Belch wandered across a seemingly endless void in what felt like hours going forward without a clue to where she was going.

If she was going anywhere at all. The flat plain she walked looked identical to where she had been when she first woke. It was like an empty box with what she believed were walls in the distance. It turned out to be only fog. At this point, she searched for an end.

Something did change since she first stepped into this realm, however. The floor, once solid, had since flooded with a thick, gooey liquid that drooped off her shoes after every step. Her clothes carried over to this realm, as did her smell. She needed a bath, but whatever was under her had more of the proprieties of mud than it did water.

She trudged through the realm, continuing forward with the liquid up to the middle of her calves. The glow coming from her skin shrouded underneath the source. The floor kept rising and rising, slowly but ever persistent.

How long until she drowned?

Is it possible to swim through something so thick? Belch wondered. She stepped down heel first, as the substance collected inside her shoes. Land steps with her heels, lift with her toes. Otherwise, her shoes would slide off her feet. Not that they were salvageable at this point; they surely were ruined. Thinking about swimming, she realized something. She didn’t even know how to swim.

That prompted a question. What happens If I die twice?

Her impending death didn’t frighten her. The last thing she ever feared was Corden and his beatings, but that had been years ago when she first learned how to fight. Back when she realized not everything had to be solved with brute strength.

She reminisced about the days spent fighting. As a little girl, she was thrown into the fighting camps a loser, beaten, and slammed into the ground fight after fight. But each time she lost, she promised to never lose again. Of course, she lost hundreds and hundreds of duels after, yet her resolve never wavered.

She fought, trained, and improved every day. It wasn’t until she had grown up that she learned how to compete with those at the top of the beast hierarchy.

Yet, in the end, she still died? There was something pathetic in the idea, fighting, hoping to be pardoned, only to fall to a mere surgery?

She missed the fighting. Hell, even the labor was on her mind, grueling as it sometimes was. The grass fields she crossed over to get to the river had always given her a tidbit of happiness. Something about nature was beautiful, even though it was nature that had first damned her at birth. In particular, there had been flowers all throughout the fields, but Belch adored only one.

Though she didn’t know the name, they always delighted Spring and Summer with beautiful purple petals lifted on thin green stems. When Autumn came, and they wilted away, Belch worried they would never return. But, eventually, they were reborn in the Spring.

I wish they had a name, Belch thought. It saddened her that such a beautiful thing didn’t have a name to stand out. Even her name Belch was at least something. Though, if those flowers did have a name, it would be something less ugly.

Belch suddenly tripped, falling face-first into the pool below. Her foot didn’t fully escape the liquid’s grip. After a small splash, she pushed herself up, noticing something stand across from her a few paces away. A gray blob in complete darkness. Red eyes without a defined face, a shadow among shadows. In its hands was a silvery scythe attached to a long black pole. The blade had some light itself, with pink mist rising off it, mirroring what the Soulgem did when it made contact with her skin.

The figure took a few steps forward, also struggling with the liquid. Belch rested on her knees, unsure if she could even pull them out. Maybe this stranger would help.

As the hooded figure approached, his face still hadn’t shown, despite the red orbed eyes growing significantly larger as he neared. Wind sucked into his head, whistling as he breathed. He struck the pool of liquid with the pole's base, stabbing through to pound the floor, a light wave parted from the strike. He lifted the scythe, levering it up over his shoulders.

Gripped with two hands, he swung down with murder in his motion.

Belch bolted forward, crawling under the figure’s cloak. Her legs kicked the floor, hands clawing down, propelling herself forward with utter desperation. She tired swiftly, and her hands and knees tightened to the mold. Yet she was alive. Maybe for a few more seconds, but she was alive!

The scythe had swung to the floor; the figure stunned momentarily as his scythe clung off the floor. He pulled his scythe out of the pool, flinging chunks as he reclaimed his weapon.

The figure behind her fixed his footing. She turned around to see him set up his scythe again above his shoulders. “You’re slippery,” the voice said, hollow and deep. The man sighed, though she couldn’t see a mouth. “You’re like a mouse in a glue, unable to rip itself free. I offer you my greatest mercy.”

“Who are you?” Belch asked, lost. A mouse in glue? She’s no mouse, but she supposed it was fair to compare the floor to glue.

“You may address me by two names,” the figure said. “I am the Grim Reaper by title, but you may call me Death.”

She paused, unbelieving. Though, she eventually relented, noting the obvious. This wasn’t a place of life, but a place with a lack of it. “And you’re here to kill me?”

“Precisely,” Death said. Again, he levered the scythe over his shoulders.

Belch frowned, sighing in a tone that said, ‘go on, get on with it.’

“Nothing?” Death asked. “No pleading? No desperation? I’ve killed many of you cursed brats before, but the others were at least—emotional?”

Belch shook her head. Her hands and feet were as good as bolted to the floor, and unless she could gnaw off her wrists and thighs, grow wings and fly away to safety, there was no hope. She took in a long breath, embracing her death. Being killed this way beat drowning, right? She turned her head up to meet his, staring. It was never a good idea to flinch. It was better to have your eyes on your opponent, even when all you saw was their fist closing in.

Death raised his scythe. He seemed uncomfortable at first, seeing Belch stare into his crimson eyes. He hesitated but reset his motion, bringing it down and dropping—

“Stop!” another voice called out, stopping the scythe an inch off of her back. Death retreated the scythe, grunting.

Belch gasped, then sighed herself. That was close, she thought. But what’s going on now?

“What are you doing here?” Death asked, sounding annoyed.

She turned her head to see who interrupted her death. The figure glowed brightly, almost blinding Belch as she looked upon her. It seemed almost human, floating midair on crossed legs. His plain-white clothes didn’t block the light like Belch’s own. His hands and feet were humongous for his otherwise petite size. He was childlike in appearance, short to match.

“I am putting an end to his,” the glowing figure said. He had ears extending about half a foot off the sides of his head, longer than the surgeon, Cyril’s ears. Through the inflection of his voice and the seemingly childlike face, Belch wondered just who this kid was, halting a man who called himself Death.

“I follow your rules,” Death complained. “You told me to kill any living thing that’s enchanted. There were to be no exceptions.“

Enchanted? Belch thought. Is he talking about the Soulgem Cyril placed in me? Does that mean I’m not dead?

“It’s obvious Aidan has no plans on stopping these inhumanities,” the child said, gazing critically at Belch. Though it felt like an insult, it was hard to be sensitive when you were reminded about your devilish eyes every waking hour of your life. He floated over, looking down at her. With a wave of his hand, the liquid cleared from under her, releasing her from its sticky grip. “He uses one of two of his large Soulgems and plants it into his experiments, hoping it’ll one day work, so he could use the other to take the power for himself.”

“Excuse me, father,” Death said. Father? The child, father to this monster? “But you created me to be impartial, even to your schemes. I simply do what your laws demand of me. One of those rules is killing them before their power sets in.”

“Yes, yes,” the child rolled his eyes. “But, think of what letting just one pass could accomplish.”

“Other than breaking the Contract?” Death scoffed. “I don’t see any benefit to keeping her alive.”

“It’ll take up one of his Soulgems,” the child said. “One of his large ones, that is. Those are extremely rare, and without a spare one, he couldn’t afford to enchant anybody else. If we let her die, they harvest the Soulgem back and try again.”

“He’ll use smaller Soulgems instead,” Death said. “Then, he’ll ramp up production. Let me kill this one. He’ll give up eventually.”

“We said that when he first started. But here we are today, with over a hundred subjects before her, dead. And we do nothing but overlook Aidan time and time again. Aidan plans on exploiting Gemkind’s nature as much as he can to achieve what he wants. But it may be beneficial to have her at least take a large Soulgem away. She might foil Aidan’s plans, through her existence alone.”

Death mumbled but spoke no further.

“I can use her, utilize her, manipulate her subconsciously to undermine Aidan. It’ll work. I’ll stay here with her, and if she goes out of line, I’ll just kill her myself.”

“You’ll stay here with her?” Death asked with scorn in his voice. “Are you that bored you wanna interfere in mere mortals’ plans? Once she recognizes you, you’ll be trapped here forever, unable to step out of her mind for even a second while she is alive. Do you understand what you’re risking?”

The child nodded.

Death chuckled, sinister. “You’re creating the Prophet then? HA! Fine. Enjoy your fun. I’m going back to my realm.”

The child nodded. “Thanks, Death. If any other humans are Soulsmithed, I’ll need to take care of them as normal.”

In a blink of the eye, Death vanished in the darkness.

“So,” the child turned to Belch. With a controlling grin, he spoke. “Let’s get a few things straight. You will serve me from now on. I’m your master, your guiding voice. My word is as good as law. You will interpret your every waking decision based on my will.”

As the creature got closer, Belch noticed something peculiar about the figure. Those weren’t just floppy ears, but elf ears. Then, she saw his green eyes. Belch pointed. She hadn’t feared Death. But this creature… what damned her since her birth, it stood right in front of her. “You’re the devil!”

The child laughed deviously. “I am neither God nor the Devil,” he said. “Neither saint nor sinner. I’m entrusted to protect this world and keep the balance between Gemkind. I keep the humans, the swoles, and the elves from bringing each other to ruin. Though, I suppose your kind calls me the Gem God…”

Belch shook her head. “I’m pretty sure you’re the devil. You have green eyes like me.”

He frowned, and his once grin turned dissatisfied. The Gem god spun around her, levitating, faster than she could turn her head to follow him through the air. Suddenly, he stopped, giving Belch whiplash as she stopped with him. “So you’re one of Javias’ disciples? Or should I say, one of his victims? It’s a shame, really. You think yourself a monster, while you’ve only been a human all your life. It pains me that teachings like his were ever taken seriously. He only hates me because I stopped a war. So he called me a devil, that bastard.

“He knew I was a mix of all races, but he claimed even my more ‘human’ features were Elvish, considering they look near similar without their ears. You know the one difference he couldn’t deny?”

Belch shook her head.

“Elves don’t have green eyes. Javias said that was the only thing tying humans to me, what he called the Devil. Fortunately for him, I have green eyes and not brown or blue. Idiots like them wouldn’t be able to get away with their harmful rhetoric if it impacted the majority. But green eyes are rare, even among humans. Consider yourself lucky… in a bad way.”

She frowned, turning her head away. “I doubt that. I’ve been a beast my whole life…”

“You’ve thought yourself a beast,” the Gem God said. “But actually, you only believe it because you’ve never been told anything else. They repeated it to you over and over again until you accepted it as truth. Such a pitiful soul, you are. But that isn’t important right now. You must obey me from here on out.”

Belch gritted her teeth. Everything she believed… had to be true. She couldn’t see an alternative reality with anything different. “And what if I refuse to work for the one who might be a devil?”

The Gem God sighed. He pointed to the floor, Belch’s eyes followed. The liquid rushed down to her feet, washing around her legs. The Gem God lifted his hand up, and with it came an enormous rush of liquid surging up her body, encasing her in the thick substance to the point she couldn’t move. Her feet then lifted off the floor. The liquid around her tightened around her joints, constricting her entirely. The Gem God chopped his hand down. And with it, Belch slammed down to the floor.

He lifted her again, bringing her off the floor to be held above the ground again. “If you don’t obey, you will die,” he said. “Don’t you understand? The only choice in the matter you have is whether you live to serve me or die like the rest.”

Belch squirmed, fighting with every fiber of her body.

The Gem God smiled sadistically before slamming her down to the floor once again. This time, she could swear the bones in her legs shattered to the crash. He kept her head exposed so she could see his face. Or so he could see her misery. “Well,” he said. “Your body is begging to be saved. Need I slam you again?”

“No!” she begged. The pain hit her right in her knees. The liquid still molded to her body. She couldn’t reach the legs she feared crushed. She felt herself lifting again. “Please! I can’t take it again, please!”

“Will you do as I say?”

It was, by far, the most demeaning moment in her life. She’d never protested a beating before. But the pain! It was all too much. Belch nodded, crying a few tears of agony.

The Gem God let her go softly to the floor. The liquid dispersed with another wave of his hand. “Good. Now, there is a lot you must learn about our new relationship.”

She knelt down, the beast’s sign of obedience, reserved mostly for their beast tamer, Corden. Looking down, her legs weren’t broken after all. She felt no pain whatsoever now. Odd. There weren’t even bruises where she expected to have, at the least, cuts. No blood either.

“For the foreseeable future, I will be with you here. This is the world your subconscious inhabits,” the Gem God explained. “You are only able to access this world when you sleep.”

Belch looked around. All of this had been her subconscious? One would think they would remember somewhere they’ve been every time they slept, but this place felt so… unfamiliar to her. “So there’s this world and the real world? Like where I fought and ate?”

“Exactly,” the Gem God said. He pulled both of his index fingers together. “Your conscious and subconscious are linked, parallel to each other. When you sleep in the real world, you come here. When you awaken from this world, you enter the other. However, my purpose here is to influence your subconscious so that when you’re awake, you will follow my every command. But… you won’t know I’m influencing you while you’re awake.”

“Huh?”

“In this place, in your current body, you can access the same memories that you can while you’re awake, right? But, when you draw memories from your subconscious, it’s blurred, unclear, and nearly indecipherable. Have you ever had a dream you can’t remember?”

She was starting to lose track of what he was saying. All of this about conscious and subconscious strained her mind. She struggled to follow along, but whatever information he was spewing felt important enough to make an effort to understand.

“You will struggle to remember anything that happens in this dimension, be it almost being killed by the Grim Reaper, slammed to the floor by me, or even the mere fact alone that a God is inhabiting your mind. But, if I tell you Lord Adian is dangerous and to avoid him, you will feel that he is and that you should, even if you don’t know why in the moment.”

Belch swallowed. “So, you will steer my emotions, but you can’t control me physically, right?”

The Gem God nodded. “However, I reserve the right to kill you at any time I please. If your awake counterpart disobeys, I’ll simply kill you before Aidan can exploit you.”

“I understand,” Belch said, unsure if she did. “So all I have to do is avoid this Aidan?”

“No, it’s going to be a little more complicated than that. You’ll have to escape from Dormoor completely to get away from him. But he’ll pursue you. He invested a fortune into you, and he won’t give up easily. But he might have trouble depending on where you escape. The most favorable place to go would be Soucrest. Find King Ranun Spring, and he just might offer you the protection we need. But that may be tricky, considering Dork stands between Dormoor and Soucrest.”

Dork? That’s where I came from, right?

“There is also Midhelm. King Reagle Novac is almost as bad as Aidan, but he is bound by his faith to not be too dangerous on a worldwide scale. But Aidan… he wants to conquer the world, and if your power turns out to favor his cause, Aidan will use you to achieve it.”

“My power?”

“Whatever your enchantment is. It could be anything, so watch out for it. You’ll discover it eventually, likely soon. The sooner you do, the better off we will be from there. At that point, Aidan will be so swamped with preparations that we can come up with a formal plan for your escape. But… creating a plan that you can follow precisely, without you knowing what it is out there can get tricky.”

“Uhh…”

“Go through life like normal for now,” the Gem God said. “Aidan will treat you well, but don’t get distracted. Once he finds what you are, he’ll use you as his weapon.”

What I am? Belch thought. If he’s right, and I’m more human than beast, I still might be more weapon than human.

Suddenly, her skin started glowing a little dimmer. “What’s happening?” she asked, noticing her pale white skin started to lose its light.

“You’re waking up, it seems,” the Gem God said. As her vision closed, and she saw only darkness, she heard the god’s voice one last time. “I’ll See you tomorrow.”

She felt something cold on her stomach. Ice. She opened her eyes, gasping for air.

What happened? Oh right, she remembered the immense pain she experienced before she passed out. The first face she saw had been Kiba, who rose above the foot of her bed. His eyes gave a pleased emotion to his otherwise expressionless mask.

“Hey, Cyril!” Kiba said, excited. “She’s awake!”

“It’s not funny the twentieth time,” Cyril grunted. “I didn’t even truly fall for it the first time either, no matter what you claim.”

The large man turned his head, noticing that Belch was indeed awake.

“By the Gods!” Cyril gaped. His face froze for a full five seconds before he finally turned to Kiba. “Go! Damnation! Go get Aidan! She’s awake!”