The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 8. Weeping Lady

Later that night Clarise sits on her bed staring out her window, she cannot stop thinking about the ghostly figure she saw that afternoon, was I supposed to help her?  She wonders.

Looking over to her room door she started to think I wonder if she is still there, should I go and have a look?  But Aunt Belle won’t let me go out this time of night she thinks to herself.

Clarise decides she is going to go and have a look if the woman is still there.  Once her aunt goes to sleep, she will sneak out and go and have a look, it’s only a couple of blocks away and besides if she gets into trouble with the ghost, she can always call Ignus surely, he will help her. 

Later that night when everything quiets down up to the point where you can only hear the beat of the clock in the living room, Clarise sneak's downstairs with her sneakers in her hand trying not to make any noise.  Once she is outside, she quickly puts on her sneakers and hastily starts to make her way down the street.  Once she reaches the block where the accident happened, she started to doubt herself thinking how am I going to help her if she is still here? Ignus didn’t say how but I guess I can try and summon him when I’m there she thinks to herself. 

The street is extremely quiet there is only a couple of cars parked on the side of the road, the lights underneath the overhang shines bright and there is no sign of any other traffic.

It’s so quiet she thinks to herself.

Once she reaches the place where she witnessed the accident, she stands on the sidewalk wondering if she should walk over to the pillar, she doesn’t see anything from where she is standing…  She starts walking across the road stepping over small pieces of broken glass that is almost dust powder lying on the street.  At the pillar she strokes the mash up of blue and white paint markings the cars left, she looks at the place where she saw the ghostly figure, well I guess she is not here anymore, maybe she moved on she thought to herself. 

There is still a piece of yellow ribbon fluttering in the wind where the police have blocked off the scene, she walks over to it and suddenly she feels shivers running down her spine, she turns around and there she is the ghostly figure kneeling on the ground. 

“Hi, hello…” Clarise calls out looking at the figure, it looks like she is crying.  She starts to walk over to the figure as she gets closer, she can see what looks like an orb in the middle of the ghostly figure chest pulsing, as a heart would, she can make out more distinct features of the woman as she moves closer, she is very skinny and looks like she is in her early thirties, her eyes filled with sorrow.  “Hello, I’m Clarise, can I help you?” she asks with a soft voice, she can hear the fear in her own voice as she speaks but she tries to hide it.  She goes and kneels in front of the figure looking in her face, she has empathy with the ghostly lady because she knows how it feel to be heartbroken.

 The woman looks up at Clarise and said with a sad heavy voice “I can’t find him, have you seen him?”  Clarise froze shocked she didn’t really expect that she will get a reply from the woman. 

“Who, who are you looking for?” Clarise asks with a shiver in her voice.

“My son, my son did you seen him?  I can’t find him!” the woman says sobbing.

Clarise thinks back to the article her aunt read, two people died, a woman, and a man, in another vehicle, nothing about a child.  Maybe the child is still alive? Maybe that is why she can’t find him… she thought to herself

Not knowing what else to do she grabs her pendant and concentrate on Ignus, Ignus show yourself, she conjures him and with a thin piece of smoke that she can clearly see in the bright light, flowing from her pendant he appears at her side.  He looks over to the woman and then looks back at Clarise and says “You found a lost soul, you will now need to send it, to where it needs to be!”

“Help me!  Tell me what I should do?” she asks

“Now listen very carefully, the sphere you see there in the middle of the spirit, that is an essence core, it’s the place where you souls' essence flows from, it enriches and recharges your soul.  If it’s broken in any way the soul will die and will be removed from existence.

Now concentrate, hold your hand out in front of you, let your essence run to your hand, let it encapsulate your hand like a glove, once your hand is fully encapsulated take your hand and push it into the being in front of you, once you touch the essence core, your essence will repel the core and a rift will open and she will go to where she needs to be” he explains.

“But where will she go?  You mentioned the rest place and a, dark place or something right?”

With a smile on his face, he replies “the Valley of Rest and the Dark Planes.” And then with a more serious voice he says, “How you live your live determines the attractiveness of these places for soul.  Your duty is just to ensure it leaves this realm, where it goes have been determined before its demise. ”

She bows her head and nods that she understands, with her arm stretched forward, she can feel as her essence starts running down her arm, its warm compared to the cold city air, she feels how the essence is starting to swirl around her hand.  She looks at it, it looks amazing she thinks to herself, the aura is filled with warm colors melting into each other, yellows and orange and red colors swirling around her arm and hand, she looks over to the lady and just when she is about to reach out to the orb. 

Then suddenly the air becomes thick with an awful rotten smell that pierces through the night sky.

Clarise looks around her, it’s the same smell she smelled when she saw the dark figure in the street right before the accident happened.  From the darkest corner of the street, she sees a dark figure slowly moving towards her, the lights of the under passage start to flicker as the figure moves underneath it.  It looks like a ghost but has some sort of dark aura twisting around it almost like black flames burning of it.

“I am El Traicionado(The Betrayed) and this essence is mine,” says the dark figure in a deep corrupted angry voice.

Ignus moves closer to Clarice “This is a dark entity we call them Vanus it means the empty, they feel no remorse or regret they consume essence cores to grow stronger,” Ignus says in a calm collective voice while he moves slowly in front of Clarice to shield her from El Traicionado “you are not ready to defend this essence core, best let the Vanus take its price…”, before he can finish Clarice jumps up making a fists and utters “NO!, I will not step back for this Vanus or whatever they are called”. 

She moves out from behind him and says, “He caused the accident that took the lives of innocent people, I saw him, it was him! And, and this lady she deserves to find piece!”

“Who said they are innocent; did you know them?  Did you witness what they did in the darkest of hours to the ones that they say they love?” El Traicionado said to her with a grin on his face “you are naïve little one, take your Bellator reaper and step out of the way” he points over at Ignus.

Ignus looks over his shoulder at Clarise who is now standing in front of the figure of the ghostly lady “It’s up to you! What do you want to do?” he asks her.

“I’m not going to stand down!” her eyes squinting and her cheek bone moving in and out as she clenches her teeth.

Ignus looks at her, for the first time he can see why the pendant chose her, she does have warrior instinct to protect the weak “you will need to manifest me in your hand like before, you will need to concentrate and imagine your scythe and then forge it, remember, the bigger the weapon the more essence it’s going to take to maintain it, make the blade of your scythe as sharp and thin as possible.  You will need to pierce his core with a weapon infused with essence that, is the only way that you will be able to defeat a Vanus?  Do you understand?”

Yes, I understand she nods, she grabs hold of Ignus’s arm, she pictures in her mind a scythe with a long thin blade, the length of her arm, the blade as thin as a butcher's knife, it’s mounted on a long thin straight neck that runs down to a plain hilt wrapped in cloth.  With her left hand she takes holt of the bottom part of the hilt and with her right hand she grabs the neck of the scythe.  She pushes her right foot backwards with her knees bend slightly and goes into a defensive stance.

The Vanus looks at her with pity and shakes his head slowly from side to side “Wow is that the best you can do?  Don’t tell me this is your first time facing off against a Vanus?” he says with a smirk on his face.

The Vanus starts to slowly circle the ghostly lady where she is still on her knees crying, she follows him attentively with the blade of the scythe towards him, she gives small steps and moves in between him and the ghostly lady.  She jumps forward dashing towards him, she tries to hook him with the blade but he is too fast for her, he swerves out of the way with no effort, her sneakers sliding on the gravel she tries to stop.  She tries to recover herself, going into an offensive stance.  She tries again dashing forward but fails again this time she didn’t even come close.  He is playing with me she thinks to herself and now Ignus is not even here to help me or to tell me what I should do.

All of a sudden, the Vanus launches himself forward with great speed and slashes towards her with bearlike claws hitting her on her side and flinging her through the air.  “Mwahahaha that is what you get if you don’t know what you’re doing” he laughs at her.

She tries to get to her feet but, she feels dizzy, she stutters forward and falls down again, she looks down at her scared and bleeding hands, what I have gotten myself into she thought to herself.  She stretches forward and grabs the scythe lying just in front of her.  With it in one hand she stands uses it as a crutch to help her stand up, she looks over at the Vanus with tears in her eyes, “can’t you just leave her alone?  Please!” she cries out to him.  The Vanus just hovering there in the air as if he was taunting her, with a big grin on his face.