Page 276 of The Wishing Game

"Has anyone told you that you're awfully bossy?" I grumble, though I accept the gown and head for the bathroom.

"It is the nature of my position. I command, and others follow," he continues ashefollows me, about to enter the bathroom, too. But I'm faster as I close the door in his face before he can step inside.

"Privacy, Ze. That's why doors exist," I call out as I take off my clothes to put on the purple gown.

"I hate doors," he adds grumpily from the other side.

I smile to myself, surprised to realize that his odd brand of bossiness did, in fact, accomplish the mission. Without even realizing, my sadness turned into good humor, the past promptly forgotten in favor of the much more entertaining present. If he keeps this up, Ze might very well get his new boon.

I shake my head at that absurd line of thought, but a small part of me may not think it'sthatabsurd.

It takes me a couple of minutes to get ready. As I exit the bathroom, I find Ze pacing around my room with a deep look of concentration.

"So, where are we going?" I ask as I plop myself in front of him.

He suddenly stops his maddening pace, swiveling to meet my gaze.

"I have changed my mind," he declares.

"What do you mean?"

"I have, of course, planned an entire itinerary for today. I do not want you to think I would have come unprepared. But I find that there is one more pressing matter to take care of."

I blink in confusion.

"Are you canceling on me?" I ask, bewildered.

"Of course not." He pins me with his gaze. "But there will be a change of plans. Come." He takes a step forward and grabs my hand, pulling me into his arms. In the blink of an eye, our surroundings change.

A bleak landscape stretches out in front of us, the land barren and desolate as far as the eye can see. There's one narrow road in the middle of the rusty desert-like terrain, accommodating thousands of people as they slowly walk in a death march procession toward an unnamed destination. The sky is perpetually dark and unwelcoming, red clouds gathering here and there to obstruct the little light that exists.

"What's this?"

Ze places himself at my back, his hands on my shoulders.

"This is P'asala. The intermediary realm through which all souls pass before they head into the afterlife, and that is the Road of all Woes."

"But... It's so...so..."

"Simple?" he offers.

"I would rather go with sinister," I mumble drily. "Even good souls have to walk through here?"

"Yes. There is no differentiation until they reach the Apex." He points toward a vague dark spot on the horizon. "Each soul relives their past life during the Road of all Woes, the good and the bad. It is the last time they are able to remember their previous selves. The virtuous have nothing to fear, for they have led a noble life and they will be rewarded as such in the afterlife. The sinful become wracked by guilt and fear as they remember every bad deed they have committed," he explains.

A shiver goes down my back the more I stare at that bleak and somber road. I suppose the name of the road is an apt representation for the visual—it's truly woeful.

"Come." Ze takes my hand, pulling me into his arms as he levitates above the ground. We move speedily across the flat desert, and in just a few seconds, we reach the Apex he was talking about. The landscape changes from a flat surface to an uneven, hilly one. As we reach a tall dune, Ze descends to the ground. He releases me, placing me by his side.

"This is where everything changes," he notes.

There's a black patch of land where a masked figure garbed in a combination of red and dark yellow awaits each soul. As they step from the road and onto the black strip, the soul begins to glow. But not all souls are the same. Some are a light color, others a dark, muted one. But as they step off the black strip of land to continue forward, the glow doesn't change.

"That is the Apex where the souls are judged," Ze says. "That is Omorion. He is a Death deity from the House of Psyche. His task is to weigh each soul to determine where they are to go. The souls that have a light shimmer are virtuous. The darker the glow, the more sinful they are. Let us go to the next phase."

Taking my hand once more, he flashes us to the next stop. There's a huge well with intricate designs along the edges. It's so large, it covers the visible horizon, making it so there's nothing left north of it. A woman in a hood that obscures her face sits on the ledge of the well, holding a cup in her delicate hands that she fills from the well and gives to each soul to consume.

"This is Letharion—the well of oblivion. And that is Lethe, the Goddess of Oblivion. After a soul drinks from the well, all memories of their past life are erased until they become a blank canvas. But the souls never lose their glow, which indicates which part of the afterlife they will head to."

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