Purgatory had this distinct smell of nothing. The souls, the stones and the few interesting constructs there were completely odourless, meaning the sole smells were whatever Aska and I made. Food, wood, whatever. These things smelled. But even then, there was barely any other odour around.

Thus, I immediately knew I wasn’t in purgatory when I woke up. It smelled oily, a bit of iron and a few smells I never experienced before. I sat on a chair made out of a very light iron that already scratched along the strange floor if I only wriggled on it. The table in front of me was out of the same material, light, metallic, black and yet a bit shiny. It reflected the light of the strange lamp above me that glowed in a perfect white yet didn’t blind me one bit, except when I looked straight into it.

I stood up from my chair, listened to how the chair scratched against another strange material that felt smooth beneath my bare foot. The floor was full of colourful, small circles, overlapping with each other. Their colours were incredibly bright and seemed to reflect the light as well.

A bit curious, I inspected the wall which was painted white. The paint though … I never thought this smoothness was possible. Next up, I walked towards the only door in the room. Strangely enough, it had no handle and as I pushed against it slightly, it didn’t move at all.

“Where am I?” I asked in wonder. I didn’t expect a reply from Aska who sat at the opposite site of the table, completely unfazed by the environment.

“You are quite the troublesome girl, aren’t you?” He said and tapped the table in front of him.

“I wonder …” I said as I sat on the table and looked down on him.

“What do you want?” He asked annoyed.

“Why don’t you read my memories? … Ah, wait … kind of sucks, doesn’t it?” I answered with a huge grin on my face. “Oh poor, poor Aska. Why don’t you torture me again? Put this choker on me and go bzz bzz.” I placed my hands in my lap, felt the soft fabric of my completely black dress and marvelled at the smoothness of it. Another material I didn’t know.

“And here I was, thinking you were finally back on track.” I chuckled a bit as he failed to understand that I wasn’t his slave. I would never do what he wanted me to if there wasn’t a benefit for me.

“You mean the track you laid out for me? You deviated from it the moment you didn’t want me to save you right away.” I claimed and rolled the dress up to my thighs.

“What. Do. You. Want?” He hammered on the table in anger and ogled me furiously.

“I wonder … why don’t you sleep with me for a start?” I laughed and clapped my hands.

“Did you get horny by looking at these two dogs or what?” He answered and deformed this strange table with his fist. Scary … not really.

“No, not at all, but I do have to wonder what kind of face I would make. Ah, whatever, if you don’t want to, I´m sure Tom would be happy to help.” I said happily and rolled my dress up further.

“You wouldn’t dare to break the oath you made.” He said and was completely on point. I wouldn’t. We both hated to break our promises and I didn’t want to deal with the retribution. And yet …

“Oh, no, I´m not going to push him further into that direction. I´m just not disincentivising him. So if you really don’t want to … I guess you have to watch and blame the goddess for showing him a path.”

“You …” He started but did not continue.

“Did you really think torturing me and Luna would have no consequences whatsoever? Oh my, I would love to see the jealous face you will make when Tom screws me.” I laughed happily and robbed over to his side of the table. Laying on it, I looked into his dark blue eyes.

“What do you want?” He asked once more. That he wasn’t able to read my mind had a beautiful flipside, although I still had to fight for every bit of trust he would give me.

“Ahh, you seem to misunderstand something here. I don’t want anything from you. Instead, I want to offer you something. Let´s fall down a rabbit hole together, let us lust for each other into all eternity.” In other words, become depended on me to fulfil your needs.

Contrary to my expectations, his rage vanished in an instant and he looked at me with a smugly smile.

“You would still try to make me jealous, wouldn’t you?” I looked away from him as the smile vanished from my lips. Fooling each other was seriously a hard task, especially because we were so incredibly similar. “I´m not letting go of any sway I have over you, no matter what. Go on, lose your virginity to this pathetic dog you have. And now, why did you commit suicide for real?”

“Hmm … too bad … could you please be so helpful to explain me why my own subconsciousness doesn’t want me to retrieve a very interesting book filled with my memories?” I placed my chin on my interlocked fingers and stared at him.

“Too bad you don’t have to offer anything either because I won´t tell you that.” Did he even know it? Because then, it implied that it was either the Devourer who fiddled with my mind as I was sleeping in the carriage completely defenceless, or it was Aska which was a lot more probable. Although it could be a ruse as well and to hide that Sofie´s patron goddess did it, he took the responsibility upon himself for some reason.

I sighed and knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to squeeze anything out of him, I sat down on the edge of the table once again, right in front of him. Curiously, he didn’t move at all but rather kept looking at me, slightly bored.

“Oh well, there is only one thing left now.” As fast as I could, I balled my right hand into a fist and punched him straight in the face. “You know, I kind of missed our training.” I said as the chair fell backwards with him on top of it. He didn’t fall down completely, but rather levitated, and tilted his body upright.

The light seemed to dim, or rather, the shadows grew in intensity as I was thrown backwards and hit the wall. I slumped down against it, but interestingly enough, my vampiric powers weren’t supressed in this place at all.

I stood up swiftly again and yawned loudly. “Oh, come one, why don’t you stop using your godly powers for once?”

“Why don’t you start using magic then?” He said as he pushed the table to the side and walked up to me. Meanwhile, I walked away from the wall and thus, we met nearly in the middle of the room. “Fine, you wouldn’t have a chance otherwise.”

I whistled twice, then twirled around my own axis without warning on my left foot, lifted up my right leg as high as his head was and slammed my heels into muscles that felt more like stone. Sadly, he saw that coming from miles away and thus simply blocked my kick with his right arm. My upper body was twisted away from him in an uncomfortable angle, but we stood there for a few milliseconds until I realized why he looked downwards and rolled my eyes.

“And? What colour?” I asked swiftly.

“Black.” As expected … I twirled around once more and ducked underneath a fist that came flying faster than humanely possible. I hopped to the side a few times, dodging even further away from him in the process.

The darkness consolidated in his right hand for a second until it formed a completely black, slightly curved sword that emitted shadows into the air.

“Unfair! Timeout! Referee, that’s a godly power!” I said and walked backwards even further until my back hit the door.

“You seem to slack of lately. Fighting against these bandits for example without showing your full potential was horrible to look at. You could have murdered this elf within a few seconds, but you didn’t. Why?” He said and came dangerously close, pointing the sword directly at me.

I placed my index finger on my cheek and then shrugged simply.

“Two hundred years of brutal training against a simple magical trick? Restricting myself seemed funnier in my opinion.” He sighed and the sword in his hands vanished. I already tilted my head to the side before I even saw the punch coming. That was basically the trick of evading Aska´s strikes. Evade before they happen is always the way to go with him.

The punch, using Aska´s incredible strength, struck the strange metal behind me, denting it instantly. More importantly though, I heard a creaking behind me and smiled satisfied.

“Rookie mistake.” I said as I rammed my elbow into the door behind me, adding to the strain with all my might. Satisfyingly enough, it fell backwards straight away. Before it even fell to the ground completely and Aska´s hands could reach me, I was already peeking out of the doorframe. The beautiful night sky greeted me, but definitely not one I knew of. Maybe we were on the other hemisphere of Solaris, but this was highly unlikely. For once, he couldn’t step a foot on Solaris if his words were to be trusted.

And the other thing was that I was in a hallway, made out of a completely white material and the other wall was made out of a crystal clear glass, a feature the craftsmen on Solaris had yet to achieve. But the worst part was that I was unable to see any clouds or even the ground. We were in an incredible tall building somewhere, far above the clouds and I definitely didn’t hear about this building on Solaris, nor knew about a night sky in purgatory.

I was still incredibly confused until it dawned me. This was one of the other worlds where souls went after they left Solaris. I was amazed that I was somewhere else entirely and really wanted to explore this world as much as I could. But I also knew that this was just a wish and I was proved right by two hands that held the side of my head and simply broke my neck in a matter of milliseconds.

It was great while it lasted though … this other world, I mean.