[...?]

My eyes snapped open, my heart pounding in my chest as I gasped for air. My vision was revealed to a half-moon rising over a forested clearing, stars scattered like flecks of paint on the rich navy canvas of sky. I looked around, alarmed that I was laying in the middle of the forest alone for no particular reason as I slowly sat up.

I could tell the wind blew, for the leaves whispered to each other above me and the grass below me did the same, but I felt no breeze against my skin. The surroundings were... somehow less saturated than I remembered. Like looking through an old camera lens.

The heck...?

"Hi!"

"AAAAH-"

I cried out in sheer surprise at the voice that cut through the silence. My head turned around in an almost breakneck motion as the rest of my body followed, quickly propelling myself backwards away from the two newcomers that now stood there.

"Oh, sorry! Did I scare you?"

One of them spoke, sounding like the one who had greeted me before. A humanoid-shaped blue light that seemed to have wings, and a thin tail with a fluffy tip swayed behind him. He had a sort of old English accent, matching his outfit that looked like it was from the 1500s. He stepped towards me, kneeling down next to me in a friendly manner and holding out his hand, detached from the rest of his arm, to help me up.

"Yeah. Yeah you did." I put my hand on my chest to calm my racing heart, exhaling but quickly turning perplexed as my hand felt something cold. I looked down my torso to see a black tear in my chest where my heart should be safe inside of me.

Immediately the panic rose again.

"WHY IS THERE A HOLE IN MY CHEST-"

"Hey, hey! Calm down!" The person kneeling next to me assured. "You're okay. I think."

"Y-you think?!" I felt on the verge of having a heart attack - if my heart was even still there. "Where even am I? Who are you?!"

The newcomer sighed. "Okay. This might be a lot to take in, but...

"You're dead."

I blinked.

"I-I'm... dead?"

It was almost amazing how casually he said those two words.

"Unfortunately," he continued. "But no worries! You stayed here!"

His smile was welcoming as he reached out his hand again. "I'm Xyan. Welcome to Limbo, new guy!"

I was still speechless as I hesitantly reached out and grabbed his hand. Xyan pulled me to my feet without effort, and I stumbled for a moment before regaining my balance. It was then that I realized I had wings and a tail as well - though mine were pale white and grey instead of varying shades of cyan like Xyan's. My tail had a different tip as well - a triangular pointed spade with multiple parts chipped off and floating where they should be attached.

"W-what am I, a demon?" I asked, observing my new appearance with confusion.

"The technical term is actually yudae." The other spirit spoke up from behind Xyan - he was taller, and also green. His outfit was about a century ahead of Xyan's, and the side of his head was the same black as the tear in my chest. He also had a similar accent. "But no one says that. You're a ghost, like all of us."

"Huh..." I trailed off, looking around the clearing again.

A thought came to mind. "Well, if I'm dead, then where's my body?"

"Whoever killed you probably dragged you off or buried you here," Xyan shrugged.

"So I don't, like... die immediately?"

"You die, but you fall asleep for about a month before you fully pass on to here," the green spirit explained. "Xyan found you a few weeks ago."

"Oh." That made literally no sense, but I went along with it and swallowed the rest of my questions so I didn't bombard them with my confusion.

Xyan motioned for me to follow as he started walking towards the green spirit. "Come on, Praxus and I'll show you to where we live."

Still wary about the whole fact that I'm a ghost, I slowly followed after them.

-=+=-

I couldn't keep my questions back as they quickly escaped my mouth again on the way to wherever the two spirits lived. Luckily, both of them were willing to answer my queries.

As I'd suspected, Xyan had died sometime in the mid-1500s. He thinks he might've fallen from a cliff and broken most of his bones, explaining his multiple detached limbs. The green spirit, who was apparently named Praxus, died about a century later. From what I picked up, I was the first to be intentionally murdered that they'd met.

Of course, I had no idea if my death was intentional. I didn't even remember the last few seconds of my life.

As I racked my brain for information about myself, I realized something. I didn't even know my name. No matter what I tried, that simple word was just a wisp - when I tried to grab at it, it slipped through my fingers.

"Hey," I said. "How do you guys know your names, but I don't?"

"Oh, our names aren't our actual names," Praxus replied. "We make them up. Apparently when you pass over, most of your memories stay in your body or whatever. I don't know, Akhet's the one that actually reads the spiritbooks."

I took a guess that Akhet was another ghost friend of theirs.

Xyan turned around, his feet leaving the ground as he casually floated backwards so he could face me. "What do you want your name to be?"

"Uhh..." Well, that's not a question I had ever expected to answer. I remained silent as I walked, trying to think of something. Apparently I was never good with names.

Xyan smiled sympathetically. "You don't have to make one now. I went for about a hundred years before I got mine."

That's a long time to not have a name for yourself...

Still I remained silent. I looked down at myself, observing specifically my limbs, which sort of faded from the pale colors of my clothes to a slate grey a bit darker than my skin. A gradation, as someone with actual experience with using color might say.

"Gradient," I said without thinking. I wasn't sure why I chose that, it sure didn't sound like a name, but it fits. I think.

The blue spirit smiled. "Gradient. Suiting, I think. I like it. Hello, Gradient."

I smiled, happy for someone's approval.

-=+=-

Praxus and Xyan eventually led me to a town, a small town in the middle of the woods. The sun still had yet to rise, so the streets were silent exceot for the steady flow of the breeze. I still found the absence of the usual sensation of wind against my skin odd - unsettling in a way.

Something about the town was familiar to me. Names and faces were just out of reach, but the street I walked on wasn't uncharted in my mind. Maybe I lived here. I did die less than a mile away.

I shook my head with a small chuckle to myself. Not a sentence I'd ever imagine myself saying. I think.

I noticed a few people on the streets, maybe up for an early morning jog. The moon looked to be on the western horizon - daybreak was soon to come.

"Uh, won't the people see us?" I asked, motioning to the passerby.

"Only if you want them to," Xyan said with a shrug.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you want them to see you enough, you'll just pop into the mortal world," Xyan explained. "You'll still be a ghost, obviously, and technically you won't leave Limbo, but you look through a kind of inbetween that kinda clears up the mortals' view of Limbo."

"Oh. Huh."

The two led me down the street, on the way showing me a few things including levitation and flight (apparently we can do both because levitation doesn't take us very far above the ground), until we reached an old abandoned house. It was very rickety, each shift of the wind seeming as if it would knock it down.

A flicker of light in the back of my mind remained steady long enough for me to grab at it, a flash of some kind of vision crossing my sight. Inside of an old run-down house, a kid with dirty blonde hair looking at me with uncertainty as I urged him to explore inside with me. A memory? The kid was familiar to me, but his name and voice did not accompany the glance of my past.

Strange...

I shook myself out of the trance as I heard Xyan's voice talking to me.

"And this is where we live!" Xyan told me lightheartedly. "Not much, but kind of the only thing available to a bunch of ghosts."

"Well, it sure does fulfill the 'haunted house' label," I said with a slight chuckle, observing the place with new curiosity.

"I guess it does, doesn't it?"

The two led me inside, where I was met with an open living room area. The furniture - consisting of a couch, two chairs, and a coffee table - was old and dusty, and the whole interior looked as unused as the house's exterior. To the left was the kitchen entrance, as I could tell, the right leading to some kind of extra room with nothing in it. Stairs in the back right corner led up to a kind of balcony walkway, a few more doors visible up there.

Xyan knocked loudly on one of the walls, surprisingly making a sound. "Guys! We're home!"

Immediately a small child peeked out from the top of the stairs, bright yellow in color. Her pale eyes shined brightly with excitement as she squealed and raced down the stairs, nearly tripping over her own feet as she bolted to Xyan. Xyan knelt down and allowed her to hug him, to which the small spirit replied with a happy giggle as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. From up closer I could now see her fingers faded to black at the tips, as did the sleeve hems of her sweater.

Another spirit popped out from the same place as the yellow one, taller and most likely an adult. She was red, having a black hole tear in her sweatshirt similar to me and black scars interlacing her arms. Her face was soft and curious as she walked down the stairs. She didn't make a sound as she walked to the three (now four, including the child) of us. She gave Praxus a nod of a wordless greeting before turning to me.

She stared at me for a moment, furrowing her brow and her smile fading.

"Uhh... something wrong?" I asked, unsettled by her concerned look.

She looked at Praxus again. Praxus, in turn, shared a similar face of perplexion.

"What do you mean, you can't talk to him?" Praxus asked.

Immediately I was also confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"She's mute," Praxus explained. "But she can speak through telepathy. And for whatever reason, she can't get through to your mind."

"Woah, she can do that?" I tilted my head as I immediately was curious about this power.

The red spirit nodded to me, but still seemed offset by her inability to speak with me. She took a step back, holding the smaller spirit - who was standing and looking at me curiously - by the hand.

Praxus chuckled nervously before turning back to me.

"Anyway, this is Akhet-" He gestured to the red spirit. "-and Aiko."

I gave them a small wave. "Hi."

Akhet still looked at me mistrustfully. Aiko waved ecstatically back with a bright smile.

We stood in awkward silence for a moment before it was broken by Xyan.

"Anyway... the sun's coming up, so I'll show Gradient around at nightfall," Xyan said. "Come on, Gradient, I'll show you to your room."

"Okay," I shrugged. I gave Akhet one last glance before following the blue spirit up the stairs.

We walked up the stairs in silence, but I couldn't keep my question down past there. "Is there... a reason you all sleep during the day?"

"Oh, yeah," Xyan said. "In the sunlight, it's harder for us to stay hidden for whatever reason, so we just sleep through it. And we don't wake up until the moon rises. It's kinda cool, really."

"That doesn't really make any sense," I remarked.

"Which part?" Xyan asked.

"Well, I thought moonlight was just reflected sunlight, so both would technically be sunlight?" I pointed out, shrugging.

Xyan just gave me a blank look, obviously confused. "What?"

I honestly didn't expect his perplexion, but I rolled along with it. "Never mind, never mind."

So he continued and led me to what I guess was now my room.

It was mostly empty, with a bed as old as all the other furniture and a nightstand in the same state. There were two windows, one on either side of the bed, allowing moonlight to shine through and illuminate the room with a cool, silvery glow.

"You can sleep here," Xyan said. "Pretty blank right now, but if you want you can decorate."

I looked around the room and gave him a small nod in response. Xyan gave a warm smile and patted my shoulder before walking off to where I assumed his room was.

After he left I took a look around the space before flopping down on the bed and looking up at the ceiling. Whoever was living in this room last - must have been a long time - had a few glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling, still slightly glowing in the fading darkness. Nice touch.

My thoughts circled back to the forest, where I had awoken. I tried to recall something, anything - a face, a name, a place, whatever - from before. Before I died. The memory of the house was now barely a wisp once again, the face of the young boy I was speaking to within it just out of reach. I exhaled, a long huff of annoyance as I flicked my tail in thought.

I'll think about this tomorrow, I thought. Sleep was already coming over me as day began to break outside, my vision slowly beginning to darken until I was deep in the depths of my mind and asleep.

-

"I can't speak with him. Last time that was the case... it wasn't good."

"What do you mean?"

"It was her. And she almost killed me. I'm afraid he may be like that, too."

"Look, I... just give him a chance, okay? If he starts acting weird, we'll question him. That good?"

"Fine. I'm just... I'm worried. It's been peaceful so far, and... I don't want that ruined."

"Hey. It's gonna be fine. No one's dying on my watch."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

-

:D

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