The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

One (Draft 3) "Ordinary World"

"Zerachiel," Mother said.

"She's not one of mine," said Zerachiel.

Mother turned to look out the door past Morpheus. Steven and Helen were there, not far from Morpheus, on the side opposite Maya. "Give us the room?" Mother asked.

"What—?" Steven's head was bowed, looking only at the lifeless body, but Helen's eyes were raised towards the ghost.

"Please," Mother added.

Steven sighed and moved away, returning to the scrying device in the sitting area, but Helen only moved a short distance.

"She's got the sight?" Mother asked quietly.

Zerachiel nodded once. "I can make myself unseen, but Helen sees the ghost."

"Witch maybe."

"Hereditary," said Zerachiel. Then, "The departed is Joy Lesleigh Fortnight. A soul who believed herself Human. Enough that I'm here."

"Yeah. Joy is Human, at least of a sort." Mother stooped to examine the body. "But she'd fall under our jurisdiction. She's been programmed to shut down every ten years, to prevent her understanding she's ageless. Someone collects her, brings her to a new home with false souvenirs, wipes her memory, then wakes her." Mother turned her head to glance out the bathroom door, toward the windows. "This is a year early."

"The death is self-inflicted," Zerachiel said.

"Heroin," said Morpheus. "It could be accidental."

Mother glanced up at him, her dark lips in a tight smile.

"If she is one of yours, I do not need to be here," Zerachiel said, "I've souls to collect downtown."

Helen coughed and Morpheus turned from the bathroom to look at her.

"There was talk of a bottle, once," Helen said, "Joy may still have it in the refrigerator." She pointed toward another area of the penthouse beneath a loft.

Morpheus looked back into the washroom to see what Mother thought.

"Go see what it is," she told Morpheus.

Morpheus walked through the wide room with sitting and dining areas. Beyond the wall of glass, a column of smoke rose over distant skyscrapers. Past the windows, Morpheus found a room for food preparation and the chilling appliance.

There was not much in the refrigerator. Most of what was there did not seem edible: cans of film, eyeliner pencils, nail polish, stockings, and eye mask. There was also an old, glass bottle sealed with a cork and wax.

Morpheus returned to the bathroom with the bottle. Maya, Mother, and Zerachiel did nothing, but looked to him. Joy's ghost seemed out of it as if she still thought she was high. So, Morpheus picked at the wax and pulled the cork from the bottle.

There was a scent from it like something Morpheus felt he should remember but didn't.

"Blood," Mother said.

"Vampyre blood," said Zerachiel.

"They would just leave it with her like this?" Mother's question was obviously rhetorical.

Still holding the bottle, Morpheus turned to look for Helen. She had gone to sit on a sofa in view of the scrying device with Steven. "What are we meant to do with Vampyre blood?" He asked quietly, meaning the question for Mother.

"It might yet make Joy live," Mother said, "but there will be consequences."

Morpheus looked at the bottle in his hand.

"You should go, Zerachiel," Mother said.

Zerachiel looked briefly toward the ghost who seemed dazed as she hovered in the shower. "This is on your House," she said, then winked out of sight.

Mother stood and faced Morpheus. "Give me the bottle."

"Can you?" Morpheus asked, but he offered the bottle.

Mother grasped the bottle and lifted it away from Morpheus. She reached up with her free hand and touched his hair; it was one of the few parts of his body he had not shifted to appear Human. "I want you to take Maya and go to your father's house. I will finish here."

"If you wish."

"If this works, it's better Joy not see you," Mother said, "I have my own way back."

Morpheus looked once more at Joy's body and her ghost, then left the washroom. Maya was just outside the doorway.

Morpheus reached for Maya and thought of home.

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Previous versions of this chapter are available in the Extras section.

video media  (top) is 'Hypnos' by Chelsea Wolfe.

image media (top) is a graphic I did featuring Opium.

image media (mid chapter) is Author's recolor of 'Night & Sleep' by Evelyn De Morgan, 1878. Original painting in the public domain.