Skye is dead.
How she perished is a mystery. All she knows is that she is trapped in After, a makeshift city of souls surrounded by infinite darkness and terrifying monsters that tear ghosts apart.
But while all other ghosts accept the eternity of...
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The four of us wandered down the winding cobbled streets of Aḫ-ḫur. At either side of us, brick and stone buildings-the remains of what used to be shops and houses-lay empty in varying states of collapse. Courtyards were vacant, and no one manned the abandoned overturned carts in the street. Sculptures of fantastical creatures with human heads and the bodies of winged bulls or lions-lamassu, as Crow informed us-snarled down at us from rooftops. My group and I looked very out of place in this city, like we had inexplicably been transported thousands of years into the past.
It was a ghost town with no ghosts.
"So, explain the red eyes and the magic powers, please," Vale said as her heels clicked on stone.
Crow heaved a sigh, still supported by Webb. "It is an ability I have always had...Well, I suppose that is not true anymore. Sometime between my death, and the time Nymandus and Orville found me in the desert, I must have acquired it. And not even they knew this about me." He waved his branded arm, the one not slung across Webb's shoulders. "The wind, I can control. But it leaves me weak afterwards. I believe this power is how I have such a connection to my birds."
I observed the crows lining the roofs overhead. "I wonder if it's related to how you went blind, too."
Webb adjusted Crow's weight. "Hold on a minute," he huffed to the exhausted hollow. "We met in a sandstorm. Was that you?"
Crow crossed his fingers and offered us a weak smile. "That was the desert trying to kill you. Not me. Though this power is quite useful for keeping pesky scavengers away."
"I've seen Blackburne's eyes turn red too," I said.
The man turned an ear to me inquisitively. "Have you?"
I nodded. "Yes. Does that mean Blackburne has some kind of power, too?"
"Hm," was all Crow said. The colorless galaxies in his eyes seemed to spiral even more as he was lost in his thoughts. "You can let me go now," he said to Webb. "I can walk on my own from here."
Webb released Crow who limped a few strides away. He stumbled here and there, but gradually found his footing. Without his cloak, Crow looked much less intimidating-more vulnerable. The fact that he could barely keep pace with us, stepping lightly on bare feet while our boots crunched up debris, added to that. The blue of his ornate gilded wrap was a nice change of color from all the red and black of the afterlife.
Suddenly, every hair on my body stood straight up as my heart lurched in me. "Oh!" I uttered, and held a hand to my chest.
Vale shot a worried look in my direction. "What's wrong?" she asked, looking left and right for any intruders.
I shook my head. "It's fine. I just feel that same weird pulsing sensation, like in the graveyard in After."
