Page 97 of Remnants: Disruption
“That’s why they’re angry,” he says, nodding behind him as if the entire afterlife occupies the colosseum seating. “They need control. They need regulation.”
“How?” I ask softly, tilting my head to catch his eyes again.
“Can you feel me?” he asks, and I glance down the length of his ghostly form. “My presence.”
I suck at my teeth and nod.
Duh.
Closing my eyes, I let my senses spread with the shadows. In the past I’d only ever used the incorporeal bands to find the living. I’d never needed, or wanted, to find the dead.
But there he is. It’s a flicker of something. Not the same energy put off by Azazel who watches quietly from the side.
This is different. This is familiar.
Slowly, I wrap a tendril around it and the man lets out a shuddering gasp. At first fear rockets through the connection, but then it dulls quickly into utter jubilation.
That’s the only word for it. Ecstasy. Freedom.
Release.
Opening my eyes again, I find the man. His own eyes are closed, head tilted back in reverence.
“This is all they want,” he says, voice hushed like in a place of worship. “This is what they need from you.”
And then he disappears. The fragment of energy feels as though it transcends the connection between us as his form evaporates.
But I can still sense it. Unlike the other spirits who’d tormented me, I can feel him like it’s just one of my other thousands of thoughts and feelings. Not overwhelming. Not even really noticeable unless I want to.
It’s just there.
“What happened?” Azazel’s voice breaks through my reverie.
I turn to him with what’s probably a stupid grin.
“I had a nice one this time. I think I get it. At least a little bit,” I say, grinning wider with a renewed sense of direction.
“Are there more?” Azazel asks, not exactly pushing for an explanation.
Which is good because I don’t really know what I just did, either.
“A lot,” I say, grunting as several more less-than-friendly faces appear in the sheer darkness around Azazel’s glow.
“Then do it again. You are the master of death, Hiraeth. Rebuild the throne of your kingdom.”
The hours pass as I wrangle spirits like a goddamn cattle rancher. The whole situation is almost comedic if you ignore the screams of the damned.
Some of the spirits act like the first man. They’re sad and tired. For whatever reason, they never passed on.
And that raised the next excellent question of “what the fuck do you mean pass on?”
When I ask several of the kinder ones, they simply shrug. It’s like the instinct is there, but something is preventing them from going… somewhere.
The nebulous “afterlife” isn’t something any of them really get. They just know it exists.
Others though are angry that they’re stuck. Or, worse, angry that they’re dead at all. Those ones fight back. Though once they calm down enough that I can do whatever it is I’m doing, they relax. That small piece of them seems calmer and more compliant as it sits somewhere in the vast emptiness of my brain.
Or my soul, maybe. It’s really unclear.
