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I wandered downstairs into the chamber beneath the house. Once I was at the door, I opened the Arcanomicon and sifted through to find a page Ciph had pointed out to me. I read its contents and then proceeded to attempt the act. I held out my hand into the chamber, and focused on the thought of it being brightly lit. I felt my hand cramp up and burn as a small point of light appeared in my hand. It was blinding to look at and flickered out within half a second.

I tried again, my hand burning less but cramping up more. The light lasted for a second, but wasn't as bright, I could look at it and see that it was orange before it flickered out. The next time I barely saw it, but spent a minute waiting for the blinding after image to go away, as well as the burning in my hand. I realized there were two outcomes, that more cramping led to more duration, and that more burning led to more light. I read the pages again, and realized what I was doing.

The third time I didn't even focus, I just did. I held out my hand, and willed light into the chamber. Every inch of my body felt energized, sore and shaking, but energized none the less, as if I was suddenly injected with adrenaline. After a second, the entire chamber was well lit, and I had to wait a second for my eyes to adjust.

I looked around the chamber and ignored the two dark figures in the corner that were fighting each other. I headed towards the chamber and stood at the edge of the pit, feeling a soft, warm breeze flowing both in and out of the hole, almost as if it were breathing. I lifted my foot to step forward over the edge, curious about the things within when a hand grabbed me and pulled me back. I turned around to see a dark figure starring at me, no visible mouth, and white eyes. It was slightly transparent, but having felt it's cold touch I knew it wasn't ethereal.

"I thought you weren't supposed to touch me." [Me]

"Heh, grabbing and touching are different." [Cid]

"How?"

"I didn't make the rules, Alexander, but I live by them."

"Live?"

"More than those guys in B-Space."

"B-Space- what?!"

"Oh, Cipher calls it the tock, I call it B-Space."

"Oh. So... Why'd you stop me?"

"No way back up, Alexander."

"Could you call me Alex?"

"I call you're boyfriend Cranilus."

"Wait- you spoke to him!?"

"Yeah, learned the rule about grabbing last night, so I helped him take that toy out."

"You... You touched him?!"

"Grabbed-"

"It doesn't matter! You saw Jeran, you saw him freak out when he found out you touched him! Why!? What happens when you touch people!?"

"I guess you'll find out on Monday. Don't worry, I touched Psijius. I touched seven of the eighteen convicts who break out, and those are the seven who deserve it. One of them saw me, but ol' Cory had it comin'. I'd either touch him in prison or while he was smoking, but the old buzzard deserved it either way."

"... What the hell are you even talking about?"

"What do you think!? What happens to people who smoke?"

"Uhh... Lung Cancer?"

"Exactly, and people who get caught for murder?"

"Death's... Cid. Cide."

"Yeah."

"Death. You... You're going to kill Jeran-"

"Not true! I can't harm anyone, but my role as... that, lets worldly events kill people. I found out last night, that grabbing people protects them. Some guy a while back never died, and I finally found them. Fuckin' Arthur retreated down there." He gestured to the hole behind me, and it took me a minute to realize who he was talking about.

"Woah. So grabbing... protects us?"

"Apparently. I don't want you or Cranilus to die, Alexander. I made sure to grab him, and I told him that grabbing protects people, unlike touching. Then... he said it was weird to pull the thing out with me there, so I told him I'm a spirit, all sexuality's gone, and helped him pull out the toy."

"Right, and when you say grabbed, you mean groped."

"Well, the toy was in deeper than he thought, and the toy kept making him squirm, so I just pushed him against the counter and yanked it out. I guess he found it pleasuring or something, I don't remember why sex is good, so-"

"Wait, he... Wow, he can come off as a bit of a slut."

"Eh, I'm a soul, I can't reproduce." He gestured to the space between his legs, a shapeless bulge for a crotch.

"Oh. So, you're a soul. You said remember, were... were you once alive?"

"I was the first magician to die, had figured out a form of immortality as a soul, and turned out... someone gave me purpose. Souls usually travel to B-Space, but I didn't. Whoever they were, they gave me a purpose, and that purpose is to decide who does and doesn't die, against the will of nature. Last night they said I can grab people to protect them, at least for a week."

"But... Who?"

"Don't know. Quite frankly, I don't care. It's just nice to have a friend, so I go and talk to the masters, and the few who can see and hear me. Usually relatives or lovers of masters. Something in you can make others see. Feel free to kiss Ted today, give me a couple more friends."

"No, I'm not-"

"But not Daniel, magic's hard on him as it is, meeting the embodiment of death, that'd be too much. I'd need to grab him every day to keep him from commiting suicide."

"You sound like you speak from experience."

"Hey, people act pretty much the same, ten thousand years doesn't change that. Some people love magic, they give in, they embrace it and except it, like you. Others... They can't handle it. They freak out, deny it's existence and condemn those who use it, believe in it's existence, and in extreme cases, supoort those who believe that there are those who use it."

"Right, Christians."

"No, more like every government since those damnable Sumarians took hold."

"Wait, you said ten millenia-"

"Yeah, that's about when I died, dip shit. I was killed by the Sumarians, Hamurabi... He was a friendly fellow, nice body..."

"Woah- what!?"

"Of course, back then we were more worried about strength and ability to provide, so his body wasn't the frail thing Ted sees in Daniel, no he had a man's body."

"Daniel can bench one fifty-"

"So? Hamurabi could've lifted the weight rack with one hand. Then he would've thrown it on the ground and taught me the true size of a man's-"

"What happened to not being sexual!?"

"As a ghost, I can't have boners and I have no bodily functions anyways- it'd be like a puff of magic or ectoplasm- but that doesn't stop me from remembering how good he felt. You know, I'm not in the history books because he killed me for being a magic user- but that doesn't matter, not heart broken at all!"

"... Woah, even death itself has problems."

"You think? I spent six years as a slave before Hamurabi broke his own code to- firstly, fill me- and then to persecute me for using magic. My owner was perfectly okay with hiding my usage of magic and he even enjoyed it, especially with my specialty being Jeran's and all-"

"Death the gay whore. The random knowledge I've learned in the past fourty eight hours alone would kill my parents."

"Speaking of that, should I touch them now, or wait a couple years for the event to destroy the entire world?"

"... Are you seriously asking me that?"

"Well... Yeah, I respect you, I admire you, Alexander. You went through what I did, you revoked your initial religion after becoming gay, felt oppressed by the world you grew up, found out about magic, and you lucked out. You knew the right people. You're safe. You're not going to be killed for being skilled with magic, you're going to be killed because somebody figures out how to avoid my fateful touches and grabs."

"And gropes."

"He has a nice butt."

"Wow, to think of all the conversations I might've had with death, and one of them is about the niceness of my boyfriend's ass. Cid, you're an interesting fox."

"I'm not a fox! Well, I am to you."

"What."

"Well, I'm death. I appear as what your soul would look like to you. Before I died I was a... Damn, what was I? I wanna say hyena, but that's only because I'm thinking about Cipher and Psijius. ... Was I a giraffe?" He looked at me, as if waiting for an answer.

"What- how should I know? You're the one who was alive ten thousand years ago!"

"I don't know! You're the one with Merlin's field journal!"

"Merlin!? He was real!?"

"Well, he added to the Arcanomicon, the original author is the one who gave me purpose in the after life. Speaking of which, somebody's standing on the bridge here. Let me ask you, do you know anyone named Valen Brown?"

"Wait, he's about commit suicide?"

"Yeah, why?"

"... Can you take me with you?"

"S-sure, I mean, I can always grab him before-"

"No, I want to talk to him."

"Looking like that?"

"Fuck off, ghosty."

"Geez, fine, but I'm taking a minute off your lifespan for that."

"How do you know I don't discover immortality?"

"Simple, you'd need another soul for that, and unless you wanna sacrifice Valen-"

"Just take me!"

"Okay! Cool it!" He slapped his hand to my shoulder and I felt a short rush of air.