Chapter 9: Escape From the Chasm

Death is not the end.

This was what the children of the San Adelle shelter were taught as they grew up. There was something called the Afterlife. Not everyone went to the Afterlife, they were told… but April was quite certain she was in it.

That tree had caused a quick and painless end to her life that she didn't have time to consider moving out of the way. It was mostly thanks to her curiosity. Who... in their right mind stood still while they saw a falling projectile headed towards them?

Apparently, April.

From her left to her right: a white void. Up and below her feet: a depthless white. She had been standing in that empty, vast space for some time now ever since a tree fell out of nowhere and just...

Nothing was there with her.

Her movements were like watching a cassette film; blinky and blurry with afterimages. It all felt so surreal. Was this the kind of dream dead people had? She was sure.

Until she heard her name being called and echoing in the void.

"April…"

The voice was hollow and echoed around her. She turned, looking this way and that, not noticing a thing, until in the far direction to her left, a blurry white figure of a person approached. She had seen it before, in her Glimpses, in real life. It was Saka, and he was closing a distance of ten or so meters every second to April. When he reached her, he stood tall and pale with his long, paper-white hair held in a ponytail, and gray stern eyes piercing her greens. He was fully clothed in a black, sleeveless leather jacket, looking as beautiful as ever.

"You need to get out of here."

April felt her temporary thoughts of admiration burn to ash at his voice. She clenched her hands into fists and glared at him.

"What do you want with me…?" she echoed. "You're the one who threw that tree, aren't you?! And what are you doing in the Afterlife…?"

Saka stared expressionlessly at the girl for a long time. He eventually opened his mouth and said:

"I'm here to take you back…"

Overtaken by surprise, the green-eyed girl began to laugh at him.

"Take me back? What am I, your lover…?"

The boy did not react. She said:

"I don't think you've noticed, but I've known you for a few hours and you've been, like, the most dangerous creature I've ever met… You're an elf, a wolf and a factor of deforestation. I'm dead because of you…"

Saka blinked as if the girl's words all just wafted in and out of his pointy ears. She continued:

"I was already going… through an existential crisis in the midst of my chaotic New York teenage life. I just had… I just had to fall into that forest – I know, I know life just wanted to put a pause to my misery but… why did I meet you of all monsters?..."

Tears raced instantaneously down her cheeks, and she stood on the spot, sobbing. Saka stood there watching as the girl went on with this stupor, muttering a few whys.

He then tonelessly asked:

"Are you done…?"

April looked away from him and wiped her eyes.

"Shut up! Why did I have to meet someone like you, anyway?" she whined.

He crossed his gray arm over his normal one and said:

"Crying your eyes out has not and will not change the fact that you're dead…"

April winced at this. How insensitive. He continued:

"Every second that passes with you crying is a second you could have been using to follow me out of here…"

"Look, I am touched you willingly came here to pay me a visit, Sir Saka but I don't think… you have the capability to pull my poor soul out of the Afterlife…!" She snapped, out of breath.

"This is not the Afterlife!" he boomed, startling her. "Right now, you are in the chasm between life and the Afterlife. You are in The Chasm! You can't die forever at your first death. But if you don't move now then you're dooming yourself…"

April frowned.

"You speak a lot of rubbish… Who the hell do you think you are?!..."

"I'm the elf responsible for bringing you back to life."

"Really? Like you brought my swift death to me? Like using lycans wasn't enough? You had to crush me with a tree?..."

The boy's expressionless face darkened.

"I don't have to explain myself to you… And it is not a must for me to burden myself with you. I went to great lengths to gain access to this place! I can just leave you here!..."

"Then just leave me! I don't have to tether myself to you either! We're not close!..."

She turned around and began walking away. But she had gone no further than four meters when she found Saka standing ahead of her again.

"Ha! How did you…?"

"We're not doing this…"

"I dare you to touch me!..."

And he swept her off her feet like she weighed nothing and tossed her over his shoulder while she yelped helplessly. He marched off into the further white abyss.

"Let... me go!..."

She screamed in his ears, hitting his back and vigorously kicking her legs, trying to topple him. He had excellent balance and his left arm gripped onto her back thighs right below her buttocks. He nonchalantly stomped along with the girl shrieking endlessly.

"Saka! I swear, if you don't put me down, you will feel my wrath!..."

"Wrath my ass."

"..."

She fell silent.

Sometime later, she had long ago given up trying and bitterly gazed behind to the road they came. The landscape behind looked the same as the rest of the white empty, eerie void. That Chasm thing was endless. She was bored of this shoulder carrying thing that felt like it would eventually turn into a habit.

"You have been lugging me for three hours now. When are we gonna get there?" she grumbled.

He sharply jerked her, allowing her abdomen to be pierced by his left shoulder.

"Ow! Hey, careful! What is your arm made of – metal?"

And she was ignored. But she couldn't take it anymore than she could handle him almost touching her buttocks.

"Hey, Sakature? Where exactly are you taking me and how are you going to bring me back to life?"

"Assuming that it's possible… how did he even get to me?"

"Rephrase my name," he said instead.

"How did you get to me in this chasm of whatever?"

Saka refused to chit-chat with the dead girl.

"Are you dead too? Did you die? Was Safatore the one who dealt the blow? Good… Good that karma knew your address…"

There was a peeved exhale from Saka as he finally stopped. He suddenly held her by the waist and stood her on her feet. Looking her dead in the eye, he coldly said:

"Look here, you. I don't like you…"

"The feeling's mutual, My Little Ponytail…"

"And that means I can just strand you here to be eaten by Soul Reapers…"

April's restless attention was suddenly and greatly caught. She squinted.

"Soul, what?"

He said it again.

"Reapers."

And April felt a momentary coldness run all over her body. Saka's hands slightly tightened on her arms, and he looked like he was about to say something when a thin, brown tentacle wrapped around him. April blinked, and before she knew it, more came and wrapped around his torso.

She involuntarily shrieked, the tentacles turning from just brown to shadowy black and dripping smoking, black ooze.

"What is that?!..." April cried, trembling.

"It's a Soul Reaper," he answered with a matter-of-fact tone as if he knew the creature personally.

"It's wrapping around you!..."

"I know…"

Another one wrapped around his leg and another around his other leg. There was a menacing roar behind him from right where the tentacles originated and he was enveloped in more shadowy, oozy tentacles, looking rather calm for a guy being dragged to what could be certain demise.

They lifted him off the white surface. April, who was the exact opposite of him; mortified and scared witless, grabbed one tentacle and began to pull at it.

"What do you think you're doing?" he crowed; both his arms being seized by tentacles.

Unsure of what she was even doing, the girl cried:

"I'm saving you!..."

"The hell you are!..." he spat.

"Get away from this thing. It'll devour your souls…"

"Souls?"

"Run to that light," he barely gestured to the bright circle of white light a distance behind April. "It'll take you back to my friends and brothers. They have been waiting for so long."

"But what about you?..."

The question rang ironically inside her head. Why care what happened to her murderer?

"What about me?..." he helped clear her conscience of whatever she would feel if he died after she left him in the tentacles. "I'll stay behind and have a chat with Soul Reaper here…"

The sarcasm was vivid, and so was his instruction to April.

"Oh, yeah! Good luck with that…"

She pushed herself to turn around and jogged away on her stiff legs. In a moment, she picked up the pace and she advanced the light, watching as it grew brighter with every stride. She heard the tentacle monster roaring behind. Saka was quiet – which could have meant a lot of things.

"Don't give a damn, don't give a damn, don't give a…"

April took a few more running steps, glanced back, and then halted.

"Oh… Great!"

She shook her hands in frustration, telling herself to keep going.

"He said it himself. You're not really dead. If you go back, that craken will eat you too. Step. Into. The light, April!"

Her shoulders slumped. Her heartbeat waned and her eyes filled with tears.

"Doesn't the light usually lead to the Afterlife? I mean, why else would they say, 'Don't go into the light'?..." She wiped her tears, her whole body reacting on its own.

She laughed through the tears.

"Saka… you better be dead when I get there…"

She took a step on the white ground. A loud, thunderous crack appeared under her foot. She had just looked down, when the ground fractured and she fell in, giving her no time to process her shock.