A pretty young vixen with blue colored fur wandered about an empty city; one that she knew all too well. She could even recognize the curves of streets and the height of buildings. By the light of the blue sun, based directly in the center of the wavy sky, she knew that this city would normally be very crowded and busy, yet no one was there but her. The bottom of her sandals slowly scraped the long, winding streets, completely alone. She used to get such a pleasant feeling from this place, but now it was deserted. She remembered always being with her people in this place, before it was destroyed, but now only the sound of her walking and breathing could be heard; the air was still, and no warmth was produced from the sun. No feelings radiated from the city, as if this wasn't her home at all, rather some elaborate scene of a play or giant living book. She was all by herself; she could tell by the nothingness that enfolded her.
Eventually Krystal found herself in the heart of the city. She specifically remembered coming here to play with her friends alongside the stone fountain, but that was a long, long time ago. It was still there, and it still poured out glistening water from its head, but there was no sound coming from it. The emptiness brought her to her knees by the circular base as she leaned over and stared coldly at her own reflection.
"What is this place? Why would someone...create this? I just want to know what's happening...what's going to happen to me...what's going to happen to him..." Teardrops slivered down the dry stone and squirmed in the water like dying fish. As she watched the silent liquids trickle, a small foot appeared in her vision. "Huh?" she looked up and saw a little blue kit balancing herself on the edge of the fountain. She looked as if she didn't have a care in the world, despite the bitter isolation around her. As she walked towards the older vixen, she seemed to have no regards that her folded arms were in her way. Krystal was about to back away when the kit walked through her arms. "What!?" she gasped as she leapt to her feet and backed away. The kit continued to walk with her arms outstretched, singing to herself as if nothing unusual had happened. Then, from nowhere, several more children appeared and ran around the fountain, playing with one another. Not one of them acknowledged the blue vixen's existence. "Wha...what's going on?"
"The resemblance is striking, isn't it?" said an alien voice. Krystal snapped her neck in the direction of a tall, slender raccoon woman with the exact same shade of cerulean blue her as hers, but also with a mask of dark blue fur over her eyes, her ears and around her fluffy tail in thick rings. She wore a long golden cloak of similar material to Krystal's loincloth, golden ankle plates and strapped-up sandals, and she had runic tattoos on her bare arms, also much like the one the vixen had on her body.
"Wha...who are you?" Krystal asked frightfully as she slowly stood up again. The raccoon had a very calm and pleasant demeanor as she smiled at the nervous vulpine, both standing with a pack of children that, for all they knew, were playing by the fountain all by themselves.
"Can't you tell?"
The vixen took a closer examination of the raccoon's clothes. "You look like...a cleric."
"Very good! You see? It hasn't been that long. Yes, I am a priestess; my name is Sappho. It is good to see you here, my child."
"What are you...why are these children...?"
"For lack of a better term, they're ghosts."
"...Ghosts?" Between exchanged words, white balls of light came down from the sky, resonating with bright, colored flames. As they landed, limbs grew from their centers, and the embers took the shapes of small bodies. Right before the vixen's eyes, the flames took the form of more children; they solidified and ran to the children that were already by the fountain. One of them passed through Krystal's legs and was not wavered by it ay all. "They're not real..."
"Oh, they're indeed real," said Sappho, "but they're on a different plane of existence than we are. How long has it been? About twelve years?"
"When Cerinia was destroyed...?"
"Yes, well, I was the only member of the clergy who thought we could escape, so I rounded up as many people as I could, and we left in my ship. We watched our home planet get purged by furious fires, but the will to live kept us going. My ship was called the Salvation; it was large enough to carry a fair portion of the population, and powerful enough to get us to our new home, halfway across the universe."
"But you didn't make it. Your ship is in the middle of nowhere with no power and it's full of entrapped spirits."
"That's not entirely true."
"What?"
"It is true that we were attacked. We had come so far, but we were never meant to escape. Maybe our Creator was just toying with us; it's a terrible punishment, false hope. They all died, and they all had such faith in the journey. But what was not accounted for was that the generator of the Salvation, like all Cerinian trees, is powered by the energy given off by souls. Even when our physical bodies die, our souls always remain."
"Why wouldn't the souls ascend after their bodies die?"
"Because the tree is keeping them here. Since the attack, the tree has been sucking all the energy out of us. To sustain itself, it keeps all the spirits in infinite limbo, always replaying the last few hours before they all died. The souls of the dead keep thinking they're alive, that they're going to make it, and then they die again, and then the process starts all over again. It's like a twisted play that repeats itself over and over, and all the actors always think it's the first time. It's all because the tree just wants to keep living, almost like a person."
"But my friends came here searching for survivors. If they should interact with a ghost, will something happen to them?"
"My child...normally souls can be very strong, and very rarely are they contained in the mortal world after their bodies die. But over the years, the tree has mutated, and it became stronger. Now not only is it powerful enough to retain the souls of the passengers here, but it can also defend itself and capture the souls of new victims, should it get the chance. If you and your friends stay for much longer, you will probably be trapped in limbo, as well."
"You're aware of all this...are you a ghost, too?"
"I am merely transcending death, my child. I was here mediating when we were attacked, and ever since, well...let's just say I am now a part of my own ship."
Krystal was dumbfounded, feeling both helpless and awkward. "Oh, I'm sorry...but...isn't there anything I can do? There must be something...I can't just let all these poor spirits dwell here, and I need to save my friends."
Sappho raised her head skyward, and simultaneously the children bodies collapsed, their particles rearranging into to balls of colored fire, from which they flew off, their tails burning like backward comets. "Let's take a walk." She said as if nothing was wrong. While Krystal was still confused, she couldn't think of anything else to do but follow.
And so the young blue vixen trailed behind the older blue raccoon like a scared child as she looked at a shell of what used to be her home. The priestess walked through the empty streets casually, almost strolling, with her head held high. Krystal was confused by this site; she even wondered for a second what spending all these years here with no one to accompany her except a group of ghosts would do to the raccoon's sanity. She began to think the spirits were watching her, flying overhead as Sappho eventually lead her to a large building, and the vixen immediately recognized it as the largest sanctum in the city. A chill raveled the stacks of her spine as they walked through the spacious vestibule.
"You are the last Cerinian alive, correct?"
The vixen stopped in her tracks and shivered as the raccoon proceeded down the aisle between the polished white pews and further to the alter. Her body seemed to glow through the dim reflected lights of the pastel-colored stained windows. Krystal swallowed her discomfort and continued, trying to convince herself that the priestess was here to help her. "Well...that's what I always thought. I saw Cerinia get destroyed myself, and then my family's ship was attacked as well. I barely got away, and I was the only one, but I had no idea there were others who tried to escape, so..."
"We were the only ones. And even so, we could not escape our fate. You, however, were fortunate enough to avert the catastrophe. I suppose it's not that unlikely that, in all the carnage, at least one person would be able to slip through. You really are a very lucky girl, my child."
"I can't say I feel very lucky. I've been searching for years for the reasons why Cerinia was..."
Sappho clutched her fists and turned back swiftly in front of Krystal, impatience clear in her face. "Oh come now. You very well know what the answer is; you always have."
"No, I...it's not..."
"You want to know what killed Cerinia? God did. We were so caught up with our own pursuit of the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone that we were going beyond simple mortality. We weren't meant to proceed as far as we did. Other planets concern themselves with mundane advances, their so called "technology", but what does that do for them? They kill themselves in wars and pollute their homes until they wipe it clean of any livable environments. We were the only ones that knew the truth, but we went too far."
"That's not true!" The raccoon was surprised to see the confused young vixen burst into rebellion. She was shaking some, but she had a firm sense of resolve. "There's no way that can be true! Our Creator would never do something like that! I won't believe these false prophecies any longer!"
"Why the sudden change of heart? Is it that maybe if all of this isn't true, your lover's safety will be ensured?"
"What!?"
"This is my domain, my child, and I'm far wiser than you. I saw both of you out there. He's a Cornerian, and from the looks of it he seemed to be a fighter. You know you shouldn't be with him. You shouldn't be involving yourself with any of those filthy ignorant traitors. Have you forgotten all your teachings?"
"It's that kind of resentment and prejudice that would truly do us all in! I don't care about your teachings and twisted morals anymore; they've only caused me pain!"
Sappho sighed, turned around and walked around the altar. "Very well, my child, believe whatever you want." She slowly opened an unseen drawer and pulled out a long staff, made of gold, encrusted with blue gemstones, and embellished with holy rings hanging from the head of it that spiraled into infinity. As she returned to the other side of the alter, every solid tap, followed by a cluttering chime of the rings, made Krystal hunch her shoulders and slowly, furtively fingered her staff, just in case the raccoon might do what she thought she would do...
Krystal slowly backed away, too slowly to be noticed, but the raccoon's feet and the pounding of her staff against the carpeted aisle progressed. The sounds of her beats began to sound faster and more menacing. The vixen increased her pace, taking a large step backward, her free arm behind her, reaching for the door. Sappho saw this and her smile twisted. The next moment, her legs were charging and her arms were in the air, ready to swing. In the midst of the raccoon's violent yelp, Krystal pulled herself to shield her head with her staff to block Sappho's. The vixen fought it off, and then proceeded to counter, making a swing for the raccoon's legs. She made a small leap and swiped for Krystal's torso, but she swiftly leaned back and watched it as the rings barely brushed the tip of her muzzle. Standing straight, her feet bouncing, she made a slash for Sappho, who batted it away and lunged for the vixen a second time.
"Why are you doing this?" said Krystal as she held back the assault with her own staff.
"It's the will to live, my child," said Sappho as she continued to push her strength through the vixen's shield. "I told you I'm a part of my ship now, and as long as it lives, I live, and I want to live...very badly."
"But...don't you care about all the passengers trapped in here? If you keep doing this, they'll be stuck in this loop where they keep dying again!"
"They deserve it. The people of Cerinia were arrogant, and we were betrayed. There is nothing to reverse what has been done, and so the only thing to do is to go with it."
Krystal could feel her shield giving out as her arms trembled, her staff getting pushed to her neck. "Can you honestly say you want to keep doing this? Just living in a big illusion of our dead home!? That's not living at all! You're fooling yourself!"
"I have been living like this so I could wait for a chance to escape! You and your friends were foolish enough to come here, and now I'll take your body so I can return to the living world!"
"N-no! I won't let you! The passengers of the Salvation will rest in peace, and so will you!" the vixen mustered all her strength into her arms, lashing out at the raccoon and knocking her to the ground. The priestess got up just in time to swipe away the bright disc of fire that emanated from Krystal's staff. She raised her weapon and, with a burst of yellow and orange sparks, another flipping plate of fire dashed towards the raccoon. Sappho flung her staff to the ground, deflecting the fireball, making it fly across the room and crashed into the balcony. The clash of dying embers and crumbling stone made Krystal flinch, while Sappho's crooked grin twisted more than ever.
In a blur of blue and gold, a heavy force struck at Krystal's upper body, making her flip sideways and cough out spit, her staff twirling several feet away from her reach. In a daze, she looked up and saw Sappho pointing her staff in her pretty blue face, the sharp head a hair away from the space between her eyes, the rings dancing with delight as they almost touched her face.
"Don't worry, my child. Once I have a vessel to leave this God-forsaken hunk of metal, the passengers will be...taken care of." The head of the raccoon's staff was shaking, the vixen at its end squirmed and crammed her eyes shut, but instead of a quick stab, the priestess raised her instrument and bashed it on her skull before she could even tell what it was doing.
And darkness surrounded the pretty, innocent blue vixen's vision, her mind and her heart.
