Soul Catcher ll
I watched him every day, at least I thought it was everyday.. there was no sense of time in this jar.
It was irritating that I had all my mental faculties. Why couldn't I have just been air. Inside the jar, colors swirled and mixed around me. I floated... the sensation would have been quite exhilerating but, that I was a prisoner.
I thought about grandma every day.. how she had tried to keep me on the straight and narrow.
There was nothing to do. Would have been nice to feel hungry, thirsty, itch, hurt, something! Instead there was nothing.. just emptiness.
Today felt different, oh not for me but for him, he paced, he touched jars, he walked towards mine and I tried to scream at him. But, I didn't have a mouth, or even lungs, there was no breath for me. He lingered there in front of me and I stared at him. So perfect, bastard, picking my jar up he shook it, as if he thought it would make a sound.
For me it was a furiously swirling mixture of color. The reds and greens bumped and mixed, yellow, pink purple, blue crystal clear, and another color I hadn't noticed before.. black. It didn't swirl, it didn't mix, it was stationary. It occupied a little space way down in a corner. I could only see the top of it, it was dense and something about it made me know that it was dangerous. Well it was just a small thing way down in the bottom, I was alright..
He placed my jar back on the shelf and sat in the chair at the desk. His face looked rigid, he appeared to be in pain, tortured.. but then wasn't that what he deserved? He stood and came back to my jar, picked it up and shook it again, this time so hard it caused a vortices, and the black space grew larger.
I paniced and I think I opened my mouth to scream..no sound. He placed my jar on the shelf, letting his fingers linger on the sides, just a little longer than necessary.
The violent twisters settled back down to the normal swirl and mix. I hated the idea that I could think, but nothing else. That wasn't exactly true.. I was in pain, not physical, but pain all the same.
This action went on for days, I think.. it was often, he would pick up my jar and shake it, and the black monster grew. I wondered if he could see it..
The blackness was half way up the bottle, that was my guesstimation, with no sense of time and space, I had to guess and right now, I didn't have to guess and wonder was my space getting smaller. He knew it too. I could tell by the way he held my jar, by the way his eyes stared at me, (like they could see).
Panic was something tangible, I could feel it, I could see it, and I reacted to it.. In my thoughts, I screamed, I screamed, I screamed..
The jar shattered on the floor... the weight that once surrounded me let me go suddenly. I floated free. He fell back in the chair, and I circled him. He reached up and touched me. But I was air, I was mist, I was nothing, yet, he touched me. So, now I was free, but what did that mean, I didn't know, there was still no substance to me. What purpose did I have?
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Something creeping, sliding, moving ever so slowly. It was the black monster, it had been released too. I flew over the top of it, and it raised dense points of darness up, towards me.. I recoiled in horror. The thing was growing. I floated to the other side of the room and it turned towards me. It slithered and moved towards me there. I headed for the window and he shouted at me. "If you do that, you will dissolve!" I stopped. Without a mouth without lungs, without breath... I thought it, just like my scream, I thought it and he heard it.. "what is that, why is it after me?" His eyes looked pained but, he answered me with resignation in his voice, but he had resigned himself to what?
"It.. is the Destroyer." I stared at him. I didn't quite understand, the Destroyer? Why would a destroyer have been in my jar? "Well, what does it want!!" I knew the answer, I think I had known it all along, the question should actually be.. WHY! "It wants your soul."
It wanted my soul, I hadn't suffered enough, it wanted my soul. I looked at him and then at the Destroyer, it had slithered half way up the wall. I moved to the other side of the room and it spread itself along the floor. He remained seated in the chair, placing his feet up on the desk. I was sure that he could sense my impatience, he began to speak.
"I am the Soul Catcher, I catch those that have gone astray or that have used their powers for their own selfish gain. I have strict rules, just as you did and I didn't follow them, in your case." He laughed nervously. I couldn't find anything amusing.. I needed clarification. "AND?" "And now, he is here to collect.. your,, soul."
Collect my soul? but my soul had been collected, I had been turned into nothingness, I had no soul?
The thing was rising, slowly, like a yeast dough. "You see when I caught you, I was supposed to seperate you from your soul, instead, I left you whole, just taking away your body, that is why you have been able to see me, and complain so loudly." He laughed again.. He heard me, "yes I heard you." I stared at him, I should hate him instead, everything I felt before plus something more came to me. Now what.. the thing was now spread across the floor... He stood, and I watched the thing edge towards him.. "Someone has to go, it can't go back without a soul.."
It only took a moment to catch on to what he meant.. but I couldn't let him, I wouldn't let him.. the thing edged closer. He smiled at me, blew me a kiss... "I am tired, I have caught souls now for over a hundred years, I can go, there is a body in the other room, you can use that one, she favors you." He stood still for a minute then jumped into the middle of the black monster.
The floor turned to quick moving sludge, it crawled up his legs. I watched him close his eyes and stretch out his arms.. the veins stood out, the pulsing in his neck increased, through it all he never made a sound.
I was transfixed, though I didn't want to watch his destruction, still I couldn't turn away... his eyes opened just before the thing swallowed him and disappeared.
Out of all of it.. I would remember his eyes, blank, empty.. I promised then, my powers would be used for the good of my fellow man, I promised him. And for
one brief second, there was recognition, satisfaction and peace.....
