Neirai the Forgiven
Christian Guilds List Manager
This story is one that just popped in my head. It's very dark at first, and the first chapter (this one) is quite depressing. The story was inspired by many an anime, as well as music by Project 86 (esp. from the Drawing Black Lines album, Linkin Park (esp. "Forgotten," "By Myself," and "What I've Done," Kevin Max ("Secret Circle" and "Dead End Moon," particularly,) and Van Halen ("When It's Love.") As I said, it may be disturbing for some, especially this first chapter.
"No Eyes"
In a little room between the places where all souls go there lived a little girl with black hair and no eyes. That is not to say that she has no physical eyes. It is to say that her eyes do not look out and they do not look in. It’s not to say that she is blind, either, for the blind see in ways that we do not, but she sees in the ways that we do. It means that her eyes do not light the way into her self because they have forgotten where that is.
The little room is empty, save for the little girl and the wailing of the wind as it leaves our world and goes to the next one, or to the other. And outside the room is neither this world or any other, but one of its own. It is in this world that the little girl once lost her way, on her way from her home to our world. And it is in the world with the little room in it that the little girl found herself unable to return to her home for the shame of being lost in that world, and for becoming too much like it.
But that is a story for a different time. For now, she sits on the floor in the little room, watching the walls and waiting, wondering if she will ever find a way back out of that world.
She’s had plans of returning, in fact it would not be hard. Just a few miles up a hill of black thorns and a few more through a river of black mud. Black clinging mud that is more like tar than mud when you think about it, and that is the problem. For it is impossible to get to the door to leave that world without being coated in the very blackness of that world. So she sits on the floor in the little room and stares at the walls.
Sometimes she gets tired of sitting, so she grabs her two scythes – short-handled, bone-handled blades with wicked sharp ends that stretch out in front of her as she grasps them – and practices fighting her way through the black undergrowths and jungles that are forever trying to cloud the way to her home. This only makes her tired, for as long as she practices and as good as she gets at fighting the blackness, it only means that she will get more of the black stuff that this world is made of all over her. And that means that she will never be able to get home.
She looks clean, free of the black stuff, while she sits down, but anyone else would be able to tell you that she is actually covered in the black stuff, it has just dried and so it doesn’t look as bad. But the scrapes and scratches that the blackness brings are all over her body, her wrists, her arms and legs, and her face. And she really knows this, but she tries very hard to forget it, living in that place. If she remembers, then she spends her time in a dark cloud, simply sitting and staring at the wall.
Which is what she’s doing now.
Outside of her little room is the ruins of a mighty world. It is a world all in black, now. But underneath the giant clouds of black dust that make up the weather are broken buildings fallen on their sides, bleeding out myriads of black, broken glass over shattered concrete. And all of this is black. It once had a sun and a moon, but the sun has gone out long ago, and so with it the moon had become a great black shape in the sky, barely discernable. The stars were still up there with it, but with the dark clouds of black dust that the wind blew as it whistled through that world and into the next, and the other, they could not be seen.
The only wildlife on that world had been that of carrion-eaters, but with no life to die and no death to support them, they themselves soon followed, only to be eaten by their brethren, who also soon perished. So the wildlife was gone.
The only thing that moved on this land were the undead. And they moved slowly, purposeless. It is said that the undead desire only to take their revenge on the living. But nothing in that world was alive. So the undead simply lived in peace with nature, waiting, wondering if anyone would come to save them. And this is how it has been in that place for many a day, and many a year, since everyone has forgotten it. And this is what it is like when life forgets you and you forget life. Time had no meaning for the undead, and for the wind, and for the moon, and for the little girl in the little room in the world between the places where all souls go.
It is very hard to tell time in a place that time has forgotten. With no sun to see by and to see the moon by, and no life and no death, no birthing and no dying, time, if you tried to tell it, would still not answer. Days mean nothing in that blackened world of blackness. So it is only proper to say that eventually the little girl went back to her custom of trying to leave that world. This time, like all the others, she had a plan. But this time, the plan involved the undead.
It is said, as you know, that the undead feel only hatred and bitterness toward the living. But that is not true of the little girl with no eyes. Instead, the undead that she met only seemed to view her with varying degrees of pity and sadness. They seemed to understand exactly what it is she was, and that moved something deep within their soulless frames.
Just the other week she had come over a great, rounded hill to see three of the undead at the bottom. They were slowly digging in the earth, in their meaningless way. The undead seemed to be young for undead, their bodies mainly intact, and perhaps with some trace memories in their heads. As she approached them, they looked up at her stupidly, as was their custom. And then something unexpected happened: as they looked at her, they began to cry. Tears came from their eyes, and their bodies wracked with silent sobs. They sat in the dirt, their fingers slowly working in meaningless exertion, as the tears worked their way down the crevices in their wrinkled, rotten faces. The little girl did not know why this was happening, but it seemed that this was not meaningless, like the other things that the undead did. And somehow she knew that these undead would do whatever it took to help her leave this place. This is why she hatched her new plan.
She spent some time hacking and cutting with her scythes at the sharp black trees that grew in that world, and even though with each cut the thick, black sap sprayed into the air and all over her, she did not seem to notice. She took the wood from the trees and crafted a long box with a lid on top of it. The box was big enough for her to lie down in and close the lid. This would keep her safe from the troubles of that world.
Dragging the box, the little girl walked over the hill to where the undead were. They were the same undead, but now they had stopped digging and were huddled together, slowly moving rocks between them in a sort of meaningless game, the object of which had been forgotten over the course of time, just as time had forgotten them. As she arrived dragging her box, the undead ceased their motions and turned their heads to look at her. A strange feeling of sadness seemed to exude from them.
“Will you help me?” she called to them. They did not answer her, and for a long time she stood looking at them. Then they slowly exhumed themselves from the dirt and walked towards her.
“I’m going to get in this box,” she said. “Will you carry it up over the hill of thorns and through the river and up to the stairs where the big gate is?” The undead said nothing, but they walked over to the box and gripped it with their ageless, dirty hands. Slowly, the little girl lowered herself into the box and closed the lid over herself. Then she closed her eyes, as the box was lifted into the air and began its slow journey towards the next world.
The journey itself was uneventful, but it was not very comfortable. The undead paid no heed to her comfort, as they had none themselves. On occasion, they would forget what it was they were doing, and the little girl would have to peek her head out of the box and remind them. But for the most part they did their duty and that was a good thing, for it meant that the little girl had found a way to get herself over the hill and across the river without getting the blackness all over herself. And this would mean that she could finally get to the gate, knock on it, and go home.
When at last the undead placed the box on the ground on the far side of the river, the little girl felt the first happiness since whenever it was that she got to that world. She opened the lid and stepped out of the box, leaving it on the bank of the black river and began to walk towards the gate, which she could see off in the distance, at the top of some stairs cut into the side of the mountains. The undead came with her, but of course that was meaningless.
As she walked up the stairs that rose from the black plain up to the clean, white gate, the little girl noticed that something was wrong. A large black cloud hung in the air above her, mirroring the black plain that she had left behind. As she climbed up the steps, the cloud opened up and out came the rain, all over the plain and the stairs and the little girl.
Black rain.
The rain poured down on the little girl and once again she was covered in the blackness that also covered that world. With an inarticulate wail she sat on the stairs and wept. Or at least she would have wept if the tears from inside her had been able to find the way to her eyes, but they could not. So she sat beneath the gate and quivered and quaked for some time. The undead with her stood and watched her, tears running down their faces, but of course that was also meaningless.
"No Eyes"
In a little room between the places where all souls go there lived a little girl with black hair and no eyes. That is not to say that she has no physical eyes. It is to say that her eyes do not look out and they do not look in. It’s not to say that she is blind, either, for the blind see in ways that we do not, but she sees in the ways that we do. It means that her eyes do not light the way into her self because they have forgotten where that is.
The little room is empty, save for the little girl and the wailing of the wind as it leaves our world and goes to the next one, or to the other. And outside the room is neither this world or any other, but one of its own. It is in this world that the little girl once lost her way, on her way from her home to our world. And it is in the world with the little room in it that the little girl found herself unable to return to her home for the shame of being lost in that world, and for becoming too much like it.
But that is a story for a different time. For now, she sits on the floor in the little room, watching the walls and waiting, wondering if she will ever find a way back out of that world.
She’s had plans of returning, in fact it would not be hard. Just a few miles up a hill of black thorns and a few more through a river of black mud. Black clinging mud that is more like tar than mud when you think about it, and that is the problem. For it is impossible to get to the door to leave that world without being coated in the very blackness of that world. So she sits on the floor in the little room and stares at the walls.
Sometimes she gets tired of sitting, so she grabs her two scythes – short-handled, bone-handled blades with wicked sharp ends that stretch out in front of her as she grasps them – and practices fighting her way through the black undergrowths and jungles that are forever trying to cloud the way to her home. This only makes her tired, for as long as she practices and as good as she gets at fighting the blackness, it only means that she will get more of the black stuff that this world is made of all over her. And that means that she will never be able to get home.
She looks clean, free of the black stuff, while she sits down, but anyone else would be able to tell you that she is actually covered in the black stuff, it has just dried and so it doesn’t look as bad. But the scrapes and scratches that the blackness brings are all over her body, her wrists, her arms and legs, and her face. And she really knows this, but she tries very hard to forget it, living in that place. If she remembers, then she spends her time in a dark cloud, simply sitting and staring at the wall.
Which is what she’s doing now.
Outside of her little room is the ruins of a mighty world. It is a world all in black, now. But underneath the giant clouds of black dust that make up the weather are broken buildings fallen on their sides, bleeding out myriads of black, broken glass over shattered concrete. And all of this is black. It once had a sun and a moon, but the sun has gone out long ago, and so with it the moon had become a great black shape in the sky, barely discernable. The stars were still up there with it, but with the dark clouds of black dust that the wind blew as it whistled through that world and into the next, and the other, they could not be seen.
The only wildlife on that world had been that of carrion-eaters, but with no life to die and no death to support them, they themselves soon followed, only to be eaten by their brethren, who also soon perished. So the wildlife was gone.
The only thing that moved on this land were the undead. And they moved slowly, purposeless. It is said that the undead desire only to take their revenge on the living. But nothing in that world was alive. So the undead simply lived in peace with nature, waiting, wondering if anyone would come to save them. And this is how it has been in that place for many a day, and many a year, since everyone has forgotten it. And this is what it is like when life forgets you and you forget life. Time had no meaning for the undead, and for the wind, and for the moon, and for the little girl in the little room in the world between the places where all souls go.
It is very hard to tell time in a place that time has forgotten. With no sun to see by and to see the moon by, and no life and no death, no birthing and no dying, time, if you tried to tell it, would still not answer. Days mean nothing in that blackened world of blackness. So it is only proper to say that eventually the little girl went back to her custom of trying to leave that world. This time, like all the others, she had a plan. But this time, the plan involved the undead.
It is said, as you know, that the undead feel only hatred and bitterness toward the living. But that is not true of the little girl with no eyes. Instead, the undead that she met only seemed to view her with varying degrees of pity and sadness. They seemed to understand exactly what it is she was, and that moved something deep within their soulless frames.
Just the other week she had come over a great, rounded hill to see three of the undead at the bottom. They were slowly digging in the earth, in their meaningless way. The undead seemed to be young for undead, their bodies mainly intact, and perhaps with some trace memories in their heads. As she approached them, they looked up at her stupidly, as was their custom. And then something unexpected happened: as they looked at her, they began to cry. Tears came from their eyes, and their bodies wracked with silent sobs. They sat in the dirt, their fingers slowly working in meaningless exertion, as the tears worked their way down the crevices in their wrinkled, rotten faces. The little girl did not know why this was happening, but it seemed that this was not meaningless, like the other things that the undead did. And somehow she knew that these undead would do whatever it took to help her leave this place. This is why she hatched her new plan.
She spent some time hacking and cutting with her scythes at the sharp black trees that grew in that world, and even though with each cut the thick, black sap sprayed into the air and all over her, she did not seem to notice. She took the wood from the trees and crafted a long box with a lid on top of it. The box was big enough for her to lie down in and close the lid. This would keep her safe from the troubles of that world.
Dragging the box, the little girl walked over the hill to where the undead were. They were the same undead, but now they had stopped digging and were huddled together, slowly moving rocks between them in a sort of meaningless game, the object of which had been forgotten over the course of time, just as time had forgotten them. As she arrived dragging her box, the undead ceased their motions and turned their heads to look at her. A strange feeling of sadness seemed to exude from them.
“Will you help me?” she called to them. They did not answer her, and for a long time she stood looking at them. Then they slowly exhumed themselves from the dirt and walked towards her.
“I’m going to get in this box,” she said. “Will you carry it up over the hill of thorns and through the river and up to the stairs where the big gate is?” The undead said nothing, but they walked over to the box and gripped it with their ageless, dirty hands. Slowly, the little girl lowered herself into the box and closed the lid over herself. Then she closed her eyes, as the box was lifted into the air and began its slow journey towards the next world.
The journey itself was uneventful, but it was not very comfortable. The undead paid no heed to her comfort, as they had none themselves. On occasion, they would forget what it was they were doing, and the little girl would have to peek her head out of the box and remind them. But for the most part they did their duty and that was a good thing, for it meant that the little girl had found a way to get herself over the hill and across the river without getting the blackness all over herself. And this would mean that she could finally get to the gate, knock on it, and go home.
When at last the undead placed the box on the ground on the far side of the river, the little girl felt the first happiness since whenever it was that she got to that world. She opened the lid and stepped out of the box, leaving it on the bank of the black river and began to walk towards the gate, which she could see off in the distance, at the top of some stairs cut into the side of the mountains. The undead came with her, but of course that was meaningless.
As she walked up the stairs that rose from the black plain up to the clean, white gate, the little girl noticed that something was wrong. A large black cloud hung in the air above her, mirroring the black plain that she had left behind. As she climbed up the steps, the cloud opened up and out came the rain, all over the plain and the stairs and the little girl.
Black rain.
The rain poured down on the little girl and once again she was covered in the blackness that also covered that world. With an inarticulate wail she sat on the stairs and wept. Or at least she would have wept if the tears from inside her had been able to find the way to her eyes, but they could not. So she sat beneath the gate and quivered and quaked for some time. The undead with her stood and watched her, tears running down their faces, but of course that was also meaningless.
