Chapter 1

My name is Aaron Mort. I was told by the Records Department that it would be ‘beneficial’ to record the events of nine years ago. At that time, I would have been seventeen. Some activity has been noted in the unknown areas of the Complex, and despite the amount of casualties from last time due to the mistakes of the Records Department, it appears they’re only beginning to clean their mess up now.

But how to begin? I hope to skip the pleasantries… How do you possibly begin a tale that destroyed so many second chances? I assume you know nothing of what happened when one of the greatest and most brutal murderers this world of Purgatory has ever known returned for a final visit. I, too, knew nothing of him, until I met Hiruko, and then, I think, I knew too much.

It took me a long while to start this – nine years to be precise. I would have been twenty-five years old if I hadn’t gotten myself killed. Understandably, there are a series of excellent reasons regarding why I didn’t start this sooner. Of course, it was a lot to take in, and process and get over, perhaps longer for me because I had never experienced a force like the Hyogua before. Up until I knew of their existence, I expected everything to have meaning. But it’s hard to find meaning in the words of a mad man. I’ve concluded that’s what he was, and it’s rather frightening that for a moment there I was on his level. But I suppose that’s what death does to you.

You don’t miss it, at first; you can look back on your life and snigger at the inconvenience of it. But now, after everything – well, after a while you begin to strive to be more human. To be more alive. Let me tell you, it’s a difficult task.

It happened when I was fifteen. Ran out onto the road; it was snowing, so the truck slid when it tried to stop. It wasn’t a head on collision, but my skull was cracked from where the side of it hit me. Not as much blood as one would expect, and yet I woke up vomiting, and for a good moment there I would have loved to be greeted with sweet nothingness. But God did something cruel, and I came to realise I could never be free of the mess I had made of my childhood. An alternate universe, perhaps, or a different reality – I’m not entirely sure. I guess you could call it Purgatory, but I don’t even know if there is a God watching over us anymore.

There’s hundreds of millions crammed into crumbling shacks, and the aim of each and every one of us sinners is to expiate our sins and achieve ascension. In my time here, not a single soul has managed Heaven, and according to Hiruko and his many numbers of books, there hasn’t been a single one recorded. Thus, I conclude, this place is a broken second chance, with the promise of eternity; a promise that is always out of reach.

Though no-one anyone knows has reached Heaven, a great many number have done something stupid enough to get dragged straight to Hell. You can’t bleed, but you can chop bits off; dying here means eternal punishment no matter the severity of your sins.

Some people speculate that the “unknown” leads straight to hell (I am among those individuals), but I’ve never been able to find any records or descriptions of what Hell is like other than books that have come from the living; any dead man know it’s a little more twisted than in the books.

And looking back, I can hardly remember any significant detail without remembering her. Yes, there’s a girl. There’s always a girl. This one, however, was a little different. She changed everything, saved so many people, saved me. I would be incomplete without having met her.

She was better than me.

****

The light was fading overhead when I first met her. It had been the quick raid of a supplies store that had gotten us into this shit, but I suppose old habits die hard. This guy was pounding after us, and he was an ant to some of the shit I’d been in before, but the day had dragged on. I was tired. I was always tired. So we were running, because, as per usual, we’d been caught. Yet if we hadn’t been, an entirely different series of events would have unfolded, and maybe the end of it all would have come much quicker than it did.

Little Thomas was clearly slowing us down, pleading with us not to leave him. “What if he catches me? What if he takes me to the Governance?!” He shrieked wildly behind me, and I was about to tell him to shut his puny mouth when she appeared.

When I say appeared, I don’t mean in front of me, but rather, I heard the surprised yelp, and the light donk of wood to skull and then I stopped running, Thomas very nearly crashing into me.

“What in the world…?” Brian crowed, swinging around up ahead at a dead end. Indeed, we had all turned, and stopped, and stared.

We stared at her for a very long time. She dropped the stick to the ground and swung her head to me. Her dress was dark. Her lips were pink, and pursed, and her hand by her side was clenched in a fist.

Then she turned and ran at us. The sun had nearly vanished from the sky so all we could see was the silhouette of a long haired samurai pounding angrily towards us. Thomas squealed immediately and was out of sight in an instant. Brian mumbled something incoherent, Dave asking no one in particular if we should be doing something, or should we just keep standing here, looking dumb.

In reality, if you had asked me, I would have told you had I no friends. And in reality, that was true. So with no personal connection to the beings around me, the naturalistic instinct of survival of the fittest sprung into my mind. Run or die. Run or die. And so I ran. Dave whimpered after me, Brian’s heavy, pounding legs almost unable to maintain the speed I was currently running at.

She caught up easily and passed us. Grabbing my hand she flung us all into the bushes and kept running until we came to an opening through the shrubs. Thomas, lip trembling, was rocking back and forth on the dusty ground.

It was a small ledge overlooking the crashing waves below. The left side of the Western section of the Complex of Souls was the only side to overlook the sea. Most of it had been blocked up centuries ago to prevent loss of souls but the board had been eaten away here so only a small barrier remained like a bordering fence.

“Aaron…”

I looked down to Thomas to see him trying to hold back gushes of tears as he complained of a grazed knee. I had no sympathy for him whatsoever and simply kicked him to get him to rise.

“And you are?”

She wasn’t to respond as quickly as I had anticipated. I was sure the stick-man had probably recovered by now and was searching desperately to uncover us partially scattered in the small clearing with half of us whimpering from simple grazes or cuts.

She turned suddenly to face us.

“My name?” She enquired. I nodded once.

“My name is of no importance. A simple word used to call me to someone. Should I obey? Or should I run away from a life of fear and obedience?”

I stared at her.

Dave’s brow furrowed at the use of her words. “She speaks English funny.” I heard him whisper to Brian.

“You shouldn’t steal.” She murmured suddenly.

“You shouldn’t be here.” I responded.

“Who are you to say I cannot be here?” She asked without turning.

It seemed strange to me for someone to argue about giving out their name to a stranger. It was as though she was too young to understand the fact that we lived as a community. Hardly anyone didn’t know the others who surrounded them daily. The exception was for someone new or loners who had no concept of the time or date or where it was they were walking. Most of them had been assigned a guide to lead them through the endless crowds of the market, to help them gulp down lumps of food or bandage them when they were hurt.

It wasn’t explained to us upon arrival how, even though we were dead, we could still end up slicing ourselves in half or dying once again. It wasn’t explained how, in any way, we that had suffered could still feel pain. Of course, upon being dragged into Hell, after another ‘death’, as it were, we weren’t exactly human anymore. We became lesser beings.HellHell

I wondered how to approach her; a girl with a style of fighting (that I knew would take years to master) who was offended by giving her name away to strangers.

“Are you new here?” I murmured, turning out to look at the sea. “Listen, I don’t care about your name-” And that was the first lie I ever told her.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t involve you in my problems.” She said suddenly. I was too caught up in trying to create a sentence that wouldn’t make me stutter I hardly heard that she had approached me. I could only manage a surprised ‘oh’.

She eyed me for a minute before dipping her head politely as she disappeared into the bushes.

“Uh, th-thanks!” I called out after her, but there was no response.

“Aaron..?” I turned to face my stricken friends. There were probably as taken aback as I was. I shrugged at them.

“She was new.”

It would be days before I would see that girl again. We’d all decided not to mention her to anyone, considering we’d met her on the grounds of a petty crime, and Thomas wanted to never talk about her again. He said she wasn’t right. We could all tell that there was something strange about her, almost supernatural. Her whole being was eerie, in both her movement and speech. Despite this, there was also something to despise about her. Was it the fact that her fighting skills were well past my own? Or was it because my friends were in awe of her in a matter of minutes?

Trust of a person is hard to provide. Yes, trust is hard to conquer.