Worlds War One

xiii [Autumn]

Autumn Loloma. Pept of the A'aninin. Casper the Grouchy Ghost. Whatever her name, she no longer had a body. She was a phantom, a spirit free of physical form. She was home, in a place without borders or barriers or flesh and blood. After thirty years of believing in something, she learned that something else had been true all along. Like someone finding out they'd been adopted, and it explained why they'd never fit in, or their mother had dropped them as a baby, and that was why they could never remember what they'd done five minutes before.

Enlightenment.

Autumn could sense her companions around her. Apparitions stealing away in shadows, they existed near yet nearly unseen. There was a difference in Autumn's aura compared to the others, like the rest of them had visitor passes and for Autumn, it was official. She belonged here. She was where she was supposed to be.

She didn't see, exactly. Or hear. Communication became an approximation of what Autumn had understood on Earth. They could talk to each other despite the lack of mouth or ears. They could see each other even though no one had eyes or bodies. It was a sense beyond the five Autumn had depended on for the last thirty years.

Saanvi returned from counseling Airman Fox. Autumn had overheard her telling him to hold his thoughts together, or his consciousness might drift apart, and the kid would cease to exist. This place was an unnatural environment for lifeforms prone to physicality. It was dangerous for the rest of them to be here. For Autumn, she'd returned to the status quo.

"This is Heaven," Autumn said, observing her surroundings, endless amorphousness every way. Definition was an abstract idea in the Great Nothing.

"No," Saanvi answered. "At least not officially. Heaven is for Humans. This place is for Ghosts."

"This is where Ghosts go when we die? My sister's spirit?"

"Your kind doesn't die, Pept of the A'aninin."

"I think I still prefer Autumn. For now."

"Very well. You see, Autumn, while Humans take on physical form and are subject to decay and disease and deterioration, Ghosts are mainly immaterial and mostly immortal. You only pretend to age and expire," Saanvi explained. "Most Ghosts spend their days on Earth dreaming the Great Dream. They're under a spell that makes them see the world as something simpler. Something they can experience mutually with all the other tribes. But it's an illusion."

"A lie," Autumn corrected. "My whole life was a lie."

Saanvi was without physical form, but Autumn understood a shrug nonetheless. "A necessary construct to protect the Way Things Really Are. The Earthly plane is where Ghosts can concentrate their spirit into a form approximating physicality. There, you can touch and breathe and love. You can congregate with the other tribes. On Earth, everyone is part of one world."

"The world is fiction," Autumn said.

"It's more like putting on clothes before going to the party," Saanvi explained. "The mask you wore for those thirty years was adornment—a way of fitting in. You were still Pept of the A'aninin underneath. And you are always Pept of the A'aninin when you return here after you run the course of your time on Earth."

"There are those like the Mongwi who remember even when they're on Earth?" Autumn asked. "Like you?"

"There are many familiars on Earth who see the Way Things Really Are," Saanvi said. "Like my family. Not everyone dreams the Great Dream."

"Ghosts never die?" Autumn refocused on Spring. Could she be alive somehow? Hope sprang up like her heart remained right where it had resided for eternity. "We exist here, except when we put on a mask to live on Earth for a while, then we come back here? Over and over?"

"The Ghosts were all birthed at the very beginning of time. A finite number of beings that have neither gotten more nor less. From the Great Nothing you came, and to the Great Nothing you return. Until lately, I would've agreed that your kind never die."

Saanvi had sensed hope and sought to squash optimism before it blossomed. "Spring isn't here?"

"No," Sannvi answered gently. "Your sister Navay of the A'aninin—Mot obliterated her soul."

"The Skelton Man?"

"Mot. Skeleton Man. Johnny Rotten. Death. He goes by many names. For so long, he was gone. Gone since the very beginning of time. But now he's back."

"What does he want?"

"That's why we need to find the zombie we chased in here," Saanvi said. "We need to find out."

Autumn gazed into the distance. Every direction seemed endless. She stared into the abyss any way she turned. It was called the Great Nothing for a reason, as she saw no edges, no destinations, no physical markers to indicate near or far.

"How do we find him?"

"The thing about Nothing is that it can be as big as the whole universe or as small as a mote," Saanvi said. "The rest of us have no domain over this dimension. But you can find him. You can feel what doesn't belong here. Reach out with your mind."

Autumn could feel things. Things that didn't have names. A community of Ghosts that all reached back, touching her like fingertips brushing against each other in passing. Then something different. Something wrong. Like a smudge on a vast expanse of glass. Faint but a flaw.

"I can feel him," Autumn said.

"Lead. We'll follow."

Moving was another new sensation. Distance or change in landscape didn't determine passage from point to point, but more as a shift in perspective, like starting to think about something in a new way. Autumn was thinking about a lot of things in new ways. The smudge interrupting the continuous clean surface grew nearer. Nearer.

There was no color in the Great Nothing—no texture or shape. Autumn could merely feel a difference between dim and bright. But the longer Autumn spent here, the more she could "see." It was like locating objects in a dark room at night, a sixth sense separating shadow from the darkness.

"There," Autumn said, and the world shifted, bringing them all instantly into the proximity of an entity exuding rot and decay. It wasn't the smell or the sight—neither existed here—but something foul rolled off the invader in waves.

"You need to come with us," Saanvi said. "You can't hide in the Great Nothing."

"No," Wang Mot said. "It's already too late. I'm done. Human bodies can't long survive the change. That's why I am only a scout. I won't last long anyway. Thus, if I get caught..." His essence dwindled, almost gone.

"It doesn't have to be like this," Autumn said.

"Life and death. Birth and decay," Wang Mot sighed, faint and fading. "It's the way it's always been."

Autumn felt the undead man drift apart, his quintessence but dust dispersed by a gust of wind. Saanvi had warned Airman Fox how one could lose their consciousness in this place. A Ghostly mind may be predisposed to the Great Nothing, but someone untuned to its unique ephemeralness can dissolve like a tablet in a solution.

And although the man had been deceased ever since his transformation in Senado Square, Autumn couldn't help feeling Wang Mot died right then and there, lost in the Great Nothing. There may not be tears in the realm of Ghosts, but Autumn cried for him. No one else did.