I prodded one of the pointy tips of my new double-ended spear. Extra stabby. Just the way I liked it. I was kind of glad everyone forwent guns in the afterlife. It seemed like long deep gashes that allowed all of our coldness to spill out were far more fatal than a bullet wound that could heal quickly. Coating bullets in lux seemed like a waste of energy and resources as well. Plus, stabby things were way cooler.
Orville stroked his beard in amusement as he watched me. He'd graciously given my friends and me a discount on the spear. Or rather, the little girl at his side had convinced him to.
"She don't really talk," Orville told us while the orphaned child tugged on the hem of his ratty duster. With a sigh, he lifted her so she could perch on one of his massive shoulders. She wrapped her tiny arms around his bearded head, and instantly, a torrent of words in a language none of us understood spilled from her mouth like a waterfall. The four of us stared as the giggling girl babbled on. "An' when she does," the large hollow continued, his voice smothered. "I can't understand a derned word she says. But I think her name's Aluki." I caught a glint of affection in the old man's hardened visage as he regarded the child.
Webb elbowed the big man and teased him for going soft. Orville, with a sheepish grumble, shoved Webb away from him, hard enough to make the scrawnier ghost stumble.
My knuckles turned white as I gripped my weapon tighter. I shivered, just as I had when streets had grown cold and silent following the break-in of the shadows. I could only wish the best for Aluki.
I also wished the best for my guild after we left Orville's shop behind and After's gate rose with a mechanical wail in front of us. I shielded my face against the whirlwind of dust.
Before me lay the Dark.
Other scavengers, all donning their lux-lensed masks and coated weapons, skulked past us. Most of them hooted and hollered amongst each other as they took off into the night. Some of them paused beside me to side-eye the little anchored hollow tagging along with them. A tall man I recognized as Reynard, even with the red goggles he sported, purposefully shoved against my shoulder as he set off into the wasteland. My two friends and I lingered behind. Webb slashed his sword at some invisible foe and Vale leaned against her motorcycle, observing me—watching to see what I'd do.
I squared my shoulders and placed a single foot forward, free of After's threshold.
"Wait, wait," Vale tutted. "We have to make this official."
I raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"
"I mean, we have to have a ceremony. Webb. Get the thing."
"Oh, right!" the blond hollow sheathed his sword and moved to stand beside Vale, bouncing in excitement. He pulled something wrapped in rags from the motorcycle's saddle-bags and shoved it in my arms.
Bemused, I unwrapped my impromptu gift. A leather mask, similar to the ones my friends carried, stared up at me with round, red eyes. It didn't smile like Webb's and it didn't frown like Vale's. But those two lenses seemed to carry a curious, intrigued expression. I ran a thumb over the mask, unable to feel its texture. Still, some faint warmth grew inside me.
"I made it myself!" Webb boasted.
Vale wrapped an arm around the excited ghost to settle him. "Look at him. He's so proud of himself," she said. Then she told me, "Go on, then! Try it on before Webby explodes!"
I didn't need to be told twice. I held the mask up to my face and secured the ties behind my head.
In an instant, the darkness vanished. Through a haze of red, I saw rolling dunes like ocean waves way out in the distance. And off along the horizon, mountains bit into the sky like fangs. I watched my friends put their masks on too. Vale unsheathed her machete and stood tall before me. She cleared her throat. Then she laid her luminescent blade on my shoulder. There was no need for me to kneel, not with our height difference. "Skye Whatever-your-middle-name-is Rhee," she said, her voice particularly posh. "We now pronounce you an official scavenger of After. Welcome to our crew. Name pending, of course."
The wall guards all groaned and rolled their eyes at our little ceremony. I paid them no mind. I bounced on my heels, much like Webb. Who was I weeks ago, if it's even been weeks since I woke up in the Dark? Months or years could have passed on Earth for all I knew.
In that moment, new memories resurfaced before being pulled back down by the riptide in my head. I remembered the anxiety in the pit of my stomach as I filled out application after application for colleges. I saw the key to mine and Dominic's first apartment together dangling from my fingers and felt the ghost of the smile I had worn as we both settled together on the floor of our barren living room with ravaged pizza boxes between us. I remembered the two of us joking about being real grown-ups then, with all of our lives to look forward to.
I fingered my bracelet and breathed out through my nose. The memories of who I was all came to me so much easier in the Dark, out past the wall. I wondered about the people I saw—my faceless family. I wondered what my funeral must have been like and if any of them were still mourning. Perhaps some of those people I had loved so dearly were now somewhere in After too.
But it didn't really matter anymore, did it?
Because now I was a scavenger, a lost soul searching the afterlife for scattered bits and pieces like they were my lost memories.
"Remember, Skye. Don't go out too far. Mind Blackburne's border," Vale told me now, repeating the rules that both she and Webb had already drilled into me. "And that spear is a last resort only. Rely on your torch to keep shadows away."
With a grin she couldn't see, I held my spear up high. "But where's the fun in that?"
Webb let out a laugh and charged at me with his sword. The two of us clashed, rapping our blades together in mock battle. Of course, we verbally provided the clanging sound effects with every hit.
Vale slapped her forehead while the two of us laughed like raving lunatics. Finally, she pointed her machete into the Dark and said, "Alright, idiots, time to get to work."
I lifted my chin and held out a hand to my opponent. "Good show, Lord Webbington," I said in the snobbiest and most shameful rendition of a British accent I could muster. "You are truly a worthy opponent."
Webb shook my hand and dipped his head in a solemn bow. "Likewise," he said, mimicking my accent. "And it's Lord Webbington the fourth, esquire, if you don't mind."
Vale looked like she wanted to die. Again.
The wind picked up around us, pelting us with sand. I searched the darkness that swallowed us three scavengers, our bike, and empty trailer. Monsters most definitely lay in wait out there, as did untold riches buried beneath the sand. And perhaps...so did some answers.
Sparring with my friends was one thing. But actually going toe-to-toe with the monsters in the Dark was another. It'll be worth it, I told myself. In the end.
Right, Dominic?
Webb and I climbed into the trailer hitched to the motorcycle. Vale mounted her bike. A shockwave made the entire desert ripple. I turned back to gaze at the wall just as the gate closed.
I never noticed all the claw marks scored into the metal surface before.
One set of them, about a hundred feet long, could only have been made by some goliath monster.
I swallowed.
With a rev of the engine, we took off into the night.
Through the red lenses imbued with lux, I saw everything.
Except there wasn't much to see.
Rolling black dunes rose and fell, stretching into the faraway horizon. No stars hovered above us. To our backs glowed the city that I shouldn't stray too far away from, lest I face Blackburne's ice-cold wrath.
I straightened up from where I had dug into the sand and observed the great black void above. The goods I had uncovered lay beside me in a heap; just a broken rotating fan, a lone sneaker, and more scraps of rusted metal. Nothing cool save for the raw lux crystal I held up to the sky. I pretended it was a sun hanging in the sky, and I estimated that a real sun must have nearly crossed from horizon to horizon by now since I've been out here. I hadn't found anything that unveiled any secrets about this place. I let out a groan, a small effort to break the unceasing monotony of sifting through sand.
Then there was a voice in the wind.
"Skye."
Ears perked, I peeked my head over a dune, but all I saw was more rolling sand. "Who said that?" I called out. "Webbington? Vale?"
My voice didn't carry very far. Not even echoes answered me. I spied the bickering forms of my friends at the crest of a dune. "Hey, Vale," I strained to hear Webb shout. "Say 'water bottle'."
After an exaggerated sigh, Vale repeated, "Water bottle." Her accent bounced over "t" sounds, making it sound more like, "Wa'er bo'le."
The wind carried Webb's manic laughter to me. "Ha! You can't say it right."
"Well, at least I can say I'm six feet tall."
I rolled my eyes at the sound of Webb's offended gasp. My far-off friends were too distracted and paid me no mind. Even so, I couldn't help taking a moment to let my gaze linger on Vale's imposing silhouette as she stood, arms crossed, with her knee-high boots and cloak whipping behind her. I shook my head hard enough to toss my black hair about, then scanned my vicinity with a flashlight. No shadows scurried away. I was alone. Scowling beneath my mask, I returned the flashlight to my side and turned back to the sand I knelt in.
I imagined Light seeping forth from beneath the grains. My heart beat only once when a single spark materialized at my feet. Again, like an addict, I bit my lip.
No. No. I can't think about that. I couldn't summon the Light again. Not just yet. I needed to return to my friends. I shouldn't be out here alone and unsupervised. I promised Vale I wouldn't—
"Skye." That voice again. "Skye, where are you?"
At that, I rose to my feet fast enough to send dust flying into the air. I recognized that voice now. Every atom of my spectral body vibrated as my heart pounded to life again. As if acting on its own, one of my booted feet stepped in the opposite direction of After...in the direction of the voice. And then the other followed.
"Dominic," I said. My voice came out strangled from my tightened throat.
And then I ran.
"Dominic!" My boots crunched in the sand. My hair whipped behind me. Yet only more darkness revealed itself ahead of me. I slid to a stop atop a dune. Before me and the cloud of dust I'd kicked up stretched endless, uninhabited Darkness. He couldn't be here. He wasn't here. Perhaps it had all been in my head. This weird place was finally getting me. I stood there in the Dark, holding my spear, puzzled and pining. Of all the things Vale and Webb had warned me about concerning the horrors hiding in the Dark, this wasn't one of them.
Something stirred to my right, and I panicked, taking notice of the creature hanging a few feet away from me. Until a sudden gust of wind, it had been so still and imperceptible. A weathered, beaked face with way too many red eyes glared down at me. Its two wrists were tied to the arms of the cross the poor creature dangled from. Its body, hunched and hidden underneath ill-fitting old clothes, sagged in such an uncanny way. Carefully, I used my spear to lift the horrific mask from the creature's head until it fell and landed at my feet. I screwed up my face at the featureless head of cloth I'd uncovered. There was nobody home inside that mask. This was an effigy. A scarecrow.
A warning.
More hanging effigies, all many yards apart, formed a line to either side of me to opposite ends of the horizon. This was Blackburne's border.
I spun around from the border. I couldn't see my friends or the bike anymore. I couldn't see the city. I'd gone too far.
"Skye."
It was him. His voice was unmistakable and precisely as I remembered it. He sounded so close, like I could brush him with my fingers if I reached an arm in front of me. "Dominic?" I asked the effigy. "Are you out there?"
"Look out, Skye!"
Something galloped up to me from behind. With a yelp, I threw myself out of the way and tumbled head over heels down a dune. Swearing, I tossed my windswept hair out of my face and sat up, spear brandished and ready. Two shadowy figures descended the slope, directly toward me. My free hand snapped to my waist, where I'd tucked away my flashlight. There was a hiss as claws raked at me, scoring my hand and slapping away the flashlight. I leaped backward.
Shit.
The lunging shadows snapped their jaws as the distance between us rapidly decreased. Glaring, I held out my weapon.
Fine.
I rushed forward and slashed with my spear, catching the closer shadow in the face. Through my lenses, I saw its white eyes go dark as my blade sliced through them. Inky blood splashed in the sand. The other shadow leaped over its squealing and blinded cohort, the claws on its outstretched limbs fully extended.
I braced myself; spear held out straight.
The creature landed on me, throwing us both into the sand. Oil spilled over me from where my blade pierced its underbelly. The shadow wailed and spat up fluid in my face. I clamped my eyes shut, needing to block out the sight of its horrid human face contorting in pain. I rammed my knee into its abdomen and kicked the creature aside. My blade freed from its body, I backed away from the shadow, prepared to deal the finishing blow.
A biting cold sensation cut across my back. I let out a scream and spun to confront the blind shadow. It hissed at me hatefully. I snarled in return. A cold fog spilled from my severed flesh. My skin tingled.
Behind me, I heard the other shadow return to its feet, and the pair circled me like sharks. Their faces dribbled saliva and tar-like blood. Hatred swam in their intact eyes—such a human emotion.
They looked human.
But they were not.
And neither was I. Not anymore.
The way the muscles of the sightless shadow before me tensed was my only warning before it broke formation and pounced. I rushed it, spear tip aimed at its barrel chest. The blind thing couldn't dodge it. I fell to my knees as the blade slid between the creature's ribs. The only thought in my brain was the burning desire to return to my friends in one piece. That thought made me strong—powerful. Using the impaled shadow's own momentum, I pivoted my blade up, up, up in an arcing motion.
Up over my head, the creature sailed, limbs flailing. Its claws, like razor blades, nicked my arm. It landed on top of the other shadow that had been lunging for my back. I screamed and threw my weight into the spear, stabbing all the way through the blinded shadow and into the other.
Then everything went still.
I leaned against my spear and the heap of dead shadows. Their forms were already melting away at my feet, and the sand drank them up. I'd never done something so cruel in my life. At least, not that I recalled. I was always a friend to animals, especially those of the tiny and cute variety. But these shadows weren't animals. They were hateful and evil.
If hollows were the souls of humans, then what were shadows?
Shivers made my body spasm. I was so cold.
Something hissed.
I snapped my head up, instantly alert. A groan escaped my lips. "No..."
A third shadow stood, watching me in silence a few short paces away. My shoulders sagged. I felt like I was made of ice. My wounds healed, but not as fast as I needed them to—not fast enough to survive another shadow fight. I locked eyes with my attacker.
And then I couldn't hear anything anymore. If Dominic's disembodied voice called out to me again, I was deaf to it. If anyone or anything else approached me from the Dark, I was blind to them.
All I saw was that one shadow and its unblinking orbs. The rest of the world ceased existing in my peripherals and went black. It was just the shadow and me—her and I.
Whatever spell held me paralyzed seemed to affect her, too. Her lips drew back over wet, white teeth as she managed a step toward me.
Her reflection caught in the blade of my spear—my weapon. My last resort. That's right. I'd promised Vale I wouldn't get killed by shadows. So why was I just standing there? I had to fight. My frozen body pulsed, fighting against me at first. But when the entranced shadow took another step toward me, I took a step backward. Small victories.
I had to return to Vale after this.
The dim light of my weapon painted the shadow's maw red as she crept ever closer. It wasn't enough to singe her black skin, but it was enough to illuminate every leathery crevice of her face. The corner of my mouth twitched, and I took another step back. Something about that distorted human face of hers looked so familiar...And how did I even know it was a her?
I had to—
The heel of my boot rolled over something. A red beam of light shot forth from the sand—my flashlight. I'd stepped on my fallen flashlight.
Luxlight scorched the shadow's flesh like a laser beam. The strange spell shattered. The creature took off running into the Dark, and I fell into the sand. I lay broken like a lost toy.
Even the crucified effigies had turned their backs to me.
I lay on the opposite side of the border.
My fingers combed through the grit in front of my face while I focused on healing my body. Black streams of sand filtered from my raised hand like the grains in an hourglass. Cold air left my body and pooled around me, invisible and viscous.
Just concentrate on healing before any other shadows spring out of the Dark, I told myself. I touched the bracelet adorned with the stupid, smiling frogs; my lifeline. I dropped my hand as weakness took hold. Instead of the splash of sand, I felt something hard and flat.
Stone.
Well, if I managed to drag my sorry self back to After once this was done, at least I wouldn't be empty-handed. I highly doubted I could find the meager pile I had spent so much time unburying. I forced myself upright and lifted the stone tablet from beneath the sand. My eyes widened behind my lenses. This thing was different from anything else I'd seen in the Dark.
Etched hieroglyphs covered the black stone's aged surface. They weren't quite as rudimentary as cave paintings, but they had the naivety of old, medieval artwork. I traced a finger over the rendered people—hollows—that stood together amongst rolling dunes. Behind them was what I could only assume was a distant city. They stretched their arms toward the sky where an orb hovered above them all, with lines radiating from it. Unmistakably a sun, the one thing missing from this world.
Curiously, suspended above each person's head was what looked like a halo.
I sat shivering, both from the cold leaking from my healing flesh and this unexpected discovery.
I swept my hand across the stone's surface, making sure the image was actual and not another conjuration of my imagination. No, this time my mind was not betraying me. I flipped the tablet over. Brushing the caked-on grime away revealed a second illustration. My brows furrowed together beneath my mask.
Hurried, inexperienced hands had hastily scratched the other half of the diptych. It had the same feel as a suicide note. A single hollow, a man, stood alone. No sun shined above him. No city stretched into the sky behind him. His halo was gone.
And monsters encircled him.
I traced a finger over the man surrounded by shadows. "Crow?" I whispered. My breath quickened, an unnecessary habit I still hadn't yet broken out of and most likely never would, and I held the hefty stone to my chest like it was the finest of treasures.
Webb and Vale called me, their worried voices wafting over the crests of the dunes that surrounded me. I ignored them.
There was a time before the shadows, a time when there was a sun in the sky. Whoever that lone hollow in the illustrations was, they knew what happened to it.
If I die today, it won't be so bad
I can escape all the nightmares I've had
All of my angry and all of my sad
Gone in the blink of an eye
Oh, mercy me, mercy my
Better get to diggin' while my body's getting cold
I keep tryna fight it so just promise when I go
You'll bury me low