Chamber of Lost Souls

The halfway point between life and death, the prison of the souls who had no direction in life and wasted what they were given. So they wait for the Haloed being to take them away.

There is a dark place.

It resides far below the earth's crust where light has never seen the sparkling darkness of obsidian walls. The dark glass had blue veins that faintly glowed with something supernatural, something eerie and full of grief, these veins were how they got inside. A specter, a floating shadow of what was once a human will slip inside, drawn to the center of the obsidian chamber. The others are there as well, lost souls. They converged around a pool of water, that was black, like ebony ribbons tied in a girl's hair, only reflecting the barest hint of blue ambient waves from those who gathered around the spring. The pool was in a prefect circle and no larger than a small dinner table but thousands of incorporeal visages crammed in one space, phasing in and out of one another until they seemed to be one circular being with many grotesque heads. There they waited, some had been waiting since the beginning of time, since the first lost soul slipped in through the black glass.

They were waiting for light.

Not the sun, nor fire, nor the incandescent light of many kinds of flora and fauna. They were waiting for the light, one that took away lost souls, one that completed the unfinished parts of a person lingering after death. True light that did not show the eyes an audience of the dead but the beauty of the next world, that was why they waited. They sometimes waited quietly, silently, focus only on the still water, other times they wandered around the chamber, finding the glass walls a cage. Letting them in and keeping them there, serving an after-death sentence to a crime they did not realize they committed, they only way to freedom was the light.

When the light comes it is faint, grey, some strange interference in the darkness. Like static on an old television, a silent haze seeping from the roof and falling into the pool. It is then when the lost souls come closer together, begging to be taken, to be chosen. They are long dead, however, and communication with words does not work, cannot be used because it is lost to them. All that comes is a wail, a hum, a long note of mournful song. They cry out together in an unearthly hymn of the forgotten. They were the ones history would not remember,  the ones that strayed from greatness that could have been achieved. So they cry out in a ballad of undead howls.

Please, please, let me be free.

With this song the white creature would appear, glowing with a light that did not leave her skin, did not illuminate the corners of the cavern. As if she was only reflecting another, brighter light. The light. A halo over her head, and around each wrist of her four arms, a halo around each of two ankles and a large band of this strange, un-illuminating glow around her entire being, thin and repellent to the poor strays of the underworld. With purpose she walks into the mass, those who are rejected are pushed away by the halo, the light was not theirs this time. Those who were to be taken away passed through, faint blue things clinging close to her bare legs, her hands moved, checking their faces, making sure she chose the right souls.

Hundreds gathered to her until the halo around her presence was full, then gone in an instant. The lost souls that had been cast aside pick themselves up again and gather around the pool, song fading as the obsidian absorbs their grief once again.

Author's Note

Reviews

[Nicholas Hagenschneider]

This was awesome.

[ShadowFaux]

Thank you =)

[Nicholas Hagenschneider]

Anytime.

[Hester Vane]

Brilliantly dark! I love your use of language, it really helped to create the world of the piece. Great job.

[ShadowFaux]

thank you

[Soul Fire]

Very dark,yet an outstanding write! Amazing work!

[ShadowFaux]

Thank you!

[Soul Fire]

You're welcome

[Jeremy Baker]

Dark and despondent and well described. I can't help feeling that there is more to be teased ot from this text though - it feels like there is more that the story wants to tell me about how and why the darkness is there, if the light is coming again. Not a criticism, just a constructive suggestion =) I liked this very much; it drew me in and I was happy amongst your words. Good writing!

[ShadowFaux]

Well, i was planning on making a series of short stories...

[A.C. Davis]

Very good and very dark...

[ShadowFaux]

Thank you!