Vanilla Dusk ✓

Fallen Part 2

They were dragged across a graveyard filled with statues of their kind, some with cracks running across their cold, stony bodies; some with missing limbs and misshapen faces; some with bulging eyes, a flattened nose barely containing nostrils and lips that spread across both cheeks; and some with their facial features completely eroded as if mashed by a giant's hand. And of course, the moaning was something else – it echoed endlessly like a chant. The lingering souls with nowhere to go took the form of pellucid figures drifting across the ground, although one could hardly see the ground with the intensity of the phantom-like mist and ice-cold fog that came with a pungent-choking smell. 

They floated, whirled and glided aimlessly, lamenting, groaning and sometimes humming. They were all trapped and caged here because of their missing pieces – their souls were incomplete, somehow torn and damaged in hysteria when they were still alive, or because of a traumatising coma or an excruciating death involving a cult, to a point that the harm was irrevocable and they were forever condemned. Those souls collected from Earth would often undergo a series of complicated trials and reclassifications before they were sent off to their next destination – either up or down or back to start another cycle.

E had never felt anything for these poor, deserted souls before, not until now. Every time he glimpsed those hollow eyes, chalky faces and scrawny bodies almost reduced to bare skeletons, he resisted the urge to cry out in despair and cover his ears with his hands, which were, unfortunately, cuffed now by spiky metal chains so heavy and tight they threatened to pull him down into the soil.

A colossal structure stood before them, masked by the thick mist – a construction with mixed features of what would be a typical sanctuary and an ancient castle from the human world, with sophisticated carvings on the pure black walls and numerous disproportionate sculptures of skeletons. They knew what was awaiting them inside, just as the vast gate opened its mouth slowly with a deafening groan. They were yanked into a dim place that resembled an assembly hall decorated with dark, stained mosaic glass windows, with hundreds of their kind sitting solemnly in a line on both sides. The aisle stretched long to what would appear like a throne in humans' eyes, but seriously, it was just where their Boss was sitting and this is actually how they call him in general. Some might address him as their Master, just to sound flattering, but in truth, they share the boss-subordinate kind of relationship, only that in this realm, a Boss can punish any subordinates, determine their fates or eradicate them directly.

Humans have various names for them, much to E's amusement. They call their Boss the Angel of Death or the Grim Reaper, but they would simply say they are just a Soul Collector. They collect people's souls when the right time comes – they don't execute them or interrupt the chain. That's the ultimate order from the Lord. Everyone's course of life has been predestined from the moment of birth and such a cycle would repeat for however many years their souls are reincarnated or are left wandering or shifting between parallel worlds. E appreciates the way humans believe they have the power to bargain and make changes through endeavours, clinging to a faith that if they work hard enough, there will be a hopeful turn of things when in fact, there is none. What is meant to happen will happen surely, and E and S have seen enough of pointless struggles or futile attempts to conclude so.

But right now, their fates were the ones in the spotlight. Eyes of cold daggers fell on them as they were dragged to their Boss, an inhumanly dark gorgeous being with a face that could only be described as pristine, pale and symmetrical, with high protruding cheekbones, a slanted nose and a prominent chin underneath his thin lips that curved slightly upwards. His eyes, blacker and more hollow than anyone else's, had penetrated so many souls that just by simply taking a glimpse of them, even supernatural beings like E and S could feel shivers, as if they were re-experiencing the moment of death from those whose souls they had collected, discarded and sent to Heaven or Hell or Earth. Their Boss was sitting cross-legged with his massive wings, twice the size of his body, outstretched, wearing an elegant long, black gown of pure silk. His shoulder-length glossy hair was just as black as his feathers.