Two young girls explore a shattered world, filled with sound: a past to be uncovered...
Each awakens in this blank, ruin-dotted world to discover that she is equally blank, remembering nothing of what came before.
And then they make a second discove...
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The cliff overlooked it all.
At the end of the day, those who had abandoned the mortal coil left behind their souls like hermit shells for other, new lives to take them. Their spirits ascended to the land's Pool, luminous and glimmering overhead.
Water-like spirits, almost formless; everything white and flowing into that vibrancy which bore through the clouded sky. In the gray landscape that was her world, this sight—this unique, spectacular sight—was something many could call a wonder.
To her, it was ordinary. It was everyday. It was work.
"Any trembling on the left side?" her confrère asked from behind. She very slightly moved her head to see him sitting on the ground. On his lap sat a wide, black, shallow bowl of water, used for lecanomancy, and from the ripples inside it she could see that he'd just performed a divination.
She answered him lightly with, "No." Then she asked, "Why? Have you noticed something?"
"It looks like the earth shook a bit," he explained.
"Ahh... That's not good. Should I look closer?"
"Hmm... It seems like a fissure," he said. "Go take care of it."
With a simple "alright," she stepped off the cliff.
The density of spirits nearby slowed her fall. She found a pair of strings that were keeping her blouse, sleeves, and skirt taut. When she tugged them, they loosened and began to dangle; a shimmer emanated from the cloth and her dress began to ruffle loudly. And as it did, it dulled the influence of the dead.
Once she reached the ground, she took her scythe from her hip, unfolded it to its full height, and after turning it over, rode the underside of the blade in flight to her far-off destination.
To mend the fissure after coaxing out the souls trapped within it.
To return to the cliff, and watch for any other aberrations.
She was to do this, and things like it, day after day. Yes. That was her responsibility. And, in time, her life would join the others.
In fact, that time has already passed.
It's long ago, gone. The world and life she once knew is now only a shapeless memory
There was no mystery to it in her life: what happened to the dead was what happened. There was no "next world", only that which you were born in, lived in, and died in. Something like heaven... hell... even purgatory: these were moralists' tales which only seemed valid in the most ancient of times.
So what is this place? What is this mysterious realm that she one day awakened to? What might it be? What might it be?
Well... does it really matter?
"Hm..."
She sits knees-up on top of a lighthouse, overlooking a desert. White. White, and more white... and there, glass. "Arcaea" is its name. With her chin in her hand, she casts a languid gaze toward a bridge extending left. She doesn't know where that one goes.
"Phew..." She exhales and stands, taking the scythe from off her hip. It doesn't work quite the same here, but she can still utilize it for travel. Unconsciously, she brushes her bangs the other way. In doing so she grazes the front side of her left horn with her fingertips.
Right... right. To this day, of all the memories she can find within the Arcaea... she hasn't found a single one with any horned humans represented.
With these memories being really the only attention-grabbers in this world fashioned from glass, she's spent quite a bit of time watching and cataloguing them. Keeping them, like records. And indeed, those records don't even hint at her race having ever existed anywhere.
Her race is... Race... Race? Is that a safe assumption to make? Was she part of a "people" when she was alive, participating in spiritual horticulture? Not that it matters now, but perhaps remembering more clearly will unlock more of her old self... Something like that, anyway.
For now, it's time to evaluate which shards of glass have left the part of Arcaea she calls home, which have remained, and which are new. She moves to step from the lighthouse, ready for her new routine.
