The Shrine Book

The shrine’s pale exterior is crusted with vines, cracks, and smears of dirt that nestle the grand building into the even greater forest of towering trees, hanging greenery, patches of vibrant blooms, and low crawling ferns. I take a lungful of the fresh, earthy air and step up the battered stairs.

Looking around, I think, I've never seen a Spirit Shrine in this condition. The one in town’s always kept squeaky clean.

The wooden door sports cracking old varnish and splinters while the round handle’s paint is starting to peel away, revealing a rusting metal layer. I reach out to enter the shrine.

The hinges creak heavily as the door swings in to reveal a wide chamber leading to a long hall. The arches are a work of art, far more ornate than the town shrine, and the window sills are covered with a layer of dust that leaves my fingertips coated in gray.

I smile to myself and take a moment to languish in the silent serenity of this mysterious place. 

It seems my exploring efforts have paid off. This spot is way better than my last. It’s the perfect place to finish reading my book.

Humming, I head down the hall. The hall, not being in the full view of the windows, is cast in shadow with empty torches lining both walls, though something else glows from the room ahead. I squint as I leave the dark hall to the bright room.

The light comes from small clusters of Spiritsilver set into the ceiling and placed evenly around the room to give it a steady glow. It’s vivid and unwavering unlike the flickering palm sized ball of Spiritsilver enshrined back in town. Set into the walls are hollows carved out above unlit braziers. At the head of the room is a raised stage with a large statue of a hilt and blade—pure Spiritsilver—at the center. Murals of spirits and humans flow to the statue, as if the sword is holding the pictures in a spiraling whirlpool.

I tap my chin. With the amount of Spiritsilver in here, the shrine could be deemed as one of the richer shrines, but here it is, abandoned and as destitute as such a shrine could be. As I walk forwards, my foot brushes something on the dusty floor. I look down to find a leather bound tome. It’s in quite good condition considering its surroundings. With two hands, I gently pick it up and run my fingers down its spine.

How did I not notice this before?

I clutch it close to my chest and make my way to a corner where I sit myself down and flip open to the first page of the book. 

The book does not offer the introduction I’m expecting. Instead, the first paragraph throws me directly into a scene.

Pain chokes, filling my lungs, plunging me beneath its rippling surface. It flays me layer by layer until I’m a dried husk. Cry though I try in rage and desperation, no hand shall extend to me now as I tumble through this perpetual abyss.

Frowning, I examine the binding to see if I’m missing any pages. I’m not. The opening is bewildering, but I’ve already started the book, so I decide to continue. After a much needed time skip backwards, a tragedy unfolds before me, one of a carefree spirit who accidentally incurs the wrath of humans and spirits alike. When a princess that befriended the spirit and becomes mysteriously possessed, everyone turns against him. In the story, the mastermind behind the cruel scheme is never uncovered, so the spirit is left to fend for himself.

His journey is as harrowing as it is painful, and by the end, although we’ve met for just twenty-seven pages, his fall brings tears to my eyes.

Once they beguiled me with their laughter and hollow comradery. Now they raise their weapons and shackle me to the accursed sword. My lover, the sweet call of the world, has turned mocking at my futile attempts and bitter as I suffer in stagnation. But they shall birth a blaze like no other, as animosity left to smolder in anguish shall one day ignite. The passage of time may not thieve my long held resentment with its corrosive touch. 

The story ends at that, and I can’t help but scowl at the last period that has halted the tale. Only twenty eight pages have passed, but I cannot help but be drawn in. Yet there is no more of this story to tell.

Based on the length, it must be an anthology. A shame. Hopefully I’ll be able to witness the true closing of the spirit’s story in this volume.

When the page turns again, there are illustrations. The first one is of a character in the story, a spirit named Arra the Green, sneering and reaching out a willowy, clawed hand. The next few are humans that I don’t recognize, including one that the book uncharitably labels, Reah; the Peasant in a Crown’. The fourth illustration shows a Spirit Shrine crumbling, and spewing thin trails of silver mist through the cracks. I study it for a long time, trying to make sense of it, but I can’t. The last illustration makes my brow furrow. It’s a sword, identical to the one in the abandoned shrine, surrounded by a halo of pure red ink. This is the first time I’ve seen color in the book. 

I put the book down and stare at the statue of the sword. It must be a depiction of a mythical sword. That’s the only explanation that makes sense, even if it is strange that they would have a statue of a cursed sword in a Spirit Shrine. 

Why would any spirit who knows the story want to see the sword? Would they not be reminded of the long years that one of their kind suffered for nothing?

Or maybe this is all a silly fairytale. It’s quite twisted to be the kind one would read in a Spirit Shrine. 

I find myself wondering who this book had been written by and who had read it last, all details that cannot be ascertained from the blank cover.

What I’ve read so far takes up a tiny percentage of the entire length, so I read on. 

The next passage is a fairytale that follows the story of a boy who enters a magical palace in the forest and finds a spirit trapped in a small cage made of Spiritsilver. The descriptions of the palace are eerily similar to the shrine I’m in, down to the grandeur warped by age.

As I survey my surroundings again, I can’t help but speculate about what happened in this shrine. My theories are undoubtedly fictitious, but I find myself huddling closer to the corner as I turn the pages.

The story ends with the boy bumping his foot on a key on the ground that he had not noticed before and opening the cage.

I flinch, slamming the book shut as if I can contain the words within the suspiciously pristine binding. Everything around me is covered with a layer of dust. By all accounts, this book is a relic of the past, excerpt not a scratch or fray mars its surface, a fact that I only find strange now. What’s moret, the ink looks newly printed on the crisp pages.

I fling it away and scamper down the hall, but in the darkness, my feet slip on something. It’s a piece of paper. Carefully, my two fingers lift it from the ground.

I’m being paranoid. Aren’t I too old to believe in boogeymen?

I begin to read.

Stillness engulfs the room

Yet a flickering candle

Wanes in the gloom

Shall it burn the dark?

Or as they cruelly decreed

Doubt devours the spark

Reach for it I may

Shall it leave or shall it save

The decision is not mine to say

The hand that holds the paper trembles as I turn back towards the sword. A part of me wants to run, but the other part is stronger. The story of the spirit must be true. I can’t leave him. The hall deposits me back into the room. The shining Spiritsilver sword draws near.

From so close, it’s clear that this is not a statue. The edges are sharper than any sculpture and coated in a thin layer of steel. 

“Be free,” I whisper, wrapping my right hand around the cool hilt that dwarfs my fingers. The effect is immediately palpable. I groan as nausea pounds on my skull, doubling over the sword’s pedestal, careful not to brush against the deadly sharpness of the blade. When I try to pull back, my fingers are stuck fast.

What’s…happening?

I slump against the flat of the blade as my eyelids droop. A few seconds later, I open them to see a wide circular platform. My fist opens and closes around nothing. Instead of walls I’m surrounded by a red void. Silver gravel crunches beneath my feet as I take my first tentative step. 

“Hello, my friend,” calls a low voice from behind.

Spinning, I come face to face with a tall man with ash gray skin and eyes the color of brilliant silver. His wide smile is lined with small triangular teeth. He bows to me gracefully with his hands behind his back then waltzes closer.

“I’ve not laid my own eyes upon someone else for much too long. Seeing you is like basking in the first rays of sunlight after the banishment of the storm,” the spirit says. He gestures to the circle around us, emphasizing the nothingness that encapsulate the platform. “Welcome to my abode, mortal.”

I let out a stiff chuckle. “It certainly is humble.”

I clear my throat and offer my hand. “How can I help you? There must be a way out of this place.”

The spirit’s eyes grow cold, raising every hair on my neck. “Oh, there is.”

He leaps at me from mere feet away, revealing claws he hid from view. My mind takes a moment to process the situation, but it’s a moment too late.

As I stagger back, my head slides off my body. The pain is immeasurable, overwhelming every sense of mine. It takes me a great deal of screaming before I realize that st least I can still feel.

It must be because this isn’t the physical realm, I think even as I start to panic, Can I even die here?

The spirit glares down at my head and wrinkles his nose at my obviously very alive state.

“I don’t understand,” I say, “I’m trying to help!”

I can feel my body squirm even without my head.

“You can help me by giving up your life,” the spirit says, “If it’s any consolation, I’ll make sure to remember you. This will be over soon anyway.”

The pieces start clicking together. My mouth moves of its own accord as my body gets to its feet unsteadily.

“You’re going to possess me,” I say, “Discard me as a means to an end. They bound you here for a reason, didn’t they? You really did do something horrible. I never should’ve trusted you.”

“Yep,” he says nonchalantly as if he barely heard me.

“But you don’t need to possess me!” I cry, “Spirits don’t need bodies.”

“As a spirit myself, I can confirm the accuracy of that statement,” the spirit said dryly, “but to get out of this prison, I’ll need a key. And what better conduit than a mortal’s own flesh? Worry not, my friend. Your sacrifice is not wasted, though I would much prefer if you were quieter about it.”

I don’t want to be this ‘sacrifice’. 

My body surges towards the spirit, shoving him aside with surprising strength. The spirit flies fifteen feet before colliding with the ground and rising to his feet again with a snarl. My skin and muscles fuse together again as I place my head back on my shoulders. From the spirit’s reaction, he wasn’t expecting that. I look down at my hands. Did they truly manage to fend off the spirit?

This place isn’t like reality. But he doesn’t know the rules either, so the first one to figure them out shall be victorious.

A sharp pain strikes my head much like the nausea I felt while touching the hilt. It feels like something probing into my mind, a new voice that’s so far barely a whisper. The spirit smiles.

“Whatever resistance you think will work, it won’t”

He has an advantage though. If I don’t get out soon…I’ll never leave this place.

The spirit stalks closer, and when he leaps this time, he transforms midair into a fearsome wolf-like beast with canines as long as my forefinger and fur the same gray of his skin.

“Just stop struggling!” he growls without moving his lips.

I manage to block clumsily with my forearm, but he digs his teeth painfully at my flesh and starts clawing at my stomach. With a gasp, I slam us both to the ground and silently thank whatever force in this plane is giving me the strength to rival a spirit as I roll away from him. The headache rages on in the back of my mind, creeping closer and closer. From my peripheral vision, the spirit is still stunned for the moment.

I rub my head. It's getting hard to think as my mind fights off the influence of the spirit. 

“Your life is short,” the spirit rumbles, again without the use of a mouth, “yet you cling to it like a bloodsucking parasite! Shall you choose to stay here, your soul shall be preserved in the land of the living for countless more centuries.”

“Living in here is no way to live at all!” I scream.

He bares his teeth. “So you understand my plight, yet you choose to disregard it? After lifetimes of strife and betrayal, I should’ve expected no less.”

“Are you still going with that story? Being angry doesn’t make people want to take another’s life, autonomy, and future. I can’t empathize with anything you say when I know you mix lies into your words.”

He starts charging at me with incredible speed. “Then I shall not waste my time regaling to you. There are few who have managed to pluck a hair from my head, even fewer who have lived to tell the tale!”

My feet pivot and I start running, but all that is in front of me is the edge of the platform that plunges into the red abyss. I don’t stop to consider; I just keep getting closer and closer.

From a measly ten feet away, I skid to a stop and turn to face the bounding spirit. My eyes glance back towards the edge.

Can I survive it? I could survive getting my head lopped off.

I flick my eyes from the spirit back to the ledge. The spirit has slowed, reduced to prowling closer. He doesn’t need speed. He has me cornered.

But why? He doesn’t need to chop my head off to possess my real body. He must think there’s a way out. Something that I could find if I looked hard enough. The question that remains is if he himself knows the way out.

I stare at the bottomless red. The sight of it conjures in my mind the first passage from the book. 

“You’ve jumped,” Then I quote, “‘Cry though I try, no hand shall extend to me now as I tumble through this perpetual abyss.’ It’s both literal and metaphorical. How are you still here? Shouldn’t you be tumbling down in those depths forever?”

“It’s a cycle of pain,” the spirit says, “No matter how far I fall in search for an escape, I always end up back here. That path shall offer you no reprieve.”

“No,” I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but I’m emboldened by my half formed revelations, “This is a cage meant for you, not me. It blesses me with strength and speed but offers you eternal pain. You cannot keep me here.”

I turn and dash towards the edge of nothingness, but again, realizing my plan, the spirit is faster. He howls, colliding with me four feet from the ledge, clawing at my legs, chest, arms, and neck with so much ferocity that my body falls apart. My head goes flying back towards the center of the platform as my limbs struggle by themselves on the ground.

“I shall keep you here!” the spirit roars, “And I shall walk the earth once again!”

“You will only bring destruction,” I wheezed. This place is dulling my suffering, but even then, I can barely think through the haze of pain as glinting dark crimson seeps from my slashed skin. The alien force in my mind grows so strong that the anger and will of the invader is crushing my soul. In moments, my fate will be sealed.

Foolishly, I try to raise myself on my hands and knees, but the limbs just flop around uselessly. Without a support structure, the only parts of my body that can move far are my severed hands.

Including my right hand that holds the sword.

A new blaze of hope reignites in me. I raise my right hand. It’s only a foot away from the edge. Like a spider, it scuttles to all five fingers, closer and closer to escape.

The spirit shouts and attempts to catch the fleeing appendage. He makes it so close that I can feel the wind of his claws passing by. My hand falls into oblivion.

I brace for pain, but it doesn’t come. The feeling of the hilt in my fingers returns. I let go, and the last I hear of the spirit is his pained cry as he watches me slip from his grasp.