Page 1 of To Trap a Soul

I would like to give a big shoutout to the wonderfulsensitivity readerswho helped to make this book a safe place for those I am trying to positively represent. As you all know, representation is a big part of what I want to do, but I want to do so in a way that isn’t harmful.

Thank you to Diamond, Erin, Nicole, and Anica for your contribution towards BIPOC sensitivity.

I would also like to give a special thank you to Crystal for your contribution towards BIPOC and overall sensitivity.

I appreciate all the time and effort you put into helping me with this book. You will forever have a place in my heart.

A time unknown, but one of suffering

Along the edges of a magically made canyon clung a black mist that was so thin and stretched out it was inconceivable to the human eye. It shimmered, as if black glittering dust had been thrown into the air and had frozen in time as it fell.

It had no smell, no taste, and it didn’t even cause one’s skin to ripple with goosebumps. To most, perhaps all, it was nothing.

Yet deep within it, an inconceivable being lingered throughout all the mist that spanned thousands of kilometres. Limitedly powerful, and so utterly powerless all the same. A watchful demi-god who prowled constantly like a mindless beast at the end of a rigid tether.

A tether he constantly pulled at, to then not only be yanked back into that mist, but through it and back to his own realm. Like an unintelligent creature, he tried and tried again, seeking a different result that would never come to fruition.

A truly pointless endeavour. One which he’d long given up on and willingly receded to the shadows where he belonged.

With that hope gone, the fingers of his tattered and tetheredsoul clawed at itself.

Make it stop,his expansive mind screamed into his metaphysical self.

It came out as nothing but a whimpering echo which reverberated all throughout his large and complicatedly vast being. A sound of his mental anguish, which called back to him cruelly. He was alone, and it was so quiet that only he should have been able to hear it.

A tidal wave of wailing cries warbled louder back through the endless, sightless darkness in response. Hundreds of beings listening, and they were never ceasing. They screamed, clawing at him to the point of insanity.

His consciousness, his phantom nothingness... his impalpable, incomprehensible, discarnate essence coalesced tighter to its centre – like one might when they lay on their side in the foetal position. It drew in so tight there was the impression of tension, of pressure, of the sinew of his soul balling up, but nothing more.

No pain. No pleasure. Absolutely no relief.

As he floated in complete and utter darkness, which was made up entirely of himself, his realm shuddered along with him. The rumble of it shook his empty home, as if there were foundations he’d never been able to touch – to reach. More wailing cries reached the lonely place he tried to hide, this time higher pitched due to surprise or fear from his metaphysical self shifting.

Those fingers clawed deeper while he stared into himself, and yet into nothing at all. There was nothing there, as there never had been. Just shadows and darkness that went on seemingly forever. Like a horizon that never stopped moving further out of reach.

He released a false breath, and it gave him nothing, not even mental relief.Please... make it stop.

He’d been pleading for this for however long, despite knowing there was no one to hear him. There was no one listening to him. No one to save him. He’d been abandoned in this place.

Cast out, alone.

Well, not entirely alone, not anymore.

He missed the long stretch of the foreverness where he’d been in his solitude. Odd, considering the yawning loneliness that had been slowly eating at him throughout all of it.

Now those that were with him tortured him until he knew his mind was twisting into a pitiful, wounded creature. If he could lick at the back of his wrist like it was an injured paw, he may have started doing that long ago to pacify himself.

He tried to push them back – those mind-bending cruel twists. Tried to shelter himself, with no materials to safeguard him from screams like the wind slicing through trees. With all his might, he used every bit of willpower to keep himselfsane.

A sharp cry pierced his thoughts. Somehow, in the endless choir, it was louder than the rest.

More heartbreaking. More distressing.

More panic inducing.

I can’t take it...

Parts of his essence and self were left behind as he materialised from the layer of his mind he’d been hiding in and teleported to the area of his stomach.

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