1 Chapter 1

He pulled his car out of the driveway and onto the road, letting his thoughts wander as he drove through familiar streets. More often than Luke would like to admit, he didn't remember the act of driving to his office. One moment he'd be at some intersection or a red light, and the next he'd be turning the corner a single stop sign away from what promised to be eight hours of mind-numbing work.

He felt today's drive should have been like that.

Instead, a raccoon ran out from under a bush on the opposite side of the street. An inexperienced driver turned her wheel straight into oncoming traffic in a poor attempt to avoid running over the creature and crashed bumper first into Luke's car. The impact crumpled the hoods of both vehicles, creating a malformed mass of metal, plastic, and rubber.

And so it was to the sound of squealing tires that Luke took his last breath on Earth. Surprisingly, that wasn't the end.

He felt his soul leave his body. For a moment, it floated above the wreck, and he saw—or maybe felt, because he didn't have eyes—his former body lying dead halfway out of the windshield.

Unsure of how to act, and surprised by his state, he hovered above the scene of his death in shock and confusion, observing silently as a young woman pulled herself free from the wreckage.

So that's who killed me. I guess it's good that she made it out okay, he thought with feigned cheer.

Not quite sure what to make of the situation, Luke focused on his new and strange state, only to find that he had been reduced to a wispy blue orb that glowed with a gentle inner light. The only logical conclusion, he thought, was that he was perceiving his soul.

Suddenly he felt a tug. The tug turned into a pull, and he was whisked away into the Aether. Neither up, nor down, nor sideways, but inward. Inky blackness surrounded him. Hoping he was being taken to heaven, he surrendered himself to the journey—not that he had any say in it to begin with. Suddenly, the direction of his soul's travel changed.

He felt caught, like a fish trapped in a fisherman's net, and he wasn't alone. Hundreds, maybe thousands of other souls, each glowing with their own soft blue light, all with as much agency as him—none—had been captured.

Onward they went, in a direction that to all of them felt wrong. To Luke, it felt as if a taxi taking him home had suddenly taken a wrong turn.

He would have complained. Corrected the driver. Yelled, "You missed the exit!" while he stared out the window and gazed longingly at the missed turn. Instead he found himself without the ability to speak. A natural consequence of being dead, and of no longer possessing a mouth.

Their destination came into view not long after—a bubble in the blackness, invisible except for the shine that surrounded it. The closer they got, the larger it became. Suddenly, Luke was squished right up against it. Then, with a jolt, he was inside.

Surprisingly, he landed on his hands and feet. Instead of flesh, blood, and bone, his body seemed to be made up of the same substance as before, merely reshaped to resemble his human form.

Taking in the world around him, he was in awe of—and in greater measure, terrified by—what he saw. The sky was in tatters. The earth cracked. Mountains were ripped from the ground and carried off into dark rents in the air, places where space itself seemed to have been torn. It was raining, but the water would sizzle and evaporate when it touched the black soil. In the distance, a forest full of large, leafy trees had caught fire and was spewing dark smoke. Far off in the sky, where the clouds broke, the sun looked like it was growing larger and larger. He watched, horrified, as it went from yellow to orange, and from orange to red, in the span of seconds.

Aw, shit. This is hell, isn't it? Luke's mind filled with righteous anger. He hadn't been that bad a person. Surely! Looking around him, he saw countless other souls. Forms of men and women of all ages, some children of five or six, and a few even younger.

Are the kids going to hell, too? That … seems wrong.

Spying what he thought looked like a personable figure in the sea of souls, an older gentleman with big, round glasses whose back was hunched over a walking stick, he took a step toward him. A question burned inside him, begging to be answered. Maybe, just maybe, this guy knew what was going on.

"COME!" a voice resounded through the realm and stopped Luke in his tracks. "COME!" the voice demanded again, its flat tone betraying the speaker's anger. This time, however, the command was accompanied by an invisible force. It pulled them deeper into the world. Whatever had brought them here wasn't done with them yet.

The remains of a city loomed in the distance and rapidly grew larger as the souls were pulled to a destination somewhere within. It was a scene of disaster. Ruins of once-beautiful structures lay shattered on the ground. Aqueducts spilled steaming water onto streets paved with what had once been perfectly cut marble. White columns that looked like they belonged in front of a museum or in a temple in ancient Athens littered the ground, charred and broken. In some parts of the ruined city, magma oozed from deep beneath the earth and spilled onto the surface, burning everything in its path.

At the very center of the city, there was a castle. Fashioned from gold, it alone stood unblemished and proud, untouched by the chaos that had overtook the rest of the world.

The souls, caught from the Aether, were funneled through the front gates and into a large open room. Twin staircases led to the higher floors, one pressed against each wall. A narrow red carpet sprawled from the castle's gates all the way to the front of a massive throne.

Sitting atop it was a man. He had no more arm past his right elbow, and no more leg below his left knee. His stumps gushed brilliant red blood that pooled on the floor around him, indistinguishable from the red of the carpet. He had a hole, shaped like a perfect circle, carved out of the middle of his chest, oozing even more blood onto already-wet black robes.

He lifted his one remaining arm, and with grace unbefitting a man who looked as wretched as him, curled his finger.

A single soul flew out of the crowd and into his waiting palm. He squeezed, and he pinched, and he rolled, until the soul that once belonged to an older woman, who Luke thought looked rather like his own grandma—who, thankfully, had outlived him—became a ball. The man inspected it curiously and, nodding to himself in approval, he carelessly tossed it into his mouth and began to chew.

Those souls not paralyzed in fear tried to run. Luke watched one enviously as it managed to escape through the door. Envy swiftly turned into pity as an invisible force dragged it into the monster's waiting hands, where he once again rolled it up and swallowed it.

Luke watched the quiet terror as, one after another, more and more souls succumbed to the same gruesome fate. The purpose of the insanity became clear, as the man's wounds slowly began to heal. The hole in his chest shrank, and the stubs of his limbs began to grow with each additional soul that was consumed.

Maybe he'll finish recovering before it's my turn, Luke thought hopefully.

A soul beside him was summoned into the man's hands.

Maybe not.

"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. How the mighty have fallen," another voice resounded through the world. Luke watched incredulously as the roof was torn free from the castle's walls.

An angel. Maybe she's come to save us.

"You." The man stood from his throne, on his single leg, and glared at her. His otherwise handsome face twisted ugly with hate.

Her white feathered wings beating softly, she landed between the souls and the man.

"I commend you, Aeolus. To think you had fashioned yourself a demiplane. When you fled to the Aether, I thought my prize was lost. It is fate that you came this close to divinity only to fail at the very last step."

He snarled. A black sword appeared in his hand. He pointed it at the winged woman in challenge.

"Ha." She snorted. "You want to fight me. Be a good little boy and just hand it over." Her voice rang, full of mockery.

"You know I cannot."

"Of course. It's bound to your soul and all that. How could I forget?" Clearly, thought Luke, who was beginning to suspect that she was here for some purpose other than to save him, she hadn't forgotten. "I suppose I have no choice, then, but to tear the Seed from your soul."

Looking far too cheerful for someone about to kill, she flapped her wings. In a motion faster than Luke could perceive, she was in front of the monster, for what else could a man who feasted upon the souls of the dead be? In her hand a blade of blinding white light formed, locked against Aeolus's own sinister blade. A moment later the world shook as reality caught up with their movements. A shock wave rippled out, flattening each of the castle's walls and exposing Luke to the burning hell that the world outside had become.

The man collapsed onto his throne, and his sword clanked as it fell into a pool of his own blood. Defeated after a single exchange. Not a match for her in the poor condition he was in. The angelic woman's arm blurred, and with a sickening plop, his two remaining limbs fell to the ground.

"There. That makes it more even." She smiled at his limbless figure.

He smiled back at her, blood escaping his mouth as he did. "You may kill me today. Know this, though. I did not come close to divinity. I reached it!"

"Hmm." His head slid off his shoulders. "The death of a god. How quaint." She stepped back, as if she was looking at a particularly thought-provoking painting. "Arke, the God Killer. I do quite like the sound of that." She nodded to herself, satisfied with her self-proclaimed title.

Definitely not here to save us, Luke thought, watching the terrifying display. Also not an angel. No matter how much she looks like one.

She turned toward the assembled souls. "You are all quite lucky to have seen this. A god hasn't died in ages. Of course, there hasn't been a god as weak as him in ages, either. Had he finished this construction"—she gestured vaguely to the rapidly disintegrating world—"it may have even been me who …" She trailed off and looked at the dead god's corpse.

Its soul separated from its body. Unlike the others, whose souls were blue, his was a resplendent gold, shining like a miniature sun in the room. It looked around before attempting to flee into a crack in space. It was an attempt doomed from its conception, as Arke had been waiting just for that moment.

Aeolus's soul struggled in her grip before smiling. Something unsaid passed between them, as in the next moment Arke let go of his soul and constructed a dome of light around her.

He detonated.

For an instant the world became white. When the light faded, it revealed a gruesome scene. Arke was strewn on the ground, her wings shredded and stained red with her blood, her limbs shattered and bent unnaturally. Despite her condition, though, she smiled. A big, happy, cheerful smile as she stared eagerly toward the charred space the man's soul had occupied. Floating there was a gem. Fist-size and glittering. The prize Arke had killed a god for, the Seed.

Luke watched in horror, questioning reality. First I die, then the guy captures our souls, then he eats some of us. Only to be killed by that crazy angel lady. All for that? He looked apprehensively at the floating gem.

He watched as Arke hobbled and crawled toward it, weakened by the explosion. Reverently, she strained her arm and closed her fist around the gem, only to grasp empty air instead.

She stared incomprehensibly at her empty hand.

Luke looked at the gem floating in front of him with trepidation. He glanced toward the other souls, only to see most of them had been sucked into a rent that had formed behind him. He even spotted a few of them flicker out of existence, likely resuming their journey. Finally free with the death of the monster that had brought them here.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH IT!" Arke yelled from across the remains of the now-ruined castle.

Unfortunately for Luke and her, the choice was taken out of his hands. Before he could respond, it plunged into him.

"AGGGHHHHHHH!" Arke screamed as she hobbled toward him using her ruined wings for support, one painful step at a time. Not that Luke noticed. His attention was focused solely on the message that had appeared before him. One that only he could see.

Synchronizing.

Suitable Host Detected.

Requesting permission.

Accept Soul Bond with God Seed

Yes/No