Chapter 1 & 2

Chapters 1 and 2 finished

I am the demon who stains the white night sky crimson red, I wander aimlessly through the hell I call home, I am a spirit going to the parade of demons

And with that, there were... thirty-one invitations.
The little soul scavenger floated in the void, flapping its sharp wings at an irregular pace, as if complaining internally helped it move faster through the absolute silence of nothingness.
Thirty-one demons convinced that their existence was the most tragic, painful, sublime, and worthy of being immortalized in a parade. Thirty-one domains as unique as they were impossible to forget, for better or for worse.
Now I just have to meet sixty-nine other demons who think they're the most tragic of all... he muttered to himself. And of course, who wouldn't think they were the most tragic if their domain, where they dwell for all eternity, is a birdcage decorated with broken mirrors? Although... I felt strangely welcome. However, that thing staring down at me with those bulging eyes! Why did I tell it I would visit again?
The scavenger flew silently, flapping its wings only a few times, propelled by an invisible current within the void that connected the domains. A space without form or end, without up or down. Total darkness through which its eyes saw perfectly, crossed only by a thin silver line that stretched in an uncertain direction: the only visual guide he thought was the one that all those who travelled through the void used so as not to get lost.
His flight maintained a low, steady rhythm, while fragments of broken worlds floated around him as if reflected in mirrors that were not there. The entrances to the domains that perhaps awaited his arrival, or that of someone else capable of navigating the void as he did. The wooden box hung from his legs, leaving a faint trail of pink ink behind it. Inside his skull, memories of the journey accumulated like dust in a poorly organized library. He had left thirty-one domains behind. Some trivial, others impossible to forget.
He thought of domain seventeen, a huge factory where thousands of ancient looms wove tirelessly, driven by invisible hands that never missed a stitch. The fabrics stretched out until they disappeared into the shadows, forming corridors, murals and cloaks that covered rusty machines, bones, wheels and useless pulleys. The demon of that domain never allowed itself to be seen directly. It only appeared behind the fogged-up glass, silently observing how its patterns repeated endlessly. Sometimes its eyes were those of an exhausted old man; other times, they were just black spots that never blinked.
Or domain twenty-four, an endless trench where the mud never dried and gas masks hung from rotten branches as if they were still on the faces of those who once wore them. That sky was covered by a frayed canvas that seemed to tremble with every scream. The demon was buried up to his neck there, his teeth clenched from shouting orders at soldiers who no longer existed, convinced that his war was still going on as if the domain itself did not know that the conflict had ended centuries ago. If it ever ended.
The void continued.
The scavenger kept flying without thinking much more about it.
The silver line in front of him began to curve slightly, signaling that a new domain was approaching. There, in the distance, a faint flash pulsed slowly.
Once the scavenger approached, the gap slowly opened, and on the other side, a crimson light blinded him the moment he entered the domain. It was not a figurative red, nor a faint light. It was absolute saturation that stained the air itself.
The mountains of the domain collided with the upper limit as if trying to continue beyond what was permitted. Some even seemed to bleed from the top, dropping waterfalls of red water or blood that descended intensely to an already flooded base. The sound was deafening and constant and immense, enveloping all perception.
Temples rose from many of those mountains. All of them had a single room, all of them had balconies pointing upwards. And there, for the first time since the parade began, a real moon hung in the sky. Red. Motionless. Not a representation, nor an illusion. A tangible presence, unobscured by anything, always visible. It was not a figurative red, nor a dim light. It was an absolute saturation that stained the very air. The air was dense and humid. Heavy.
As if the domain were older than all the previous ones. Or perhaps more self-aware.
And that's when... The scavenger crashed head-on into one of the mountains.
- 'Aaaagh! Who puts mountains right in front of an entry point?!' he screamed, shaking himself, trying to regain both his balance and his dignity. 'This is premeditated! An attempt to murder the messenger!'
The impact was sharp, clumsy, even comical, leaving the scavenger reeling as he tried to land and stabilize himself on a rock ledge. His box of invitations spun in the air, caught in an absurd current that made his stability increasingly difficult. He rolled several meters among sharp stones and waterlogged moss before finally regaining his balance, clumsily shaking his feathers.
"Damn it, why aren't there any decent signs between domains? Do they think one flies for pleasure? The first domain with a real moon and this is how it welcomes me. Perfect.
He barely managed to reach the central temple after finding a stone path that ascended like an endless spiral to the central temple, barely visible in the distance at the edge of a cliff. From there, the moon seemed to be at an absurd distance, almost touchable, almost invasive.
Once he entered the room where he was to meet the demon, it was completely open to that crimson sky. A stone balcony without railings, only slender columns like fingers that were too long. On one of the interior walls, hanging like a forgotten relic, was a partially illuminated painting. The moonlight barely grazed its lower edge, revealing blurred figures, like projected shadows. The scavenger noticed it out of the corner of his eye, but didn't think much of it. It seemed like just another one of those pretentious decorations that demons accumulated. Although... there was something about that composition, it was incomplete.
In front of the painting, with his back to it, sat the demon of dominion. His target.
It was tall and thin, pale as an unfinished canvas. They black hair fell in short strands, stuck together by a golden liquid that also dripped down their face and part of the kimono their wore. Yellow Lindera Benzoin flowers, wilted and some broken, sprouted from their shoulders, part of the face and back, intertwined with a pair of wings that did not seem functional, but rather decorative. The wings rustled slightly when moved by the wind, like waxed paper.
They wore a red kimono with black and dark grey, torn at the edges of the sleeves and waist, as if he had not changed clothes in centuries.
'What if I was wrong?' he murmured as he watched the demon. 'What if it's another demon? One even more dramatic than this one?' He looked at the yellow flowers. The wet gold kimono.
The way it didn't turn towards him. There was something solemn about it. A scene so carefully composed that it couldn't be an accident.
'It's him. It has to be.' And he prepared to speak.
-- Tsk, what a welcome you gave me, eh!' shouted the scavenger, shaking dust and fragments of dry bark from his feathers that weren't really there, purely complaining for the sake of it. A real moon, endless mountains, and me, crashing like a fly against the window of modern art... Who designs these places, architects of suffering? He tried to elicit a small reaction of complicity, perhaps to break the ice.
No one responded
Only the constant torrent of water from the falls and the moon, still motionless, illuminating both.
-- Anyway,' continued the scavenger, struggling to pull an invitation out of his box after placing it on the ground, now somewhat dented from the accident, "here it is. Official invitation to this year's parade, special edition, one hundred demons, an unforgettable night, applause optional and tears guaranteed. Signed, sealed, and delivered! Excuse me, I'll be leaving before I bump into someone else...
-- The moon... can you see it?' he said, in an aesthetic, soft, almost fragile voice. She can haunt you, shining so brightly red. It's a crimson glow.
Only then did she turn her head. Her single visible eye, dull and yellow, rested on the gems that the soul scavenger recognized as her eyes, as if trying to gauge the worth and presence of the demon that inhabited her. The scavenger stopped short, halfway through turning to leave.
-- Um... yes, beautiful moon! Bright! Very round! But if it's not too much trouble, could you just accept the invitation? I have sixty-eight more of you to convince, and this place doesn't have a single rock shaped like a bench where I can sit and talk about all this... I'm here for work, not astronomical tourism. Here's your invitation. I hope you like it, nameless, untitled, unidentified demon. May I leave now?
The demon did not respond immediately. He only turned his face slightly, revealing his yellow eye among the flowers.
-- No. Obsessing is not the same as looking. Not everyone who looks up knows what they are seeing. Do you... know why she is there?'
-- No?' cried the scavenger, sounding offended. 'Can't you read? Aren't you interested in the parade? Or are you not going to let me out?'
-- Obsession.' He paused, completely ignoring the soul scavenger's complaints. 'The need to project yourself onto something that can never respond to you. I'll ask you for one thing,'
said the demon calmly, 'answer me with the truth.'
-- What kind of deal is that?' he squeaked. 'I just hand out the invitations! That's my purpose!'
-- And that doesn't bother you?'
Silence returned.
--Great. Not only dramatic, but also a lunar philosopher. What else? What if I don't want to play the existential meaning game? Are you going to throw me off the balcony or make the moon fall on me? I was created for this. It's the only thing I know. I already answered your riddle, now accept the invitation!
-- I ask you to answer with the truth. Your truth, not about the parade you invited me to. Why do you think we look at the moon, when we know it can't look back at us?'
The scavenger looked around, searching for a clue. Was it a riddle? Or was this demon really obsessed?
-- And why are you handing out invitations?' asked the demon, not harshly, just with a hint of expectation.
-- Because I have to, I already said, I follow instructions,' replied the scavenger, repeating what he had been taught.
The scavenger lowered his wing, causing the invitation to fall to the ground.
-- Instructions?
-- Yes, those of my creator. The demon with enormous wings, a skull face, and complicated words. The raven-like demon. You know him, don't you?'
-- And why do you follow those instructions?' asked the demon. 'Out of obedience? Out of destiny? Or because you don't know how to do anything else?'
The scavenger looked away.
-- Look, I didn't come here to be asked existential questions. I'm a messenger, okay? And I brought this.' He gently kicked the invitation. 'And then I'm leaving.'
-- Is that what you think you are? Just that?'
There was no mockery in the voice. Just measured interest, as if instead of a raven or 'messenger' he was looking at a painting full of details and wanted to see how far it went.
-- You have ten minutes,' said the demon, this time closing his eyes and resting his head on one hand. 'An answer that doesn't sound like an order. Nothing else.'
Restless, the scavenger walked in circles. He tried to think of something, of what he was feeling. But he didn't know what he was feeling. All he had was the order. The parade. The invitations. His creator. He began to walk around the room, looking at the furniture, but mainly at the large wall painting hanging just behind them. The structure of the temple was open, and beyond the balcony was only the red moon, so close that it seemed to hang from the sky like a bleeding lantern. His eyes sought it out without meaning to. It was impossible not to. There was something about it... Something that attracted him.
-- What is it about that moon?' he asked quietly, addressing no one in particular. 'It's as if it's looking at me, but it doesn't... it doesn't have eyes.'
-- Doesn't need them,' replied the demon behind him. 'The important thing is that you are looking at her. And that you don't know why.' The demon closed his eyes again until the ten minutes were up.

Then, when the demon opened his eyes, the scavenger improvised:
-- I... I hand out the invitations because... it's important that everyone gets together. That no one is missing. I hand out... I hand out the invitations because it's important that everyone gets together. The parade unites the demons. It gives meaning to who they are. I want to be part of that.
And there was only silence. Moments in which the scavenger backed away as if his body were anticipating something, something bad. He felt a tremor in his legs, in his back, in his neck. For the first time since he was born, the scavenger felt something he couldn't disguise with sarcasm. He felt despair.
The demon stood up, its shadow suddenly lengthening, projecting itself like a black tide that engulfed the scavenger until it was completely covered, and for the first time its tone changed. Its voice rose a pitch above that of the waterfalls that set the mood for the domain, tearing through the atmosphere with unexpected force. The waterfalls sounded more distant for a moment, only the voice filling the space.
The scavenger wanted to leave. He wanted to hide in the invitation box and just wait for the demon to decide to accept the invitation at any moment and open the exit from his domain. His head hurt as much as his body, and if he needed his lungs, he wasn't sure if they would respond to such pressure. But then he looked at the demon. The kimono drenched in gold, the flowers on his face.
-- If you doubt what I say, then let your flesh tremble.
That was the phrase he heard at birth, trying to associate what he felt with the first thing he heard when he became conscious.
The demon sighed.
-- You may leave if you have no answer.
Quique took a step back. He hesitated. Perhaps he had failed. But then, something he had said completed itself in his mind -- 'the moon as witness to an obsession' -- that phrase seemed to resonate within him. He wasn't sure, but he noticed that the demon wasn't looking at him with disdain. Something had vibrated between them, and it was then that he looked at the painting again.
He looked at it and noticed that there were figures in it; it was not a meaningless painting, but rather it showed a scene... then he understood, he understood the figures that lined up looking towards the end of the painting as if they were marching towards something. They were all following a moon, one that completed itself with the glow that tinged the domain. But one figure was incomplete. Or rather, it was missing. And right where it should have been, the demon's shadow fit precisely.
-- That painting... he pointed with his wing and asked, more softly this time. 'Why does it seem incomplete?
The demon slowly turned his neck. As if he had been waiting for that question for centuries, but he remained the same as always, incomplete.

-- I don't know. I'm not sure what it is that's missing. But... it makes me feel nostalgic. I don't know what. When I look at the moon, I feel like I'm about to understand it... I feel like I'm halfway there, but when I look at the painting, I can no longer see the moon, even though I feel the same after a while. It's a vicious cycle.
-- Why is someone missing from it? asked the scavenger, without raising his voice. Was it someone who was with you? Was it you?
-- I don't know. I've asked myself those questions too many times. Now all that's left is to watch... and hope that the void provides some answers.
The scavenger approached with his wings folded, almost copying the demon's thoughtful posture.
-- By the way... those other mountains with temples... are they inhabited too?
-- No. They're empty.
-- Then... why are they there?
-- Because I still don't know from what angle the work should be viewed.'
The demon then took a mirror from inside his robe. Polished, oval-shaped. He held it in front of the painting, at the height of his face, and aligned it with the painting. The scavenger could clearly see how the missing figure was completed. The painting was whole. The reflection and the moon aligned. Everything matched.
-- That's it! he exclaimed with a squeal. I understand now!
-- The moon... is haunting. Because it is a witness. Because it is always there. But it never responds, it never goes away. And... maybe... handing out the invitations is the same thing. It's... leaving a part of myself in each place. As if to make sure I'm not forgotten. That painting... speaks of a march. A search. A devotion, perhaps. And... there's an absence in the center, right where your shadow fits for a moment. If that's not a clue, then I'll paint myself into the picture and be the protagonist, what do you think?
The scavenger cried out slightly more arrogantly, as if his small mind had conceived the answers that the demon had not found, perhaps even hoping for the same thing, that once he shared what the demon had interpreted, he would take the time to explain the meaning of his existence that had demanded so much of him before.
The demon did not laugh. But he did not turn away either, and only observed the slightly arrogant expression on the scavenger's face. The scavenger lowered his voice a little. More serious. More restrained.
-- Do you know why I hand out the invitations? Because I'm starting to think that the parade... is the same thing. An incomplete march. And I... I'm the one who makes it move because I invite everyone to contemplate my work.
-- I've tried everything. Turning it. Covering it. Painting over it. Going to another of the temples you asked about. Looking at it with the moon. Looking at it without it. Closing my eyes and tracing my fingers over the lines. But nothing changes.' The scavenger felt slightly ignored, although he didn't feel he should complain, at least not now.

-- But you keep looking at it.
-- Yes.
--So... maybe that's what matters. Not seeing it complete, not understanding it from your domain. But... being there when, by accident, it is completed. So... The parade awaits you, Demon who stains the sky crimson.
The demon turned in an instant, his gaze fixed on the painting. For a brief second, his shadow realigned and the missing figure was filled in. Then it disappeared but said nothing. For a time, the sound of the waterfalls dominated the place again, while the invitation remained there, on the floor of the temple, but it nodded its head, saying nothing more when the exit to the void formed at the edge of the balcony.
The scavenger tied the box to his feet again and launched himself towards the gap that the demon who stained the sky crimson had opened for him to continue with his goal.
Later, when the scavenger was no longer in the domain and the invitation rested on a makeshift table with painter's tools, the demon continued to look at his painting. He knew he would return to that point, he always did, but this time... something had changed. Slowly, without any hurry, he took the painting off the wall. He leaned it against the floor, near the edge of the temple. He discovered one of the old mirrors playing with a new angle. One that the scavenger had given him without knowing it.
Then he saw it.
For a moment that lasted more than long enough for him, his shadow fell again on the painting. But this time, the reflection in the mirror made him see it from the outside, as if he himself were witnessing his reflection in the work, his place and the missing figure were completed. Not with paint, but with presence.
The painting showed a scene impossible to forget:
From left to right, a long line of demonic figures marched in perfect synchrony on a ground-level bridge, crossing between shadows. Some were huge, monstrous; others, thin and barely perceptible. All advanced solemnly, each one different, but all part of the same parade.
Above them, as if he were their leader, suspended above everyone else, was he. His wings of flowers spread majestically, like a living aura. In one hand he held a flowered fan, and with it he pointed to the moon on the far right, shining in a scarlet hue, painting the entire sky of the painting with the crimson light of his domain. The same crimson firmament of his domain now enveloped the parade, like a carpet dyed by his whim.
A silent march, under a red moon that did not illuminate, but stained.
The demon watched as his shadow effectively completed the picture with acceptance. And in that act, without words, he also accepted his place in the parade, speaking to the gap still open to the void.
"I am the demon who stains the white night sky crimson red, I wander aimlessly through the hell I call home, I am a spirit going to the parade of demons.

I am the demon in mortuary clothes, I wander aimlessly through the hell I call home, I am a spirit going to the parade of demons

I have flown so much that even my wings seem heavier, although I know they shouldn't get tired.
But that's not the part that bothers me. What has me twisted is that the next domain simply... doesn't appear.
It's not that I'm lost... or so I want to believe. I'm following the line, I'm doing it right, the cracks, the patches of light that filter into this place. But every time I think I'm close, the void lengthens. As if it were playing with me. As if it were playing a joke on me... it's not funny.
By then, the soul scavenger had stopped trying to measure the time between one domain and another. Not because time did not exist, although he seriously doubted it, but because every time he tried to apply logic to it, the void seemed to mock him, changing the intensity of its darkness, the distance at which the silver lines marking the path could be seen, or even the gravity with which his wings moved.
He flew in a straight line, or so he thought.
'What if this isn't a place?' he said to himself, slowing his flight slightly, as if his words were an extra load making his invitation box heavier. 'What if all this is inside something? Inside someone? How big is the void?'
The idea bothered him. More than fear, it caused him conceptual itchiness. A discomfort. And he thought of his master, the raven-like demon. The one who created him, who shaped him and gave him a purpose. He was a being above him. That much was clear.
Then there were the demons of each domain. They had clear differences, they were all different, chaotic, sometimes extravagant, but always superior. Not necessarily in power, although most were, but in presence. They were something. They had form, past, style. History, even if none of them remembered it or tried in vain to do so.
'So, if they are above... who is below?' he wondered. Is there anyone below me? Others like me? Who is above them? Who decides that?
His words were thrown into the void, but only absolute silence answered him.
Are there beings below me? Surely, they are things that barely crawl in the darkness without even knowing why they exist.
'Is there anyone above the demons...?'
The scavenger paused for a moment, flying to the edge of a nearby domain and refueling on its margin, a domain that did not expect his arrival and had no reason to open up. It was not because he was tired; he could not feel that. It was because he needed to organize his thoughts.
What form would such a being take?
What would something above the raven-like demon look like? Above the demon that stains the sky crimson?
Would it have a form? Would it have a voice? Would it express itself with words?
THE MOON! --He screamed-- The one in that domain. The red one.
What if it wasn't just a moon?
What if he was one of them?
A chill ran down his spine as he remembered something even more disturbing.
'The demon... never asked me my name,' he murmured. 'I never mentioned it. But he called me "Soul Scavenger" as if he already knew.'
His 'title' didn't seem so strange when he first heard it. It even sounded logical, given his appearance. But now... how did he know that?
Was it a name? A title? A role?
Were there others like him?
His mind tried to answer one question quickly before the next one popped up and interrupted his train of thought.
Was it just a word those demons knew, like common tools of some secret language?
Had he been the first to be created, or simply the next in a forgotten line of small skeletal emissaries?
For the first time in his existence, he felt a sensation akin to loneliness. Not because he was alone, he had always been alone, without the company of others of his kind, but because he realized that he had never been someone. Just something with a purpose. At least until one domain ago.
'At least I learned something from the guy with the flowery wings,' he whispered, with the idea of a clumsy smile in his mind. 'He taught me to ask myself questions and that maybe... Yes, maybe I should demand answers to higher things.'
"I don't have a name. I never needed one. They never asked me. And yet he used that phrase as naturally as I fly through this place, if that name describes what emptiness is.
Finally, he took flight again, though without ceasing to work on questions and answers.
Did he hear that name somewhere? Does it sound like a category? A model?
"Perhaps he refused to participate in another parade and it just so happens that I share a name with the previous messenger. That would make sense.
Am I one of many? A mass-produced tool?
Did the raven-like demon create others like me?
Are there more scavengers?
Is there one for each parade?
Am I... replaceable?
It's a question I don't want to ask. But I'm even more uncomfortable with the answer.
-- Although one thing is clear to me... I was the one who experienced that conversation. The one who faced being seen by the moon as if it were a matter of life and death. The one who interpreted and understood the picture. The one who convinced the demon that stains the sky crimson. I won. And no one can take that away from me, not another scavenger, not another creator, not a giant, accusatory moon that I now doubt was a moon at all.
The scavenger took flight again with confidence, laughing in an unpleasant tone as if he had learned nothing at all, flying faster and even risking crossing the entrances to the domains from top to bottom instead of circling around them.
The void was endless.
There was no sign of the next domain. Only the silver thread that swung with the calm of an infinite pendulum, marking a course that seemed never to materialize. The darkness was so dense that his wings began to seem slow, heavier, as if space itself doubted his passage.
And yet, the scavenger was convinced that he was about to achieve something important.
After all, he had managed to convince thirty-two demons. Including the demon who stains the sky crimson. No less. One of the great ones, one of those who disarm you with a glance or bury you in reflections from which you can never escape. And there he had been, the little scavenger with broken wings, crashing into a mountain like an idiot... and emerging triumphant.
A brilliant idea stuck in his mind, warm as an absurd star:
What if all this was a test? A test for him?
The parade, the hundred invitations, the domains and their demons, their creator... everything. A great journey designed solely to prove his worth. To show that he, the scavenger, was not simply a tool with legs and an unpleasant voice.
"When I arrive with the hundred guests... everyone will look at me. The hundred. He licked his lips cheekily, turning in mid-flight as if he were already descending towards the center of the stage. They'll be there. Side by side. All the demons. The one from the talking mountains, the one from the frozen waters, the one from the eternal lamps... Yes, yes. They'll remember me. But they must understand that I can't remember all of them.
In his mind, everything was clear.
The demons would welcome him like a hero. They would greet him, one by one, with reverence. The demon who stains the sky crimson would look up at the moon. Then at him. And for the first time, he would smile.
And then the raven-like demon would appear. Majestic. Immense. And before everyone, he would solemnly declare:
'This is my greatest creation. The messenger of the hundred. The one who travelled beyond the void. The one who... deserves a place among us.'
At that moment, he imagined it vividly, he would cease to be what he is. His body would stretch, his bones would take on a humanoid form and be clothed in gold, his wings would be feathers of living ink, his voice a firm echo. A demon. One more among them. One of their own. 'The demon of the eternal parade,' they would call him. If not one with a real name, the silver thread guiding him to the next realm sparkled softly, ignoring his fantasies. But for him, it was not a simple magical guide. No, no. It was a heavenly red carpet, laid out exclusively for him, leading to the climax of his legend.
And then, the fantasy took shape in his mind, detail by detail:

An open sky under an impossible crimson-tinged aurora. A hundred demons gathered around a huge altar carved from black stones, metal and bone. Each one more grotesque, elegant or disturbing than the last... all looking in his direction. From where the scavenger descended from the air as the main attraction at that moment, his skeleton glowing with a golden light, his feathers stirring winds that shook the pillars of the parade. The demon who stained the sky crimson waited for him standing under the red moon, without saying a word... but with a slight nod of his head. Respect. Admiration. Recognition.
'He has arrived,' the demons whispered under their breath. 'The only messenger who has travelled the hundred domains. The one who gave us the best parade we have ever participated in.'
The scavenger could be seen flying above them all in slow circles, leaving a trail of ink that spelled out his name across the sky. He vaguely remembered the worm demon who offered him a ceremonial cup of pus. Or the demon in the mirror without a reflection who asked him if he felt empty. 'Fools! All of you! But you will remember me...'
And then... the climax. The raven-like demon advanced among those present, his dark cloak spread like stellar wings. Absolute silence. The demon raised a hand, pointing to the little raven and exclaiming.
'Today, we acknowledge the undeniable,' he declared solemnly. 'My best creation was not a domain. It was him. My messenger. My son.' The scavenger who achieved perfection.
The demons nodded, some even weeping and applauding. An orchestra of enchanted instruments began to play of its own accord. The red moon descended, its light touching the scavenger's forehead. 'Perhaps,' he thought, 'this was a test. Perhaps... when I succeed, I will become one of them.'
He remained floating in his delirium for a while longer, spreading his wings as if waiting for applause. But in reality, there was only silence and the silver thread, which continued to advance to the next domain.
'Although it would be nice if they at least put up a statue of me,' he finally said as he emerged from his fantasy, lowering his head slightly and resuming his steady flight.
The scavenger continued flying, though now in silence. The silver thread stretched towards an almost invisible point, floating in the distance where he could barely make out the reflection of the domain entrances. It had been a long time since their last encounter. How long exactly? Hours? Days? Centuries? In the void, time did not exist... or at least not the kind of time he could count with the feathers of his wings.
'How much longer?' he whispered as if someone could answer him.
A restlessness ran through him from tail to beak. That subtle, clinging restlessness that started in his throat. The void had always surrounded him, but now he felt... something else. As if something or someone were watching him from the other side. A silent presence, without eyes, Without a body. Invisible but definitely there. Almost as if it wasn't supposed to go that far.
'There's nothing,' he said aloud. 'There's no one here. It's emptiness. Emptiness has no eyes. It has no voice. Nothing can live here without me noticing. Right? This is just a place of passage...'

The thread rippled as if it were nodding. Or laughing. But when he focused his eyes again, the thread was as straight as ever. It was just his imagination, or at least that's what he liked to think.
And then he saw it.
A faint reflection, the characteristic reflection of the entrances to the domains, an opening at the end of the thread. It was not like the other domains: this entrance did not shine, did not move with signs of being inhabited by a demon, did not show any color. It was more like opaque glass, dark and narrow, almost as if it had never been meant to open. A crack that had given way to the passage of time, and now, for some reason, could be glimpsed.
'Tch, great,' grumbled the scavenger. "I bet this demon is a dramatic hermit. Who lives so far away from everything?
He picked up speed, trying to leave behind the discomfort that gnawed at his chest. He convinced himself that there was nothing there. No one. Just him, the thread, and the entrance to another world. But this time, he was prepared. He took a deep breath. He adjusted his wings. He positioned himself firmly on the thread and stretched out his claws to anticipate the momentum. He wasn't going to let the same thing happen to him as in the previous domain. Not again. He wouldn't crash again.
With one last look at the void, he launched himself.
It was like crashing into a wall even denser than the last one.
The impact did not come with fire or force, but with weight. A weight that crushed him as soon as he passed through the crack. His wings closed on their own, his body fell as if he were still an inert wooden idol. The box of invitations spun in the air and fell with a thud right next to him, separating from his legs.
He felt as if the domain was rejecting him, but that wasn't the case. Once he adjusted to the lighting, he realized he was already inside the domain. He tried to get up from the ground, barely managing to move his claws. What he saw was indescribable. The world before him was grey, all grey, as if every meter were made of the ashes of a thousand burnt papers, piled up, melted, swallowed by a motionless air that formed a smooth, grey, uniform surface. The ground was soft and dry, a mixture of dust and ruined fabric, and at the same time... dead. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. Not even his efforts were audible, as if even the air refused to exist there, as if no sound were allowed inside.
The sky, if it could be called that, was a ceiling of stationary, dull clouds, opaque and listless, as if it had been painted with disdain and forgotten.
He dragged himself with effort, his body shivering from a pressure that seemed ten times greater than that of any other realm. He felt as if something were pressing against the ground, as if his body had no right to be there and was being given indication after indication to leave.
He coughed. He shook himself. He managed to sit up.
'Well... this is new.'
He found himself sitting, holding the cold ashes between his wings and watching them fall back to the ground seconds later. Still getting used to the pressure of the domain, he tried to make out where he could find the domain he was supposed to invite, but all he could see were grey dunes and endless flat ground.
The weight was still there.
Not as crushing as when he entered, but constant, as if the domain itself could not decide whether it wanted to accept him or crush him for good. Flying was impossible. He barely managed to spread a wing before a cramp made him stagger again, and he did not even think of trying to take off.
'Walking it is, then,' he grumbled in annoyance.
Dragging its legs, the scavenger began to venture into the domain, leaving behind a trail of shallow footprints in the ash that were erased by the uniform line traced by the box as it dragged behind it. The landscape remained unchanged. Grey and dusty, flat and motionless. Everything his eyes could see seemed to be part of the same faded canvas. If there was a horizon, it was not clearly visible. If there was a center, it did not reveal itself proudly. This tired his eyes, made him lose his bearings and feel dizzy.
But eventually he began to notice something among the ashes. If he looked closely, they had shapes. Barely visible, but shapes nonetheless.
At first, he thought they were stains or wrinkles, but when he leaned in, he noticed repeated lines. A pattern. As if someone had carefully torn the surface. Clumsy, hand-drawn drawings with strokes that followed a rhythm, a cadence. But it was not a language. They were not words. And it was definitely not something he understood.
But that didn't stop him from feeling that what he was seeing was not just decoration. It was a message. Or perhaps a memory that the domain couldn't stop repeating. As if the notes had been trapped between the scorched earth and the dull sky. The silence was so deep that even his own footsteps sounded muffled, as if this world swallowed sounds before they could be born.
After a while, he spotted a small dune higher than the others. He climbed slowly, panting, feeling the weight increase with every meter, and sat down on his box with a sigh that tore part of his soul away.
From there, he looked again.
Nothing.
Just ashes stretching out like a dead desert.
'Well... maybe...' he said, in a theatrical tone. "If the devil is watching me from some shadow, I hope he at least takes pity on my plight. What devil wouldn't be moved by a small, elegant figure trapped in the despair of waiting? Or maybe... Are you there? he said, slowly digging with his paws in the ground as if he wanted to find out if the devil was buried under so much ash.
He settled down dramatically in his box after digging a little and finding nothing, as if posing for a non-existent painting. He remained like that, still, his eyes open but lost, as if waiting for the landscape to change of its own accord.
And then, without realizing it, he repeated the gesture.
He got up, walked a little further. He climbed another dune. He sat down again.
Again, and again. It was the only thing he could do, after all.
In the distance, amid the ashes and the horizon broken by the only splash of color in the entire domain, she saw a figure kneeling in front of a grave. Wrapped in a funeral veil, so pale it seemed to dissolve into the air, her body was slender, almost ethereal, as if it had been created from the same dust that covered the domain. Her dark hair fell on either side of an expressionless face.
It was the demon he was looking for, the demon in funeral attire. And this time, a female one. The invitations made no distinction. They never said whether the demon was male, female, or neither. But now he knew. It was her. She was hugging a grave. And with her delicate fingers, she traced the eroded stone in search of a name, a notch that would identify who was buried next to the master of the domain.
She wasn't crying, but there was something more poignant than tears: the deep silence that seemed to envelop her. A silence that did not come from the surroundings... but from her. She was the one who controlled whether sound could make an appearance, or at least that's how it felt.
The scavenger approached cautiously. Still unable to fly. With each step, the ashes sank beneath his weight and the pressure forced him to move slowly, without making a sound.
When he got within a few meters, he noticed that the demon was surrounded by a circle of stones, a perfectly drawn perimeter completed by the trunk of a tree that blossomed as the only source of color. A tree with cerulean blue leaves. In that grey and barren corner, it was the only thing that refused to forget what color once was.
The flowering branches fell over the two graves. One remained empty and the other was sealed, covered with flowers and crowned with a headstone that hid its name under the erosion of the stone. Behind it, the demon was there, sitting hugging the stone, with one hand on the gravestone, as if trying to remember something, to reconstruct the name that once lay or should have lain engraved on the rock.
The demon raised her gaze heavily, observing the scavenger as an unexpected but not entirely unwelcome guest. It was then that the scavenger opened his mouth to give his speech about the invitation, but nothing came out. For a moment, he thought he had run out of saliva, even though that made no sense, and he tried again... but again, nothing happened.
He was used to loud, theatrical, tragic, or sarcastic demons. But this was different. This was a silent duel he didn't know how to face.
And it was she who spoke first.
'You shouldn't be here.' Her voice was soft and broken, like the echo of a note from an instrument that continues to stretch long after anyone would expect. Each word cut through the absolute silence and reached the heart of the scavenger. Her voice captivated him.
'This place was not made for anyone else.'
'Are you...?' he hesitated. 'The... resident of this domain. I mean... the demon. The demon.'
She didn't answer right away. She just looked up for a moment and then looked back down at the gravestone. Her eyes were grey, dull, without anger or fear, but with a sadness that seemed too big for her body to hold.
'I have an invitation... it's for you. For this season's parade.'
She looked away towards the flowers covering part of the circle. She picked one up and caressed it carefully.
'The parade...' she murmured. 'Do they still do that?'
'Yes. And you're invited... Leave... let me... here.' The scavenger took the invitation intended for the demon between his two wings and dropped it onto a bed of flowers. 'Official invitation to this year's parade, special edition, one hundred demons, an unforgettable night, applause optional and tears guaranteed. Signed, sealed. But... may I ask you something?' he said after a brief silence.
The demon's grey eyes rose slowly, without surprise, indicating that this gesture would be her answer.
'Have you been to the parade before?'
'Yes,' she whispered.
'So... have you accepted an invitation before?'
'I accepted it without understanding it. Like many. But I went. And I walked.'
'But that doesn't make sense,' Quique murmured, somewhere between curious and confused. 'Until now, all the demons I visited seemed to be receiving the invitation for the first time... Why am I giving you an invitation for the second time?'
'Perhaps... because most of the ones you met are young demons,' he whispered. 'Young as demons, I mean. Not by age, but by the way they were assigned and isolated here. Not all of them have lived enough cycles to remember a parade. But I... did.'
The scavenger watched the movements of his mouth closely. There was something about the way he spoke, something in his voice so soft that, at times, it seemed to envelop him. He had to force himself not to get carried away and listen without understanding. It was like listening to a subliminal song, slipping silently beneath his feathers.
'I have questions,' he said, somewhat more firmly than before.
'What happens when the parade takes place? What do the demons do? Why are only some invited? How many went with you? And what is it really for?'
The uncertainty in his voice was much more noticeable, almost tremulous.
'You see... they told me I had to deliver a hundred invitations. But no one explained to me what happens next.' I didn't have time to ask my creator, mainly because I didn't feel it was necessary, but after meeting my previous guest, I now feel I must ask that question. I don't know if the parade is a punishment, a celebration, or something worse. I don't know what they expect from me, or from you. I just walk and deliver... without knowing. But that was before. Now I want to know.
Silence once again took hold of the domain; the demon did not allow anyone to be present while she prepared her response. Not even the sound of blue leaves falling broke the silence. And when the demon responded, her voice was so low that the scavenger almost had to hold his breath to hear her once the sound returned.
'We marched,' she said emotionlessly.
'There were far fewer than the hundred you must gather. I don't remember the exact number. But we didn't fill the ranks. And each of us had a role to play. A part to follow. A place to occupy. No one spoke, but we all knew what we were doing. As if we had rehearsed it many times before.'
'Did you march?'
'Yes.'
'And... where to?'
The demon looked up at the ashen sky of her domain, as if seeing it would trigger her memories.
'We crossed a bridge over a dark river. The sky was black, with hints of violet. Not like this one,' she clarified, barely a whisper. "There were demons parading over rooftops and towers. No one was looking out of the windows. But we felt that we were being watched. By something... distant. As if invisible creatures were in our way, having their own parade on another plane of existence.
'Was there someone leading the parade?' he asked as he settled down to listen carefully.
The demon nodded slowly.
'Yes. There was a demon leading the march. A raven-like demon.'
The demon did not turn to look at him. She neither confirmed nor denied his identity. She simply left the words there, as if they were feathers falling to the ground.
'Was it... my creator?' He screamed, although it only sounded like any other whisper. The emotion in that question seemed forbidden within the domain and was reduced to the same level of importance as anything else they might talk about.
'I don't know.'
'But did you see their face?'
'I saw it. And I forgot it.' Looking briefly at the covered gravestone.
'The parade was... something I understood with my body, but not with my mind. I remember it like you remember a dream. There are sensations. There are random images. But I can't tell you what it means.'
'So... you don't know what it's for?'
'Maybe for someone to see it. Maybe to remember that we were more than just a prison. Maybe we just marched to show that we can still move. Or maybe... we just marched because we have nothing better to do.'

The demon slowly turned her face. Her eyes crossed over the envelope containing the invitation without any emotion, and then turned back to him. Slowly returning the paper to him with a single finger.
'That... That's yours,' she said, in a softer tone than usual. 'It's your ticket to the parade. They want you back, isn't that great!?'
'And for what?'
'What do you mean, "why"?' he blurted out, a little more irritated than he would have liked.
"To go back! To leave again! To remember, or... or maybe to really understand it this time. To spend some time away from the loneliness of the domain with others like you.
"What if I don't remember this time either?
'Then it will be a new experience!' insisted the scavenger. 'Something new, different... even better.'
'I already went once. And if I don't remember... it's as if I never went. What difference does it make if I do it again?' The demon turned completely, standing up and lying back down in her grave to look up at the blue flowers on the tree.
The scavenger understood that he had to do something, and muttered to himself.
"There's always something that helps me give them the invitation. With the previous demon, it was the moon. The painting. What obsessed him. And now what? What do I have?
He looked around but found nothing new. Tree. Ash. Graves.
He sighed. He clenched his teeth. He walked in circles.
'Come on, come on... I have to think. There has to be something. Something has to unite us, something that... that matters to you, even if you don't know it,' he said as he looked at each blue flower slowly falling from the tree as if they were going to reveal a hidden clue.
The demon did not stop him. She just followed him, lying in her grave, staring at the blue flowers, allowing the scavenger's voice to pass through her domain like a faint breeze.
'The tomb?' murmured the scavenger, stopping to try to climb it, failing, and deciding instead to settle in front of the eroded stone. 'Is this the reason? Is this what's stopping you from going back?'
He turned his gaze back to the gravestones. Two tombs facing each other, two absences that wove the center of the domain. One was open. The place where she slept. The other... closed, abandoned for centuries. A tomb with an erased name.
And it was then that the scavenger forced himself to walk. 'Why are there two tombs?' he asked himself in a firmer voice. 'Who is buried there? Is there even a body?'
He approached the stone a little closer and ran a wing over the surface. It was completely worn away. It was as if time had forcibly torn the name away. Or as if the stone itself was refusing to reveal what had once been written there.
He looked around. Everything was grey and silent. Except for the tree.

The tree grew outside the circle of stones that enclosed the two graves, calmly breaking the monotony of the domain. Its leaves, a cerulean blue that seemed out of place, swayed slightly, as if their color were the clue to a secret that still dared not be spoken.
'Why are you blue?' she whispered to the tree, expecting no answer. 'What does it represent? Did he just like blue and grey?'
The scavenger stretched its legs one last time before moving towards the trunk, brushing against it cautiously. He felt neither heat nor cold. Only a slight sensation of roughness and fragility typical of an ancient object, as if that tree had been there long before the demon. Or as if it had been brought from another realm.
'Is this all you have left?' he said, louder, with clear intent. 'A tree and a nameless grave?'
And then he waited for a reaction.
Nothing.
He sighed. There wasn't much left to analyze. He had already examined the gravestones, the tree, the silence; even the air seemed dead. Then he looked down and the gems in his eyes shone brightly. He had found something! He remembered that the floor was covered with burnt papers, but they had drawings on them.
Small shapes, barely visible, were drawn under his feet. The ash was not just dust. They were leaves. Burnt leaves. Entire pages that served as the floor of the domain had become almost indistinguishable from it. But some edges still showed crooked lines, black spots, and strokes he did not understand.
He lowered his head. And swept some ash with the tip of his beak. A figure was revealed, like a timid shadow. He did not understand what he was seeing, but something in the structure made them seem like a repetition. Perhaps these symbols would be familiar to the demon, he thought, and began to kick them towards the open grave where the demon lay once again.
'What is this?' she asked then. When the ashes covered her hands, she still did not move at all.
'These drawings on the ground? What do they mean?'
The demon did not respond. She blinked once, as if she were hearing him from far away despite being less than a meter away.
'I don't understand what this is,' repeated the scavenger, approaching the edge of the grave. 'But something tells me it's important. I don't know if they're words, or images, or a language I don't know.'
'It's a song,' said the demon, glancing briefly at the pieces of paper.
She sat up slowly, as if her body were gliding through the air rather than moving. She rested a hand on the ashes. Her long fingers parted slightly, leaving space for the fragments of paper.
'I don't know...' she said, her voice so faint that the wind almost carried it away. "I'm not saying I don't know what they are, clearly I do. They are fragments of a song, the remains of what is known as a "score", a manuscript that represents and indicates how a musical composition should be interpreted using its own language of musical symbols. But I don't remember which song it is.
The demon spread his fingers again, letting the scraps of paper fall once more before returning to their previous position and observing the blue flowers on the tree above her grave.
'Then I'll help you,' he said with determination. 'If you can't remember on your own, we'll do it together. Step by step.'
He stepped aside and began to walk slowly in circles within the perimeter of the stones that marked the ground. He looked at the ground intently. Every so often he would stop, point to something that seemed significant to him, and show it to her.
'This looks like... a symbol or... I'm not entirely sure,' he said. 'This repeats itself. It has a pattern; do you notice it?'
The demon listened without interrupting him. But there was not enough reason to get up from her grave. There was something in her silence that was no longer rejection. It was expectation.
'I know I'm not the best reader in the world,' said the scavenger, chuckling softly. 'But I can't just turn my back on you and say, "Well, someone else will take your place in the parade and you'll have time to remember." I've learned that not everything is that simple.'
He picked up a fragment that seemed slightly more complete. It was still burnt, but the drawing was intact. He held it carefully so it wouldn't fall apart.
'This does look like a score,' he said, smiling. 'I can't read it, but I can see it. And that's something. It looks a lot like what you described to me!'
For the first time since the scavenger's arrival, the demon let out a breath that was not a sigh. It was a gesture of relief, and she slowly got up, leaving her grave behind for a moment to check out the scavenger's find.
Then the scavenger turned his attention to the tree. His next step was to understand it. But without being able to fly, the tree seemed out of reach, just standing there, unchanging. Its cerulean blue leaves trembled without wind. Now, without the demon lying in her grave, the place felt even emptier, even though she was looking at the musical score. The scavenger approached slowly, watching as the demon sat on the floor, with the same calmness with which she had spoken. He fixed his gaze on the tree. He tried to make sense of it, to find some logic in it. What exactly was it? A symbol? A flower from the afterlife? A memory of something beautiful? Nothing fit.
'Why blue?' he murmured again, mulling over the same question he had asked before. 'What is it doing right on top of one of the two graves? Does it serve a purpose, or is it just for decoration? It's the only thing that feels... different.'
He moved closer. He touched the trunk, as he had done before. Nothing changed.
He walked in circles, over and over, until his steps brought him back to the empty grave and he fell into it, distracted by the flowers.
'Aaaagh! Again... on the floor?' he muttered under his breath, rubbing himself with his wing and trying to get up, but when he looked around, he found no easy way to climb back up, so he tried to jump. But then something crunched under his feet. It wasn't ashes. It felt more solid, and when he looked down, he saw an almost complete piece of paper.
He stopped and examined it carefully. The sheet was protected by a natural curve in the grave, resting just as his teacher had, and he realized what it was: a thick, yellowed sheet with slightly curled edges. A complete musical score.
It wasn't burnt. Nor was it torn. Nor was it covered in ash. Only darkened at the top and bottom with black ink stains.
He picked it up delicately with his beak, barely shaking off the dirt. The lines were elegant, careful. He didn't understand what it said, but he could see the notes. The curves that he understood to be the language of the score. The precision. That sheet was not just another piece of paper on the ground. It was special.
'What... is this?' he asked, in a low voice, as if raising his voice might ruin it and turn it to ashes like all the others.
He stepped inside the tomb, holding the score with both wings. For a moment, he felt annoyed. Not because it was hidden, but because it had been there all along. Just inches from the demon's body. All he had to do was look where she lay.
'Was it here...?' he said, looking at the demon with a frown. 'All this time it was...?! Under your back!!'
She turned her face slightly towards him, with the same inexplicable calm as always.
'I never looked,' she replied, without a hint of guilt.
'What do you mean, you never looked?'
'I always fall backwards,' he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, an obvious statement that didn't even need a serious answer. 'If it works, why change it?'
The scavenger blinked. He opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it. The urge to shout at him dissolved into disbelief.
'But...! But it's a complete score! It's whole! And it was right there! Don't you even look where you're lying down?'
'No.'
'This doesn't make sense,' he snorted, rubbing his forehead with his wing. 'It can't be that easy. It can't be that you had it all along and just... didn't turn around.'
She shrugged. She didn't answer right away. She just watched him from outside the tomb, her hands hanging at her sides. Then, with the same calmness with which everything seemed to move in her domain, she reached out a hand to him so he could climb up and escape the tomb with the fragment of his memory between his paws.
'Now you just have to remember,' she said, more pleading than demanding. 'Something. Anything. This paper... this music must mean something to be right where you spend so much time. It's clearly yours, but... did you make it for someone? Or... did someone give it to you?'
The demon nodded slightly once she had the score in her hands, her dull eyes searching for details in the ink from top to bottom, even humming the notes she understood perfectly, unlike the scavenger.
'There's no name,' she murmured. 'The corner is smudged. I can't read it. It's impossible to know if it was addressed to someone or who composed it.' I don't know if I wrote it,' she whispered. 'Or if I was supposed to sing it. But my voice doesn't seem to be right for it; I can barely whisper.
'Do you know what it says?'
'No.'
'Do you recognize it?'
'No.'
'Is it written in your handwriting?' he said, his voice softer. 'It was with you. That has to mean something.'
'I don't know.'
The scavenger then approached the closed tomb, the one facing the demons. And he pointed his wings towards where the name should be.
'Now just... Can you try to remember who is here?'
She followed him with her gaze. Her body still did not move, but it was not necessary. She looked around just as the scavenger had done until moments before.
'I only see the tree. The flowers. The stone devoid of any text, but not of the marks that could form one.' He paused, long, as if the words were physically difficult for him, even lower than before. 'But every time I touch it... I feel that something is missing. As if someone should be there, but isn't.'
'Someone important? Maybe... Maybe someone who wanted you to sing! Someone who wanted to hear that song!'
The scavenger, determined, bowed his head over the score. He ran his wings and beak carefully over the lines, as if he could read and understand them, hoping that the language would magically appear in his mind. He moved his mouth silently, following the lines and staining the air with each attempt to interpret the melody without knowing how to do so at all.
The demon, who until then had merely observed without much interest, frowned slightly. It was a subtle gesture, but it stood out on her face.
'That's not right...' she whispered, and for the first time her voice sounded more sharp than ethereal.
The scavenger looked up, surprised by the tone. Before he could say anything, she leaned forward, snatching the score from him with a quick movement. It wasn't a violent gesture per se, but there was something sharper than anger in it: a protective instinct, a slight tinge of jealousy, as if she couldn't bear to see him fail at something that might be hers. At her art.
'That's not right,' she repeated, but this time she wasn't looking at him, but at the paper. 'Listen.'
She slowly straightened up, closed her eyes, and in a whisper began to sing the first words. The sound, faint and tremulous, seemed to struggle to be born, as if it had to break through centuries of silence. And yet, in that whisper there was something so precise that the scavenger knew she was right.
'This is mine,' she said, still without raising her voice, but with a clarity that defied what had been her tone of voice just moments before. And she held the score proudly in the air.
He knelt on the blue flowers in front of the still-closed tomb, tore a piece from his funeral garments, and stretched it out delicately. He closed his eyes. And then he began to trace after taking one last quick look at the score.
'Give me ink.'
The demon knew she had no ink with her. She had no pen. But as her determination grew, the scavenger accompanied her, beginning to take quick steps, spreading his wings so that the ink would fall from his wings onto the floor. That same ink that had accompanied him since his creation began to take shape. The demon dipped a finger into a puddle of it and it stuck to her finger. With incredible precision, without looking at the original score again, she began to redraw it from memory. The notes emerged like branches, the staves like roots, the silences like faded flowers. She did not hesitate.
The scavenger watched her silently. He didn't dare speak. He didn't want to break the moment.
The demon finished drawing the last line. Her fingers glided effortlessly across the paper, with unparalleled naturalness, perfectly copying the entire score, without a single mistake or misplaced note. In front of her, the new score was complete. Identical to the original. She placed them side by side, the original and the reconstructed one. She looked at them side by side. In silence. And the scavenger saw it too. They were identical, he confirmed.
'How... did you do it?' he murmured. 'You hadn't even seen this part...'
She didn't answer. She didn't need to.
He knew it. She had written it.
That was when the domain changed. The wind began to blow again, lifting piles and piles of burnt paper, creating a melody as the air passed over the notes captured on the pieces of paper, bringing with it a complete song. The tree shook, dropping a blue flower with the sudden gust of wind. The air swirled everything into pale spirals. The leaves on the ground rustled softly. Everything sounded again.
'It was mine,' she said, in a new voice. No more whispers or a dead echo devoid of strength. A clear, full voice. 'I sang in the parade. My voice opened it. And closed it.' She paused. 'It was my song that gave it shape.' Without it, the parade could not begin or end.
'That's why you were invited,' whispered the scavenger. 'You were the one who sang.'
The demon looked up at the tree. Then she looked up at the sky and closed her eyes, feeling the wind moving her clothes. The grey clouds seemed higher. The air was no longer so heavy and flowed naturally.
'Would you do it again?' asked the scavenger, cautiously extending the invitation from inside the box once more.
She said nothing. She simply reached out and took it.
That gesture alone was enough to let him know that she accepted, that she would be there to fulfil her role in the parade for a second time.
The domain opened slightly. The void outside began to show in the distance. A crack appeared at the edge of the world behind the tree she was now heading towards. She left the score leaning against the trunk, among blue flowers at eye level.
'I can't promise I'll sing well,' she finally said, in a tone that could pass for irony, but was pure honesty. But... I'll be there.
The scavenger nodded, somewhat stunned. By the voice. By the change. By the certainty that his presence had served a purpose and that he was closer, one step closer to witnessing the parade, to hearing the demon's songs and knowing what it was all about.
'Then, see you at the parade. We'll meet there!'
Quique picked up his box and began to walk towards the edge. The pressure of the domain had not gone away. It was still there, but he was able to drop into the gap that connected the domain to the void before it closed. And the demon exclaimed one last time.
'In this barren land, I am a spirit in funeral clothes, wandering aimlessly through the hell I call home. I am a spirit going to the parade of demons.'