Contextualization:

A few months ago I published a short piece of worldbuilding fiction for a game I’m working on with some dear friends. This is another piece of that fiction, one that I’d initially considered making a text adventure, but I found myself inspired tonight with something a little more traditional. Let’s take a look into the start of this Soul’s pilgrimage! For a little extra flavor, I recommend throwing on this gorgeous track that I had playing while writing it. Also, enjoy the gorgeous painting from Zdzisław Beksiński that inspired/kicked off this whole project to begin with.

The Beach

There are gentle waves brushing against the left side of your body. A faint metallic twinkle echoing from far above you. Against your right hand, you feel the finest, softest sand imaginable. It squeaks in the clasping of your hand. After a moment, you register the warm crackle of a fire amidst the soundscape.This is wrong? Right? It felt like things should have ended quite a while ago now.

Your eyes open, blinking away flecks of deep red sand. The act of pushing yourself up to sit is easier than you thought it would be. Why is that? Why does it feel easy? Why did it feel hard before?

Scanning the surroundings, your blurry vision at first only registers a deep blue to the left that melts into the red sand all around you. At the corners of your vision, tendrils of grayish-white begin to coalesce. Spiraling, craggy... driftwood? The vision comes clearer into focus. The fire's ruddy orange stands out against the deep red sand... and so does a shadow sitting beside it.

A gasp involuntarily leaves your mouth, and the shadow stirs. "You got here fast. I watched your star fade only a moment ago!" Their voice is aged and inviting, though they do not take their eyes off the sky above when speaking to you. Following their gaze, you see an incomprehensibly dense field of stars - white, blue, red, purple, countless colors twinkling, swirling. You could swear you saw a dozen new ones spark into being in just that brief glance.

Too many questions rise out of your throat, fighting for dominance. "I- what- where-" until one finally squeaks out. “What do you mean, my star faded?”

The shadow pauses for a moment. It's like they are waiting for something.
…
…
The silence is growing uncomfortable, until suddenly-
"Look there!" a shaded finger points up to the sky, tracing the path of a purple star circling a red one. How they spotted it amidst the visual cacophony, you can barely comprehend. After a moment though, you see it. The purple collides with the red, snuffing the latter out.

"Likely a battle of predator and prey. I know not when that red star shall arrive, but that is a life who has ended… And who shall soon face a new journey, the same as you, my dear."

The words spark something in your mind. A faded memory of… “… Did I die?”

The shadow nods, still staring at the scintillating pointillism above. "Yes, dear. You are in The Beyond. The tales of the afterlife are true! I suspect any moment now you'll feel the call."

"The call? To..." half-remembered lessons from a childhood wholly forgotten alight in your mind. The call to pilgrimage. The one all souls must undertake. A journey to an apotheosis of your being. The voice of an old priest intones these truths solemnly, your first clear memory amidst the fog.

But the call does not come to you. Not yet. The ocean that lies before you is beautiful, the shadow's kindness in this moment grounding you.

"Can I stay for a little while?"

"You can stay as long as you like! Rarely do new Souls like yourself stick around. They all have something, some purpose or another that draws them into The Beyond."

The way they speak incites your curiosity. "Are you... like me?" you gesture with shaded hands — oh, interesting. You hadn’t noticed. "Dead, I mean?"

The shadow nods. "You wonder why I have not left on my own pilgrimage. I have sat on this beach for untold millenia pondering that quandary. Several times I've considered leaving, even without the Call... and yet each time I find myself staying. I must stay. In the cavalcade of Souls who have left me without fail, they all felt a need. Perhaps it is my lot in death to simply mark the passing and entry of each Soul, to provide them the welcome they need. On that note, dear: May I ask your name?"

“Of course, it’s…” Oh. The two of you sit in silence for a moment. They have turned back to the stars, but wait patiently, kindly. It hadn’t even occurred to you that you’d forgotten something that… fundamental. Then again, you did forget your own death.

“It’s alright if you don’t remember. Most don’t before they leave. I just…” Their voice quivers. “Wish for the chance to get to know each Soul as well as I can. I know many form bonds on their pilgrimage, and most leave too fast for me to know them.”

“I wish I could answer… I didn’t even realize how much I’d forgotten.” You push yourself to your feet, and skirt around the fire at a healthy distance to sit by the shadow. “Can I ask for your name?”

“Many have. I wish I could answer. I confess, these millennia of stasis watching endless lives begin and end and begin again while remaining no closer to knowing myself have worn me down. But you being willing to share my fire for even these brief moments gives me solace.”

Fire. Fire. The colliding stars. They might… “Do you know… how I died?”

“Not exactly. But your star was entwined with another for almost all its lifespan. That great fiery one up above: it overwhelmed dozens of others in an instant, you and… your partner included. She arrived a long while ago.”

“Liasyn.” the name comes unbidden to your lips. The woman you saw immolated by a fire whose heat scorched you to your bones, a fire you only survived due to being blasted into the river… and then the infection took you. “Her name was Liasyn.” For the first time since waking your eyes turn away from the beach, to the maze of driftwood that awaits you. She is there. Your one most dear. Out there in that wooded land, or perhaps even further beyond.

“When did she leave? Where…”

The shadow sighs. They understand that your time with them will be fleeting, your journey already locked in motion. But your impending departure clearly still pains them. “All Souls journey to the same place. The view from here has long been clouded, but the Spiregate lies there: far, far to the west.” They stand again, and point you to it. Amidst dark clouds, you see the faintest glow, at an incomprehensible height.

“She will not have reached it,” they say before you can ask. “The journey is treacherous… and I doubt she will have reached her apotheosis. Loves like yours ought to bind you two together even in this land. I hope.”

The Driftwood Forest

As I wander through the forest, I begin to feel more… clarity. The terror I feel for Liasyn wakes me up, reminds me more firmly of who I was. Of our life together, of the flowers we grew and tended. My hands begin to grow less shaded and I can see bandages wrapped around them, futilely wrapped around my burns in an attempt to save my life by faces I do not remember. I remember the pain of the fire and many tender moments caring for the flowers… for her. Now the only plants around me seem a simulacrum of life. I rest my hands on thorny whispering trees bearing creaking lanterns and they guide me, tell me the path I should follow.

Other Souls who have yet to remember themselves join me for a time before wandering away. Some are talkative, some barely make a sound as they come and go. We are all lost in this land. A shadowed gliding squirrel lands on my shoulders when I pass beneath a particularly large lanterntree, and I gladly accept its company. It reminds me of the small creatures who inhabited our farm. I am haunted by the echoing cries of some distant creature in the north of the forest, and I try in vain for (hours? Days? time flows differently than I remember it) to find a path that would keep me away from those cries… but my path leads me there anyways. 

The two-faced scarecrow regards me with its ruby and sapphire eyes, smiling and scowling in tandem as it watches me push through a mass of shadowed bodies awaiting its judgement. As I reach the front of the crowd, its body snakes forward with unnatural speed, the glaive bound to its arm coming frighteningly close to my chest. 

The scowling face speaks, its mouth partially obscured by ravenblack hair: “You have already come to remember something of yourself, creature. I commend you. But no Souls can pass without trial.”

The smiling face follows: “I will keep this simple: What is your name?” The glaive’s blade begins to push into my chest as it speaks. The thorns on the lanterntrees had brought me no harm, but this blade is different. I feel lost, like I had been on the beach. The shadows begin to spread across my body, and with them the sense that I am forgetting myself. Forgetting her. The love of my life, far ahead in that distant land. I will not let it happen again. The blade pushes deeper, and the pain reminds me of the fires. The fires that took her from me so quickly I didn’t get to say goodbye. That… that… 

“My name, agh-” the ruby eye gleams in some slavering anticipation. “My name is Edea.”
The pain instantly relents as it withdraws the blade. “Well well,” the smiling mouth says as the scarecrow begins to split down the middle, its faces commanding one half each. “You may pass, creature.” The attention of the two halves seems to return to the shadowed masses behind me, and I take a few shaking steps forward. I do not want to let it sense my desperation to get away from it, this unholy thing whose voice haunted me through my time in the forest. For the first time in (hours? days?) I can see an end to the red sand and the heaping maze of driftwood. Then a glint of sapphire winks into my periphery, and the glaive slices through my left leg. 

I collapse into the sand and desperately crawl forward as shadows overtake my body once more. The scowling face watches me, balanced on a pike bound to its leg. I keep crawling, desperate to escape the abomination, desperate to not forget her. The creature’s face snakes forward once again, until our faces almost touch.

“Commendable. Your hold on yourself is strong. Will it be strong enough for what awaits you?”

I cannot bear to look into that eye again. That stitched scowl. I stare at the sand, beginning to wonder about the origins of its red when the scarecrow’s leg thuds into the ground in front of me. “Why are you doing this?”
"I am here to test your resolve. Your purpose in this pilgrimage.” It stands back up, tilting my chin up with the glaive. The sapphire eye boring into my being. “The one you seek lies far ahead. What will be left of her when you catch up?”

With that, it launches itself away from me, and I begin my desperate crawl anew, the shadows dripping off my body and mingling with the sand. I hear the terrified murmurs of the Souls behind me who have yet to remember themselves, and shudder imagining what trials they will face at the scarecrow’s hands… what trials Liasyn had already faced. 

From far, far above, and far, far away, the Spiregate glimmers. I wonder if she sees its light too.

postlude

This kind of writing isn’t particularly useful to the game project but damn if it isn’t fun to do. In this year of unending AI slop, there’s something really fun and compelling about sitting down with the inspiration a work of art (above) has given you and just letting that organic spiral happen. Bit by bit this game will come to life, and I think it’ll be something really lovely when it happens. Hope you enjoyed =)