The parade of 100 demons beta ver

The first draft of a short novel, the prologue should explain some context later

In this infertile land, I am a spirit in mortuary clothes. I am a spirit going to the parade of demons.

The time had come for the Scavenger of souls to deliver the sixtieth invitation, noting how already more than half of the invitations had been delivered and nothing was standing in the way of his goal, the simple and pleasant domains had received him so far, with demons taking little time to accept his invitation without much more talk than a simple “alright, I'll go”.

At the same time he was concerned that at this point his creator's words, his secondary “request” was not moving forward at all.

“I want a hundred guests since it's a special night, no more, no less. If you want to know some more details why don't you try to answer it yourself as you travel from domain to domain?”

As he advanced he noticed how the emptiness he crossed to reach the domains became more difficult to navigate; the domains emitted less warm lights and the pleasant sounds were progressively fading being replaced by total silences that left the Scavenger to listen only to the flapping of his wings in the darkness. What were they celebrating? Why 100 guests? What was that red moon he saw on the clock? He began to ask aloud questions sent into the void where there was no possibility of any answer, perhaps he should have asked them to the previous demons but being left as a creature devoid of his own will stopped him, was that what they called fear? To be seen as a deer, an errand one who only acted and repeated what someone else told him. The possible answers he formulated in his mind did not coincide although he tried to convince himself of them.

“He wants a hundred guests because that's the maximum amount he can invite.”

“They're just holding a meeting, something between them.”

“The red moon for sure was the secret name of the parade or just... Just a decoration.”

And so he quieted his thoughts once more, at which point the box he carried strapped to his feet began to weigh, pulling him downward to descend into the next domain, the domain of the demon in mortuary clothes. The descent was slow, as if the domain itself was reluctant to let someone foreign enter. When he finally crossed the threshold, the impact of the descent was accompanied not with sound, not with a jolt, but with a dry, biting cold that ignored feathers, skin or bone, and lodged deep, like a seed of ice buried in the soul, in every joint and bone.

The new domain was not like the previous ones.

Everything was covered with a dead pallor. The sky so vivid or cheerful that he had witnessed in previous domains was now an unpainted canvas, so clear that it hurt to look at it, but it emitted no light or warmth. There were no clouds, no wind, no shadow. Just an endless vastness that did not change when you moved your gaze, as if the world was trapped in a frozen instant of melancholy and sadness. The ground beneath his paws was gray and brittle, a mixture of dry earth and dust so fine that it resembled burnt paper, from which scrolls rose up as he walked, as if even the memory of what was written there had been incinerated.

There was no sound. No echoes. Not even the creaking of his own paws against the ground seemed to have the strength to resonate. Each step melted into absolute silence, as if the domain refused to acknowledge its presence. For the first time, the Scavenger did not feel like a visitor, but an intruder. The single color rose on the horizon like a living stain. A solitary tree, with a twisted trunk and blackened wood, whose bluish leaves hung like tears stopped in time. They were not shiny, but neither were they opaque; it was a melancholy blue, like that of a memory that refuses to leave the mind even when all around are but the lifeless remnants of what they once were. And in the center of that muted world, at the foot of the tree, stood a tombstone. Old, worn and cracked to the point of almost breaking. Around it, a circle of stones of the same dusty color, arranged with a precision that seemed sacred.

As he approached the tombstone the eroded cracks that once bore a name, an inscription, a meaning were now just surface, no letter, no feature, no indentation. Even rubbing the feathers against the stone, there would be no way of knowing to whom it belonged. Oblivion here was no accident. It was the rule upon which the domain had been erected, for the eternal feeling and living of a spirit. The Scavenger felt the cold, hitherto cruel, assuming another form. It was not just silence. It was something denser, heavier. It was the absence of voices, the absence of memory, the impossibility of saying “this was”. The place seemed to have forgotten even its own name. And there, once the Scavenger was under the tree in search of a minimum comfort or detail that would make him feel less oppressed, he saw her, hugging the tombstone as one who tries to prevent oblivion from consuming the last thing she loves, she was there. The demoness in mortuary clothes, Her skin was as pale as a marble tablet and the ashes that covered the ground, and at times it seemed that she could be mistaken for them if it were not for the faint tremor that shook her back every now and then, as if she sobbed in a silence so deep that not even the soul dared to hear it.

Her clothes were of ancient mourning, long mortuary cloaks that once must have been immaculate white, now faded to a lifeless gray. The sleeves, too short, exposed her arms completely. There were barely inches of skin without cracks. Her long fingers, unmoving, pressed against the cracked stone. Her hair fell in heavy waves escaping from the hood that covered her head, dyed a dirty white that seemed to have adapted to blend in with its surroundings while a few blue locks, the same shade reminiscent of tree leaves broke the pattern. Her face remained half hidden behind the torn veil that hung to one side, revealing only a cheek marked by a line that broke her skin.

Finally the demoness looked up, the Scavenger immediately sought her out, only to find her eyes devoid of irises and pupils, just an opaque, almost liquid glow. It still did not utter a word, nor did it seem to need to, but something in the way it looked at the tombstone indicated that it had done so once, perhaps for the last time. The Scavenger managed to come out of his state of shock once his bones stopped shaking and he flew back to the edge of the tombstone and began to notice the features of the domain.

The absence of sound that moments ago was an overwhelming sensation now became a more subtle prison: it forced him to listen to his own thoughts with dangerous clarity. Without echoes, without distractions, the Scavenger's mind was exposed to itself as never before. He finally understood. The feeling was not of being alone. It was that of being forgotten. Not as one who had been left behind, but as what he could not even remember existing. Everything in that place seemed to make it clear to him that upon entering one ceased to matter. That what is, what was, and what will be disappears. It dissolves. Forgetting was not possible since time did not pass, not in the conventional way at least....

What if instead of minutes, hours or days, what was moving forward was oblivion?

The Scavenger tried to think of the names of the demons he had already invited.

The first one?

The fourth?

Which domain had a tower?

Who was it that accepted the invitation without looking him in the eye and just took the invitation from the box?

But the images blended together, changed order, as if melting into a lagoon of forgetfulness that grew with each fading memory. Yet the Scavenger clung resolutely to the tombstone, he was there. Standing there. He did not understand why. But that not understanding, that reluctance not to forget his goal kept him standing against the demoness. Perhaps for the same reason he still carried the box tied to his legs, even if it hurt more than flying.