A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 24: The City of Spirits

Note: this will be a first person POV Chapter, don’t worry I’ll upload extra Chapter today as an apology :)

***

My one eye snapped open with a gasp, my breathing was the only familiar sound. Then I focused on my ribbon with my one eye still covered. That was when I noticed it. The letter 5 (伍) glowed in faint moonlit glow, but it was beneath my Ordinal number. At the back of the ribbon, in short.

”That means I ascended.” I looked around. I was in a beautiful place surrounded by green nature... Perfect, maybe too perfect.

My hand rose to open the cloth covering my eye, expecting my eye to get healed. When I opened it... Nothing had changed (inhaled). My other wounds were healed completely as if I had never gotten any... yet that persistent bitch.

”No! Why?” I asked myself. Now I was alone here, still blind in one eye, but my ear was healed. I could hear everything clearly once again.

I stared at the cloth, at the bloody fabric. My hand trembled slightly. Then I clenched it into a fist. ”No time for that,” I muttered. ”I got plenty of time to think of it later.”

A cost of the curse that’d remain forever.

I stood up, pulling the cloth back around myself again, and looked around at a place where I’ve never been before, waiting for people who might or might not come.

The Moon hung in the air... Not the blood moon of the world, but the same moon I had missed.

The air was warm. It smelled like flowers... maybe jasmine? No, it was different, or it could be it was the ones my mother used to keep on the balcony. Except those never actually bloomed in the first place. And there were many types of fragrance, some familiar but not at the same time and some completely unfamiliar.

Longing Heaven.

”The city of South Cleveland.” I muttered under my breath ”it will find you?”

Lin said the city would find you. Ugh, that sounded terrifying, dumbass. Her voice echoed in my mind; she was no help. But anyway I had to survive until they came.

What could possibly go wrong...? Okay, never mind. I shouldn’t say that.

Yet I walked. The grass whispered under my feet. I was imagining the words that had never been there. Damn did I get schizophrenia?

Then I heard something and stopped for a second. Nothing.... That was when I heard breathing.

My hand tapped my temple to use the Apprentice’s Eyes. I wanted to make sure where others were. But before my hand could touch my head... A voice rang out, someone breathing heavily as if they were running away from something, crying.

My hand stopped. ”Someone is here.” I looked around, forgetting Lin’s words.

I walked toward the voice, two voices of kids.

”Dang, is this a trap?” I damn well knew it, but my head still turned toward the sound because they were crying. Because they were children, what if it were real?

In the next moment two kids burst through the treeline, running toward me, their faces streaked with tears and their eyes wide with terror.

But behind them. Nothing at all. Empty air, yet they ran as if death itself were breathing on their necks.

’What do you run from when nothing is there?’ I was about to find out.

Their eyes landed on me with a hopeful spark. The smaller one, who couldn’t have been more than eight, glanced back.

The other was barely twelve years old, her face the colour of ash, the girl wearing a half-done ribbon in her hair. She ran, looking at the boy whose one shoe was missing.

I saw the girl’s lips moving. I could hear them even when the sound was not present.

”Bié guò lái.” Bie guo lai... don’t come close. I’d heard these words before from myself... in the world two when I screamed at Yan Gu.

Both kids hid behind me. They looked at the Glaive as a shield.

”Who’re you?” I was still unsure. How were they here if they were truly real?

”Please... help us.” The boy said in a cracked voice, followed by the terrified voice of the girl.

”Mei couldn’t run fast enough.” The girl’s voice was flat now. Too flat. Like she’d used up all her tears.

”The houses...” The girl couldn’t finish.

”They don’t have–” The boy grabbed my sleeve.

”They take–” He couldn’t finish either. My gaze landed behind them. Nothing had changed, still nothing.

”Take what?”

The girl’s hand went to her chest and then at the boy. ”Us.”

The boy tugged my sleeve. ”Can you see them? Please say you can see them.”

Holy mother of God...

”Who?”

”G-Ghosts.” The boy cried out, his hand clenching my clothes.

Fuck you mean ghosts? If it was true, then how the fuck could I fight a thing that was already dead?

”Ghosts? You mean monsters.” I corrected or perhaps reassured myself. The boy’s hand was wet. I didn’t ask why.

Then when the intestine wrapped him, I realized the boy was already caught. The thing was already on him.

But before the next words came out from the deep forest. It stretched illogically long before wrapping the waists of the kids who started tearing up in fear, and then it started pulling them with an intense force.

My right hand quickly clenched the intestine, wet, slick, and warm in a way living things shouldn’t be.

It stretched when I pulled it. Rubber-band logic, shit logic. I expected it to snap, but it didn’t. My feet dug into the grass. When the kid screamed more, I tried to pull, but the thing pulled me into the forest instead.

’Dang it, of course nothing ever goes in these worlds the way it should.’

My other hand held the Glaive tighter and swung the blade. It bit into the intestine but stopped. My hands were shaking, was it fear? Must be imbalance, or maybe... Maybe a jagged fear that I tried hiding.

The Glaive slipped from my hand, and my heart stopped, going without a weapon? The fear took over me; without realizing it, I let go of the intestine to catch the glaive.

I let the kids fall in terror. Those very kids who hid behind me assured themselves that I’d ’save.’

No. I realized my mistake, but it was too late. Those two seconds were enough to pull them. I rushed as they vanished into the dark forest.

———

Everything changed the very second I entered the forest. I had crossed a line between death and life, a world of spirits. The perfect, beautiful world faded, and now I was in a place veiled by large trees.

”A lost youth.”

The voice echoed... What I saw next was absurd: the trees spoke, the faces in the trees spoke. I ignored them, my throat dried in fear.

I took steps, and a splash sound echoed under my feet; it was blood. That blood fell from the skulls on tree.

Inside the forest a town appeared with abandoned, small, broken houses. I saw the kids standing at the doorway. I swallowed, realizing that I had fallen into the basic trap.

The children’s mouths were wide open, their jaws ripped in four, and from deep inside something looked out at me.

”You let them go,” it said with their voices and their terror. ”You really chose that Glaive over them; most choose themselves, but you chose a thing.” I stared paralyzed.

”What does that make you, I wonder?”

My hand found the glaive; my voice when it came was barely mine.

”It makes me someone who is holding the blade and could cut off your head!” The thing paused, considering; the jaw knit together again.

”Head? Heh like this?” Both of the kids lifted their hands, snapping their necks, and held them in their hands. Yet the lips twitched to speak. ”Feeling joy now?” Hearing those words, my hand almost reached to cover my mouth, but I didn’t. I stared flabbergasted, frozen in fear.

Suddenly a wind blew near my neck. My breathing hitched. I didn’t want to look behind. I knew it meant death. I had seen horror movies. And I knew if I got killed by any of them...

My one eye looked at my neck. I saw one hand going to curl and then another hand at my forehead.

Someone was going to snap my head.

The hands on my neck tightened. My instinct kicked in. I quickly raised Glaive and turned; my breathing stopped when I felt it almost getting too tight to snap my neck. I swung the Glaive blindly. The hands dissolved.

The children’s lips curled in a playful smile.

”You’re fast,” the girl said.

”Mei was always slow,” the boy added. ”That’s why she won’t make it.”

They both looked at me with the same expression: curious, hungry, and patient.

”But you’re fast,” the girl repeated. ”Maybe you’ll survive.”

Beside me, the face of the tree spoke in a guttural tone.

”You are going to run away, aren’t you?” It said, adding another line that sounded honest. ”But these kids are not fake in the church; they are alive. You won’t leave them dying, will you?”

I tapped my temple. The Apprentice’s Eyes. I saw threads, but all of them were dull; none of them were silver... But between them I saw three threads.

Tch, if it were an ascender, I could have let them die because they were grown. They would die because of their foolishness, but children didn’t know how to survive yet.

I looked again at the threads, but there were three. How? Because I saw only two kids? Then my eye looked at spirits, wearing the faces of innocence. I also screamed for help once.

No one came for me.

”Where are they?”

Upon hearing that, the spirit’s smile widened. ”The church, two miles east. Past the treeline and field of jìng zhǐ, past the graveyard.” A trap, but ’Why is it not killing me now?’

I kept my ’Apprentice’s Eyes’ open. I couldn’t fight a thing that was already dead, but I could avoid them.

I ran past the tree, oddly, in a spiral. Bones hang on the roots of trees with crushed skulls.

In the center of the town, a tall, broken building stood. It was made of wood. The church loomed over the trees, its skeleton and wood being eaten by termites. They crawled, hollowing the church.

Above a clock hung. The time was 6:06, so this world wasn’t set in ancient times?

The thread’s end was inside the church, but two dull ones... Two ghosts were there. I touched the dull threads and got a sharp shock like a sudden tremor.

My hand tightened around Glaive, then chopped off the thread. Just in that exact moment, a piercing sound rose from the church. I stared inside the broken door of the church.

”Oh, so it works.” I entered the church.

Two kids sat on the corner. Terrified, huddled together, standing between them and freedom... It was easier than expected... Why?

My eye ached from using Apprentice’s Eyes for so long. ”Already seven minutes?”

Not now when I needed it most. The children stared at space. I remembered there was another dull thread; they stared at something.

”What’s there?” I whispered.

The children flinched when they heard my voice. They didn’t recognize me? So that indeed was a trap.

Something fell from my cheek; my finger traced it. A few drops of blood fell; my eye was bleeding. I swung the Glaive blindly around. I couldn’t see the threads now. It needed a rest.

”Don’t come close. I’m just a lower ordinal!”

I looked at the children and shouted.

”Don’t stare and wait; move! Tell me where it is!”

The boy said, ”Ab... Above you...”

My head tilted at the ceiling. I saw a figure whose face was completely burned, the flesh dropping like blood.

Of course, an unsightly ghost because the world wasn’t horrible enough.

It lunged at me. I quickly pointed my Glaive and made a brutal swing. I tore it apart into two pieces. The half body fell, yet it moved with its hand. I touched my temple to see the threads. The dull thread connected the spirit. I stepped back and slashed it with another swing.

The spirit screamed, its grotesque figure disappearing.

I looked at the kids. ”Let’s get out of here.” I quickly grabbed them, but then I heard a loud raspy noise. My whole body shivered, and I couldn’t breathe.

If two lives depended on me, I would rather die trying than be a disappointment. My legs reacted. I sprinted, holding the kids.

The church groaned behind me. I saw through the apprentice’s eyes the severe thread still thrashing in the air like a dying insect.

”Don’t look back and don’t stop,” I warned.

The girl found my arm, and the boy grabbed my sleeve. I stared at the threads, avoiding every direction that had the dull threads.

Left... A dull thread! ”Move right,” I avoided. It was better to avoid it instead of fighting recklessly. Another dull thread in front, I changed direction.

Then I saw–

The alive threads, far from here. It was the threads of Lin, Jian Yue, and Zhuo. But they weren’t at the edge of the forest, probably at the entrance of the very city I should’ve been at to wait.

***

15 miles away at the entrance of the city, Zhuo raised his hands and stretched them before letting out a yawn. His wounds were healed from the ascension.

Jian Yue’s eyes looked around, waiting patiently. He sensed that something was wrong. If Mo Fei hadn’t come, it had been a while.

”Where could he be?” His voice came out muffled.

Lin’s voice broke the silence.

”Don’t tell me he is lost. Where are his big words now?” She sighed frustratedly, but her fidgeting said otherwise. ”He should have been here by now.”