Grub stared at his Ego with narrowed eyes.
"You're my Ego?" He looked around at the endless black expanse. "I thought I was supposed to see a menu or something." He frowned. "And where the hell are we?"
The other Grub shrugged with a casualness that felt eerily familiar.
"Yeah, I'm your Ego. I'm basically the soul-you. I know everything about your Anima, and I'm here to tell you what you need." He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the ocean of dark ooze surrounding them. "And this place? This is your soul."
Grub looked around again. The black, viscous liquid stretched to infinity in every direction. There was no light. No landmarks. Just darkness and tar.
"Not quite what I imagined."
"Tell me about it," the Ego muttered. He sighed and folded his arms. "So. What do you need?"
Grub scratched his chin. "Aren't you me? Shouldn't you already know?"
The Ego frowned and shook his head. "No. I am you in the sense that we think the same and are the same person. I'm not separate from you. But my only job is to be here and manage your soul. Keep things running. Make sure you're up to speed when you visit." He paused. "I don't read your thoughts from the outside. I just watch from in here."
"Honestly it's a pretty boring job."
Grub folded his arms. "So you just stand around all day?"
"Pretty much."
The Ego then reached upward and snapped his fingers. From the black sky above, a vast constellation of glowing spheres descended, hovering in the air around them like luminous bubbles. Hundreds of them. Each one pulsed with faint light, and inside each Grub could see movement — images, sounds, fragments of scenes playing on loop.
"Though, I can see your memories through these," the Ego said, gesturing at the spheres. "Every experience you've had since existing. It's all stored here."
Grub's eyes widened. His breath caught. "Does that mean you have ones from before we landed here?"
The Ego's expression shifted. The casual ease faltered. He frowned and seemed to reach for something — his hand stretching toward a dark, empty patch of sky where no spheres floated. Then he glitched.
His body flickered. His outline blurred for a fraction of a second like a reflection in disturbed water. Then he snapped back into focus and simply said, "Nope. Can't remember."
He stared upward at the floating spheres. "I feel like I've existed before we fell, however."
Grub stared at him. The glitch hadn't gone unnoticed. But he filed it away for now.
"Okay." He shifted topics. "So is this how Luthiel's multiple personalities work? Are they Egos? Can you control my body?"
The Ego shook his head firmly. "No, don't think so. We're the exact same. I am literally you with no differences. I can't take over or act independently."
"Then does Luthiel have another person talking to her in here? Would there be three Egos? Does she have three souls?"
The Ego groaned. "Trust me, I'm just as curious as you. Because I am you. But I don't know, man. Other than our own soul-related business, I know nothing more than you do."
Grub frowned. "But you're my soul."
"Yeah. And?"
"Shouldn't you know soul stuff?"
"I know OUR soul stuff."
The Ego pointed between them.
"I don't know hers."
Grub sighed. "So you're not another personality of mine?"
"No. Just you. Everyone has one of me. But not everyone is this concerned with asking so many damn questions." He scratched the back of his head. "My job is to manage your soul and tell you what's going on with it whenever you visit. I'm like the host of your own soul, if you will."
Grub nodded slowly. "Okay. I think I get it now." He paused. "But I still feel weird calling you me.So I'm just going to pretend I'm not talking to myself and call you something else."
Grub thought for a second.
Then snapped his fingers.
"Oh, how about Maggot? Since its close to Grub."
The Ego — now Maggot — shrugged with total indifference.
"Sure. Whatever works."
Grub folded his arms. "Alright, Maggot. Can you show me my breakdown? How am I doing? That's what Morrigan sent me in here to find out." He looked around at the dark void. "Give me the full tour."
Maggot nodded. Then he grabbed Grub's hand and then they both sank into the nothingness..
The black ooze swallowed them both. Grub felt the viscous liquid close over his head without suffocating him. It was warm and heavy and strangely alive, pulsing against his skin as they descended through it.
When they emerged on the other side, the landscape had changed.
They stood in a deeper chamber of the soul. Before them hovered a large, glowing orb — pulsing steadily like a heartbeat made of light. It was bigger than a house. Bigger than several houses. Yet, was beautiful in a way Grub hadn't expected. Warm and alive and humming with energy.
Connected to the orb were two massive tank-like vessels. Tubes ran from each one into the central sphere, feeding into it and drawing from it in a slow, constant cycle.
One tank was full. It glowed with a bright, verdant green substance that swirled gently inside like liquid light.
The other tank was empty. So empty, that not even residue was left on the walls.
Grub stared at the structure in confusion, then turned to Maggot.
Maggot walked over to the glowing orb and placed a hand on its surface. It pulsed warmly under his touch.
"This right here is your Pneuma. Your True Soul." He tapped it gently. "The heart of everything."
Grub wished desperately that he could bring his notebook into his own soul.
"What do you mean, my True Soul? Isn't this whole place my soul?"
"Yes. But this is the core. The very center. Everything else grows from this." Maggot's expression went serious. "If this were to break, you would die. Instantly. The contents inside would leak out and scatter, and you would cease to exist."
He pointed at the two tanks.
"These are your reserves. This one," he tapped the full green tank, "is your Anima reserve. The fuel you use for Anima techniques, reinforcement, everything outward. You haven't used yours yet, so it's still full."
Then he walked to the empty tank and knocked on its side. The hollow echo rang through the chamber.
"And this is your reserve of what you've been calling Death." He paused. "Its real name is Nihil."
Grub walked over to the tanks and placed a hand on each one. The Anima tank was warm and the Nihil tank was cold.
"Nihil," he repeated quietly. Then a thought struck him. "Wait. I've been absorbing people's souls?"
Maggot made a wavering gesture with his hands. "Ehh. Not exactly."
He pointed at the Pneuma.
"The contents inside your Pneuma — the glowing stuff at the core — that's your Life Anima. The Anima needed to keep you alive. It's not the same as the reserve Anima in the tank. It IS you. When someone dies and their Pneuma shatters, that Life Anima transforms. It loses purpose and becomes Nihil."
He looked at the empty tank.
"Nihil is what's left after a soul ends. The residue of a finished existence. That's what you've been absorbing from the things you've killed. Not their souls — their aftermath."
Grub processed this slowly. "So Nihil is Death in the literal sense. The remains of life after it's over."
"Exactly. And once the Nihil disperses fully, the soul, the Pneuma, this whole space — it all scatters to dust and blows away." Maggot shrugged. "I haven't been given any information on what happens after that. Whether it goes to an afterlife, another world, or just the endless nothing. No clue."
Grub frowned. That was unsettling. Very unsettling.
After a moment he pointed at the empty tank. "Why can I absorb Nihil in the first place? Why me?"
Maggot held up a hand. "I'm getting there. Jeez, you're impatient."
He paused.
"Well. We're impatient. Same person."
He clapped his hands together. The chamber shifted and a translucent display materialized in the air before them, glowing faintly with text and symbols.
"The reserves aren't your actual soul. They're basically tanks or storage or fuel or whatever you want to call them."
He pointed at the full Anima reserve. "Everybody has one of these."
Then the empty Nihil reserve. "You have this too."
Grub stared at it and Maggot smiled.
"As you can see."
"You've never really used your Anima. So it's completely full."
Then he pointed at the Nihil reserve.
"And you've burned through every bit of Death you had stored."
"You CAN technically use your Life Anima from inside the Pneuma directly. But if you drain that, you die." He gestured at the display. "And with that, we end the general tour of how your soul works."
He cracked his knuckles in a gesture that was disturbingly familiar.
"Now let me show you what makes you specifically... you."
The display sharpened. Text crystallized into readable lines. Grub stepped closer and read.
***
NAME: ?????????
NAME: GRUB
FORTE: GRAVEBOUND
FORTE RANK: ALMIGHTY
MALADROIT:VOID
RANK:DORMANT
TIER: 3
SKILLS: DEATH ENHANCEMENT
***
Grub stared at the screen. His mouth opened slightly but no words came out.
There were two names. The first was nothing but question marks. His real name — lost, sealed, erased by whatever had taken his memories. The second was Grub. The name given to him at the Ridge. Apparently his soul had accepted it as a placeholder.
Forte Rank: Almighty.
He didn't know what that meant yet. But the word sat heavily in the air.
Rank: Dormant. Tier 3.
That sounded low. Very low.
He reached out toward the display and tapped the Forte entry. The text expanded into a description that floated before him in glowing letters.
YOU CONTROL THE END OF THINGS. BUT TO CONTROL THE END, YOU MUST SEIZE IT FIRST.
(Description — Iteration 1)*
Grub's mind raced. Control the end of things. Seize it first. He understood it, that explained the absorption — he had to kill to gather Nihil, to take the "end" from others before he could wield it. But what did "Iteration 1" mean? Would the description change?
He closed it and tapped the Maladroit entry.
YOUR FORTE DEALS WITH ENDS, BUT IT ALSO DEALS WITH A VAST VOID. WHEN YOU HAVE, YOU DON'T FEEL. WHEN YOU USE, YOU HUNGER. WHEN YOU OVERFLOW, IT OVERTAKES YOU.
(Maladroit Description — Iteration 1)*
Grub read it twice and stepped backward. His mind was churning so much he nearly had a headache.
"What?"
He looked at Maggot.
"What does any of that mean?"
Maggot shrugged.
"No clue."
"What?!"
"The descriptions evolve with you. They're not finished."
Grub stared.
"Then why show them to me?"
"Because they're yours. Figure it out."
Grub looked back at the menu. Description Iteration 1.
Why Iteration 1? What would Iteration 2 say? What did "When you have, you don't feel" even mean?
He stepped back from the display. His hands were shaking slightly but he couldn't tell if it was fear or something else entirely.
What was an Almighty Forte Rank doing attached to a Dormant Tier 3? And what did the Void become when it overflowed? The questions stacked on top of each other faster than he could process them.
Then suddenly, the entire dimension shook.
The chamber trembled while the Pneuma flickered. The display dissolved and the black ooze rippled violently around his feet.
Maggot sighed.
"Ah."
And through the darkness, a voice reached him. Distant at first, then louder. Cutting through the soul like a knife through silk.
"HEY, BUG!"
"HEEEYYYY, BUGGGGGG!"
Maggot waved from across the chamber, his smile fading as the space began to collapse around them.
"Seems like you'll be leaving. Goodbye, me."
Grub reached forward.
"Wait—"
"See ya later."
Maggot smiled.
"Try not to die."
Then everything went black. Grub's eyes snapped open.
Luthiel's face was directly in front of his. Crimson eyes stared directly into his. Messy red streaked hair framed a face that was somehow rough and beautiful at the same time. Thi's rough expression glared at him from inches away.
"FINALLY," she growled. "I've been screaming at you for like five minutes, Bug."
Grub took a deep, shuddering breath. He looked down at his hands. Then at the clearing around him. The trees. The grass. The real world in all its non pitch black glory.
Morrigan stood a few paces away, arms crossed, her staff tapping impatiently against the ground.
"That took longer than I fucking thought," she said. "So? What happened? What'd you see?"
Grub said nothing.
He stared at his hands and tried to make the shaking stop.