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Chapter 1 - General
Regulation 2: The Distribution of Souls
In the event of a soul's transportation to the Other Side, its destination domain shall no longer be claimed through the ritual of Contest. The aforementioned soul's distribution shall instead be decided in accordance with their denoted faith or, in the event that no faith be held, by the domain that operates the nearest station to the soul’s place of transportation.
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“Excuse me, miss?” The voice was a soft blur on the edge of Gemma’s hearing, fading in and out of her consciousness as if the half-imagined remnant of a dream.
“Can you hear me?” The voice grew in form and clarity. She felt a hand upon her shoulder. Slowly, and with great effort, she opened her eyes. Through their bleary vision, she saw a paunch-bellied man before her, his shirt tucked into pleated pants held high by strained black suspenders. A mismatched patchwork of faded materials held together his coat jacket, the frayed ends of its loose stitches quivering in the breeze of the rattling air conditioner. As he spotted her waking, as a way of greeting, he tapped the rim of his hat into which he had tucked his salt-and-pepper hair. It had a small metal pin of a train carriage upon it, which flashed as it caught the reflection of the luminaires above. “Sorry to wake you, but this is your stop.”
Gemma blinked several times as she sat up from the slouch she had slipped into. She attempted to look out the window for the station name, but the glare of the internal lights reflecting upon the glass obscured the dark of night outside. She looked around the carriage. She was the only person left. Her mind slowly chugged into functionality, bringing her to the station of realisation that she had slept through to the final stop.
“I am so sorry.” She gasped as she shot herself up from the seat before catching herself on the handrail as a wave of lethargy unsteadied her.
“I wouldn’t push yourself too hard, miss.” The conductor said as he offered her his arm which she waved away. “You’ve had quite the journey.” Gemma responded with half a laugh, not entirely following the conductor’s meaning.
“Thank you very much for waking me.” She said, slightly bowing as she backed her way through the open door and out of the train.
“Thank you for riding with us, miss.” He said with a genuine smile. The conductor bowed deeply in return. The train doors closed with a smooth hiss and a thunk. She watched as the carriages trundled forward, the silhouette of the man still bent in his bow visible from within. The train glided along the tracks into the darker depths of a wide-mouthed tunnel beside the small station platform. As it did so, it revealed to Gemma the fullness of her surroundings.
Before her was a vista glittering in the soft starlight. Across the tracks was a wide expanse of farming fields, with crops of wheat and oat swaying in the cool evening breeze. The field was bifurcated by a gravel path that gently stretched towards a solitary building. It was a broad square structure, painted in rich shades of blue and scarlet. At each corner of its tiered, tiled roof was suspended a large candle-lit lantern. Their glimmering light emanated to softly illuminate the horseshoe hill around it, from the cavity of which the building seemed to grow. Rice stalks swayed in the paddies carved into the steps of the hill’s slope. Beyond the hill, and surrounding the edges of the fields, was a thick mist that cloaked the border of the property and station.
“Where the hell…” She began to say as she wondered how long she had slept. She had missed her stop several times before, but reaching the countryside was a first. She scanned around the platform, which appeared semi-derelict, for a schedule of the next train in the opposite direction. A coloured flag flapped in the wind by the platform, tied atop a lamppost which wheezed and sparked a pitiful attempt at illumination. She attempted to identify its sigil but the wind pushed, flicked, and curled it about to such an extent that she gave up. She walked to the bulletin board on the other end of the platform. What appeared to be a spreadsheet was finely painted upon a sheet of thin paper affixed to the board. She looked it over carefully, and deduced that she definitely could not read it. What she took to be numbers were arcane swirls and squiggles, and the letters formed small cuneiforms that she couldn't decipher or recognise. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, praying that there was at least signal. Her screen remained black. She tapped at it, fingers landing against it with soft thuds. Nothing. She sighed, cursing herself for not going back to grab her mobile battery. She reached for her bag, panic sparking through her brain fog as she realised that she did not have it. She rubbed her temples with her fingers and breathed slowly, working herself through the depressing realisation that she had definitely left it on the train. The station's platform was entirely unmanned and seemingly abandoned. She would have to call the Lost & Found, she thought and shuddered as she remembered the last time she'd had to do so. Not that she ended up needing the ring back, she reminded herself. Gemma looked up the path to the building. A slight shifting of smoke dissipated slowly from a structure on its northern edge. It was a sign of life, and it was good enough for Gemma to venture towards it.
She walked up the path of gravel, stones shifting beneath her flats with a crisp crunch. The wind was fickle, alternating a warm easterly with bursts of a buffeting westerly. It played with the tall crops over the path, their heads of wheat brushing against the sleeves of Gemma's suit jacket as she stepped past. A quick rivulet of water ran down the western side of the path, the trickle of its passage sounding in the brief pauses of the changing breeze. Gemma continued up the trough through which the path was carved, looking across the fields which spread between the obscuring walls of fog. As Gemma approached the building, she recognised its square structure as a traditional inn, complete with an annexing bathhouse. Its facade held onto a fading grandeur, its age betrayed by patched paper screens and peeling paint exposing the ochre shades of its earthen walls.
The entrance to the inn, a large wooden sliding door, was largely obscured by creeping ivy. She parted its hanging stems to clear its access, revealing a carving upon the door that had faded so completely that only the remnants of something once written were visible. She looked about the outside for a doorbell, to no avail. As the wind changed, she could hear voices echoing from within. She knocked on the door, and waited. There was no response. She shivered in the cold again before knocking once more. Still nothing. She tried the door, which slid open upon the grooves in the wooden frame before becoming stuck. "Sorry to intrude." She said, her voice between a whisper and a shout, as she slid in through the gap. The entrance had a subtle decorum similar to its exterior; a small in-set space of polished concrete with a half-step to wooden flooring stretching down a long hallway, diverting off at multiple doorways along its length. The passage was lit by a selection of long tapered candles that stood in small brass holders spaced along the walls. The voices were clearer now, and she could catch small snippets of their conversation.
“So, the voices are gone?” The first voice asked.
“Completely gone. It's a bit lonely. They loved to gossip.” The second voice answered.
“Pray tell.” The first, in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Hello?" Gemma called out.
“Oh, I couldn't tell you, treasure. I was sworn to secrecy.” The voice chuckled.
“You are such a liar.” The other chortled.
"Excuse me?" She tried a bit louder.
“Steady on, I think they're coming back to me.” The first voice said.
“Wait, I think I can hear them too.” The other voice responded.
"Excuse me!" She eventually yelled. The voices stopped. At the far end of the entrance, a head poked around the corner, staring at her. She waved.
"Who's that?" One of the voices said.
"No idea." The other one replied.
"Surely she isn't…" the first started.
"Surely not…" The second continued.
"I seem to have gotten off at the wrong stop." Gemma began. "I was wondering if you knew when the next train would be."
The voices spoke in unison, “She is.”
"Or if I could potentially borrow a charger for my phone?" She asked, as the figure started to walk down the corridor towards her in pounding footsteps. “Or ask what time it is?” Her voice trailed off as they came into the soft orange glow of the burning candles and she saw them in their full form. Her gaze widened into a frozen stare. The man had two faces. Each had a mouth, a nose and an outer eye, but shared the central almond-shaped eye that stared at her, blinking slowly like heavy shutters. The right face spoke again.
“Our sincerest apologies for keeping you waiting.”
“It’s been so long since we've had a new guest.” The left face said.
Their mouths angled upwards as they spoke, the symmetry of their face contorting with each syllable. Gemma stared at the figure before her. The neurons of her brain fired a few blanks before she scraped together the words to respond.
"I'm sorry, I’m not staying here. I just missed my stop."
“Nobody comes here by mistake." The right concluded. They smiled. Gemma caught a flash of sharp canines.
"Actually, I think I might just wait at the station." She looked through the gap of the door back outside to the platform. The flickering lamp at the distant station cut off, leaving the formless surroundings beyond the softly illuminated edges of the inn's lantern light entirely in darkness. She sighed, and turned back around.
"How much would it be for a night?" She asked.
“How much?” The left face asked.
“I do believe she’s asking how much money it costs, treasure.” The right face answered.
"Oh." The first one said. "No payment necessary. If you’re here, you must have a reservation."
Gemma shook her head. "I definitely don't have a reservation."
The man stepped beside her - smelling slightly of sandalwood - and pulled a wooden tablet from the small counter at the entrance. A layer of dust sloughed off as he moved it. Gemma coughed. The man's dual expressions attempted what Gemma interpreted as an apology. They held the tablet in front of their left eye, which squinted at it until they fished a small piece of rounded glass from his pocket and fitted it to the eye.
"Well, well, when did that get there?” He peered at her over the monocle. “I presume you would be Gemma Beck?”
Gemma attempted to read the column that the man pointed to, but the odd alphabet eluded her. "I am, but I definitely didn't make a reservation."
"Nevertheless." His left mouth said, and did not expand. Gemma cocked her head in confusion.
"So we've got you in..." their finger lined up against her name on their sheet. "Room 2E."
The right face hummed. “That one’s not ready yet.”
The left face attempted an approximation of a frown. “Sometimes they’re a tad slow.” He said pointedly.
As they stood there, the walls of the building shook and trembled. The sound of stone against stone reverberated throughout the room as the line of candles down the length of the corridor swayed gently.
"Earthquake?" Gemma asked, steadying herself against the counter.
The two-faced man shook his head. "That would be your room."
"Pardon?"
The man had already started to walk down the corridor. She pulled off her flats, shoving them into one of the empty boxes at the front, and rushed to match his quick pace. As they passed intersecting passages, the man gave a general overview of each room, though the echo of the two faces speaking in unison - in combination with the speed with which they were walking - made most of it impossible for Gemma to catch. Maybe a massage parlour down one path, possibly a dining room down the next.
"The baths are closed from 3 to 5 each morning.”
“Feel free to use them outside of those hours.” She heard as they passed one of the doors. She made a mental note of it.
The figure clambered up a set of narrow steps. “Watch your head on these ones.” She heard as she bumped her head into the top of the landing. They emerged onto the second floor. There were five doors at equal distances across from each other along the pentagonal wall. They walked past the doors, each one bearing the wrinkles of age to a different degree in their stains and cracks. The scarlet paint on 2E was bright and fresh. The man opened the door, and guided her through.
Inside, the room was spacious and clean. Plump bedding had been laid out across the modest floor space. A bouquet of purple flowers radiated colour into the room from a porcelain vase at the back wall. A cushioned alcove was set into the eastern wall, with a porthole window in its centre. She could see some sparkling stars in the night sky through it.
“Midari shall let you know when the meals are ready.”
“Indeed I shall.” The face on their right, and her left, spoke.
Gemma went to thank them but they had already gone. Her mind was a jumbled tangle, the exhaustion of her arrival's lethargy and the long month returning with a vengeance. She stripped off her layers and stepped into the robes that were in the wardrobe. They were thickly layered and wrapped about tightly with cord. She was grateful for their weight as she navigated the candlelit passage back down the stairs, out the dark interior garden barely illuminated by the hanging lanterns, and through to the bathhouse.
The annex structure was a slanting roof propped up over a vast pool by three grand arches of timber. Steaming water flowed out from cracks in black stone, shimmering over the stone’s surface like glass. It pooled into a circle of smooth boulders, steam shifting over its surface and gently floating up into the evening sky. Gemma removed her robe and stepped into the steam. It embraced her. She washed what felt like a lifetime's worth of exhaustion from her skin in the outside shower and proceeded to the bath.
The first step was hell, a scalding heat that assaulted her senses. The second step was heaven, the warmth percolating through her body and soothing out the knots both in her body and her mind. The moment of clarity she found brought the evening back to her; the words of the conductor on the empty train, the mysterious bathhouse surrounded by mist-cloaked fields, the odd alphabet, the two-faced receptionist, and her reservation.
“My god.” She whispered to herself as her mind rocketed across each dot, and she finally drew the lines. “I’m in another world.”
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