She didn’t get it. She knew who she was: Ruth Abadi, the tragic bride, forever marked by her own catastrophic choices. But he brushed off her unspoken questions, ignored the increasing cries that now sounded like a choir of the damned.

  “These creatures prey on souls that can’t defend themselves, that can’t protect their dominion. Your realm can be easily overwhelmed by their malevolence,” Jeremiah continued, now talking as if racing against time itself. “And they're shape-shifters. Remember the hellhounds? Those were just one form. There are also malevolent fairies, vengeful harpies—myriad incarnations fueled by your fears and weaknesses.”

  “How do I keep them at bay?” Ruth asked with desperation, yet as she spoke, she realized that she did possess the will to fight. Whatever these darklings were, however they manifested, she wouldn't let them overrun her world. No, she wouldn't let her darkness define her, not anymore.

  "You repel them by constructing your own barriers. You can reinforce mine, for the time being. Harness the luminescence that is inherently yours and use it to thwart their dark encroachments."

  "Luminescence? I'm in Hell, Jeremiah. There is no light to be found here. Is this some sort of twisted joke?"

  His grip tightened on her hands, pulling her gaze into the intense focus of his eyes. "Listen to me carefully, Ruth. You've caught glimpses of your own light, twice. Summon it. Shape it. You yearned to purify your surroundings? Begin by holding these darklings at bay."

  With a swiftness that felt almost otherworldly, Jeremiah then darted into the gnarled labyrinth of thorny vines and predatory flora, heading toward the resonating shrieks. The boundary of her dominion lay ahead, previously imperceptible but now thrumming with an ethereal electrical charge that seemed to dance through the air like webs woven by lightning-spewing spiders.

  Emerging from the abyss beyond her realm were the darklings—grotesque abominations resembling corrupted, mythological harpies. Breasts drooping with age, birdlike legs adorned with talons that shimmered menacingly in the erratic flicker of the electrical web, their arms were wings of utter darkness, and their hair consisted of ebony feathers. One gripped a spear, while the other brandished claws, razor-sharp and menacing.

  Ruth faltered, drawing her hand to her lips to kiss her own knuckles—a gesture that felt like a desperate prayer. Her eyes widened as the spear-wielding harpy hurled itself against the pulsating boundary.

  "Hurry, Ruth! Evoke your light before they shatter the barrier!"

  She tried—God, how she tried. She searched the depths of her soul for the same glimmer that had guided her through that twisted casino-land, but it eluded her grasp. As the harpy collided with the boundary once more, it began to fracture, the lines spider-webbing like shards of broken glass.

  "NOW, Ruth! Do it NOW!"

  "I can't!" Panicked, she stumbled back, tripping over a gnarled root and crashing to the ground. Moisture blurred her vision. "I can't, Jeremiah! I'm so sorry!"

  With a deafening crack, the force field shattered. A queasy light seeped through the broken barricade—light that felt diseased, tainted.

  "Cursed it be," Jeremiah hissed, contorting his arms skyward. The fractured shards of the boundary reassembled themselves in a hurried dance of geometry, but it was too late. One harpy had already crossed the threshold. Ruth was paralyzed, her eyes open wide in terror.

  The harpy circled overhead, letting out an ear-piercing screech before tucking its wings and plummeting toward her like a raptor that has just spotted its prey. Ruth saw the birdlike legs stretch out, talons aimed directly at her vulnerable throat—

  Those lethal claws met metal instead.

  In a blur of motion too rapid for the human eye to discern, Jeremiah materialized before Ruth, a human shield. One of the harpy's talons had embedded itself in the curve of his shoulder, while the other was snared by the dark metallic shaft of a scythe that seemed to shimmer in the night air.

  "Jeremiah," Ruth exhaled, choked with the understanding that her weakness, her momentary faltering, had caused him this injury. Had she been stronger, quicker, more adept, he would not bear this wound.

  And wounded he was. The dark fabric of his robe was marred by a spreading stain of blood, refracting the gleam of his scythe's blade.

  As a reaper in the afterlife...he could still bleed?

  "You shall not take her. Nor shall you defile this landscape," Jeremiah's voice was steeped in resolve. "She is still in the process of shaping it. It remains hers!"

  With a grunt, he forced the creature away. A sickening schlick sound accompanied the withdrawal of its talon from his shoulder. She screeched, a sound at once malevolent and ominous, a sound that ceased the instant Jeremiah’s scythe arched downward, cutting through her flesh. The harpy exploded into a storm of shimmering, dark fragments.

  His scythe's base thudded against the ground, sending forth an energy that was neither dark nor light, but compelling in its raw potency. It choked the air from Ruth's lungs, and as it radiated outward, the second darkling met the same demise as its sister. Then, it was just them—Ruth and Jeremiah—in a world that, though still contorted, had relinquished its concealed malice.

  "Jeremiah?" Her voice wavered as she rose, unsteady on her feet.

  Leaning heavily on the staff of his scythe, Jeremiah mumbled, "I must go."

  "Jeremiah, you're hurt," she reached for him, but he lurched away, his movement pained and faltering.

  "I have to secure the rest of the perimeter. If one darkling has penetrated our defense, others will be emboldened to try."

  "Let me tend to your wounds, at least."

  "Your skills aren't yet honed enough to be of help," he replied, a meticulous neutrality in his voice that nevertheless sliced through her.

  Ruth withdrew her hand, clasping it against her heart. "I didn't want you to get hurt."

  "I know," he said, refusing to alleviate her guilt. "You need to return to the house. Wait for me there. I must complete my reconnaissance, ensure that—" He cut himself off. "Just go back, so I can know you're safe."

  He didn't wait for her reply before he vanished, leaving her alone in a realm that felt all at once larger and emptier than it had ever been.

  17

  The Eternal Professional

  Jeremiah was rarely on the receiving end of injury, a testament to the millennia he'd dedicated to his role—a role so deeply ingrained that it often eclipsed memories of his former human life. That's an eloquent way of saying his shoulder was in such agony, it felt as if a non-existent devil himself were searing his skin with each malevolent lick.

  He knew the perimeter demanded his attention, a task he could feasibly accomplish with the sheer energy of his ethereal sight alone. But first, he needed to address his wound—a wound inflicted by a darkling, a matter never to be taken lightly.

  In the infinite maze of Eternity, there existed only a handful of sacred spots where a reaper could retreat, where a soul could not follow. Among them was the enigmatic Pool of All. A place surrounded by more questions than answers, known to none that he'd ever encountered. Yet each time he willed himself away, he found sanctuary beside its waters.

  Rising as high as his hips, the grass surrounding the pool sighed gently in a breeze that nearly held its breath. The water in the pool surpassed the clarity of any earthly substance, mirroring the sky not with the sun's bright face but with the solemn glow of a full moon and a chorus of stars.

  With urgency, Jeremiah cast off his ruined robes, letting them fall to the ground like forgotten memories. Beneath them, he wore a long-sleeved shirt, ebony as the abyss, its cuffs fastened with small snaps. The cloth had been shredded, marked by three talon streaks that had torn through fabric and skin alike.

  His teeth clenched in a hiss as he separated the fabric from his weeping wound. A fresh bloom of blood emerged, proof that his injuries were far from the healing stage. Casting the marred shirt aside, he approached the water's edge and gazed into its reflective surface. There, amidst his spectral reflection, the wound appeared vividly—black tendrils of darkling venom spidering downward, nearly reaching his elbow.

  He prodded the inflamed, swollen flesh surrounding the wound, and the sensation was an unholy agony, akin to hellfire itself.

  Discarding the last remnants of his clothing, Jeremiah stepped bare into the chill embrace of the Pool of All. It offered no shallow entrance, no gradual decline—only a sharp transition from shore to unfathomable depths. With a gasp of bracing air, he let himself sink, submerging his form beneath the mirrored surface.

  The astral bodies reflected in the water transmuted into a celestial whirlpool, spiraling furiously around him. It enveloped him, excising the poison with a purging burn that set his nerves aflame. A scream tore from Jeremiah's throat—a sound that, in the unfathomable quiet of Eternity, went unheard but resonated all the same.

  The art of healing is a paradox—a brutal kind of grace. Each step toward wholeness brings a torturous grind, a reminder that to mend is to momentarily disintegrate. Because only the broken can be rebuilt, and in that necessary pain, there's a divine warning: Don't wander from the ordained path, don't extend your reach beyond your role. Protect but don’t save; safeguard but never stray.

  The water whispered these hard truths, pulsing around Jeremiah like a conscience made liquid. The celestial whirlpool had leached the darkling poison from his veins, yet the price was paid in agonizing currency—units of time, reservoirs of pain, vaults of longing. It was the toll for deviating from the divine choreography, for daring to defy the cosmic order set by the All.

  The pain then crescendoed, erupting into an inferno that devoured him from the inside out, scorching his bones, searing his flesh. Like a wildfire in a parched forest, it consumed every fiber of his being, leaving no room for consciousness. And so, Jeremiah succumbed to the dark embrace of oblivion.

  When he finally awoke, he found himself lying naked in the field beside the Pool of All, his skin parched from the water that had once enveloped him. The heavens had rearranged themselves; the sun had traded places with the moon, illuminating the pool while stars twinkled from above like ancient eyes, silently chiding him for overstepping his bounds.

  With a sense of futile longing, he reached skyward, fingers grasping at the untouchable brilliance. He caught nothing. But in a few moments, he rose to gather his clothes. His shoulder was adorned now with fresh scars that joined a constellation of silvery streaks—each a mute testament to past battles fought against darklings through untold centuries.

  Fangs. Claws. Malicious spirits so abhorrent that even their souls rejected guidance. Though each scar told a tale, the narrative was lost in the mists of time. For Jeremiah, who lived outside the confines of mortality, memories faded just as wounds did, replaced by new marks in an ongoing cycle.

  He pulled on his garments, feeling their familiar weight settle around him. With a heavy sigh, he allowed himself to be yanked back into Ruth's nightmarish tapestry, ever vigilant but irrevocably changed. Because the cost of healing, Jeremiah understood, was not just physical agony—it was the relinquishment of what might have been, replaced by a somber acceptance of what must be.

  Another pulse of ethereal energy whispered through the air, affirming the robustness of the protective fields he'd meticulously crafted. Jeremiah's robes had been mended by the celestial All of the All, allowing him to tread through the labyrinthine jungle, meander through the haunting forest, and finally, stride down the poetic garden path toward the manor. He appeared just as he always did—a spectral sentinel in a reality woven from despair and beauty.

  Approaching the garden's wrought-iron gate, he found it locked. "Good," he mused internally. "She heeded my warning." His gaze then caught Ruth, perched elegantly yet forlornly on a bench out front.

  As soon as she spotted him, Ruth sprang to her feet. The remnants of her frayed wedding gown danced around her like mourning spirits as she hastened toward him. "Jeremiah!"

  Easing the gate open, he secured it once more, sliding the key into its clandestine nook amid the wildflowers. He'd barely pivoted back toward the cobblestone path when Ruth lunged into his arms, her slender form wrapping around him in an embrace of mortal fervor.

  A surprised chuckle emanated from his chest, as his arms circled her waist instinctively. He spun her in a fleeting waltz of unspoken affection before setting her down. His hands lingered on the curve of her hips.

  "You returned safely," Jeremiah remarked, wrestling with the persistent urge to caress his lips against her temple. An urge he quelled.

  Yet again.

  "I made it—" Ruth abruptly pulled away, her hand landing a playful swat on his chest. "You big, incorporeal idiot! You had me worried!"

  "I tried to—"

  "You never communicate!" Ruth interjected. "Your abrupt disappearance terrified me. I agonized over the thought that my actions had led to your end."

  "Ruth, I am already devoid of life. The living have no place here," Jeremiah stated, with sublime sadness that cloaked his existence.

  Her eyes, brimming with unshed tears, met his. "That's irrelevant to me. My fears centered around the thought that I had jeopardized you. I'm so sorry, Jeremiah."

  His hands found her face, cradling her cheeks as though they were the last vestiges of mortal warmth. "There's nothing to apologize for, Ruth. I ventured too far, too soon. You were unprepared."

  Her voice trembled as she asked, "What if I'm never prepared?"

  The cold, pragmatic answer was that readiness would come, either by her own will or by force. Life and death waited for no one. But instead, he offered a gentle untruth: "Then I shall remain here, eternally vigilant, fortifying your sanctuary."

  Her features softened, blooming into a fragile smile. "Would you come inside? Just for a little while? I'm no longer afraid, but I need assurance that you're okay."

  He should have declined, preserving the balance demanded by the All of the All. Yet, as Ruth led him by the hand, up the garden path and through the foreboding doors of her dark abode, he complied. And there he lingered, in defiance of divine timelines—far longer than the cosmic tapestry should have permitted.

  18

  Ruth's Revelations

  In a realm sculpted from shadow and enigma, Ruth had only deduced a few undeniable truths, like rare gems glinting amid a bedrock of uncertainty:

  1.) This otherworldly landscape was, in some ineffable manner, a reflection of her human existence.

  2.) A form of celestial light emanated from her core, its essence and implications as elusive as mist.

  3.) Jeremiah, her reaper/guardian, was a wellspring of concealed truths.

  4.) Asher, her erstwhile love, resided in Heaven—yet traversing to that sanctified realm was proving to be a labyrinthine challenge.

  It was a grievously, almost mockingly, concise list. As far as Ruth could discern, she'd been ensnared in this reality for a spectral span that felt like three weeks. And she was, for the most part, solitary here, save for Jeremiah's transient visits and the curious lizards adorned with fuchsia scales that she would occasionally glimpse in her ever-shifting garden.

  (She had inquired; Jeremiah reassured her that these strange reptiles were harmless, mere fabrications born from the mystic weave of her environment, not darklings in disguised form.)

  Ruth brooded, her gaze furrowed as she attempted to augment her list. Her death had long ceased to be a revelation—it was an assumed condition of her existence now. Asher was in Heaven; darklings were real and presented a peril not only to her soul but to Jeremiah as well.

  Still, the list remained dishearteningly meager.

  On the other side of the ledger, her unanswered questions loomed like ancient, inscrutable tomes:

  1.) Why did Jeremiah insist on veiling the mechanics and laws of this cryptic realm?

  2.) What labyrinth must she navigate to reunite with Asher?

  3.) Was Jeremiah dispatched to safeguard her, torment her, or usher her on some esoteric pilgrimage? And toward what end?

  4.) Why had other souls thronged the world with the casino, while her own realm was a desolate theater of perpetual isolation? Was loneliness her eternal punishment?

  5.) What cryptic alchemy was involved in "reinforcing the boundaries"? And why did such limits exist to begin with?

  6.) Was Jeremiah a lone sentinel among reapers? Why couldn't he eradicate the darklings, nullifying the persistent threat they posed?

  7.) How did her ethereal kingdom manage to expand?

  8.) Could she bring solace to the stone horses?

  In summary, the vast expanse of her inquiries remained uncharted territory.

  Jeremiah was the most enigmatic piece in her puzzle, a paradox wrapped in cloaks of ambiguity. Despite his recurrent presences and comforting touches, he remained elusive about the operational truths of her world. Was this a form of psychological torture, an intrinsic part of her personalized hell? His demeanor swayed between kind patience and gentle admonishments, shrouded in a maze of contradictions.

  Every time Ruth thought she had unraveled the enigma that was Jeremiah, he would metamorphose yet again. The way he alternated between encouraging her active involvement in shaping her realm and withholding the necessary wisdom to do so. His assurances of eternal guardianship, punctuated by maddening absences.

  Most bewildering of all was his subtly scornful expression whenever Asher was mentioned. Yet, whenever his gaze met hers, it was imbued with nothing but tender benevolence. The incongruity was puzzling. After all, she was the one damned to this netherworld, while Asher had ascended to paradise. Logically, if disdain was to be aimed at anyone, shouldn't it have been her?

  "God, this is labyrinthine," Ruth murmured, sprawled languidly across her master bed, her arms stretching toward the sides—grasping for something tangible in a mattress too wide to offer edges. Ebony satin sheets, crumpled and undone, gathered at her feet. Above her, a spider wove its silken masterpiece into the dark wooden beams—curiously, in the shape of a heart. "Time to untangle this Gordian knot."