[8] Void Souls

When I entered the balcony, I found Ethan leaning over the barrier, staring hopelessly down at the ground far below us. I didn't know whether it was a good time to say anything, but I didn't want him dwelling in the state of mind that he was in for long. He was clearly pissed off, but I didn't know what to say.

I observed the surroundings. To the extreme left, in the far distance, were the Western Plains. There, the life I'd known for so many years as an ordinary girl had quietly gone to sleep. I spotted dimming street lights, and cars the size of ants moving along the narrow roads that separated into side streets like veins in a body. Immediately beside the city were the suburbs, and after that, a single, straight road crossed over into a dense forest standing beside mountains. If I subtracted the life of a Wielder from my mind I would see the outskirts of dry, abandoned land at our current side of the country. It was strange for me to experience, because I could choose to see it from either side of the spectrum. If I decided to be simply human for a moment, the land looked like it had seen a drought. If I decided to give into my wielder abilities instead, the land appeared to be a city; a beautiful, giant city just like any other city in the world.

From this view I realised how they'd managed to do it; to hide all of this away from the normal world. No one really bothered with this place. No one knew about this place. No one really cared. Humans like me were so caught up in our own lives that we never thought there was something to be discovered, or rather...they didn't, because I'd always felt like an odd one out. I always thought my mind was a funny place, and that people didn't get it at all, so they'd automatically categorize it as 'crazy' or 'weird.' Now, for the first time in my life, I'd felt safe with my thoughts. I felt as though this madness was a place I could rest because it never really came across as insanity in my head in the first place. My wild imagination had encouraged me to wonder about many things as unrealistic as this -new worlds, the existence of magic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...

“You should really be getting some sleep,” Ethan's low tone appeared above the silence.

“I did...I think,” I replied, moving next to him. He hadn't budged his upper body from its slumped position. It was as if he'd hoped someone would pick up his legs and throw him right over the banister.

“I hate when I do that,” he said, shaking his head. “As much as we’re told not to worry about it... it's every use worrying, Faye. I'm supposed to protect,” he says, forcing himself against raising his voice at me.

“You protected me,” I stated matter-of-factually.

“But I hurt them,” He said in another low tone.

“Liam,” I whispered, “was he the Seguidore?”

He nodded. I felt bile rising in my throat. “Was... was Macy one too?”

Ethan regained his posture, gazing out into the distance ahead. I realised, then, that he wasn't looking out at the Wielder city, but rather at the drought. Despite being a soldier in his field, he was still human.

“No,” he closed his eyes. I sighed. I didn't know what to say. He turned to me, though I didn't know he had anything else to say. “She wasn't human either,” he said, running his hand through his hair again. “-A void soul. She was a void soul.”

Puzzled, I asked him, “A void soul?”

Ethan grabbed the barrier again, continuing his explanation without looking at me. “There are different types of them. Sadly, we don't always know which type they are. The point is, no matter how they become a void soul, they all end up being the same.”

“What do they do?” I asked.

“Void souls are people who don't have a real purpose. Sometimes they're ex- Wielders who may have left their field or retired, sometimes they may have given up and lost their Guardian abilities and their will to be passionate about something, some of them got badly injured and forgot about us, sometimes they're not even wielders like us, they're ex parts of the supreme evil... part of this particular wicked woman’s army –those Seguidores- but that is another aspect. I think those jacks have their own places for getting rid of traitors.”

I asked Ethan if he knew what kind of void soul Macy was. He shook his head and said that there was another kind who existed... the kind that wielders feared killing the most.

“The void souls of ordinary humans who have been misguided –who lost their sense of purpose –who forgot their dreams –who were forced into predicaments and places they never wanted to be. Sometimes heartbreak leads you to the darkest of places,” he told me.

“And inevitably, hurting or killing a void human soul is going against the laws of the Guardianship,” I stated in an obvious low tone, disregarding the fact that I should have said it inwardly so I wouldn’t make him feel worse about his actions.

He scoffed and shook his head, “Well, what's done is done.” He raised his hands in the air in surrender.

“Who was that other girl? Ursula?” I asked.

“She wasn't part of my plan,” he explained. “I knew Liam was coming; she was just his backup.”

“Another Seguidore?”

He nodded.

“So what's the rule about hurting void souls if they're not the people we're sworn to protect?” I wondered.

“We don't really concern ourselves with their affairs once they're not humans. They have their own agendas. We look out for them out of nobility, we try to help them become extraordinary like us again and regain what they lost... but they need to help themselves... and they don’t often make our job easy by doing that. If a void soul is murdered, the Esteemed Guardians - the professionals- have ways of recovering their files. They can find out what type of void soul the person was. I’m not sure if it’s always effective... but it seems to be. Usually there's a punishment for the murder of a void soul that was a human -for the Guardians or wielders who committed it. If not, we let it go with the belief that there was nothing we could have done. I never liked that idea, but considering the cold blooded murder that goes on with this job, I get why they just don't care anymore. It's our lifestyle.”

I leaned over the barrier, feeling a bit of disappointment and depression creeping in, and suddenly I was the one feeling like throwing myself over the banister. At first, this whole wielder thing sounded like a dream, but hearing the dirty side of it and realizing that I’ve probably only seen the beginning just made me realize that I forgot the balance in everything. There are always the pros and the cons. All at once this was beginning to feel more like a nightmare in which the silence was only beginning to pass before the terrible screaming.