“How often did I tell you to stop scribbling on the table. There is paper for that.” A few days later I wrote down who I wanted to be in the future. I strangely struggled to write anything specific down as I didn’t want to describe who I was.
“Paper is made out of wood. Wood is the basis for this table, so I am writing on paper.” Disinterested, he made himself a coffee and eyed over my shoulder while I tapped the table with my finger continuously. “Hey, who do you want to be?”
“The god of gods.” I nearly made my cup of tea fall over and ruined my list of exactly one point. In disbelieve, I glanced over my shoulder while I tried my best to contain my laughter.
“As if a third rate god like you will ever achieve that.”
“Gotta dream high. It´s still better than what you wrote down though. You want to be yourself? Are you in some kind of existential crisis or what? Don’t tell me … you are schizophrenic?” No, I was not. I didn’t have an existential crisis, but it felt like I was treading on the same place for some years now. Maybe it was time to change a few things here and there.
“What do you think about being nice to others for once? I mean, excluding the boy, we didn’t treat the others that well and we both know how that turned out.” Maybe it was time to change my behaviour to others a bit, but I immediately knew that this would work out quite badly. Friendships and such are usually built upon empathy and I wasn’t remotely capable of this except for a few selected persons like Aska.
“Now you have gone crazy. Why don’t you actually do what you wrote down and stay like you are?” That was what I honestly wanted to do, despite my concerns about the similarities between Aska and me, but that would be so boring. I mean, I already did what I could do here for a hundred years and I was getting tired of it.
“No, I don’t want to. It´s so boring here. I want fun! Aska, entertain me! Do something! Tell me a joke or something.” That’s what I wanted. I wasn’t really thinking about who I was, but rather how I could fight this boredom. Turning someone into my plaything was kind of boring, especially when I overshot so many times and had to dispose of them because they turned out to be a failure. The boy was kind of the nail that closed the coffin forever on that, so I had absolutely nothing to do and wondered about my boring future.
“How about we travel?” I immediately stood up, slammed the pen on the table and ran towards the bedroom to pack my things. A change of scenery was exactly what I desperately needed and would certainly help me to fight my boredom. Packed to the brim with clothing, I ran towards the weapon's chamber and retrieved my favourite weapon so far, a black scythe that Aska prepared for me.
Shortly afterwards, I was back in the kitchen and pushed the amused god out of the door, towards a journey through purgatory.
It was kind of nice to travel with him. He didn’t bring the house with him, but he easily created everything we needed. Surprisingly, purgatory wasn’t as barren as I initially thought and was in fact quite a diverse place and even consisted of several levels although we only travelled the first one.
At first, we travelled through numerous bone fields towards a place that was a prison. I don’t know why he wanted to go there and I absolutely hated the howling of beings that were so disgusting to look at that I nearly puked. Some monstrosities were made out of black water and were so hot that the magical barrier sizzled each time it was touched which was basically all the time because the being filled out the whole cell.
Another cell was inhabited by a human which looked completely normal in the beginning until he opened his mouth and worms crawled out of it. This wasn’t a human at all, but rather insects that lived under the human skin.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Isn´t that obvious? Look at him.” He pointed towards a cell in which something resided that I could only describe as pure terror. A being with black wings, a human upper torso, something gibberish as his legs and no head at all was stuffing its innards into the palace where its neck ended. “If you want to be like him, you should try out mutating your cells.”
“I don’t want to be like th…” There was a cell with a girl inside. Her beauty was breathtaking, her smooth skin glittered under the moonlight and her silvery hair was so mesmerizing that I was unconsciously drawn to her, at least until Aska dragged me away from her by my collar and I snapped out of it. The whole time I looked at her, I missed one crucial detail. She had no face at all.
“That race is quite nasty. They use mental attacks to make others subservient with such success that the gods imprisoned all of them.” That’s exactly what I wanted. My problems with training my pets would be solved easily if I just had this ability. “Don’t even think about it. You can´t use magic anyway, so you have to use conventional methods. Like this guy for example. He built a harem though letting some nasty parasites dig through the ear into the brain. Quite a low chance of success though …” I kicked him hard. I didn’t want to know what some sicko did during his free time, I wanted to know how I could make others submit like the thing I saw earlier.
“Teach me how to do that. I don’t mean the parasites, that’s fucked up. I mean the woman …” The being was gone, replaced by a laughing skeleton head that burned in green light. On second thought, I wasn’t so sure if I wanted this ability anymore.
“Like I already told you a thousand times, you cannot use magic through normal means. Being immortal does have its price.” Frustrated, I followed Aska once again while he introduced me prisoner after prisoner. During the whole time, I wondered if I seriously couldn’t use awesome magic forever. Even as Aska told me that I would probably never be able to use magic, he still tried to teach me as I kept on nagging. I couldn’t even use the simplest of magics and as Aska brought forth a rather pricey item to measure my mana, it didn’t even register my palm. I had absolutely zero mana in me, something that shouldn’t be possible. But my gift of immortality made it possible as it sucked every bit of mana I had into sustaining my body.
After quite some time, we left the prison again. He was quite happy how I couldn’t take these horrible creatures anymore, while I left with the knowledge of what I didn’t want to be. It was quite a lengthy list from lich over insect to a necromancer that controlled his own cancerous cells to get immortality. All of them shared something with each other. They all angered a god once, some for stupid reasons, others for serious crimes like destroying a whole world.
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I honestly didn’t care about their reason for being here mostly because I didn’t find it too horrible what they did. The guy that destroyed the world did because he belonged to some bullshit apocalyptic cult and thus fought for his beliefs. I mean, something was seriously wrong in his head, but that’s true for all of us here in purgatory.
“Have you figured out why I brought you here?” Did he actually want to make me a better person? If that was the case, it worked quite badly. I didn’t think it was that for one second but rather smiled sweetly as I grabbed his hand.
“To show me that I should seduce the guard before I get thrown in a cell?” I didn’t think that I needed to seduce him any further as he would certainly free me if I ever landed in this prison.
“No, dumbass. Don’t get caught.”
A hundred years fly past very quickly if you have something to explore and enjoy. We travelled through half of purgatory during that time and visited nearly all interesting spots on the upper floor, from the forges of Alwahan that recycled broken souls to the place where all souls arrive, the river Styx. It was basically a large mass of water that brought countless souls into this world. Needless to say, I hated it.
We were just a few days away from the lighthouse of misguided sheep as something changed on Solaris. The water was draining very quickly and a month later, it was all gone. That didn’t change that I died, but at least I wouldn’t feel the water in my lungs anymore. It was exciting, but sad at the same time. I knew that I would gain a new, interesting life, but I also would lose Aska for quite some time.
“Aska, are you sure that I shouldn’t get you immediately?” We already talked about what I wanted to do after I managed to survive on Solaris. My first thought was obviously to make him come with me, but that apparently posed quite a challenge I wouldn’t be able to take on directly.
“Oh, no don´t worry. My business with fruit sap is booming at the moment, so I am quite busy right now.” Said the god who travelled purgatory together with me for a hundred years. He didn’t seem like he was lying though, so maybe fruit sap was a code word for something different? Maybe slaves? Puppies? Souls? Who knows … “Just do what you want but try to lay low for a little while at least. Maybe you can even get some normal friends? Go to school or some shit?”
“Hmm… do you mind if I kill myself rather often?” His mood immediately soured and he looked away from me.
“Yes.” It was a simple statement but said in a way that didn’t accept any contradiction. Although I generally ignored what he wanted me to do, I would follow his demand this time. We both stared towards the horizon while we held hands. Parting ways was way too difficult as I couldn’t even imagine a life without him. He was around me all the time and when he was away, I always felt like I was missing something, probably the extacy of playing our games of manipulation. And this time, it was me who went away and Aska who stayed behind. It left a sour taste in my mouth and I couldn’t find any words that expressed what I felt.
“Aska?” I looked up towards him, right into his eyes. If there was any way a moment could be magical, this one should be it.
“Yes?”
“I love you.” I wrapped my arms around his neck while he lifted me up by my butt. I felt his breath on my skin as our foreheads touched each other.
“I love you too.” Without any second thought, I kissed him for the first time. My chest felt incredibly warm as we continued to press our lips against each other´s while we stood on a lighthouse in purgatory. I felt like the luckiest woman in the universe and didn’t think about abusing this situation for once. This was truly the first time for me in many ways. It was the first time I kissed, the first time I understood that love wasn’t all about control and the first time I knew what I really wanted.
Yes, I was a sadist and would never be able to live a normal life, but I also wanted to experience this warmth in my chest over and over again.
It was also the time Aska showed a real weakness to me. It was the first time I have ever seen a tear leave his eyes and it was the first time where he didn’t mind that I cried as well. I think this moment was an eye-opener for both of us in many different ways. I instinctively knew that we both changed our way of thinking slightly, but that wasn’t even that important to me. We changed together, and that feeling warmed my heart.
I was soon lifted into the air and for a moment, it seemed like our tight embrace stopped me from flying away, but the forces soon became too strong and we both let each other go at the same time with teary eyes.
“Till next time.” This wasn’t a goodbye, Aska was completely right. There would never be a goodbye between us and I would make sure to see him again, no matter the cost, even when I had to drown myself in water.
“Hmm hmm.” I nodded as I flew further away and gave him a genuine smile for the first time, something I never did before and didn’t even know I was capable of.