Tsukiko died; she was certain of that. But why was she still conscious? She had none of her senses, and she couldn't move her body—if she even still had one.
She hated not being able to do anything. Memories of the ice enveloping her body made their way back into her mind, the feeling similar to her current situation.
She tried thrashing around, hoping for anything to happen, but nothing did.
Her thoughts became a clouded mess of desperation and confusion. Nothing about this made any sense to her. Why was she still conscious? Where was she?
She had no idea the answer to either of those questions, but what she did know was that there had to be a way out. She knew there had to be.
So she decided to take a new approach. Instead of thrashing about hoping she'd stumble across the answer, she calmed herself down and tried using the only thing she still had—consciousness.
As her thoughts calmed down and she focused on sensing her surroundings, she felt something click inside her.
She started seeing her surroundings, not with eyes but with magic—like how bats see in pitch-black caves with echolocation.
She saw herself: a white sphere floating in darkness. There were also some currents of magic in the darkness, all leading towards the same direction. She assumed she was in some kind of afterlife or magical limbo.
As she floated around, one of the currents picked her up and dragged her along with it. As the hours passed—if hours were even a thing here—Tsukiko worked hard to understand where she was, but all she could see was herself and other white spheres being carried by the currents.
Suddenly, she felt a sense of dread set in her consciousness as well as a sense of danger. She tried looking around for what could be the problem, and soon she saw it. All the currents led to a giant pit where all the spheres—souls, Tsukiko presumed—fell.
She didn't know what was down there, but she knew she didn't want to find out. She tried to move herself using what little magic she had, but it was only a temporary fix, as soon her magic would run out.
A desperate thought sparked—if she couldn't escape as a soul, then perhaps she could shape herself into something that could. She could remake her body and swim out of here.
She gathered what little of her magic remained and willed her body back into form, and though it was weak and fragile, it was still hers.
She fought against the pull and swam against the current with all her might. As she started resisting the pit's pull, a door of white light appeared, seemingly connected to nothing. "That must be the way out," she said.
As she got closer towards it, the light started shining ever more brightly, and when she passed through it, her surroundings completely changed, and the gate vanished.
She quickly looked at her body, searching for any deformities, but everything was there—from the toes on her legs to the scar on her left arm left by the spider.
The air was different, warmer. The sun hit her eyes, and she could hear birds chirping. She wasn't in the frozen tundras, and neither was she in the currents of oblivion.
As she observed her surroundings, she saw a familiar forest—one in which she spent most of her years—but something about it felt... odd, like some perversion of what once was.
Where once echoes of the dead could be heard, now the dead could be seen as if alive again, though Tsukiko knew they weren't.
As she looked around at the ghosts interacting with each other, they seemed to turn away from her. Two particular ghosts caught her attention.
Tsukiko saw her parents. She immediately bolted towards them, trying to hug them like she used to when she was young, but instead she passed straight through them and fell to the ground.
As she lay there looking at where her parents previously stood, tears started leaving her eyes as she desperately looked around to find them again.
"You are wasting your time, girl," she heard someone say, and quickly turned towards its direction.
She saw what looked to be a man in his thirties, dressed like a monk, head completely bald and a lean body. "Who are you?" she asked.
"I am the guardian of the world in-between the dead and the living—a world in which you currently exist, but do not belong," the monk said.
"Why are they here?" Tsukiko said, her voice barely above a whisper as she looked towards the ghosts of her slaughtered kin.
"These are spirits made of agony and torment. They have been bound to this forest and turned into an amalgamation in their final resting grounds," he pointed towards where their village once was. "I'm afraid the only way for them to pass on would be for them to die again," the monk said.
"What?" Tsukiko's eyes widened, and she took a step back. "I'm not killing them!" she said firmly.
"I never asked you to," the monk replied. "But if you don't... no one ever will."