New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Inside Alexander, in the white room that was his soul, only two things were present.

The soul orb that contained all of Psyche, or rather Geminae's power, and Alexander's consciousness.

Both floated peacefully in the room, tethered to each other.

In the last month, the orb had shrunk considerably as it kept Alexander's soul in the mortal realm. This had been an instinctual reaction from the orb, as it felt it was connected to this man.

It had reached out through the gaps of its cage and tethered to the unmoving consciousness to feed it and keep it alive.

Suddenly, his body shook. It was only benign, at first, until I devolved into convulsions.

Alexander's eyes suddenly burst open as he took his first breath in weeks.

His body stopped floating as the tether between him and the orb disconnected, and he dropped to his back on the floor, gasping for air.

Taking a few minutes to settle down his breathing, Alexander looked at the ceiling of the white room, recognizing it and wondering why he was still there.

Last he remembered, he was here, listening to the imp and Geminae argue.

But now, looking around himself, he couldn't see either of them.

Then he remembered the painful memory of being forced to swallow the imp and getting stabbed in the chest by Geminae.

"How am I still alive?" he exclaimed.

He sat up, looking at the considerably smaller orb, and wondered if it had been the reason for his survival.

He rose to his feet, trying to find the imp and Geminae with his eyes, but couldn't see them anywhere.

"Where are you guys?!" he shouted, hoping for an answer.

But instead of seeing them appear before him, he instead heard them in his head.

"He's awake! Alright, you little devil! Time's up; we are going back inside. Let him deal with this."

"Aww. But I'm not done eating! Let me at least taste this flesh one more time be—"

The voice cut out as he felt his vision swim for a second and was now out of the white room.

It took him a moment, as the dizziness of being snapped out like this was assaulting his mind before he could move his head without throwing up.

Looking around, he saw he was in a dark cave, with a bit of light peeking around a corner of stone a bit further. There was no light around him, but somehow, he could see as well as in a lit room, if somewhat devoid of colour.

Before him was an animal whose body was gnawed at several places. Alex looked at it, wondering what had been done to it, before realizing he had the taste of iron in his mouth.

Looking at his hands, he saw they were all bloody, and that's when he saw his body, which was covered in blood as well.

His clothes were all torn up, with barely a part of his pants still holding on to him, covering his privates. The rest of it was gone.

He noticed a small mound a bit further and wondered what it was.

Walking toward it, his stomach churned as the smell of death assaulted his nose.

"Oh, my god! Couldn't they have put the bodies outside or burned them? This is revolting!" he cursed, looking at the mound of corpses from the corner of his eyes.

He had to cover his nose, and breathing through his mouth was barely better, as he could taste it instead.

The mound was composed of a large assortment of animals, from wolves to bears to birds and even some fish.

But looking deeper into it, his heart stopped.

He found something he was almost refusing to acknowledge.

There was a foot. A human foot.

'Please tell me I'm seeing things. Please tell me I'm seeing things,' he thought, pulling at the foot.

He dislodged the foot with a bit of effort, which was sadly still attached to a body—a person.

The face of this person, an older man, judging by the wrinkled skin of his face, was stuck in a mask of terror. Whatever had killed it, he had a chance to see it coming.

Alex looked through the pile some more, hoping this was the only human corpse, but he found two more.

A young man and a young woman dressed like hikers.

He could see teeth marks all over them in some fatty areas, which were evidently not made by an animal. The bite marks were too small, human size, even.

Horror took hold of his heart and mind as he began puking his stomach's contents out.

He already knew.

He knew, deep down inside, that he had done this.

"What have I done…" he whispered, looking at his bloodied hands.

Some of this blood might be the people's blood.

He had killed people… Taken innocent lives…

His mind reeled for a moment before the voice of Geminae rose in his head.

'I'm sorry. I wasn't always able to contain the demon. But rest assured, these were the only ones. You won't find more…'

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Alexander shouted, anger filling him.

"You let him kill innocent people! How dare you say 'rest assured'?! These people probably died of fright before he even tore into them! This is not okay!"

'I can assure you, they died to him, but it was quick. They didn't suffer,' Geminae said, his voice impassive.

"You… You fucking idiot!" he shouted.

His mind snapped back to the white room as his body went still, his face contorted with rage.

He immediately saw the imp and charged at him.

"You!" he shouted at it, grabbing its throat.

The imp was surprised, as it was whining in a corner, complaining about being unable to eat flesh anymore.

"You killed innocent people! No! Worse than that! You made ME kill innocent people!"

The imp punched at Alexander's forearm, trying to free himself, but in vain.

The air was no longer passing in his throat, as Alex was squeezing the literal life out of him.

Geminae ran next to them and shouted, "Stop! You can't kill him!"

"Tell me why I shouldn't!" Alex shouted back in anger.

"You should, but you can't! Not anymore! Not if you want to live!"

The words hit his mind like a hammer.

"What? Explain yourself," he growled, only slightly releasing the imp throat to allow him to breathe.

"Because you'll be killing yourself…"