This was it, wasn’t it? The Pen that collected the names of the Mortal Souls that had passed on. He takes a second, his clawed hands shaking as he hesitates to pick it up. It’s smooth, glossy, casing, vibrates, the tip is a pointed metal triangle. This is what they would use to dip into the ink and write the names of the souls that had passed. To collect them. To finalize their death so to speak. He takes a second, licking his lips in excitement, the tip of his tongue touching his pronounced canines as he cackles under his breath.

The Celestials really had more trust that no one would try to take this, they didn’t even have any security, leaving it out unprotected. For something so special, they didn’t treat it very special and now, it was his. What could he do with this pen? The drunken Phantoms like him, who hang at the darkest corners of the Celestial realm, blabbered on about the one who writes with the pen owns it. Though he wonders if that’s just drunken rambling from old shadows. Whatever the truth be, it was now his. Footsteps. Oh, he better go before he is caught.

Slipping the pen into his pocket. He wonders what he could do with the Pen now that he had his hands on it. He should in theory be able to speed or delay the process of death just by simply writing the name of something on a piece of paper. Maybe, he smirks, he could try it on one of those Higher Celestials. The ones Mortals call god like. If he did so, maybe he could rise from just being a Phantom to a higher being? Or maybe he should test it on something? Could he kill a higher being with it in the first place?

No one said he couldn’t. It’s too bad this thing doesn’t come with any instructions. In his eagerness to use the Pen, he takes it out again, to stare at the pretty casing of the fountain pen. He can practically taste the fear of this Pen in his hands.

“You do not have jurisdiction to be up here,” they say that, but where was any of their security?

“Sorry,” he replies with a smirk.

Shit. He didn’t hide the Pen. The Seraphim looks at him. What rotten ugly bastards they are, they think that just because their hair is golden, and that they have these beautiful wings, that they are better than Phantoms like him.

“What are you doing with that?” The Seraphim ask him.

“Er, nothing,” Trista replies.

“I kindly ask that you return that,” The Seraphim lifts up one of her four arms. No, he came too far to take it, he’s not returning it back to these glowing, golden bastards. It’s time a world of darkness reawakening, bringing back the power of the Phantoms. Bringing back the things Humans feared. Storing the Pen into his pocket, he attempts to run. He probably cannot out run her, then out the window, she can fly, but so can he. He runs forward, as if he’s going to charge her, but immediately ducks out the window of the building. Diving down into the Primordial nothingness.

The Celestial realm is no heavenly sky, but a big vast void. A vacuum of ideas, where stars are made out of prayers, and wishes, dreams that are sent up or spoken and collected. While the realms shift like lenses crossing each other. He only needs to make it to the swirling vortex, a big pool of sparkling dust, whirling around, in order to get back to the realm of the Phantoms. He doesn’t have wings like hers, his come spread out from his back, as he dives, as he quickly picks up speed trying to make it to the whirling cosmic whirlpool, his wings spread out, and he jerks upward quickly to begin to glide. Soaring without flapping.

She’s hot on his heels, however. With six wings, flapping behind him quickly. Her golden hair flowing in every which direction, and as she soars through the Celestial Void, the place between the realms, the closer she gets to the whirling whirlpools the more her hair bleeds into the background fading like runny watercolor. He feels it himself too, his physical reality, his consciousness, is beginning to unravel like accidentally dropping a ball of yarn. He’s almost there.

She slams into him. They collide. And at first he swears he feels her consciousness, as they tie together. The wind is knocked out of him, as he slams into a floating object in the Celestial void. They are less close to the shifting realm, the lenses click, as the realms merge, and then separate again. She dives to apprehend him. He scrambles to gain his balance mid air after hitting the floating obelisk.

She attempts to reach out to him. He narrowly escapes her grasp, trying to pick up speed again. He cannot fly. Not like her. And there is no gust of wind for him to soar. He has to land on another floating obelisk, running around the cylinder, he hears her heavy footsteps right behind him. He just runs half around the cylinder, before diving off of it trying to pick up any momentum. With one powerful woosh, she is already in the air.

Her wings flap. The sound of them reminds him of a heartbeat. He can make it this time. The Lenses click. The realms converge together. Muddled at first, before they pulled away again. There it is the Phantom Realm, this time he can make it. Unraveling in the primordial nothingness, just barely touching the tip of the other realm, till he slams into The Lenses.

Big circular glass platforms, she pins him. She’s on his back. He tries to overpower her. They wrestle around for a bit. Tumbling. First he’s on top of her. She’s on top of him. They dangle over the edge of The Lenses. Then return to the center. His two arms trying to fend off her four. Eventually, he is too exhausted to fight her, but he attempts anyway. The Seraphim looks at him.

“You are being held under the Celestial Order,” she declares in her victory, taking one of her lower arms to search his pockets. Their eyes meet. She looks surprised and puzzled. What is it? She digs deeper in the pockets of his coat. She can’t find it? The Pen? Where did the Pen go? She looks past him, he tilts his head to the side, cheeks pressing against the glass of The Lenses. Oh shit. Not down there? He’s staring at a swirling vortex of pink, it’s smeared, almost like smeared paint on a palette.

“Are you gonna-

-In a panic, he watches her fly off of him. She dives off The Lenses. There it is. Slightly still being dragged down the vacuum to the Mortal Realm. She’s trying to retrieve it just before it falls completely into that world. He jumps off of it as well, in hopes he too can retrieve it before hers. Touching the whirling pool, he feels a strong pull, like an invisible force, he’s trying to fight it, as it tries to drag him down. Parts of himself. Concepts of himself being stripped apart. Feeling stretched. Pulled apart. Both of their hands try to reach for the pen. He can’t make it. If he goes any further he’ll be dragged into the Mortal Realm. He pulls back. Lifting himself up, trying to reach for The Lense one more time, in hopes not to be completely dragged down. She doesn’t. She thinks she can make it. He watches behind him, as her golden skin begins to fade. He’s reached it. The Lens. He guesses that all that excitement has caused a stir has caught the attention of the other Seraphim because they stand at the center of the Lens looking at him. While one looks over the edge, “She’s fallen in.”

“Do you think she’ll return,”

“No,”