aMUSEment

Darkness. All that surrounds me is apathetic darkness. I slowly adjust to my surroundings. Nothing, nothing is surrounding me. I look around, but all I can see is the apathetic darkness. Far above me, a light begins to form as a soft glow filling the emptiness of the dark, and a shiver pointed out how cold I truly was.. The warmth of the light soon reaches me, and I am bombarded with an abundance of positive emotions. The faint, warm, glow gently caressed me, surrounding me in its yellow-orange warmth.

“Alice.” I could hear a smile in the voice as it said my name.

“Alice,” I hear it again, this time louder, still a melodious chime about it. “Alice, it’s time.”

“Time for what?” I look up, shielding my eyes from the brightness.

“Alice, you are dead. It’s time to move on.” Those words stung as my heart began to sink to the floor. I died? No. I’m alive and talking, breathing, moving underneath this sentient light.

“What do you mean, I’m dead?” I refuse to believe it. “I died?”

“Your body ceased to function as a vessel for your consciousness.” The light seemed shocked by my question. Sighing, I composed myself before speaking. The lull in sound created an awkward silence between us.

“I know what it means to die. I was having a difficult time accepting it.” Silence crept up again.

“Oh.” More silence fell, as the light dimmed slightly as if embarrassed by its words.

“What do you mean by move on? Is this not the afterlife?” I look around as I speak, trying to make sense of the realm surrounding me.

“About that, have a seat.” The light revealed a desk with a stack of files and a chair farther down. I look at it, reluctant to walk over, but ultimately I find myself with no other choice as I sigh and walk towards it.

“This is the room for what comes next.” The light says to me as I sit down. “Usually, the Fates choose what comes next without delay, so you never come here, but,”

“But what?”

“Hidden deep within your essence is a desire that you refuse to let go. I doubt you even know what it is. Until you release it, you can’t move on.”

“Is that how vengeful ghosts are created?”

“What? No. Those people just refused to move on.”

“Oh.” Another awkward silence. I sigh to try and break it, but all I end up doing is add to the awkwardness.

“Wait, what do you mean the Fates choose? What about my right to choose?”

“Ah ha hahh,” The light laughed nervously. “You caught that. Your rights end with their resolve.”

Out of the darkness, three figures faded into the light. Their images rippled and swayed as if a light breeze gently drifted over a water’s surface and rose up through the trees.

The first Fate to come into my focus was tall, slender, and wore a face of judgment I knew all too well. Her high heels clicked loudly, disturbing the silence with echoes of revolving sound. Her dark hair was pinned up tight in a bun on the top of her head. Not one hair dared stray. Her lips looked stained from the blood of her enemies. Her dress, the same deep color of her lips, hugged every curve, refusing to part from her skin in what I can only describe as fear of abandonment. She crossed her arms mid-stride, lips pursed, and eyes narrowed.

“I am Astro. You will do as I say or face my punishment.” Her eyes, hidden behind her black and white oval glasses, were black holes, her pupils the only source of light. That light flickered and darted as she looked me over, silently passing judgment. The way she narrowed her eyes at me sent shivers down my spine. Yet, I was still entranced. It was as if she silently cast a spell over me, stealing my voice and encapsulating my attention to the point where my will was no longer my own. I averted my gaze, trying desperately to avoid the wrath I was sure to come. With one gentle touch of her finger, Astro redirected my gaze upon her. She smiled. That smile forced every hair on my body to stand on end as I broke out in a cold sweat.

“Do you understand?” those words, so simple and yet, hidden beneath them, was my inevitable demise. I nodded, having no other choice but to agree.

“Sister, you really shouldn’t play with mortals like that. They take things so seriously.” Astro sighed in disgust, freeing me from the trap I so easily fell for. I slowly turn right and see another Fate. She smiled warmly at me and waved as she crouched down to meet my gaze.

“Hi! I’m Cloe.”

Everything about her demeanor changed once she stopped waving. I could not help but stare at her perfect features and was mesmerized by the endless amounts of thread coming from the spindles that surrounded her. Every spindle spun in its own direction, creating the strands of her long, tied back hair as well as the very dress she wore. From a distance, Cloe looked like an adorable abstract doll you place high on a shelf and admire from afar. Up close, every spindle, every thread, was set and worn as a badge of honor, exactly how hunters wear and display the animals they killed. The longer I stared, the deeper the color the threads became.

“Cloe, didn’t you just scold Astro for doing the same thing?” I glance in the direction the voice is coming from for an instant. When I look back, Cloe is walking away from me, her threads, slowly fading from black to white.

The Fate before me now was a drastic difference to the other two. The other two looked the part of goddesses. This Fate wore plain red and white sneakers, a simple red and white striped dress, and had her hair loosely put together enough to stay out of her face. Her skin and hair glistened and sparkled a dazzling gold under the faint glow of the sentient light. I did a double-take to make sure I was not seeing things. I rubbed my eyes, hoping that what I saw before me was an illusion. That was a huge mistake.

I angered the Fate that had just spared me the wrath of her sisters. She had been texting and emailing on her phone this whole time. She looked up and glared at me, walking up to me with such ferocity, if I were not already dead, I would have been white as a ghost. The only thing that saved me was her sisters' uncontrollable laughter. The sentient light that had stayed silent this whole time sighed and finally spoke up.

“You managed to anger all three Fates with just a glance.” The light sighed again, clearly frustrated with the scene unfolding underneath it.

“You could have spoken up any time, Muse.” The third Fate was clearly annoyed with both the Muse and myself. Her voice was firm and chiding, forcing me to shrink in my seat.

“I’m sorry, Laurel. You were the one to suggest we say nothing to the girl.” Laurel looked up to the Muse, clearly agitated at being reminded of that fact.

“Tst.” With a click of her tongue and a glare, Laurel stormed off to join her sisters, who now sat on the other side of the desk, wiping their tears away as they finished laughing.

“You narrowly avoided the wrath of the Fates.” The Muse spoke softly to me, assuring me in its own way, that everything was well. “I haven’t seen Laurel this mad since Midas.”

“What did he do,” I asked?

“He tried to touch me because my skin was his favorite color, and he wondered just how soft it really was,” Laurel said matter of fact like, never looking up from her phone. “So, I called my secretary to administer punishment.”

“You have a secretary?” My question annoyed Laurel, and she sighed, tapping a few things on her phone and placing a call. Her sisters exchanged knowing glances with one another as I felt myself growing paler and paler.

“KARUMA. Come.” The instant she ended the call, a tall man dressed in a perfectly tailored, black and white suit appeared. He bowed to the Fates, smiling as he did so.

“How may I be of service today?” His voice was so angelic, I almost forgot he was the administer of punishment. He looked at me, still smiling as he slowly stood up from his reverent bow. That look brought me back to reality. For a split second, I detected a hint of pleasure as he looked at me. I blinked, and his face was emotionless. From his cherry red lips to his flawless eyeliner, Karuma looked as ever flawless a Goddess as the Fates he worked for. His diamond earring sparkled underneath the light of the Muse, completing his overall look. Silently, he stood by Laurel’s side, awaiting instructions.

Cloe giggled, giving me a once over as if I were being weighed and measured for slaughter. Beside her, Astro smiled, blowing air out her nose as she looked over towards Karuma. I sat as still as I could, placing my hands in my lap as I looked down at the stack of files sitting on the desk.

“First, you stare, and now you refuse to look them in the eyes.” Karuma walked around to me, forcing my chin upwards until our eyes met. “How brave you must be to tempt the Fates like this.” His words echoed into the darkness. Karuma studied my face eagerly, waiting a few more moments to speak again. “You’ll definitely get what you deserve.” He said with a smirk.

I gasped, choking, and sputtering as I realized I had been holding my breath the whole time.

I felt the stabbing judgment of one-thousand daggers pierce my soul. Everyone in the room looked at me as if I were crazy.

“Alice, you’re dead. You don’t need to breathe.” The Muse spoke in tone matching the vibe of the room as I was reminded of that simple fact.

“Oh. I guess I still haven’t adjusted yet.”

“You can say that again,” said Laurel, still engrossed in her phone. “Karuma, glare at her for me.” With a snap of her fingers, Laurel’s command was fulfilled. After an uncomfortable amount of time spent shrinking under Karuma’s gaze, Laurel releases him from his task.

“That’s enough. She gets what it feels like now.”

“Understood, My Lady.” Karuma bowed slightly and returned to Laurel’s side.

“The muse,” I started to say but was quickly interrupted.

“Your. Muse.” Astro interjected.

“My. Muse?” I asked, confused. Laurel sighed and put her phone down on the desk. Leaning forward, she grabbed my cheeks, making sure my attention was purely on her.

“The Muse with us now was assigned to you before you died.” She let go of my face, confident my attention was solely on her. “She was SUPPOSED to collect every want, desire, and inspiration from you at your moment of death.”

“How did I die, anyway?” I asked inquisitively.

“That’s not important,” Cloe said coldly and slightly aggravated.

“Do not interrupt me again, girl.” Laurel narrowed her eyes at me, and I nodded, fearful of the wrath she could bestow upon me. She picked her phone up and read what was on the screen. “According to this report filed by your Muse, She was able to retrieve all but a single desire. That desire is imbedded so deep within your essence, if removed, would cause permanent damage. The damage being, a transformation into a banshee, the screaming vengeful spirit bent on destroying the eternal essence of others and consuming them whole.”

Laurel looked up from her phone, analyzing my expression. The whole time she read, I had remained stone-faced. I sat there for a while, my mouth wide open from disbelief, then quickly regained my composure. Looking up, I yelled at my Muse.

“You told me I wasn’t going to become a vengeful ghost unless I refused to move on!” the light from my Muse dimmed slightly as she quietly apologized.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding, but you won’t turn into one if you take the offer the Fates have for you.”

“Offer?” I looked down and waited for my answer. Laurel put down her phone and took the top file off the stack on the desk, reading it aloud.

“Policy states: When an eternal essence has a desire embedded in their being, The Fates are to choose an applicable and appropriate realm. Hereby granting that desire, in full, the right of fulfillment to the exact specifications willed by the creator before the time of death. The Fates will also and henceforth assign the Muse responsible for retrieving the desire, the task of fulfilling the desire at any cost.”

Laurel tossed the file towards me. I opened it, eager to confirm her words. All of it was right there, in plain, legal terms. I turned the page and was puzzled to see it blank.

“Why are all the pages after this blank?”

“Those pages are for what comes next. What hasn’t happened yet cannot be written,” said Astro as she pushed her glasses up her nose. Puzzled, I looked at it again.

“It doesn’t say what my desire is.”

“Well, it’s embedded inside you. We can’t very well take it out, can we?” Said Laurel as sarcastic as possible.

“That’s where I come in,” said Cloe. “I had your muse copy and convert your desire to a manageable thread. That way, I can read it out and have it properly documented.” Cloe stood up and walked to my chair. Leaning over, she smiled a mischievous smile, plucking a hair from my head.

“OUCH.” My scream echoes as I rub my head.

“Pain is only a construct for physical bodies.” My Muse says to me, monotone. “Although, thinking about it, a part of your essence was just ripped out.”

“So, ouch,” I say to my Muse, clearly agitated at being told my pain was not real.

“Interesting.” Cloe scrutinized the strand. “It seems that this particular desire is one of love. It isn’t monogamous, though it is possessive and selfish like monogamous love. There are multiple lives attached to this one desire. Through it, very intimate and personal bonds are created. That’s where the selfishness and possessive traits come in. All of these relationships are monogamous.” Cloe gets agitated and says, “Well, that doesn’t make sense. This is clearly Polyamory. At the very least, it’s a committed Harem.” Cloe throws her arms in the air, clearly exasperated. I slowly raise my hand, afraid of what the fates would do to me if I spoke out of turn.

“ummmm,” I say meekly. “That sounds like the premise for every romance game I have ever played.” Silence overtook the room once more. I shyly fidgeted in my seat, too scared to look anyone in the eyes. My Muse was the one to break the silence.

“How many of those games have you played for this to become such an embedded desire?”

“I don’t know. I must have spent twenty thousand dollars on games and expansions.” Karuma, who had been sipping on a bottle of water, spit it out so forcefully that it was nothing but a vaporous mist. After a few silent moments, Laurel spoke.

“Well, at least we know how it got there.”

“No, kidding.” Said Astro as she snorted, looking me over once more. Astro and Cloe stood up, walking away from the desk into the darkness.

“This is all your department, Laurel,” Cloe said, waving her hand in the air as she walked away. “We’ll come back when we’re needed.” And with that, Cloe and Astro vanished into the darkness of the void beyond.

Laurel took a file labeled, ‘Desire’ from the stack. A black notebook fell out, falling onto the ground , pages sprawled across the floor in a sad and distant state of affairs.

“Never mind about that,” she said, slightly annoyed that I tried to pick it up. “ Ah, here’s the file. The desire knows what it is on a basic scale. The minor details are up to you, though. What you look like, your lineage, how you are raised, all of that is considered minor details under my control. Even the type of life you become is under my control. Usually, Karuma would bring me your file, and I’d make a decision based on how balanced or unbalanced your past life was. In this case, though, part of the desire is the right to choose.” Laurel narrowed her eyes as she opened the file, reading the fine details of my embedded desire. “It looks like I am allowed to even things out, though.” She says with a relieved sigh. “Right, here’s where we haggle.”

“Haggle?” I asked, surprised I was being given a choice. Laurel crossed her legs like a pretzel in the chair. A stray strand of hair fell to her face. She brushed the hair behind her ears, unbothered by the chaos it seemed to create on her head.

“This is an incredibly detailed and complex desire. If I do not allow you a choice in the minor things, it may not be fully satisfied. Thankfully, there is no room for other desires to embed themselves, so we can focus on satisfying this desire in full. Don’t get the wrong idea,” Laurel said, looking up from the file, pushing the strand of hair back behind her ear, “I’m still in charge. I’m just giving you the choices I'm obligated to give you.”

Karuma hands me a clipboard with paperwork and a friction pen. Everything, from my last name to my eventual career path, was ready for my opinion. Even my childhood traumas have a spot to fill out.

“This is incredibly detailed for being minor details,” I mumbled, but, apparently, I was audible enough to have scowls from both Laurel and Karuma. “I’ll just fill this out.” I laughed nervously with a smile. After I filled out the forms, I handed the clipboard and pen to Karuma, who gave it, in turn, to Laurel. I could have just given her the paperwork myself. I refrained from saying anything as Karuma glared daggers at me, begging me to say something with his silent glance. Laurel begins to read out my choices to the void.

“Alice… Usagi. Good choice. Ah, I see you want to be a water sign. Unfortunately, you won’t be given that luxury. You’ll be a fire sign.” She quickly erases my choice and replaces it with her own. “You want to be tall and slender?” she asks, concealing a laugh. I nod firmly. “I’ll give you slender, but I’m not going to grant you tall. Also,” laurel picks up the page glancing at the next section, “sexy, flirtatious, AND the given society’s perception of beauty?” Laurel laughed hard for a few minutes before changing my answers. “you get moderate sex appeal, innocence, and above-average looks. You need to blend in with the world around you, not stand above it.” I could not argue with her logic. So far, her changes weren’t unreasonable. “Also, you are uncoordinated and stutter when flustered.”

“B-bbb-b-UT…” And there it was. The second she spoke, I became what she said. Laurel smiled a karmic smile, thoroughly enjoying her creation.

“Ok. You can have no allergies, but you will need glasses to see.” Karuma hands me a pair of glasses from his pocket. I gladly place them on my face. “Trauma…” Laurel bursts out laughing when she sees this section is left blank. “This section is non-negotiable. Without trauma, the desire cannot be satisfied. It’s right here.” She says as she hands me the file detailing my desire.

“Well, that’s depressing,” I say, handing the file back to her.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be kind.” She says, writing in both the past and future sections.

“Do I not get to hear what’s going to happen to me?”

“This section, along with how rich or poor you grow up, is solely up to me in normal circumstances. I thought I’d give you a chance to choose a portion of your fate that is normally karmically driven. You lost the right to know since you decided to leave it blank,” She said with a smirk. “I’ll give you strawberry blond hair with light brown and copper highlights, that way, you glow in the sunlight. I’ll give that much in appeal. I’ll also grant you flawless skin, but your complexion will be slightly off to keep you humble.” I start to whine in protest, but Laurel puts a finger up, stopping me.

“Do you want me to gift you a curse or a blessing next?” she asked warningly. I shut my mouth and sit perfectly still, sitting on my hands. “That’s a good girl. Oh, we’ve already come to the end of the forms. I’ll add in a bonus since you have been so cooperative. I’ll give you that twenty thousand dollars you spent on the games that fueled this desire to start with. All that’s left is for you to choose a starting point.”

“How many choices do I have?”

“Let’s see. I’m counting five in total.” Said Laurel as she glances over the file of my desire. “There is a stupidly rich man who buys your affection for a night, a man with a hidden past, an unemotional robot of a man who contradicts every rule, maybe a cop, and a tortured artist who tortures others for his own twisted amusement. What path do you choose?”

“Can I see what each man looks like?” I ask earnestly.

“No.” Laurel said, firm and unwilling to compromise.

“Of course, I can’t.” I sigh with a smile, exasperatedly wondering why I even asked. “I guess I choose the first one, the one that buys my affection for the night. By the way, what’s the common denominator that ties all of this together? Every game has at least one or two base points that never change besides the main character.”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Laurel says, smiling. Handing me the black book that dropped on the floor, she urged me to open it. “In this book is all the data you will need to conduct your life in this world you have created. Guard it with your life. Opening the book will start your desire. You can communicate with us and your Muse by writing in it. Karuma will be montering you closely.”

“Is that part negotiable,” I asked with hope in my eyes?

“No. Karuma is a driving force in every desire. Without him, your desires may not become fully satisfied. Open your book and satisfy your deepest desire.”

I open the book and feel my vision start to blur. My limbs become heavy, like trying to pick up jello with chopsticks. I slowly lose my sight and sink further into the darkness of the void that brought me there until I feel nothing. With the darkness surrounding me, I succumb to the void until I am a part of the darkness. Eventually, I begin to hear the chirping of birds. I open my eyes to be greeted by the morning sun. The sweet smell of flowers blooming under the morning dew fills my nose. I quickly realized that my desire had been granted.