Eclipse Alse
1152 Words
Lisa stared blankly at the ground, her hands clenched into fists in the soft grass. Her thoughts swirled in sick, numb spirals. Ariet’s story echoed through her like a scream trapped inside her ribcage. She couldn’t unhear it. Couldn’t unknow it. She was drowning in it.
Then, Nya clapped her hands together.
“Alrighty!”
Lisa flinched.
Nya’s tone had shifted completely—brighter, perky, almost singsong.
She twirled in the air with a little bounce from her translucent pink wings. “That was a lot, huh? Whew. Dark stuff, I know, but now we’re getting to the fun part!”
Lisa blinked at her. “What?”
“Come on, Lucy. Chin up!” Nya chimed, as if she hadn’t just described unimaginable horror. “You didn’t come all this way just to cry under a magical tree, right?”
Lisa’s voice was hoarse. “Are you—are you serious right now?”
“As serious as a soul contract!” Nya beamed.
Lisa just stared, confused, furious, and a little afraid.
“I told you all that so you’d understand the weight of the place,” Nya continued, zipping up into the air and hovering in front of Lucy. “But now it’s time to tell you why you’re here. The real reason. Ready?”
“No.”
“Great!” Nya chirped. “Welcome… to Eclipse Alse! Your new home for a while!”
Lisa’s mind was struggling to keep up. The name hit her like a whisper in a foreign tongue—eerie and beautiful all at once.
“Eclipse… what?”
“Eclipse Alse,” Nya said again, emphasizing the syllables like they were ancient and sacred. “It means ‘the unseen soul mirror.’ This place isn’t just a beautiful garden. It’s the surface layer of a much, much deeper system. Beneath us, seventeen floors descend into the earth. Each one holds the sealed remnants of a person—just like Ariet. Or should I say… what’s left of them.”
Lisa’s heart sank.
“Seventeen floors…?”
“Yep! Seventeen levels of trapped emotion. Sorrow. Rage. Madness. Despair. Some have taken monstrous form. Others have become beautiful and cruel. Each floor has a core—a concentrated crystallization of that person’s remaining energy.”
Nya floated down and poked Lucy gently on the forehead.
“Your job, chosen-one-of-sorts,” she said cheerfully, “is to find each of those cores and cleanse them. Purify the spirit. Free them.”
Lisa pushed herself up from the grass, her tone dry and sharp. “You want me to—what—fix tortured souls that were abused, broken, and murdered? By myself?”
“Well, technically,” Nya said, counting on her fingers, “you’ll be guided. I’m your emotional support nymph. But yeah—you’re the one who has to go in. Physically. Psychospiritually. Soulfully.”
Lisa narrowed her eyes. “You could’ve led with this instead of telling me about brain extractions and suicide.”
“But then you wouldn’t have taken it seriously,” Nya said with a wink. “Context matters, Lisa. Emotion binds memory. You needed to feel the weight before you could carry it.”
Lisa sat back down heavily. “I’m not even sure I can look at another spirit after that story.”
Nya tilted her head, hovering beside her. “But you will. Because even if you don’t realize it yet, this place—this garden—this mission—it chose you because you already carry fragments of pain that connect you to the souls below. You’re a mirror.”
Lisabit her lip. “What if I fail?”
“You might,” Nya said simply. “Some people do. But they’re absorbed into Eclipse Alse and reborn as echoes. That’s not ideal, but it’s sort of poetic.”
Lisa blinked. “You’re not good at making this sound better.”
“I’m good at being honest,” Nya replied. “And I’m also good at guiding people through soul journeys. It’s kind of my thing.”
Lisa looked around at the shining trees, the soft, false sky, the petals drifting in the wind. Beneath all this beauty, seventeen layers of torment twisted below her feet.
“Why seventeen?” she asked.
“Seventeen unique souls,” Nya said. “Seventeen separate manifestations of agony. Each was once a person brought to IN-47B. Each represents a different kind of betrayal, a different trauma. Ariet’s is Floor One.”
Lisa turned to her sharply. “She’s still down there?”
“In a way,” Nya said. “Not as a girl anymore. Not as herself. She became… something else. Her soul fragmented and twisted. She became the Keeper of Memories. A wraith who stores the screams of others. Her floor is full of mirrors. If you stay too long, you start seeing every awful thing ever done to anyone who ever passed through the building.”
Lisa shivered. “And I have to go in there?”
“Yes,” Nya said. “But I’ll guide you through it. The core is hidden deep in the center, behind her old diary. You’ll know it when you see it. The soul core always glows with blue fire.”
Lisa didn’t know what to say. Every part of her wanted to curl up, to refuse, to wake up and find this had all been some vivid dream spun from fear and exhaustion.
But deep inside, something stirred.
A quiet defiance.
A slow-growing fire.
“What happens when I cleanse a core?” she asked.
“The trapped soul begins to unravel,” Nya said. “Their pain dissipates. They either move on—or they choose to linger here in the garden, healed and reborn, to help others.”
“Help?” Lisa asked.
Nya grinned. “Yes. Just like you are.”
Lisa rose to her feet again, swaying slightly. “I didn’t ask for this.”
“No one does,” Nya said gently. “But you’re here. That means something. It means you’re ready—even if you don’t feel it yet.”
A silence passed between them.
Below, seventeen layers of grief waited. But above, a strange new sky shimmered. Not threatening. Not cruel. Just… waiting.
“What if I want to leave?” Lisa asked.
“You can,” Nya said. “But not through the same door. And not as the same person.”
Lisq looked down at her hands. “And if I do this… if I go through all seventeen floors…”
“Then you’ll free them,” Nya said softly. “And you’ll free something inside yourself, too.”
Lisa didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure she could. Her pulse was steady now, her breath slower. Still scared. But rooted.
She looked up at Nya.
“Then let’s start.”
- Writer
