Chapter 4 - Easier with Practice

  The moment the Deal snaps into place, Alex feels the loss of the Animus. It’s akin to going about the day and suddenly remembering he hadn’t eaten. A sudden absence of something he knows he needs. But at the same time, the almost instinctive desire to get more Animus is gone too. Like a drug, having a little makes you want more.

  The shift in his desire catches Alex by surprise. He reflects on the way he was thinking about Animus before, realizing the eagerness he’d started feeling might not have been something originating from him. He’s about to ask about the change but Corvus moves on with his agenda.

  Corvus sits back again and smiles. “Well then Alex, I suppose there’s no reason to keep you cooped up in here now.” He says, and again the guise falls away. Evaporating to reveal the crow-demon’s true form. The bird-faced man, clad only in black feathers, waves an arm and wing. The office-space begins to distort and twist like a Salvador Dali painting. In moments the room is simply gone, having morphed into a nook carved into a stone cliffside.

  The world unfolding before Alex defies his understanding. It seems as though they’re in an immense cavern, the ceiling of it so far up as to be obscured by vapor. In nearly all directions, tunnels snake into the distance, just as vast as the cavern. Alex staggers to his feet, gazing around in a mix of wonder and horror as his mind reels, incapable of grasping the scope. He reaches behind himself to steady his balance with the chair, only to have his hand pass through empty space and send him tumbling backwards to land on his ass.

  Alex just sits there, gaping at the view spread before him. He takes it all in. From the slightly red-hued stone to the way the entire cavern seems to possess a diffuse light with no apparent source. The air is dry with the slightest scent of old dust lingering on the faintest of breezes. In the distance, he catches sight of a figure walking up one of the curved cavern walls as naturally as you would expect someone to walk up a floor. Then he sees where they are going, buildings jutting from the wall in the same gravity defying manner. And the more he looks, the more of those details he sees. People, buildings, even some trees and plants, all clinging to whatever surface as if it’s all the ground to them.

  As it all registers to him, a weight lands on his shoulder. Alex snaps his head to the side and sees a crow perched on his shoulder. “Interesting view, is it not?” Asks the crow in Corvus’s voice. The bird cocks its head sideways to stare at him with one of those black marbles. “There are many places like this in Hell. Nexus Points. Hell’s crossroads, as it were.” The crow-corvus explains, his beak opening and closing to ‘talk’ even with no lips present.

  Alex points into the distance at the buildings. “They’re on the wall… but not falling.” He mutters, the view fundamentally breaking something in his brain for the moment. Then Alex notices something new, even further down one of the branching tunnels. A cluster of lights, buildings, many of them. A town? A city? And it’s in the right place to be on the floor of the cavern.

  Corvus shifts his weight on Alex’s shoulder a bit. “Oh. Gravity behaves quite differently than you’re used to here.” He says with a note of amusement creeping into his voice. “Whatever major surface you’re nearest to will become ‘down’ for you. At least in most regions. Some Territories alter the rules a bit.” The crow hops from his shoulder and flaps its wings, lifting into the air effortlessly.

  Corvus starts a languid glide, circling around Alex. “The geography of Hell isn’t static. As new territories are created, the land moves and twists to accommodate the changes. Usually it is not destructive. And travel is often more a matter of intention, rather than direction.” He continues, Alex hearing the voice as clearly as if Corvus was still on his shoulder.

  Alex rubs his forehead and then pushes up to his feet. “Intention? What do you mean?” He asks, fearing he already knew part of the answer. The vertigo-inducing view threatens to send him right back onto his rear, but he manages to stay upright, for now.

  The crow flaps around to hover in front of Alex, a flight style the natural bird shouldn’t be capable of at all. But Corvus manages it easily. “Intent matters in Hell. If you set out walking just to walk, you could walk for hours and travel mere feet. But if you set your eyes on a far point and Intend to travel there, you could find yourself arriving at the point in minutes.” He instructs. And he then points with one wing, still flapping with the other, clearly violating nearly all the rules of flight without a care. “The town in the distance there. I believe that one is called…” Corvus lets out an exasperated sigh. “Last-Stop.” He finishes, derision dripping from his voice like acid.

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  Alex startles for a heartbeat, the sudden show of a clear emotional reaction from Corvus catching him off guard nearly as much as his surroundings. “Woah, tell me how you really feel.” Alex quips, smirking to himself. “Is it really that bad?” He asks as Corvus once more alights on his shoulder.

  The crow scoffs and gives an indignant flit of his wings. “You’ll see when we arrive there. Despite my distaste for the place, it is a good location for you to visit. A mostly safe environment where you can witness or experience some of Hell’s pitfalls and benefits. Mostly the former though.” Corvus uses a wingtip to gesture towards the edge of the nook. “But first, a practical lesson.”

  Alex steps up to the edge and looks over it, seeing the surface of the cavern’s wall curving out and away, like looking down the side of a dam. “Just step over the edge with the intention of walking down.” Corvus instructs. “You might trip, but I promise that you won’t fall far.”

  Alex turns his head to give the bird the ‘hairy-eyeball’. “Because you’ll catch me?” He asks hopefully, to which the crow just slowly shakes its head. “Yeah, I didn't think so.” He mutters to himself. He lifts a foot to step over the threshold and into open air, doing all in his power to imagine himself stepping onto the cavern’s wall. He sucks in a deep breath, closes his eyes, and steps.

  Predictably, Alex plummets. Luckily, his perspective shifts almost instantly, and he finds himself skidding a few feet across the ‘ground’ of the cavern wall. He comes to a halt, laying on his back. He thumps his head back on the stone and huffs, looking up at the crow flying ‘above’ him. “That gets easier with practice, right?” He asks, but the only answer is cawwing that he swears sounds like laughing.

  Alex sits up, and with a wince, finds his shin and back scraped and bleeding. He reaches back and touches the spot, grimacing as his hand comes back with a few smears of blood. “Ow, that hurt a bit.”

  Corvus lands behind him and hops on his black talons. “It will heal. If you had Animus, it would already be closing. But without it, it will still heal, just slower.” He explains. “Remember, you are ‘Faded’. You are vulnerable.” The crow says, launching back into the air.

  With a grunt, Alex clambers back onto his feet and looks behind himself, the nook they had been in before now appearing like a hole in the ground. Turning forwards again, Alex lifts his gaze to look at where ‘Last-Stop’ sits in the distance. “So… If I ‘intend’ to go there, I’ll get there. Right?” He asks. The crow caws again and Alex starts to walk along the cavern wall, keeping his gaze locked on Last-Stop. He walks forwards, ‘down’ the wall. Alex tries to focus on the intentionality of the motion, of each step’s purpose to carry him to the destination. But his mind keeps flitting to the bizarre landscape around him, the implications of the things Corvus has told him, and worst of all to the sting of pain from his shin and back.

  That little pain creeping into his thoughts keeps reminding him of the risk he’s taken in making his deal. The reminder that he’s ‘Faded’, even if he doesn’t yet grasp all that it implies for him. All he knows is that he needs to find Animus somehow. And to do that, he has to make it down this damn wall.

  It's an odd thing, Alex realizes as he reaches the foot of the cavern’s wall and steps ‘up’ onto the floor of the tunnel. Turning to look back up, he can’t remember actually crossing the distance, or how long it took. Only flashes like still-frames of each step in his mind. He knows he was walking the whole time, he can remember the steps, but he feels as though either he stretched, or the world squeezed. It should have taken at least several minutes to reach the cavern floor, from his perception, it couldn’t have been more than one. “That… That was weird.” Alex says, shaking himself lightly.

  Corvus circles down to him and says, “Yes, it does get better with practice. I doubt you noticed, but you ‘stuttered’ along the wall. Each step was like a start and stop. But as you grow accustomed to travel here, it will grow far more fluid.” The crow assures him. “Let’s move on, even with intent, the walk to Last-Stop will still take several hours.”

  Settling his mind Alex turns towards his destination. But from down here, he can’t see the town anymore, obscured by the terrain. “Oh. Well that’s inconvenient.” He says to the curve of the rocky earth ahead of him. Scrub-grasses peek through the cracks in the stone, waving pale green blades in the subtle breeze. “Hey Corvus… There’s no Sun here, so where’s the light coming from?” He asks, looking up at the flying crow.

  It takes Corvus a moment to answer, but when he does, there’s a faint edge of reluctance in his tone. “Remember when I told you that Faded souls get reabsorbed into Hell, channeled back into the Mortal-Realm to form new souls?” Alex agrees, recalling the conversation. “Well, the light you’re seeing is the remnant energy of the dissolution. Innumerable souls, passing into oblivion every second.” He says, tone falling to one of resignation.

  Alex stops mid-step, frozen in place by that revelation. “That… that many people… that many souls can’t be dying that quickly.” He stammers out, mind reeling from another seemingly impossible concept.

  Corvus lands in front of him, looking up at the other man. “It wouldn’t be possible if the souls were only from the world you knew. But the Mortal-Realm encompasses All mortal worlds. Not just yours.” He replies, giving Alex a moment to absorb the information. “Of all the souls that arrive, nearly a third lose their first Animus and reach dissolution within months. More keep just one for years, then are parted from it and Fade.” He explains, nodding towards Alex. “A fate I hope to guide you away from.”