The first horrific thing to happen to her was being snatched by an intergalactic space portal. She was then dumped into a forest where a white four-meter-tall wolf chased her all night until she passed out. The very next morning she ran into a group of elves who tied her against a tree, using her as – and she quoted – "live bait."
Then there was the freakishly pale elf boy who turned out to be the wolf, who ended up pushing her into her demise using a tree!
So, she died and then woke up in a white, space which the same psychotic killer followed her into. He claimed he could get her out – boy, wasn't he bold as to think he could defy death…! And now look what the heck happened to him! Probably stripped of his flesh by that tentacled monstrosity.
Why in the world did she try to go back for him?
Those were the thoughts tumbling around April's head as she plummeted and plunged into a sea of black. She instantly lost her breath and clasped her neck suffocating.
How was she suffocating? She was supposed to be dead. And dead people don't need to breathe! The black depthless sea pulled her deeper and faster, amounts of water surging through her lungs and overtaking her. The light of the white void above her was instantly swallowed by the surface while she was swallowed by the wet abyss. She let out a sudden cry of fear and watched the last of her air blow away in bubbles.
"I'mdrowning…?" shehopelesslythought. "Figures…"
Then she closed her eyes and let the weight of her body pull her into the deeper black…
Everything was deathly silent for a long time until she felt a sudden tingle in her toes and immediately opened her eyes. She was still drowning… very slowly. The cold embrace of death was creeping all around her in the form of fishtailed cats…
Fish cats.
Catfishes?
Fishy cats?
Well, whatever they were, they had long black fishtails, a black human torso, arms, and cat heads. They all looked hungry with menacing razor-sharp and see-through saw teeth.
"These guys must have eaten too much salmon in their past lives. Of course, they'd wanna eat me of all ghosts!"
She swerved her head around – forgetting she was still in the process of drowning – and counted seven of them. How fitting, her favorite number.
"I'm the Elf responsible for getting you outta here…" Saka's voice echoed in the back of April's head.
"Tch! What a load of bull! You're dead where you are. Shadow tentacles have probably eaten your…"
A sudden surge of power thrust against her body and forced her to turn around. She met with the sight of the Mer-cats frantically swimming away in bolting speed.
"… I guess I'm not that appetizing… Saka..?"
But then her sliver of hope vanished when a stark light suddenly burst in the far distance ahead of her.
"I didn't know that guy was a nebula…"
The light immediately dissipated and out of it, more fish cats swam toward April. They immediately arrived at the perplexed girl and hovered around her… ominous… silent… staring at her with eyes that were all pupils.
But these fish cats were different. Heck, they weren't even part cats! Each of them was a color from the rainbow… they had shimmering scales, webbed hands, and long freakish fishtails.
"Mermaids?..." April felt her skin crawl. She had to scram if she wanted to keep her precious soul!
The blue one, with the handsome-in-a-beastly-manner face and broad shoulders, slowly swam to April and ate up all the space between their faces. While she was still trying to fathom what was going on, it kissed her!
On the cheek.
"Whoa, merman! We barely know each other."
The creature gently pulled back and stared at April.
They all stared.
"I would've killed you if you stole my first kiss, fish boy!"
And as she returned the creatures' dubious looks, an instant surge of warmth exploded in her cheek, travelled down her neck and enveloped her chest. She groped her top and felt as emotions and other hormonal substances seeped out of her organs. Her heartbeat picked up, her lungs filled with water, and she breathed it in as naturally as air. Her eyes stopped stinging and the familiar ringing in her head ceased.
She didn't die?
She looked at the blue merman with a question on her face.
"You have concluded your Second Death," it said in a hollow and echoic voice.
April squinted.
"Sorry, I have concluded what?" she clasped her hand around her mouth in surprise.
"Your Second Death was the next step to awakening your true Elven Inner Aura." It slowly replied in the same toneless and echoic voice.
April was still lost. The purple fish-woman swam a bit closer to the girl and in a similar manner, said:
"I am called Purple. We are the Seven Guardians of the Aurithion."
Her name was her skin color. Right. So, were they all called Purple, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, and Orange? Nothing they said made sense. Maybe she didn't speak mermaid.
"Huh?"
She looked at all of them. There were only six of them and Purple had said they were seven. She wanted to tell them she couldn't count, but that could somehow be disrespectful, and disrespect had its own punishment. What would freakish fish people do to punish her? She decided she didn't want to know and instead asked:
"That thing you did; the thing I felt inside me, was it you who brought me back to life?"
The fish creatures all shook their heads.
"It was merely helping you catch your breath." said the green fish man. "Even though you possess the ability to breathe subaqueous, you diluted your mind to let go of the air thus you suffocated and caused your Second Death."
April smirked wryly. Of course, she would be able to breathe underwater when she was dead.
"I see, then. Uh, where am I?"
"You're in the Sea of Memories," said the red fish-man creature.
"The what?"
"In your conscience."
April cringed in horror.
"My conscience is a dark sea?"
"Black is beautiful." the yellow fish woman responded.
The girl fell into an ironic laugh. Wasn't she the one who always said that?
"Since when has it been black?"
"Since you died," said Purple.
"Okay. Then if I'm dead, what are y'all doing here with me? Are you the Afterlife tour guide spirits?"
"We are the Guardians of The Aurithion. We assist the Soul Archer." Said Orange.
They didn't expect her to know what those were, right? April had just discovered Elves and monsters were real… and then she died and woke up in a void where she fell into a black pool and discovered Mer-people were real too…
But what the heck was a Soul Archer? And an Aurithion?
As if her thoughts were audible, the six-color-themed merfolk swam to April, grabbing her by the limbs.
"To truly understand, we must take you to the bottom of The Sea of Memories."
"To the bottom?!" April spluttered.
And they pulled her further down, her wild screams being swallowed by the deeper darkness.
* * * *
They instantly set foot on the surface – rather, fin.
April stopped screaming and watched all of them floating around her. They shut their all-pupil eyes and outstretched their arms, raising their heads. Basketball-sized glowing balls of light appeared all around her, floating like stars around in the abyss.
The Guardians urged her to touch any of the balls. So, blaming her impulsive impulses, she swam up to the nearest glow ball and clasped it in her hands. To her surprise, it was unpleasantly cold and rejecting. She narrowed her eyes. It began to glow brighter, engulfing her and everything in a white light before the whole scenery changed and she was now standing on dirt. There was dirt beneath her slippers and the sky above her head. To the left… San Adelle. She frowned in confusion, until:
"April?"
She turned around and saw Ms. Montgomery walking towards her.
"What…?"
Excited and about to call her name, the woman walked right through her, and April froze.
Still confused – and holding onto the glowing ball – she turned in the direction of the woman and watched. There was a large tree. In it was a smiling dark-skinned girl with long black and blonde hair, dangling from a branch up-side-down using her legs.
"Gladice, look at me!" shetrilled.
"It's… me…"
That was the memory of the day she impulsively clawed up a tree and tried to brag to Ms. Montgomery and a bunch of other children…
"I told you to stop climbing that tree! You could fall!"
"But I've gotten good at it!"
"Yes, but you're not the most steady…"
… and she slipped, heading down and screaming.
By some miracle, she fell into a boy's arms. Their eyes held for a second and memory Hiroko sighed exasperatedly.
"Child, you will make my heart stop." Montgomery shook her head.
Feeling an odd sensation overcoming her, April let the ball of light go. The whole scene instantly vanished, and she was yet again in the abyss, trembling, the balls floating freely, and the Guardians still staring at her. That was a scene six months after ten year old Hiroko joined them in the shelter.
"That's twisted."
She grabbed another glowing ball and triggered the memory. This time, she saw herself standing next to a blonde and banged girl. The blonde was Edith Soy, and this was when they were eight.
"Who's fault is it now?" Asked Montgomery.
April peevishly chugged the ball away. That was when Edith and April had bumped into each other and both fell onto a priceless Chinese vase, shattering it.
Edith got adopted when they were twelve.
She grabbed another glowing ball, hands visibly trembling, and triggered it. Another memory with someone she knew, who eventually got adopted. She continued to grab more memory balls and saw everything she had experienced in her childhood until the last day she was alive…
Some of them were good memories.
Finally unable to bear it, April sank into the black surface and began crying. Her tears were see-through since she was underwater – but that didn't change the hurt she felt inside. She had lived a life she couldn't exactly be proud of, no accomplishments… no friends…
The only person who got left behind with her was Hiroko. But look what happened to him! She lost him in a portal.
"It's not fair," she sobbed. "Why does everybody leave me?"
Her face fell into her hands, and she wept. The Guardians weren't very comforting.
For eighteen years had she kept everything bottled up. Maybe this was why she did not get to the Afterlife. Her soul was burdened by her life troubles, and she was now a sad ghost. She had lived a meaningless life not worth remembering.
Saka's deed was euthanasia. What was the use of escaping the Chasm?
A few moments of bitter crying later, April felt a warm presence advancing. She was compelled to open her eyes to see what it was, and it was another one of those glowing light balls.
But there was something different about this one. It was not just the somewhat soothing heat radiating from it, but also its color. Unlike the other white balls, it was dull and gray, seven sizes smaller that it rested and fit niftily inside April's palm like a golf ball.
Its memory triggered, but what she saw was not a memory… rather a picture. She saw a very handsome young man scowling at nothing, his thin lips tight. His eyes looked indifferent and angry at the same time. But why did he look like Saka?
She quickly swerved around, thinking maybe it was a reflection but there was no one behind.
"What the hell?!" she exclaimed and tossed the ball aside, letting the water slowly carry it away.
Red merman swam to it, snatched it in his webbed hand, and returned it to the girl's palm:
"You lost this."
Well, it was obvious she tried to throw it away but she did not get the time to voice that thought for from behind the creatures, all pale and glowing like a bioluminescet sea creature, handsome and ponytailed Saka suddenly appeared.
He stood over her like a white pillar. He was definitely not a reflection.
"I told you to go to the light, not the Sea of Memories!" he barked.
He was definitely real.
Did he know about this place in her conscience? The six rainbow-colored fish people simultaneously bowed with deep, uttermost respect at him, shocking April.
"Salutations, First Guardian Lord Soul Archer." They said.
"Sa-Sakature?!" April stuttered, hiding the ball.
He suddenly snarled.
"I told you not to call me that. My name is Saka!"
And he never disappointed: he grabbed April by her arm and pulled her up. With one last sharp look at the Guardians, he ordered:
"Next time just kick her out."
And he gripped his hands – so much like a pervert but also like a ballroom dancer – around April's waist and pulled her into his midsection.
"Close your eyes."
A white bodily light grew from him, blinding her and pushing her out into her body.