The One Soul He Left Behind

"You want to know why I really formed the club, huh?"

"I mean, you have been acting pretty weird lately."

"I did it... because I wanted to become the Patron Saint!"

Wait. I recalled a moment about five years, when Erina and I first met. I stole a Draftant novel from my family's modest collection. Despite it being sweltering hot outside, with sun rays so permeating that I could feel potential melanoma multiplying on the outer layers of my skin, I had a personal agenda to get outside as soon as possible.

There was a point in my childhood play where  I was no longer satisfied using my imagination to re-enact scenes from a normal novel. Being the opportunistic brat that I was, I searched for ways to sustain that high I received from catering to my imagination. One day I found a slightly worn poster with a regal typeface posted on a restaurant window just within my area of Doorstopper. 

The paper described a position for a job I wasn't aware existed until that point. This position was for the Patron Saint's apprentice. As the Patron Saint's apprentice I would not only be able to jump into more exciting Draftant worlds, but I would contribute to their creation. Even though I didn't have much use for the job posting, I took one of the remaining flyer strips from wrinkled poster and taped it onto my nighstand.

One line on the poster made a deeply-ingrained impression on me. 

A Patron Saint's apprentice must boldly embrace risk as they would reward, otherwise they'll miss the possibilities that come with both in Draftant novels.

For one reason or another, Erina overheard my horseplay that came from the result of the stolen Draftant novel and bashfully approached me from a nearby corner near her house. With a sword in hand recreated with the help of my family's Archiver, I listened to her question.

"Are you an adventurer as well?"

With a massive smile I hadn't yet grown into, I gave my reply.

"I am. What brave soul dare asks?"

"Me err... Erina Saint, future Patron Saint," Erina said, her legs beginning to wobble, her arms strangely locked and rigid. "I need some comrades to help me become the Saint above all Saints."

Erina had a pixie cut and had yet to surpass me in height. 

The fact that the shrinking, mousey Erina became a club reader with sky-high confidence always left me with a guttural fit of laughter. Of course, I wasn't fooled into thinking she changed over the years. A person's temperament doesn't change that much.

I gave my response to her bold boast and recruitment.

"Sure, but you won't become the Patron Saint. I will."

"And what makes you think that," she asked.

"Because a Saint needs to boldly embrace risk and reward equally, or else they miss a Draftant's possibilities."

***

I was so lost in thought that Erina gave me a rough shake.

"Are you gonna embrace a Draftant's full possibilities?"

I received another question that I didn't have an answer to.

"I don't know. I'm still mulling over the risks," I began, scratching my head. "But anything's possible I guess, within reason."

Her open body language became uncomfortably cold. She slumped her shoulders and craned her head downward. A tell that was present in her body language, she'd also retain indirect eye contact. In these scenarios, I'd inevitably have to break the silence. I guess I goofed things up, and I had to clear the air.

"Is there something wrong, Erina?"

"No. Is there something else you wanna tell me?"

She became more laser-focused, and I could've sworn I saw a red glint above her emerald green eyes.

"No, I don't think so. Why? Do you have something?"

"No, I don't. You know what, forget I said anything."

She marched off to tend to a book on the club table.

I must've sounded so daft to her. I wanted to give her a proper answer, but my feelings at the moment were ambivalent as my answer.

The only thing I could do was focus on our current case.

I cautiously half-stepped closer to the club table, inching closer until I closed the gap between Erina and I. Her copy of The Darkworld Tourist still possessed the same blood-curdling screech as yesterday.

"So what first step should we take," I asked.

"First thing's first, we have to revisit The Darkworld Tourist."

"I'm sorry, did you say revisit The Darkworld Tourist?"

"Well, yeah. We have to prepare ourselves for when we inevitably meet up with the escaped Draftant Souls."

The scar on my cheek began to burn again. I could barely keep myself alive in our first encounter. And now she wanted to jump into a more dangerous copy where she provoked the Draftant Souls inside. I had to talk her out of this.

"You're okay going back, right? Are you not fully recovered?"

Gah. I already promised I'd look after her. She needs my help.

"Of course I am. I might be a little rusty is all," I said, winded.

"Okay, that's fine. We'll just use your copy instead."

I felt my rattling heart settle a bit in my chest as I took out my copy of the Draftant novel. I leveraged control of my personal destiny, but I felt a rush of vertigo as a brief flicker of a memory associated with the novel came back.

I wasn't sure if it was because of negative association with the character, but the main antagonist was as staunch in build as he was in stature. The thick silver and black cloak protected by even denser pieces of pauldron, inflated his profile by two heads at least. His slicked back, dense wavy black hair shone a sinister red under the early morning sunlight. His violet eyes and golden irises glowed in the lingering patches of shadow.

The Darkworld fleet's general, Seginus wouldn't be present in my copy of the story. This was the comforting truth that I told myself, but my last meeting with him proved a truth about me that I wouldn't allow myself to utter aloud.

"Are you alright, Akira," Erina asked.

"Yeah, yeah. I just needed to recollect my thoughts."

"Okay. Now we need to make the proper preparations before we make the jump into The Darkworld Tourist's fictional space."

Erina unzipped her backpack and took out the club issued Archiver. It looked like a simple device at first glance, that I questioned if it was really the same tool professionals used in work that involved Draftant, such as the Patron Saint and their apprentices. 

Two generations before, with the ever growing popularity of Draftant novels, the residing Patron Saint made the fateful decision to release a personal device for anyone who wished for the experience. Even a poor family like mine could afford it with enough entertainment savings over the span of a year.

The device itself replicated the shape of a novel when closed, only a few millimeters sleeker. When opened the Archiver took a wider rectangular shape, the outer frame a matte black while its contents were two "pages" that were made of a fantastic glass synthetic polymer material that were as sturdy as the black matte casing. With the press of one silver button hidden in the top center of the two pages, Erina turned on the user interface.

The silver button suddenly flashed red-orange, a sign that it was in Idle mode. The only wasy to change it to bright blue and access the other three modes was to hold the button again and point it at a Draftant of our choice.

My left leg slightly jerked when she pointed it at my copy of The Darkworld Tourist. The indicator blinked blue as a blue laser from the Draftant's diamond crystal connected back to the blinding blue button on the device.

A display with three differently colored tabs appeared in a vertical column. And like a digital e-reader, the two page panels were now filled with a light-blue text that corresponded with the content in the Draftant novel.

The words "Editing mode", "Creative mode, "Creative mode", and "Self-insert mode" glowed in green, blue, and red respectively on the three digital tabs. Erina clicked the self-insert tab, causing the display to black except for a small blue window prompting what page or section the user wished to access.

Erina spoke a familiar chapter into the blue prompt window.

"Access Chapter Two- The Caretaker," Erina requested.

Accessing Chapter Two- The Caretaker. Please standby.

The prompt disappeared, allowing the page interface to return.

The device virtually flipped through ten pages until it reached the second chapter, and then it provided a new prompt.

Page accessed. Would you like to spectate or participate?

"I would like to participate as a protagonist. Increase the number of protagonists to two."

Participate request accepted. Beginning reader transfer.

The blue laser connecting the device and the Draftant extended even further, adding Erina and I to the circuit. The Archiver remained suspended in the air, the blue laser breaking our profiles down into smaller particles that transferred into the crystal adorning the Draftant's front cover, in a funnel similar to Arturo's magic.

***

Unlike some of the Draftant novels I read in my spare time as a child, there was no anxiety-inducing but exhilirating leap into the new world I self-inserted into. There was no rebirth, no exploitation of knowledge from my original world to find success in the new foster world, or a bevy of love interests to win over with my charm.

Our bodies were reanimated in the Draftant space before the host world was. The clinical, almost soulless recreation of our bodies was followed by what appeared to be several golden pillars of light with a brighter twinkling star at their peaks. It was probably no coincidence that one of the pillars happened to be close by, and I imagined for the purpose of our preparations, only that one pillar was relevant to us.

Before the core pillars of the world were overwritten, I could see a gray tablet with a glowing blue indecipherable text at the base of the closest golden pillar. It was near identical to one of the tablets we encountered before.

It was what professional Saints called an Artifact.

The world the reader is introduced in the Darkworld Tourist is not Arcturus's world, but the world his race takes interest in, the world of few shadows, Lumion. Based on the autobiography I've read about Arturo's writing, the fictional world heavily resembled the world of the Creators we'd occasionally read about in classes.

But that's enough of my gushing. I had an important mission.

The vast expanse of white surrounding us and the pillars was fleshed out with the rich palette you'd expect from a Draftant novel. This world in particular seemed rather fond of its greens, yellows, and whites.

The scene was of a forest during its twilight between evening and night. This period was admittedly a little brighter than any twilight period in Protochara that I remembered in recent memory. A wooden cabin with asphalt shingles sat as the only non-organic landmark. The trees that stood over the cabin created a shade that made it stand out as one of the few darker patches in the heavily sunbathed forest. 

Despite the cabin being well-lit, Erina treaded a step slower than her usual pace. I consciously slowed my pace as well, trying to avoid any lingering danger.

We closed in on the shaded cabin within a couple minutes of walking. I knew the crisp image before me was fictional, but the sense that I was tresspassing overwrote my common sense. It didn't help that I had a level of respect for the owner of the cabin.

Erina gripped and turned the doorknob without hesitation. The door was pulled open without resistance. The door was pulled open without resistance. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the cabin, the space in the living room furnished with rustic brown and red upholstery. Nothing that is, except a silver and black scarf, draped on one of the arms of a lazy boy sofa. The objective was simply to grab it, but Erina remained locked in place, her eyes scanning the edges of her periphery.

"I don't suppose that you two are looking for li'l ol' me?"

The voice behind me gave me a shock that jolted me into a fighting stance, but Erina stood deadpan, giving me a patronizing, but comforting pat on the shoulder.

I turned around to see a bemused young woman with curly platinum-blonde hair crossing her arms. The catalyst for the main plot appeared to us, the caretaker called Ash.

"I figured you'd show up eventually," Erina said.

I leaned into Erina to whisper something in her ear.

"Why is she acting against the rules of the plot? I thought only main characters could develop narrative independence. We might be in trouble if she decides to lash out at us."

"Your worries are unfounded, Akira. This same scenario already happened. She has no interest in us or the world outside of this one."

"Already happened? I don't remember this happening last time. "

"It happened when I visited my copy of the story. You want to know what happened when I visited during the summer? After I was tricked into letting the Draftant Souls escape, I was planning for my next inevitable fight with them. My search eventually led me to Ash, who was given a gift from the Arcturus in my copy of the story, planning the same escape."

"Wait, you didn't do what I think you did, did you?"

"Relax, she's still alive. But you don't know how much my humiliation from the Doorstopper incident tempted me. After he betrayed my trust, I had to hold my previous anger back."

How presumptuous of you, Erina. I know perfectly well. All the same, the second most predominant emotion I feel right now is anger. Witnessing the current hot air between the two of us condensing into a dark cloud, Ash lifted a finger between Erina and I to interject.

"I don't know specifically why you're here, but I'm assuming it has to do with Arcturus, right?"

"That's correct. He gave it to you, didn't he," Erina said.

"Do you mean that, or this," she said, first pointing at the silver and black scarf and then her chest.

Ash cupped her two hands without her fingertips directly touching. A slender golden, diamond-shaped light appeared on the chest of her long-sleeved wool sweater. A golden glowing diamond surfaced out of the bright outline. This was where the artifact was.

"I'm sure you already knew this, but you have the power to stop Seginus, and by extension, Arcturus," Erina said.

"I do, and I can, but I won't," Ash said, the Artifact fading back into her body. 

Ash's curly silver-blonde hair bounced as she turned her back to Erina. Erina in her building anger outstretched her arm to grab the Draftant Soul, but pulled it back at the last instant.

"Why are you protecting them? Those traitors don't deserve it. You know what they originally planned to do with your planet, don't you?"

"Because Arcturus doesn't deserve to be punished," Ash screamed, her misty silver eyes revealed she turned to face Erina.

The image of a tearful Ash removed all doubt about the Arcturus's role as a character. Arturo always intended for him to be the protagonist. He just didn't give him the resolution he deserved. But if he was the main protagonist, and he was capable of such kindness, then why did he let Seginus escape?

"I only knew Arcturus for a couple weeks, so I can't claim to know him intimately," she continued, her balled fists trembling. "But when he left me with this gift, I not only learned everything I wanted to know about him, I learned things about this world I didn't want to know. And after what I discovered about our Creator, I don't blame Arcturus for his actions."

"I'm sorry you were burdened with the Artifact's knowledge," I said. "There's at least one Creator I ended up disliking after fully exploring their world."

Ash nervously drew her fingers first over her face and then her chest. A tremor in her breaths escaped her lips with every personal feature she dragged her fingers over.

"Arc told me that he wanted to leave me with the power to change our world, that I should use my new awareness to undo the damage the Darkworlders inflicted on this world when they escaped. Even after they left, I still don't feel any more powerful after given a choice over my actions. How does a former bystander suddenly change their world?"

"A lot of Saint's don't have the power to change the world's they visit, let alone their own. No matter how much we wish for it, Saints can never influence worlds like a Creator can. That's why most Saints are content with just consuming stories they love."

"So why are you trying so hard to defeat Seginus," Ask asked.

"Because while we can't completely change our own world, stories like yours create a greater strength within us to create change over the small things we do have power over," I answered.

After a somewhat rude snicker from Erina, Ash followed with a toothy beaming smile that lit up the room as much as the twenty hours of daily sunlight lit up the perpetually bright Lumion. She cupped her hands again and drew out the Artifact from her body. She extended the crystal in one hand to Erina, who spurned her with a raised palm.

"Arcturus was correct," she said, warding the Artifact away. "You're the one with the power to change this world."

"Before you leave, let me give you something," Ash said.

She returned with the silver and black scarf that hung on the arm of the lazy boy sofa. She wrapped the scarf around my neck, the two ends, one solid black and the other silver, draped over my respective right and left shoulders.

"Arc didn't tell me how it worked, but it supposedly lets him get around easier," Ash said.

She waved us off as we walked away from the dimly lit cabin. As expected, as soon as we returned to our original point of deployment, a blue beam struck the ground in front of us. We touched our fingers to the ray of blue light, and we parted from the fictional world, one particle at a time.

Erina appeared to have an extra spring in her step when we were transferred back to the club room. But because of my time away from The Darkworld Tourist, I wasn't as lucky. As I tried to get my bearings, my whole field of vision was blurred by a film of light blue. I tried to touch the surface of the club table in front of me to ground myself back into my current reality, but I saw flashes of The Darkworld Tourist's world in the areas of my vision affected by the disorienting blue film of light blue. Once she personally saw the blue flicker of light bouncing in my eyes, Erina sat me down in a chair near the clubroom's table.

"Quick, what's your name," she asked, scanning two fingers in front of my disoriented eyes.

"I am Arcturus, hero of The Darkworld Tourist," I responded.

"Oh, yikes. Maybe we should put a pin in our current case."

"No, I don't want to waste any time. I want to prove to him that I'm not a dumb kid."

"Hey, hey! Just relax. I'm gonna help you walk home today."

I wanted to be contrary, but I was having trouble remembering the name of my best friend at the moment. Two sets of memories competed for my attention, but I wasn't sure what was what. In my current brain fog, I could hear a small voice screaming in the back of my mind. 

I'm struggling to maintain my individuality.

Author's Note

FIrst thing's first. I apologize for the late chapter. I'll be sure to return to my normal schedule and catch up to my scheduled chapters in about two weeks. The good thing in this situation is that you'll have at least this one longer chapter to tide you over until the weekend. I'll be sure to compensate with better quality! As usual, any criticism is welcomed. If you liked or hated the chapter please comment your thoughts. If you liked the chapter, a like is appreciated.