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Light filtering through glass and breaking into fractured colour. That was her last memory. Here though — a grim, yet beautifully lonely place. That was her first impression as her senses took everything in.
Peculiar. She couldn’t piece together any semblance of where, or what, this place was. Not that she could remember what her reference point was to begin with. All she knew was that this was not what she was used to.
“Toll.” An impossibly deep voice resounded around her. She flickered to look at the source of sound.
“Toll?” She parroted back, trying to search her pockets. But it was then that she realized she didn’t possess any appendages to do so. Or a body at all for that matter.
Behind the voice was a river of obsidian. She peered into it and a reflection of formless mass peered back at her. Shadows with varying degrees of transparency unattached and attached itself back to her. It licked outwards like a greedy flame or fluttered gently like light, depending on how you saw things. Where irises, pupils, and sclera should be, were instead alabaster white. Her figure quivered in the windless air.
With her curiosity satisfied, she directed her attention back towards more pertinent matters. "What's the toll?"
They didn’t respond to her inquiry and the air quickly grew silent. She fluttered around in the wind, unsure of what to do. She thought to ask again, perhaps persistence in this matter would work. But before she could do so, a large explosion set off in the near distance. Flames exploded outwards, her periphery was dyed in a fiery red. Debris rained all around them, yet it did not affect her nor the Being that stood in front of the obsidian river.
No matter how she strained her vision, she couldn’t judge how far away it was. Things seemed both here, yet there. She thought it a bit odd, however the thought quickly dissipated into nothingness.
From the dust rose a garnet flame, its figure was surprisingly similar to her own — As if shadow were shredded from a cloth and haphazardly sewn on, pieces of their physique fluttered in the wind. The only difference was the hue and a sanguine shard embedded where she thought one’s heart would be.
Heart? She was puzzled and looked down at herself once more. She was certain she knew what a heart was, but then where was it?
“Toll.” The voice echoed yet again and painted the skies black.
Red fumes turned to look at Them. “Have it,” He said as flames spit up a white-gold coin from his mouth.
Aha! She thought in exaltation, immediately trying to imitate the red poltergeist. After a few nauseating gags, she wondered what she was doing incorrectly.
A deep chortle thundered, “Little one, you are in the wrong place. You are but a colorless and therefore unaccomplished soul.” The flames danced around in amusement, “Asphodel is where you must go. However,” He stared at her, the whites in his eyes intense and ardent, “You seem amusing, little one. Reincarnate instead. Give yourself another chance so perhaps we will meet again when you are not so little.”
She froze under his fierce gaze, was she indeed not meant to be here? It seemed she did not have the toll required of her after all.
“She is in the right place.”
The red-hot flame looked at the gatekeeper and shrugged before walking towards the dilapidated boat. “Well, then it is all the more amusing.” Once the fiery being set foot onto the creaky wood, mist engulfed the two and they disappeared across the lake.
She was left alone to ponder these mysterious words.