Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Witch’s Bargain

Unbidden, my spirit arrived at an empty stage.

“It’s so dark...” My hand floated, hoping to touch something to guide me through or to at least not hit anything that would cause me to hurt myself. And much to my surprise, I went through everything, ghosting all the way to one of the center seats in the lower row. In front of me, there were no curtains but a screen, a very wide black one like those at the cinema.

“The show is starting,” an unknown voice approached from my side, to which I quickly took a glimpse out of reaction.

A blue ball appeared, then another, and one more beyond, until all the seats received their own. They didn’t look scary at all. It was like the blue flames from the Japanese movies: Will-o’-wisp, floating lanterns whose existence scared the travelers, yet occasionally they guided them to a shelter.

‘How peculiar,’ my eyes, too, shone in similar tones, reflecting the lightful balls, feeling curious about them.

‘Have I become one of them?’ My finger reached out for my chin, touching it softly.

‘I can touch myself, but not anything else. What does this mean?’ There was not a single deed I had forgotten, yet regretting was not something that could hold me back at times like these. My curiosity since I was young was high, not extreme to the point of dissecting living beings to know more about them like some science students had to go through. It was more like attempting to learn more, to understand what it was, and preferably, its purpose.

I chose not to fret but to tag along with the little spirit next to me, “tell me, friend, what show are we watching?”

“To think there’d someone who’d call my kind of friend,” slowly, its light expanded, and I saw it then, a woman shaped out of the blue fire. There was nothing but wickedness throughout her appearance: a black robe and a pointed hat, with an ancient-looking face. My life hadn’t been the longest one out of the people back in my world, but it was enough to know no elder came to that aspect.

“You’re not scared!” Her chuckle followed, embracing my brave attitude, mistaking it for courage.

“Why should I?” I smiled briefly. “This must be the afterlife, right?”

“Well…” the room aspect changed completely, causing us to be seated in front of one another with a table appearing between the two of us.

“A tad more complicated than that…”

“I see.”

Her hands passed through the center of the table, allowing the long darkened sleeves to magically summon something: a purple crystal ball.

“Before we start,” her eyes focused on mine, causing my hands to float all the way to the table. “I wish to know about any regret you may have.”

“It’s okay,” I added briefly, not wanting to discuss my personal life.

“In that case,” her hands approached mine, leaving the palms towards the ceiling of this closed space, holding no windows or doors to peek outside. And instinctively, or perhaps through the power of an external force, my fingers rested on hers.

The ball shone and its brightness turned the purple into fully white marble.

“Oh, dear. It sure has been a while.”

“Hum…?”

We glanced at each other before she continued, as she held her own disbelief.

“The last time I saw such good karma was when that young man found its way in here.”

“A young man?”

“Yes! Yes! Jesus was his name!”

I chuckled, passing my hand through my face.

“Certainly you wouldn’t mean the son of god?”

“Exactly that fellow!”

“Oh, my…”

“Indeed… a predicament back then, but your situation is a lot easier to handle.”

“I think I understand.”

“You certainly don’t,” her smile turned wicked, giving me goosebumps: tiny hairs made of flame raised from every inch of my skin.

“This means you won’t be able to have a new life on planet earth.”

“How come?” I furrowed my eyes, anticipating something of a similar style.

“Because the reward for your deeds is that high,” her grin returned, no longer haunting me. It was ugly as fuck, but I understood that the compensation was the cause that she reacted this way.

“Would you like to have them back at your side?”

My hands left hers in disarray, eyes glittering, “you mean…”

“It would be beneficial for me if that interested you,” her eyes turned completely dim, and I felt part of my spirit being pulled inside.

“And, in exchange?” I stood my weight.

“I’d give you their souls in distinct shapes…” the horrible, twisted smile surfaced briefly. “And in exchange, you’d have to go into a secluded, not-so-good world.”

A chuckle escaped my lips, “like the one I was in…”

“Like the one you were in.”

“Very well. I comply with that much.”

Her fingers crawled onto each other in twisted ways I could not comprehend.

“Before we end,” with a sleight of hand, a deck appeared on top of the desk. In a similar fashion, the crystal ball disappeared.

“Are we playing cards?” I chuckled, not minding it.

“It is a bit more than that.”

“I understand.”

She chuckled, “you really don’t.”

At her reply, I shrugged, accepting whatever she threw at me.

“Here, shuffle, split, do as you please without looking at them.”

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I got hold of the deck, but she didn’t let go of it.

“If you peek, you’ll die.”

I followed with a nod after my hands got a complete hold of it, shuffling it classically to avoid taking a glimpse at what remained hidden below such blacked cards.

Once I felt satisfied with it, I left it on the table for her creepy fingers to repossess it. And hastily they did, as her joints were too fat to be real, twisting as if breaking, filling the room with creaking, repulsive sounds.

‘She’s having fun,’ her glittering gaze didn’t match everything else: it reminded me of my daughter and the way she had fun playing with her toys.

Her index finger stamped itself vertically on top of the deck, and a card slid through to the table, turning around for both to peek.

“The reversed Sun,” she muttered.

“Do you mean…”

“Yes.”

“I understand,” my fingers entangled into each other, to calm my sudden sped-up breathing. That card had to mean the soul of my daughter. The following two cards were the reversed Star and reversed Moon, as she had promised.

“And now for the last one,” a drip of sweat slid off her pointy long nose, exploding on the table.

To our surprise, an odd card came out. Her eyebrows furrowed before uttering its name with disgust, squirming out from the tip of her tongue, “the Fool.”

“Me?”

“You…” she shook her head to the sides in disapproval. “I’m very sorry for this unlucky outcome.”

“Uh? What do you mean?” and without receiving an answer, I faded into nothingness.

There was nothing that could justify the blackness around me other than it being the darkness of the universe. Maybe I was inside a black hole or the famous philosophical void.

Be it as it may, it wasn’t till a sudden light passed through that I knew I was not blind. It was a little ball of light, white and pure like snow. It went forth and back, from left to right. There was no sign of what it was up to, but to me, it felt like it was quite busy.

“What are you doing?” Suddenly, it halted, and then it turned to me.

“You…” and in the middle of it, a horizontal line appeared, and then it became twisted, and it spread, allowing a huge eyeball to appear.

“Oh, my…” without my consent, words escaped my mouth.

“I see.”

“You do have an enormous eye, but what is it you see with it?”

Furiously, it blinked many times, causing a drop of water to drop from its right corner, causing me to laugh.

“How dare you!” It twitched, and the pupil grew large, zooming in on me.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!” To the side, I turned, holding back my laughter, reminded of the times my daughter played with a camera.

“You wretched fool!” It scolded me harshly, calling me an idiot. I had called others of worse, even if it was on my mind alone, so I didn’t take it to heart.

I hid my ghastly blueish spiritual face with both of my hands, unable to hold it in any longer.

“Click! Click!” I began shouting, using four of my fingers to take a frame form, faking to be taking pictures of whatever that gigantic eye was.

Madly it zoomed in so hard that the veins in the white spread, causing the whole eye to turn red.

“Gah!” It exploded with a balloon sound, splattering a yellow liquid from within, painting the darkness around.

I grew quiet, surprised, placing my hands in front of my mouth, and covering it tightly.

‘Oh my goodness! What did I do?’ I had taken this silly play too far, but I didn’t expect something that random to happen. And to my surprise, surrealism was but the first thing to sprout from my actions. In front of me, the yellow rose in a circular shape, remaining afloat up there. And then, the whiteness of the eye meddled with the surrounding black, coloring everything uniquely so.

The blackened gave birth to other fantastical colors, green spreading as far as my eyes could see, possibly even beyond. And my artistic self applauded silently, holding in the tears of the beauty that sprouted in front of me.

‘Where there is death, there is life,‘ by the time I had indulged in such words, the ball had risen so high that it was now like the sun that I remembered. But that was not the only thing that changed.

There was a sudden breeze, one that slowly enveloped me in its embrace, followed by the warmth from above. And the green developed, becoming colorful, flowers born mysteriously without the pedicel, therefore gaining no height.

And then the darkness came back, devouring the scene in front of me.

“My, my, that could’ve endangered the void,” this time around a similar egg came around, opening its eye, and finding me in its sight. “Oh lost soul, have you seen one of my kin?”

“Oh sir, egg. Yer kinship had tainted this darkness with its death, spreading its inner dyes like magical fireworks,” I too proclaimed in his fashionable ways. How could I not? I, an artist.

From the corners of its eyes, tears flowed, and every time one hit the void, a pulsating blue aura spread around us.

“Oh, brother… why did you have to leave me so soon?”

“My condolences for your eggcelent brother,” I added a pun, finding the whole situation incredibly silly. I had to be dreaming, in a coma even. Nothing made sense and when anything did, it still didn’t.

It bounced back and forth, nodding whilst crying, accepting my consolations.

“Tell me, please. What is a lost soul?”

“It is you, and like you, there are many. People die and then they are thrown into the void after suffering from a one-sided bargain.”

‘The one with that old hag?’ Could almost hear her annoying cackling and see her wicked grin solely by thinking about such a conspicuous figure.

“But the old lady promised me…”

“As she has done to many others… indeed.”

“So, what do I do now?”

I heard it sigh, and then watched him turning around to the dark, “follow me, foolish creature.”

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