Page 59 of To Free a Soul
Then, soon enough, whether it be after a few weeks or months, he’d be metaphorically picking his fangs with their bones. He’d eat his companions when it suited him, as if he was done with them and he let his hunger win.
Then he’d do it again months later.
Maybe he’s trying to find someone in particular, and they all end up not being right.It meant Lindiwe was untrusting of his current niceness.
It was a façade.
I shouldn’t stay long.Just long enough to immerse herself in his life until he no longer allowed it.I have two other children on this continent.One with a hyena skull, and the other with a crocodile one.
The latter was the only aquatic one besides Nathair.
Before long, her eyes drooped as tiredness weighed her down more than usual. Sayrn’s orbs seemed to redden further when she copied him by lying on her side, while tucking her hands under her cheek to support her head.
They stared at each other, and his orbs were spooky, masked in shadows when her sight grew murky. Conjuring a protectiveglittering black dome over her body, she continued to watch him until her eyes shut.
When she woke with bright sunlight showering over her, Sayrn was gone from his spot. The tail brushing over the side of her dome informed her she still wasn’t alone.
He was seated on top of it, with one leg bent and the other extended. As soon as she shifted to look up at him, he leaned back on his clawed hands and tilted his skull down to meet her gaze.
He offered her a dark chuckle, at which she crinkled her nose.He likely thinks he has me trapped.To prove him wrong, Lindiwe turned incorporeal, and the dome popped.
Sayrn’s backside hit the dirt with a thud, and a growl of annoyance rumbled out of him. He was quick to get to his feet as she rose to hers, and he stood over her Phantom form in his humanoid form.
Then he turned away to begin his day, doing whatever he deemed fit, his big feet squashing a shrub of long, grassy stalks.
Unexpectedly he demanded, “Come.”
Surprised at the invitation, Lindiwe bounced forward and followed. Hopefully whatever he wanted would be a nice distraction from her solemn thoughts.
It was also the longest she’d ever been allowed in his presence.
April 2nd, 1837
Landing on the ground in her owl form, Lindiwe quickly forced the shift so she could remove her hood. Her movements were unhurried as she walked forward, steady and unwavering in the sunlight. At the same time, she removed a ceramic vial from her satchel and pulled out the cork.
The pop gained the attention of the ghostly woman before her, who lowered her hands from her weeping face. The semi-transparent woman, who was taller than her, shook her head. Her long cornrows and beaded earrings swayed as she backed up from Lindiwe.
She opened her mouth to cry and sob, but Lindiwe pointed the open end of the vial towards the Ghost, and the woman’s weeping ceased. Although she’d once sympathised with the deceased and would have attempted to console them in the past, there was utterly no point.
Lindiwe was also desensitised to it all after so many years.
The Ghost’s expression went blank before it turned peaceful, as if all her pain, suffering, and worries were sucked into the vial.Her image began to recede, then she turned into a white soul flame.
It was also sucked inside the vial.
Lindiwe popped the cork back in and stowed the vial away in her satchel. Then she knelt on the ground and picked up a red beaded earring that was half buried in the dirt.
This is quite old,she thought, thumbing its texture. The red was faded where the sun had touched it, and brighter where it had been buried, although caked in dirt.
Next to where it’d been lying was the back of a human skull, which she’d originally mistaken for a rock.
She tsked.The Demons must have eaten her body, and the scavengers picked over the rest.She placed the earring in her satchel as a keepsake of the woman she didn’t know; it was her way of honouring her.Either her skull or the earring anchored her here.
She’d been tethered to this spot, unable to escape or leave it beyond a few metres before being pulled back.
Lindiwe had seen her from a distance. It was how she found all the deceased souls of humans eaten by Demons: by accident.
A cramp twinging across her pelvic floor made her wince and rub her waistline.Gosh, my period is painful this time.Most of the time the cramps were easy to bear, but on the odd occasion, they came to sucker punch her in the vagina.
