Jane and Death arrived surrounded by darkness. Jane blinked, reaching up to feel at her face. “Death?”
“Mm?”
“Why are you covering my eyes?”
“So that you would not become blinded.”
“Blinded by what?”
“You will see. Please give me one moment.”
Death rustled around with something. Jane chuckled. “I’m dead, Death. I don’t think I even can be blinded, right?”
“True. But I imagine you would be more comfortable with this.” They placed something in her hand. “Put it on.” Death drew their hand back and Jane looked down.
Sunglasses. Somehow, she just couldn’t work up the energy to be surprised anymore. She put them on with a sigh. “Would you please tell me anything I should know about this realm before I stumble into something bad ag—woah.”
She stared at Death. Their form had changed again from a lady to something much more… abstract. Their cloak had become a seething mass of darkness, flickering and shifting like a dark flame, while their body had become a bright, vaguely humanoid shape with a pastel-yellow glow. Two black pits regarded her from where their eyes used to be, but their nose and mouth were gone.
“What’s the story behind this look?” she asked.
Death lifted their hand and waved it before their face, leaving a glowing trail with black streaks that lingered. “This is the realm of emotion. Living souls feel fear, curiosity, and sometimes relief when they think of me. I become an amalgam that reflects this when I’m here.”
“And the sunglasses?”
Death twirled their finger in the universal sign for turn around. Curious, Jane spun about, only to step back and gasp.
A thousand fireworks were going off all around her, sparkling into existence and vanishing just as quickly in a silent, dazzling display of color. No, that was wrong—most of them were, but some of them lingered longer, zipping about erratically or floating through the air peacefully. Interspersed between them at equal distances were countless creatures of all shapes and sizes, standing still with their eyes closed, and behind them—
“Oh my God,” Jane breathed. Massive figures stood off in the distance, each with their own distinctive glow. Their bodies were blurry, and she quickly found that she couldn’t look at any one of them for too long before her head started hurting.
“Beautiful, is it not?” Death said. “How quick, how glorious the life of a feeling.” Jane tentatively reached out for a nearby light as it flew by, but Death pulled her back. “Do not interfere. One touch by us may alter a soul’s life, and it is a grave mistake for the dead to affect the living.”
Jane snorted. “A ‘grave’ mistake?”
“Yes.”
“For the ‘dead?’”
“Indeed.”
She sighed. “Never mind. Please tell me exactly what it is I’m seeing here.”
Death nodded. “The small ones you see are freshly born emotions, coming to life in a burst of light. Most of them do not last long.” They indicated a nearby light just as it faded. “Those are merely fragments of energy. But sometimes an emotion is so pervasive, so powerful, that it takes on a soul of its own.”
Walking to stand just before the nearest figure—a regular human boy, no older than ten—Death turned to Jane and opened their palm invitingly. Jane stepped closer, casting a wary look over the boy, half-expecting his eyes to spring open and stare at her like some child of the corn. As she approached, she got the distinct feeling of stepping through what felt like a thin sheet of water, and she stopped in surprise.
“What you feel is this emotion’s influence,” Death explained. “What does it feel like?”
Jane shook her head. “It feels… happy. Pure joy. But at a distance, like I’m not the one feeling it, I’m just… recognizing it. Does that make sense?”
Death nodded. “Children of the Maker Plane are prone to feeling particularly powerful emotions, being new to life and all its experiences. Many of the souls in this realm come from them, though they usually only survive for a day or two. But some emotions, like this one—” Death moved on to the next figure; a tall, stolid-looking man in a suit— “live just as long as their parents.”
Jane followed, eyeing the businessman. His proportions were off, looking misshapen, stretched, or shrunk in places. She had not even gotten close when that same feeling washed over her. “Wow. Anger. A lot of it.”
Again, Death nodded. “This emotion has become a defining feature of its parent’s life, having been nurtured and fed over many years. It is now apart of him as he is to it.”
She shook her head. “I’m still having trouble believing that emotions, of all things, have souls. Imagination I could believe but this is pretty abstract.”
“Have you ever been taken by a particularly powerful emotion? Then have you not ever rationalized yourself into feeling that emotion for longer than might have been best?”
Jane tightened her mouth. “All too often.”
“You do this because your feelings have taken on a life of their own,” Death said, leaning against their scythe. “And like any living thing, it fights to live. It wants to survive. And to survive, it needs your energy.” They gestured again to the zipping lights. “That is what life is, Jane. Energy. Here we see Emotional energy. In the Realm of Thought we saw the power of dreams. In the Realm of Beginning we will see potential energy, and kinetic energy in the Realm of Possibility. All originating from the Maker Plane, all taking on souls of their own. What makes this realm special, however, is how powerfully it overlaps with the others. Souls born of two realms are born here and frequently shift to live in other planes. Would you like to guess who on our team is such a soul?”
“Nuelwe.”
Death slumped like a deflating sail. “How did you guess so quickly?”
“She’s always given me a hippy-vibe, but then I went to her meditation class. Being around her for a while kind of just filled me with a sense of tranquility, you know? Plus, she’s an elf. It wasn’t hard to make the leap.”
“Indeed. Can you guess who else is a child of this realm?”
Jane thought it over. “Haniah? She’s got a pervasive sense of peace too, like everything is going according to plan.”
Death shook their head. “Robert.”
Jane raised her eyebrows, then smirked. “Joy?”
“Quite.”
“Making him our transitional liaison and Celestial emissary was probably a good move then.” Jane waved to the giants in the distance. “What about those? What are they?”
“Ah. Those are the Aspects—the actualization of emotions felt by countless souls. Sorrow, Joy, Love, Hate, and so on. They will exist so long as life everywhere else exists. I have noticed recently, however, that some newer ones have split off from the older ones, and have taken on some rather odd shapes.”
Jane almost laughed. Everything about this was odd. “Odd how?”
“Some of the ‘lesser-aspects,’ as I call them, have taken on figures much more uniform than their parents, and aren’t necessarily all humanoid. For instance, there’s an aspect in the guise of a crumbling house that emits sorrow, but another of a rather corpulent man emitting anger, and another of a cat emitting joy, and—”
Jane cut Death off mid-sentence with her laughter, which only grew the more she thought about it, and even more so at Death’s confused head-tilt. “What?” they asked. “What’s so humorous?”
Jane wiped her eyes. “The aspects are made by a bunch of people feeling the same thing, right?”
“Yes?”
“It’s the internet, I’d bet my life. Or rather my unlife.”
Death looked towards the aspects then back at her. “What’s the internet?”
Jane’s eyes widened and she laughed again, harder. “Oh Death. Won’t you spare me.”
“Jane, you’re not making any sense.”
Jane righted herself and took them by the arm. “I’ll tell you about it when we get back to the Underworld. How about we get to our next stop?”
Death regarded her for a short while, then slowly shook their head. “Very well… Hold tight.” They raised their scythe.
“You like cats, right?” Jane asked just as the scythe fell.
“Of course. Why?”
They vanished, heading to the Realm of Beginning.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgcxH7i0FQG
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Author's Note234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHol3K8vZ83
To the few people who read this, I figured I'd give you an update on the reasons (plural) behind the slowing pace of publishing these issues. Basically I've got a lot of stuff going on in my life right now. Personal stuff. Work stuff. Family stuff. Bridal party stuff. Holiday stuff. Stuff stuff. And seasonal depression has been kicking my butt just like it does every year (I absolutely loathe the lack of sunlight.) Not to mention that I've begun plotting a continuation of my actual book series (that I hope to publish sometime in 2023/2024) which eats into how much time I can spend writing Death and Jane.234Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWPc8MYUH7k
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With so much stuff going on my creative energy has reached a low point for the time being, and I can't just turn it on whenever I'd like. I kindly ask for your patience with me as I sort everything out, and know that I fully intend to complete this series, even if I slow down. I already have an ending in mind, and writing this serial has proven to be far more enjoyable than I expected when I first started. Jane and Death have really grown on me as characters, and I hope that you've been having just as much fun with them as I have.
As always, thanks for reading.
Yours in life and unlife,
Chris
ns 15.158.61.10da2
