“Sticks and stones, iron, CO2, sand, a bunch of other things, wheelchairs, humans … tell me, my beloved father, what do I need right now?” Purgatory didn’t seem so bad these days. At least, there was nobody who tried to kill you so it was a pretty nice place, I guess? If one fixed the lights that is, as using souls as the lighting was quite eccentric.

“A wheelchair racing track?” Seconds after I died, the evil god was already by my side and all souls immediately evacuated the area.

“No? A psychiatry, you sicko. You know, that’s the place where they could help you.” I sat upright and tugged my hair, completely frustrated and depressed by everything. “You reincarnated me as a little girl, thew me into a horrible world, want to change my soul and want to escape purgatory! Just saying it sounds completely insane, so that’s where you should go. I never want to see you again, I absolutely hate you, so please, get away from me! There is no way that I can love you after what you did to me, you didn’t fulfil my wish, just let me go and have a normal life in a normal world!”

It was silent for quite some time as the god was apparently deep in thought and kicked even a few stones. “Hmm, sadly that does sound right … But I can’t have you running around thinking that I didn’t grant your wishes, can I?”

Suddenly, he had this atmosphere around him. The friendly god that played the role of my father was gone completely, replaced with something way more sinister. I immediately robbed backwards away from him as it was too obvious that something immensely bad would happen. Naturally, it was for nought and he placed a hand on my head quite easily. I immediately lost consciousness.

---

“Sticks and stones, iron, CO2, sand, a bunch of other things, wheelchairs, humans … tell me, my beloved father, what do I need right now?” Purgatory was still better than whatever place I reincarnated in, even with an abusive god that liked to fiddle with my memories.

“A wheelchair racing track?” Seconds after I awoke again, the evil god was already by my side and all souls immediately evacuated the area.

“No? A psychiatry, you sicko. You know, that’s the place where they could help you.” I sat upright and tugged my hair, completely frustrated, and depressed by everything. “You reincarnated me as a little girl, thew me into a horrible world, want to change my soul and want to escape purgatory! Just saying it sounds completely insane, so that’s where you should go. I never want to see you again, I absolutely hate you, so please, get away from me!”

He grinned wildly for a reason unbeknownst to me at that time and spoke his next words in a happier tone than usual. “But I didn’t do anything at all? Even if you hate me now, you can still love me in the future, isn´t it? And a family that you can learn to love is exactly what you wished for.”

That seemed quite right for me at the time and I was quite bewildered by my words myself. I knew that there was no way I wouldn’t hate him in the beginning, no matter what he did, so I questioned myself why I did bring that up in the first place. Still, I knew that something wasn’t right as soon as a serve headache shot through my head. I tried to ignore it at first as it started gradually, but in a matter of seconds, I was already rolling on the ground, holding my head.

The god immediately grabbed me, placed his palm on my head and the pain subsidized instantly. This time, I didn’t fall unconscious, but rather looked at the god in wonder.

“Are you okay?” He looked concerned, but also quite annoyed. He immediately released me from his grip as I nodded.

“Why are you helping me? And where did this come from in the first place? I thought that I couldn’t feel pain here.” There was certainly something odd about this headache, but I had too little information to even guess what it was.

“You are my daughter, isn´t it my obligation to help you? And this headache comes from your soul, probably because it is adapting to your new race. It´s godly stuff, so it is the best if you don’t think about it too much as it should recede with time anyway.” He never lied to me yet, so I chose to believe his words somewhat. Still, I doubted that his intention was just to help me. Why didn’t he give me something to defend against the crabs or the green things in that case? “I cannot help you on Solaris … that’s the planet you are living on right now.”

He quickly noticed my barely existing knowledge about my new life by reading my thoughts again which I absolutely hated. It felt like I wasn’t in control of myself and could easily be manipulated by him. “Get out of my head!”

“Alright, alright. Anyway, I think it is time for your daily purgatory soul adjustment.” How could he describe such horrible things with these seemingly boring words? He certainly had a talent for trivialising this kind of stuff. “Come with me.”

I stood up and started to follow him, but after a minute of stumbling over rocks, I finally had enough and started to nag. “When are we there? I´m bored.”

“Try counting the souls then.” He didn’t even turn around and just continued to levitate a few metres in front of me. I was quite angry that he didn’t teleport us to our destination or did anything similar to speed up the process, so I continued to nag even more.

“My feet hurt and I splintered a nail.” Naturally, none of these was the case, but if he didn’t read how I repeated the word fish over and over again in my head, he wouldn’t be able to know that.

“This is your astral body… you cannot get a splintered nail.” I honestly didn’t think about that, but if that got on his nerves, I just needed to continue on this path.

“I need to pee.” He was certainly annoyed now and turned backwards while levitating. He stared right into my soul and shivers went down my spine.

“You are not a child anymore.” I laughed loudly at the absurdity of his words. True, in this world, I still had my old body, but did he really forget?

“Apparently I am … I just need some more soul adjustment so that it gets changed in this world as well. Oh, I think I saw a nail clipper a few kilometres over there … goodbye, have a great day!” I immediately changed course and began to carefully walk away from the absolutely annoyed god. Several seconds later, I lost my footing, but not because I stumbled over a rock I missed or anything like that.

I began to float in the air and quickly found myself levitating beside the god towards our destination. I didn’t know why I had to walk in the first place, but I suspected he just wanted to see me suffer. Truth be told, I didn’t care much, but I did want to make my stay here as painful as possible for him.

We were already levitating for quite some time in silence as I finally had enough. The landscape didn’t change at all and it was incredibly boring, especially because the god didn’t react to my nagging at all anymore.

“Where are we going?” I had to ask three times before he replied at all and nearly screamed the last time.

“To my house.” His answer was short and sounded quite annoyed, but was helpful, nonetheless. If he could build a house here, wouldn’t I be able to build a large wall around it and ruin his view from every window?

“Finally some civilisation! Does it have flowing water? Electricity? Heating? A nice view from the kitchen window?”

“No. No. No. No. No.” Doesn’t he know maths? I mean, I asked four questions, so why did he deny five times? Don’t tell me…

“You don’t have a kitchen? Does your mum still cook for you or what? If so, I need to have a conversation with her about your upbringing.” He was even more annoyed judging by his growling, so maybe I was wrong.

Anyway, once again, he didn’t reply anymore until I saw his surprisingly normal house. I expected flowing lava or maybe even puddles of blood, but nothing like this was the case. It was just a plain house, located in the middle of nowhere.

Made out largely of stones, it inserted itself perfectly into the barren landscape and the lamps outside the house shone just like the other souls. It would certainly stand out on the surface, but down here, it seemed so normal that it kind of surprised me. I stopped levitating shortly before the wooden door and immediately turned around to look at the surroundings.

Rocks littered the landscape, but I also could make out another field of bones in the distance. I immediately discarded building a wall around this house, largely because it would actually improve the view.

The god entered swiftly and waited for me inside. I stopped shortly before entering and stared at him. The corridor was made out of wood and the light was coming from sophisticated lamps, completely in contrast to the rest of purgatory.

“Is this some kind of trap?” Why did he need a house in the first place? And how did he get the wood?

“No. It is just a normal house.” He stared back and obviously wanted me to enter, but I still had my doubts.

“Is it haunted? Will I be able to leave afterwards?” I squinted my eyes and tried to find anything out of place with this house but was unable to find anything. It seemed just so normal that I was quite tempted to actually believe that.

“No … it is a normal house.” He was still denying it, but I thought that I just made a huge discovery. The lights inside the lamps seemed to waver slightly which made me even more suspicious.

“Where did you get this wood from? Or the lamps?” There were no trees inside purgatory, at least none that I saw and the lamp looked too good to be made by him.

“From the nearest hardware store. Now, get inside.” He grabbed my arm and forcefully pulled me inside. I was quite surprised by his actions, especially considering that he wasn’t like this usually. The wood creaked under my bare foot as I stumbled further into the corridor away from him. As I caught my footing, I immediately turned around quite angrily. Still, I couldn’t really say anything as he would just shrug it off, so I let his behaviour slide for now.

“Can I go buy a watering can there?” He just stared at me and for the first time, I thought that I was the dumber one of us. “Liar. There is no hardware store, is there?”

“Come with me.” He walked past me, completely ignoring my question, but I already found out something interesting just by talking nonsense. He lied and even if it was just meant to be as a gag, it meant something to me. None of his words could be trusted, even the very premise of our relationship itself.

“Hey, father, why did you drag me here?” I casually snipped against one of the lamps, expecting a reaction that never came. There was something inside these lamps, twirling around inside their little prison. I tilted my head and looked even closer and finally saw what it was.

“I thought that you disliked the usual landscape, so I build this for you in my free time.” I was angry, incredibly furious even when he finally did something good for me. I quickly opened a random door and found a normal kitchen inside. The view out of the window was mediocre, but I didn’t even waste my time with something like this. As soon as I found a sturdy knife in a drawer, I rushed to the next lamp and stabbed through the glass. It immediately broke to pieces and the little ball of light soon found its way out of the house through the open front door.

The evil god was absolutely stupefied by my actions as I smashed every single lamp I could find inside the house but didn’t try to stop me at all. As soon as I was finished, I walked back towards the hallway haughtily and threw the knife at him, guided by the light of the last escaping soul. It was obviously futile and the knife stopped halfway between us, but I just needed to vent my frustration somehow.

“You…” He had been capturing souls for these lamps and wanted me to live with that knowledge? Did he really thought that I wouldn’t notice or worse, didn’t care that souls were imprisoned nearby?

“Enough. My patience does have limits, child.” I laughed loudly because it didn’t matter at all if his patience ran out. Either way, I would suffer, but if I could save a few poor souls that way, I would gladly take on more.

“No more soul lamps, father. Unless you want me to trash everything here.” Although I would certainly be sad to damage the wood, I wouldn’t mind spending a few hours dismantling everything inside here.

He closed his eyes for a second and I just saw pure darkness in front of me. He already looked strange and scary enough but seeing just his contours was even weirder. Shortly afterwards, he sighed and entered a room, without saying anything. It seemed like he gave up on capturing souls and entered a door. I soon found the lamps repairing themselves and glowing in a gentle yellow light.

I was satisfied, although quite bewildered as well. If he knew everything about me as he claimed, he should have expected this reaction I showed and could have easily used these lamps in the first place but didn’t do so. The only possible explanation was that he wanted me to react so strongly towards something, but then again, he could have just talked about my latest death and I would certainly react strongly as well.

I couldn’t understand his reasoning and by this point, I just gave up on trying to do so. This god was weird and his actions unreadable from my point of view, but I was certain that nearly everything was calculated, even the fiasco with the soul lamps.

I followed him shortly afterwards and found myself in the bedroom again. It was probably the centre of this whole house as there were no windows at all here, just two lamps that brightened up the wooden floor and walls, some inscriptions in the floor and an elegant, large bed with a mattress that was certainly more comfortable than what I slept on previously. Everything seemed fine so far, but I did have to eye the two nightstands beside the bed suspiciously.

“Not gonna happen.” I immediately turned around, grabbed the doorknob and tried to open it as fast as I could. It didn’t move one bit to my dismay. I tried it again a second time, but the door was adamant about staying close.

The god was amused by my panicking and didn’t even bother to calm me down, but rather tapped on the bedsheets just to push me even more into despair. Never in my life would I willingly share my bed with this guy, even if it was as comfortable as the finest wool.

“I am just asking you to go into the circle. The bed is just there so you have it more comfortable. You know that you have absolutely no chance of escaping, so I can either tie you up and then start my work, or we can do this peacefully.” Again, he was talking about changing my soul in such a casual tone that it sent shivers down my spine.  

“I should be reborn every second now!” That was my only possible escape out of this, but it strangely didn’t happen yet. Last time it was quite quick, but I was already at least for half an hour here, so I didn’t have much hope regarding that anyway.

“Your body was completely destroyed and even eaten.” I blocked off both my ears, but I still heard his voice very clearly. “It will take a while for your body to rebuild itself and I don’t want to waste the time we were given any further.”

As I didn’t move at all and thought rapidly about a way out of this, the god stood up and approached me. Just as he was grabbing my arm again, I tried to talk my way out again.

“I tell everyone that a dark god in purgatory is molesting children.” He stopped and looked at me dumbfounded. Either I hit a nerve, or he was too surprised by my words. “Your reputation will be ruined!”

“Do you really think I have a reputation to worry about?” He grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the bed, but I had one other idea I wanted to try out.

“Stop! Timeout! I have an idea that is beneficial for both of us.” I clenched my teeth, not really willing to utter these words. “You … can do with me whatever you want … except touching me weirdly, that’s forbidden.” He tilted his head full of curiosity but didn’t exactly release my arm as I hoped he would. “And in return, you teach me how to fight.”

“I don’t see the benefit for me.” He continued to drag me further towards the bed and even managed to wrestle me on to it, despite my struggling.

“It is boring that way! And it is a motivation for me to train even harder … and if you manage to do whatever you plan, I am much stronger this way and would be more helpful…” I knew that my reasoning was bad and did little to convince the god to change his opinion. Still, he stopped holding me down momentarily and I scrambled away from him, just stopping before I fell down from the bed.

“So you just want to get trained in return …” I nodded enthusiastically. Getting stronger was apparently the only way to survive, but we both knew that he basically wanted the opposite. “Sure. It´s a deal.” I was flabbergasted. I didn’t expect him to accept this at all as it had no real benefit for him, except he needed me to be stronger to free him from here. But then again, he didn’t seem like he wanted to escape this place as fast as possible, which was weird in itself. Couldn’t he just train me later when I magically changed my opinion about him? Why take the risk that I wouldn’t die anymore?

“Would you be so kind?” He pointed to the middle of the bed and slowly, I crawled towards said place.

I was still thinking if I made a mistake at some point, but laid down nonetheless. Soon afterwards, he placed his hand on my forehead gently and the floor seemed to shine in different colours.

“What is that?” It was truly beautiful, just like a light show. The ceiling was illuminated by gently changing colours, not too bright and not too dark.

“The circle of manipulation. It allows anyone to create anything or change whatever they want. It will take a while for it to take effect though, so be prepared to sleep for a while.” Just as he said that darkness engulfed me once again as I drifted into sleep quite fast.