Death. Colette has seen it a lot in their earlier days, but lately, it felt as if she already forgot how it felt like. Then Hafiz died.

“Why, Hafiz? Why do that for us?” Colette asked. The heroes were gathered all in the main tree on Branchhold, in a special part. A really thick vine wrapped each of their bodies.

Hafiz was a glowing ball of light. A soul, and the space around them was filled with stars.

[Soul realm].

Colette remembered coming here once. Long ago- so long that she didn’t even remember the time. But this felt familiar. Stars. Flickers. Lights.

All the other souls. It felt bigger now. Wider. And she could see there were strands of light that illuminated the paths that went into other places. Worlds. Each seemingly a link. She struggled to make sense of the space, it felt like the space bent into itself.

“Because what else is there to do?” Hafiz said, “Don’t make it sound so noble. I already accepted that our lives in this world were just temporary, it was time. It was damned time.”

“You planned to do it?” Prabu asked.

“Yes. If it ever came to sacrificing one of us, I decided it would be me. I have the least to lose. I don’t care about anything. I’m losing the ability to care about anything at all.” Hafiz said, his frustration palpable. Colette had never seen him so animated in years.

Colette looked across their magical-soul space. At Prabu. At Chung. She stopped, and then looked at Hafiz again.

“Hafiz. How do you feel? As a soul?”

Hafiz was quiet, his glowing soul hovered and moved a little. Only the five of them were here. Four heroes of Treehome, and one former hero. Ken. Khefri was never that close to Hafiz. Adrian and Kelly were Mountainworld heroes and their relationship was fairly cordial. In the end, everyone went back to do their own thing.

Even Hafiz. He drifted away a bit. They would meet up once every month or so, he’d teleport over to Freshka or one of the suburban cities and they’d hang out. But the drift was there.

If there was doubt about the long term success of Ken’s League of Heroes, the lack of personal rapport was one of them.

“Honestly, do you guys really want the answer?” Hafiz asked.

Chung didn’t say a thing.

Ken nodded. “Yes.”

Colette always thought it was just a sign of maturity. A sign of age. The weight of experience. They were aging, and she thought it was natural that they all began to quiet down. They were not young, and it would tone down their drive. Even Ken calmed down over the years.

“I feel light.” The dead hero answered. “I feel liberated. I feel like I suddenly can remember all the things that I wasn’t supposed to.”

Ken was the only one that nodded. For him, he always remembered.

“I- I feel like I really want to see my family again.” Hafiz said.

“Will you?” Colette asked. She tried to remember her own family, before all of this. But it’s been so long, and it felt hazy. She could remember snippets, but she forgot what her mother’s voice was like.

“I don’t know. I could feel a power calling me. One that’s not Aeon. It’s waiting for the time. I can linger here, maybe a few months.”

“Six.” Ken answered. “Aeon said the waiting time is six months from your death.”

Colette tried to remember her parents. She could hardly remember. Stella once said she took up painting, in her earlier days in this world, to paint her own memories before they fade away. There was no photo here, and the only way she could preserve her memories was to draw them. Paint them.

She wished she did. She wished she commissioned someone to paint a portrait of her family when she could still find the words to describe them. Now, she wasn’t sure she could even link the image if someone showed her a similar photo.

Prabu sounded confident when they spoke one night about this. That they would certainly know. But she felt from the depth of her guts that they’ve already lost it.

Hafiz continued, “Six months. I see. Then I must’ve used up a month. How long has it been? The sense of time in this place is- wonky.”

“One and a half.” Ken answered.

“I remember our lives back home vividly. Images and things I thought I forgot, now clear to me. I’m afraid some of you will want to remember this. Remember the past.”

Chung abruptly interjected. “Ken. You knew this? Do you remember?”

“Yes.” Colette wondered briefly whether Ken’s memory of tropes was vivid, because he didn’t have the hero class trying to suppress his past. No, she was now sure it’s linked. Not just that, it even felt like Ken talked about this before.

But somehow it never stuck in her mind. As if-

As if-

As if-

The connection should have been clear. Yet what was she trying to link? She looked at Ken, and Hafiz’s floating soul.

“Hafiz. Repeat it again.”

“Everything in the journal?” Hafiz said. “It’s true.”

Colette paused, and remembered her daughter. Unlike Khefri who bore many children with her toyboys, and ignored them afterward, she couldn’t do that to Rohana. There was no one she could pass her to. No one she would pass her to.

Why? Why couldn’t she think like Khefri?

Was a child made with half the blood of natives worth less? No. That shouldn’t be the case. Was it because of pain? Suffering?

Rohana was hers. Her child. She was a mother. A mother’s duty. Suffering. Sacrifice.

A mother’s duty is first to her-

A hero’s duty is to slay the Demon King.

Colette felt her connection to the [Soul Realm] waver.

Demon Kings.

“What-” She whispered it, as if her mind was splitting apart. As if the words seem to lose meaning. As if all was pointless.

Sacrifice? What sacrifice?

She raised her head, her spirit transported, Aeon’s bridge to the soul realm. She looked at Hafiz and she saw death, at Ken and she saw age, at Chung and she saw anger, at Prabu and she saw her new family.

What did she lose to get here?

They’ve done their share. Served their time. Now that she wanted to look back, why did it seem like its’ so hard to remember things before all of this?

She looked at Ken.

He seemed to be the only one actually getting what Hafiz was saying.

She felt jealous.

Envy.

She wanted to know, and she felt her soul cracking.