Chapter 2: Handling

The mortals of Hotera were very busy those first few days after that cataclysm. There was lots of devastation to clean up. The ground-quakes from the sundering were fierce. Millions of silver in damages hit both nations. Macintians and Edathians were busy mending their broken homes and lives. They had no time to think of those grudges that had them at each other’s throats just days ago.

It was exactly as Reella had planned.

The deity herself took things a little slower. There were plenty of souls within her purgatory. They were all bunched up fidgeting and squirming together. A big, warm ball in her planet-pervading immaterial body. It felt nice. It always did. So, she was in no rush to sort them.

Still, souls kept coming in. People didn’t just die from wars. There were diseases and accidents and all sorts of things Reella didn’t prevent. No matter the cause, every soul flew into her by her will, and she made sure they went where she saw fit. It was one of her duties here to be everyone’s afterlife. If a human died, they went into her world-spanning embrace or a physical avatar those rare moments she had one formed.

Souls were power, and over time she grew in her capabilities. They were also invigorating, much like power but at a physical and metaphysical level. Simply put, they felt good.

Thankfully, she had a steady supply from the natural way of mortals. It kept her from just wiping out humanity in one big soul-slurping binge. The urge bugged her on occasion, true, but she thought ahead. If she just wiped everyone out in big destructive orgy, there’d be no more souls in the future. She’d finish her drink but never fill the cup again.

Little sips were the way.

Reella didn’t waste that whole first day. There were plenty of spirits to process and she managed to comb through a few thousand.

Dozens at a time, they were pulled from the mass through shimmering walls. There, out of purgatory, they were alone for a brief instant as she made a decision. It was one based on the accumulation of memories and actions throughout their lifetime.

Were they big liars? How many evil acts did they do? Why did Sabelinea really stab her husband? What was the context for that time Odo punched that other guy at the pub?

One of the first she selected was Aldwin: the catapult crewman from earlier that day. He begged and pleaded with her, trying to explain each and every time he sinned. He missed a bunch, but he wasn’t lying; he was just forgetting.

She never forgot anything though.

The process was silent on her end. It took only a few seconds: to them. If the actual flow of time applied as it did on Hotera, it’d be even less. A few instants really. That’s all it took for her to decide where to put the man’s soul forever.

Reella spoke to him and only him.

“You’ve done well enough. Enjoy a restful eternity in my bosom. Stay close to my heart, and feel my warmth with every pulse of my being.”

She had said that line oh so many times.

Aldwin was still afraid. He knew not what to expect, as stories on the afterlife were vague. His golden glow faded to blue and he was whisked away once again.

Reella scraped another soul from the spirit lump. This one was a quick judgment. One “Millicent the Malevolent”, also known as “Millicent the Malicious”, or “Milli the Macabre” and so forth. The young warrior actually tried to lie about her war crimes. The audacity!

Did she not know that Reella knew all that happened? Mortal minds were like open books to her: while living. As souls in her body, they were more akin to parts of her. Here, she didn’t even have to try to know their entire beings: she just did.

“For your heinous sins, you’ll be sent to your Lady’s stomach. There, you’ll experience dissolution and reformation till time’s end. Take some solace that you serve my fancy even there, wicked one.”

It was the first time Millicent cried in years. Souls couldn’t make tears of course, just the noises and the faces that came with it. The soul’s aura flashed from yellow to red. A moment later and she was off towards her proper place.

Millicent zipped at a speed best described as exhilarating and not the fun kind. It was more like a runaway carriage rather than a sled down a hill. The soul went through quivering tunnels of pulsing light. She went so fast the scenery was all a blur of yellow, blue and red. The soul felt that even if the trip took hours instead of seconds, she’d still not have been able to fully comprehend what was around her. It was clear she was at the mercy of something greater.

Something with little mercy for her.

--==--==--==--

Millicent made it out of those light-tubes and immediately her senses were assailed with wailing. Like purgatory, this part of Reella was a giant divine organ of some unnamed shape. Its magnitude was enough to make her old holding area seem less than a thimble. She could see its end far in the distance: so far that she knew it unreachable.

The walls were towering. They shifted and undulated. Millicent’s translucent form shifted with them. The wrinkled walls leaked red light into this sack of suffering. The light stung and burned. She could feel her soul dissolving here. Bits and pieces of her. Her memories faded one by one. The sensation of her ghostly fingers gone as they digested away.

She quickly found herself joining the chorus of screams around her. Some souls were free floating, others clumped in balls not unlike the one she just got out of. The lumps were millions strong. The souls on the surface tried to peel themselves off, but they were stuck through either pain or some sort of tugging.

Millicent’s mind wracked with rage now. Why did she have to be here? Why was she some fucking toy or trifle to that ‘Lady’ of theirs? The agony and humiliation was ruining her. She was feared on the battlefield, but just another snack in here. She roared as the last flicker of her soul melted.

An instant later she was reformed; her memories too. She was in one of those soul boluses now, right at the center. Millicent heard the sounds of this place at work. The warbling and churning louder than the voices of souls by her ears.

She couldn’t move, all around her were other souls, screaming into her senses. The heat was sweltering, but that digestive light didn’t reach as well here. She’d have to wait till the outer layers melted away before getting her chance to dissolve. She’d take that fate again over this slow, shifting torment.

It happened eventually, and she reformed again, in some other part of Reella’s ‘stomach’. This cycle was her eternity now.

--==--==--==--

Aldwin’s journey was similarly disorienting. He was wracked with dread and despair. Mortal desires and regrets clung to him. No matter how fast he flew through Reella’s ethereal veins, he couldn’t shake them off.

Unlike Millicent, he’d find a peace of sorts. An endless ocean of dim blue light awaited him. There was a rhythmic pulse. Gentle in its thooms, it stirred the never ending waves he and the other newcomers hovered over. It must’ve been Reella’s “heartbeat”. There were no walls in here for him to see: just a dim blue horizon over this sea.

He was drawn towards the waters. Closer, Aldwin realized their true makeup: souls, billions of them. He was afraid. There was something wrong about being a literal drop in an ocean like this. Yet, the closer he got the warmer it felt. The more he listened to that heart thump, the more it drowned out his concerns. Soon, he yearned to reach the others and join the waves.

In time he did. Settling down into the fluid mass, he was awash in tranquility. He bumped into countless other souls, but it didn’t bother him at all. Thoughts of Ida drifted from his mind: almost all thoughts did. He just stared wherever the currents had him face. Relaxed and at peace, he relished every beat of his Lady’s heart.

--==--==--==--

After the first day, Reella picked up speed. Still focusing on judging, she started sorting thousands of souls at a time instead of just dozens. She was still very busy. Souls filled every vein of hers with how much dead the war, and her resulting response, had brought.

Almost everyone was sent to either her bosom or her stomach. Most people were either evil enough for damnation, or good enough for some rest.

There was a third location in her doctrine of the afterlife. She kept it secretive, known only among the priests of Hotera which devoted their lives to her. Even then, details were non-existent. All that was known was that the most devout of her followers, free from sin, would be granted sacred tasks and a holy existence. It was a most enigmatic aspiration for the clergy class.

These most treasured souls were a rare sight indeed. At the end of the week of her great sundering, she finally found one. A meek priestess of hers: Goda. The woman’s spirit was pure, her life sin-free. Every possible second the woman could spare, she devoted to praise of Reella.

“Goda, your devotion has not gone unnoticed. A high honor awaits you. You’ll serve as an angel in the most blissful, sacred spot of my body.”

The priestess’s yellow spirit glowed to a golden shade. She began to transform. Wings sprouted upon Goda’s back: useless to a floating specter, but there nonetheless as a mark of honor. There were other changes too. A bit of heightened comprehension and awareness: a level to better understand Reella’s form. Angels needed it for their task.

This transformation came at a price. It was a dire one, but one Goda wouldn’t even notice. Lady Reella reached into Goda’s mind to mold it. She had to make sure the soul would be incapable of thinking a single bad thought against her. The Lady would loathe to elevate a soul without such insurance.

One more modification, another change to the way Goda thought. Now, every act in service to the angel’s Lady was not only the highest honor, but the highest joy as well.

With that, the new angel was whisked away for the most holy of duties: that of Reella’s pleasure. Even an incorporeal form had erogenous zones. Even a god had needs.

Goda found herself in a chamber of golden walls, each lined with nubs. Other angels were there too, and flew about freely. They diligently tended to those pulsing walls, and were rewarded with a shifts in the ubiquitous, sublime tone that permeated the ‘organ’. They basked in her voice as well: the Lady’s moans of bliss echoed in here. Each one nectar to their ears.

The new angel got to work right away. There were only tens of thousands of spirits in here. It was a most exclusive afterlife to enjoy. Dwelling in such divine passion, motivated by the song of Reella’s lust, Goda fit right in immediately with the others.

It was these souls within Reella that treated her to a symphony of stimuli. The songs of bliss, relaxation and agony echoed through her at all times, even when she made an avatar to interact physically.

With the melodies in mind, she devoted more of her time to helping rebuild.

Reella didn’t work as directly here. Her physical appearances needed to be special. Nevertheless, prayers were getting answered. She enriched the soils of Hotera to make the harvests plentiful. She clumped and dissolved the clouds to provide rain when needed and avoid floods where they’d devastate. The sick were getting healed, and things were looking up.

It was important the people moved on, and that all of Hotera had faith in her and her decisions.