken beyond repair and most of them had no sense of self anymore.
“Yeah … but not when I want to torture them? It’s impossible to enjoy hurting others like this. Selfish prick …” I muttered and concentrated on one of the many other dead beings around us, looking towards us with red eyes.
At first it was only one rat which ran towards the zombie and started chewing on his legs. After a few more seconds, it were already two. More and more rodents stared gathering at the zombie, eating his very flesh and burying him beneath them.
In the end, it looked like a pile of rats and other rodents in front of us, each in a frenzy to get their fair share until all of them stopped eating at once and dispersed into the surroundings … well, all but one. That rat was missing part of its belly and both hind legs, which meant it crawled away from the pile of bones unnaturally.
None of these creatures were alive.
Every single one of them had been resurrected by a spell I had run constantly since I had visited the cemetery way early on. For tens of kilometres around me, I resurrected every dead being possible. All of them had a single task though which was to hide and wait until I gave them further orders.
They were my trump card … but sadly not against Aska. He would simply take control of them in his own hands. But they could be used against everyone else, even though it meant discarding my life as Lucy Dove which I wasn’t ready to give up yet.
