Alex inhaled all the aura remaining in the elixir, then impaled his diaphragm—Nychta turning ethereal. Sever.

Trait activated:

[Angel's Remembrance]

* * *

No time passed—yet, out of left field—that fact suddenly struck Alex as odd. He sensed that his soul had gone somewhere between the moments—the same place it had gone when he'd died. Then returned once more.

There was no time to puzzle the feeling. He centered the elixir's Aura in his core, preparing himself. His breathing aligned with the Fallen Feather of the Phoenix. He imagined that feather drifting languidly past, deeper into his inner world's shadow. It was guided by gravity without mass. No, not it—she—Nychta. She'd reached his center, severed, and cleansed—as best she could. The act had sparked a storm, and now, he sensed it surging up from deeper in.

The shattered cracks of his inner world rattled. And he was visited upon by a tidal wave of hell.

"Aleeexx…"

"Y-you…"

"Whyyy… can't—"

"Open…your…s-sssee.."

They whispered in a cacophony of fleeting impressions. Hatred. Sorrow. Anguish. He found himself submerged in a storm of negative emotions. He cycled his aura, collecting Essence from the world, sweeping the voices up in the currents of the vortex around him. It provided only momentary relief. There were so much more of them in his soul than he'd imagined and he immediately spared a sliver of his attention to the outer world, summoning the undead blacksmith's rib bone—a natural treasure aspected with life. He let it seep into his storm, guiding the severed Lost Souls into the doll in his liking.

But it wasn't enough. Their voices whispered all at once—so many of them. How could this many have possibly imprinted themselves onto his soul? He was a mortal! Not a god, not some monster like Camilla! How…

He counted the voices. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands—millions.

Ahh… he realized, sinking beneath the currents, The Lost Souls… are a hive-mind.

* * *

Hatred. Sorrow. Anguish… and something else, a stronger feeling beneath all that: Defiance. Not a single Lost Soul had left Alex. They were mad things, but Alex sensed—briefly—a lingering sanity. They'd refused to be cleansed.

He sunk deeper, ever deeper into the darkness, those feelings emanating within him. He was a Lost Soul. A vengeful spectre who, same as them, refused to rest. Rest… would've been so much easier. But he couldn't. It was his misfortune that those he'd cared most for hadn't departed with curses, but with blessings.

Live, Alex.

He walked, one foot in front of the other. It didn't matter where he was going. It didn't matter if he couldn't see what was on the other side. His life had never been his own to do with what he wanted.

Don't descend into darkness, Alex.

Through a storm of Lost Souls, Alex refused to let himself be blown away. He trudged blindly forward. The Lost Souls' had been severed from his soul, yet his innerworld was still drenched in shadow. Their imprint hadn't been what was blocking the light. But a glimmer shone through none-the-less and Alex followed it.

It was too bright to look directly at. Memories stirred and he pushed them away, shielding his eyes. Laura's voice haunted him and he found himself swept back by the Lost Souls when he tried shutting it out. They whispered not in lies but in unwanted truths now: Alex couldn't imagine beating Anne. He didn't know what he was doing. His legs would never take him far enough on their own. But did any of that matter?

He walked anyway, one step at a time, wading through corpses and an inner-world that looked starkly like Anne's domain. That light never seemed to get any closer, but his legs would give out before he ever did. There was a fire within him, and it burned with injustice, it burned with anger, it burned on whatever he could fuel it with because it could not go out. So many had died to give it oxygen. So many had seen things in it that he never could. They were all gone now… yet he was still here.

And in this life, he'd already killed for the power he now held. So no, it didn't matter what lay beyond. Chains rattled, gripping his limbs, and even they didn't matter. None of it was behind him. All he could do was struggle forward, remembering the human torch he'd become on the day Earth ended. What he could or couldn't imagine didn't affect anything. Whatever he had to do to exact vengeance, he couldn't falter. He wasn't weak anymore. He'd kill her or die trying. And if he died, he'd go out in a blaze of righteous fury. He'd—

"Tell yourself whatever you want," A voice spoke, "But don'tcha forget you're not alone in here."

Alex stilled, then almost spun. However, he found himself unable.

"Nope, that's not the place you should be looking, my friend. Face forward. And don't avert your gaze. Bet it seems real dark in here when you're walking with your eyes closed."

Alex blinked, then winced from the brightness ahead. He hadn't even realized he'd had them shut. He looked down and found his entire body bound in chains. They had never left. He'd just closed his eyes to them and pretended they were gone. The voices too… he'd listened because it was easier that way. Because he didn't know how not to. But the storm had settled, and they had since quieted. It was Nychta's voice he heard now, calling from ahead.

That's right. I'm not alone…

Lionheart's meaty hand landed on his back, causing Alex to stumble forward. Nychta's voice drew him forward, laced with pain. Feeling as though he'd walked for an endlessly long time, he emerged from the shadows, coming to the depths of his inner-world where lay his sun…

…and finding a Divine Core.

He reeled back, his mind whirring. Then he noticed the figure beside it and immediately knew how that light had found him. He dropped to his knees. "Lady Light—Aurora, I…" His mind searched for the words that custom demanded, "This… mortal soul is unworthy of your guidance."

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She hovered there, nearly translucent, her naked skin blindingly bright, composed of her Divine Energy. Despite that, she was somehow still easier to look at than his… Divine… Oh no.

Alex's mind trailed off as he remembered how that energy had gotten here in the first place. "This one begs forgiveness," he rushed out. "In my blindness, I inflicted harm on one of your followers…"

Lady Light brushed Alex's Core with her fingers, making his soul shiver. Memories bubbled to the surface of his mind and he repressed them, knowing full well where they led. He found Nychta in his hand and squeezed. She was dormant, her voice muted. But he found comfort in her mere presence.

Lady Light pulled hand back and Alex suddenly noticed that the cracks were almost healed. The dimensional cracks of his inner-world were too. He noticed he was viewing his core from within and from without. Then it finally dawned on him.

I failed core-formation because I didn't… integrate this Divine Core.

It was a part of him. Now that he knew it's existence he felt how integral it was to him, and yet he'd neglected it. To think, all this time, it had just been hiding here in his soul. That it had traveled to the past with him.

No… I traveled to the past with it.

Alex turned his eyes back to Lady Light, suddenly wary. Did she know that? Even if she didn't, she might smite him for terrorizing her follower. Alex knew nothing about her. She wasn't a Constellation, her tale wasn't woven in the Mythos of the night sky, but that didn't make her any less dangerous. More dangerous, in ways.

Yet Lady Light answered none of his questions. She spared him hardly a glance, and uttered, "It is broken because you are, child."

Then she disappeared. The instant her Divine Energy left his body, the Lost Souls repressed by its presence swarmed up once more. No… not up, but out. Alex held the doll Gloomy had carved in his hand, and he could feel them expelled and taking root in there—reduced to mere hundreds. But through those hundreds, the rest spoke, and Alex remembered that he'd come here to listen.

He no longer wanted to, but the one voice he did listen to urged him to do so. He reassured Nyctha he would, then for one final time, he let the voices in.

* * *

"Mommy? Why do ants always travel in a line?"

"Well honey, it's so none of them get lost."

"Hmm," Ginny squirmed from her mother's lap. "Hey, Mommy, what happens if one of them dies?"

She watched the line of workers now. They were so small they had to climb down and back up again to pass the grooves in the cement. She followed one with her eyes—naming him Daryl. She hated Daryl. He always told her she couldn't play with him and the other boys. He said it was because she was annoying, but she knew it was really because she was faster than him.

This Daryl wasn't annoying because he couldn't talk. She watched him go up and down, up and down, until he reached the muffin. He crested it like a hill, taking some in his jaws before turning back. There was another line leading home.

Ginny smooshed him.

For a second, she felt horror, as though she had done something bad. What if they couldn't find their way home? The next ant stopped where Daryl had been. But then it just continued.

Mommy had lied.

"Hey, who's under there!"

A boot nudged Ginny, and she yelped. She stood too tall and hit her head on the underside of the table.

"Ah—! The pot!"

"Dammit, which coins were yours, Bierce? This one was mine, wasn't it?"

"Maril! Control your brat! She's 'neath the tables again!"

"Ginny!"

Maril tugged her by the ear as she crawled out. "Ginny! Why are you doing this?!"

"It wasn't true!"

"Oh? So you weren't just crawling out from beneath that table right there?"

"Tell that to my tab, Maril. Brat made me drop my muffin!"

"It wasn't true, Ma!" she protested. "They still know the way back. They don't get lost!"

"What—"

"Ah dammit! Brat made me spill my beer too—"

"I'll fix your damn tab, Bierce! Just give me a sec!"

Maril laid a hand on Ginny's shoulder. "Honey, I'm going to need you to go play with the others for a little bit, okay? You can come back when I get off work."

Ginny started crying. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, honey. It's—"

* * *

Alex clutched his head. He'd sinned in killing that ant; that must be why he couldn't find his way back home. But no, that was stupid logic. A child's sentiment. Thoughts from a girl named Ginny who had died long, long ago. Alex shook himself from them, then looked up. He sat in a tavern, across the table from a small girl with gouged eyes and an abyssal gaze.

"You're back…" She spoke in a high-pitched voice. "Weee… were waiting…"

"What do you want from me?" he demanded.

"What we… want—"

Ginny's mouth hung ajar as her form suddenly flickered into that of a young man with long, braided hair. Taylo. Alex knew his name because in the fraction of a second, he'd experienced the man's entire life in hazy, fleeting emotions.

"—Iss not ssso… eaasy… t-to explain…"

Alex pinched his temple, straining against a growing headache. He was in a masonry now, and Taylo stood with a trowel in his hand.

Alex bit back his anger. "Well, you made me kill sixteen men and women for this. I'm all ears."

Taylo's face flickered, hindering his response, and Alex braced for an incoming headache. His surroundings shifted to a cottage situated on rolling fields.

"Haate…" Granny Narcella wheezed. "It'sss… the only w-wayy—"

Her form glitched, then flickered back. "...We could… reeach…"

Alex frowned. That glimmer of sanity he'd perceived in the Lost Souls seemed to have been more than just his imagination. He sensed an almost forlorn quality to their words that hadn't been there before. But their forms were falling apart. Wherever they were doing, it appeared it wouldn't last long.

She staggered toward him. "Y-you still… don't… s-sssee…?"

She flickered, then regained form. Alex clutched his head in pain. With each change in the Lost Souls' reality, the ethereal ache seemed to compound on itself.

"Explain yourself, damn it!"

"diff… icult—"

Her form flickered out for good this time. Alex's head drummed to the rhythm of an earthquake. He was at the edge of his patience. "Well, try anyway! For fuck's sake, why me?!"

"Y-You… h-have his—"

"...blessing," Lyla finished.

Alex gaped. A new Lost Soul had taken the old one's place, and an ache opened in his chest. When last he'd seen her, she'd been in the mansion's foyer, fighting a last stand beside the other townsfolk. Lyladia Lionheart, the Lady of House Lionheart. Her blood had stained the glass of Nychta's display case.

Lyla sat at her study, hollow eyes perusing passages from an open book. Alex winced as his mind cracked in pressure. The pain was too much. But he needed answers. And more than that…

She looked Alex's way and his eyes teared up. She needs to be cleansed.

They all did. But… it just wasn't possible. Even Lionheart, who Alex was sure he'd cleansed, had not moved on from this world like he should've. There was something holding these souls to Nightmare. They were slaves; his anger toward them suddenly felt short sighted.

These aren't my feelings.

But they were. They were Nychta's, so they were his as well. He wouldn't push her away again, no matter how difficult his searing mind made that decision to be.

"Please," he begged. "Just tell me what you need!"

Lyla opened her mouth. It spasmed. She flickered. Her head shook as her finger curled up at the ceiling.

She can't say… because of the System?

"...ou know wh…ere… t-to… fiiind us—"

She disappeared with those words, leaving Alex in the flickering study.

In horror, he realized he did.

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