Glass of Souls - a short story fantasy

Glass of Souls

Lady Time held the hourglass in her hand, careful not to tip it sideways, not even a degree. Her stone-still hands hadn't moved the hourglass in many years. She never wavered from her post and kept it as diligently as the day it had been created.

Dark clouds, reflecting some light from the never-moving moon, hung still in the sky. The leafless trees had never felt a breath of wind through their shadowed branches. The lake had never been anything but ice. Even the falling flurries of snow were frozen in place.

Here, everything stood still.

Lady Time had a duty: guard the Hourglass of Souls. Don't rush deaths, don't save lives. Never, in thousands of years, had she ever disobeyed these rules.

But sometimes, she heard voices. Angry voices.

"Time is not good to me," one woman cried.

"Time is a thief!"  a man muttered.

"Time is cruel!" a young girl shouted.

A bolt of pain ran through her heart every time someone would utter a similar phrase. Yet she never tipped the hourglass to the side to slow the souls, or shook it to quicken their deaths.

Often, she would tilt her head to study all the souls in her hourglass. Every day, she added new grains of sand. And every few seconds, one would slip through to the bottom.

Lady Time watched as another grain slipped through. Another person had died.

"Time is a murderer!" a heartbroken boy yelled.

The familiar pain bolted through her heart, the boy's mother's soul had just slipped through.

A tear streaked her face.

She watched as the soul fell to the bottom of the hourglass. Sadness descended upon her as she received all the sadness of the boy.

Pain, mourning, regret.

Anger.

She fell to her knees and cried out to the ever-still sky. Why? Why was she to remain frozen in time and feel all these deaths?

With tears running down her face, Lady Time shakily raised her hand to the glass. She breathed in deeply as she bound her soul to that of the mother.

"Come back to me," she whispered.

Miraculously, the grain of sand started to glow, and lifted up from the bottom of the hourglass and rose to the lower chamber's top.

"Now breathe, my darling." And the woman's soul was thrust into the upper chamber, alive.

Lady Time heard cries. Cries of joy.

She stood up, smiling, warmth seeping into her core.

"HOW DARE YOU MEDDLE WITH THE HOURGLASS OF SOULS!" a voice boomed.

Lady Time gasped and shuddered. It was Father Time!

"SINCE THE BEGINNING OF EXISTENCE YOU'VE NEVER BROKEN OUR RULES. WHY MUST YOU START NOW?"

"A—a boy," Lady Time stumbled, "he was mourning."

"DON'T THEY ALL?"

"Yes," her hands shook, "but he—"

"SO YOU HAVE NO REASON FOR BREAKING OUR SACRED RULES?!"

"I—" An invisible force shoved her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. The Hourglass of Souls vanished from her hand.

"No!" she cried, grasping into the air.

"YOU HAVE BEEN STRIPPED OF YOUR DUTY, LADY TIME," Father Time said.

"What? No, please," Lady Time pleaded, "give me another chance."

But there was no response. Father Time was gone.

She didn't know what to do, for no one had ever disobeyed Father Time before.

Lady Time sunk to the snowy ground. She curled up into a ball, staring into her reflection in the lake of ice.

Suddenly, white, inky lines began to swirl in her reflection. The patterns looked like frost on a window.

She peered closer.

The swirls weren't on the ice, they were on her skin!

She gasped and stumbled back. What was happening?

After a few moments, she crawled back. The ice reflected her image perfectly. A frosty pattern swirled on her forehead. She watched as it spread to her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

She glanced down at her hands, laced with the same white frosty swirl.

"No!" Lady Time knew what this was. This was the punishment for her insurgence.

"I'm being Condemned."