She felt her corporeal self returning back to the rocky area, taking the original shape of a child.

The way she no longer glittered like a ghost, made her relieved to the bottom of her scared heart. It felt incredible to be able to feel emotions again, even something like fear, for it meant she was alive. 

"Alice!"

'Alice?'

She smiled at the voice of the villagers and my own.

"It's good to be back."

"What the? How did you disappear?"

"I think... " her eyes hovered to the sides not finding any of the primordials. "I may have done more than what I could... handle."

The crowd around the child kept her cozy. A type of warmth often found amidst family hugs. 

'I'm back Pandora!'

'What happened?'

'I'm not entirely sure. It all happened so fast,' she took a moment to breathe, 'but if I were to guess, I may have consumed all of my energy.'

'That would explain the new soul that entered the prison and the disappearance of the other ones.'

'Do you mean, all of them?'

'Yes. Seven gone, one remains.'

'Giving a name costs a soul then, how strange.' 

A chuckle left my lips upon her words since I could relate.

'Pandora, can you see any of the little spirits?'

'The what?'

'They're like blue balls, tiny ones that shine.'

'I haven't seen any of the sort. All that has entered so far, has been green souls. Quite the big ones if you ask me.

Alice recollected the name of my ability, 'prison of souls.'

It made her wonder what was the difference between the two things. 

The spectral realm seemed to host its own diversification of the entities that lived in it. Similar to the way all kinds of creatures lived in this new world.

But if the souls were a necessary sacrifice for naming, then... did the spirits help in any way?

Had it been fine to consume them?

Unlike the beings that had souls, spirits seemed to shine in harmony with Alice, they had even mistook her for one.

'I've eaten...' five, ten, maybe fifteen of those delicious orbs. 

'Pandora, what does it mean to have a name?'

Her silly question almost made me laugh had I not known better. It was such a strange thing to ask, but I got where she was coming from. After all, Alice would get weaker every time she'd give one to someone. Worse yet, she had referred that she felt a piece of herself fading away.

'Could it be that since the souls you have aren't enough, so you lose a portion of yourself?'

Alice's eyes narrowed painfully as my words danced in her mind.

'Good thing I finished naming everyone,' her smile was sort of distorted, very awkward for any who saw it. But the truth was that neither of us knew better. We shrouded our chances in the choices that this world gave us, even if they weren't as good as we hoped for.

By a mere straw of luck, the necromancer curse had failed to murder her. The worst part was that we hadn't the slightest clue that such even happened. 

For it to have appeared and disappeared without leaving as much as a trace, was far too dangerous and creepy.

Its existence was a myth by itself and the book it possessed was even scarier. Had Alice seen him in person, perhaps, she would've become traumatised for the rest of her life.

Luckily, we managed to overcome all these obstacles, and the child seemed to be finished with the naming phase.

All that was left was to find out where the primordials were and why had they not waited for her to lead them. 

"Unless they thought I died?"

"Yes!" One of the youngsters shouted.

"Where are they?"

"The primordials picked the spider legs and went out to the sixth floor believing you were kidnapped!"

'Let's go help them, Alice!'

'Yes!' She too picked up one of the so-called weapons, and headed to the sixth floor.

With each step, she felt her heart sink and a wave of unease grow, "please be safe!" 

Her shouts echoed through the hallway hoping for the best.

The stairs were the hardest part, it felt harsh for the poor girl having to carry me along with the spider leg. Yet, she knew first-hand how helpful possessing a weapon could be.

And of course, my cage needed more prisoners.

Without me nearby we didn't know what would happen if she consumed a soul. Perhaps, it wouldn't even work causing her to die. Or even, a fight between her soul and the one she engulfed for the possession of her physical body.

'Finally,' the staircase ended, leaving but a gap of light at the end of the tunnel. Her feet arrived outside of it while she kept wary of anything out of the ordinary. There was noise and shouts, things breaking and being cut. 

Noise also roamed the floor, it was like nothing before she had ever heard. A mix of radio static and the whine of grapes being smashed.

There was a trail of fluids and what looked like long brown and blackened sticks. Some of them curved in half as if they had a joint that allowed them to reach fourth five degrees.

'This...' she imagined an ant, quickly believing that these were either its legs or its antennas. 

They also contained a sort of sticky green fluid inside of them. It was complicated to know if it was poisonous or not, so she avoided touching it.

Her eyes hovered over the surroundings looking for clues of her departed vampires, finding three pathways, "now then, which way did they go?"

With careful steps, I could hear her panting nervously. 

A one out of three chance of going to the righteous path was not a gamble she looked forward nor favourable to.

"Where are you guys?" Her heart ached imagining the worst possible scenarios.