The darkness spread like cancer through the sky, consuming stars and clouds of gas faster and faster. The pain of every star consumed paralyzed her.

"You don't even know what's happening and that takes a bit of the fun out of it," the monstrous entity pouted. "It's so tempting to explain things to you, to give you a fighting chance, but while you've been enjoying your life I've been digging through your memories. Your Earth is a fascinating place, obsessed with tales of heroes and villains, but this isn't like a story. I am no villain to monologue and reveal their plans and give clues to help you defeat me."

More pain ripped through Jun's very being, only her monstrous copy's grip keeping her upright.

"Still," it said, cocking its head at an angle, "just standing here waiting for my inevitable victory is boring. You're so weak you can't even fight back even if you knew how, and your little kitty won't be popping in to save you."

Jun said nothing, thought nothing, too consumed by pain.

Disgust distorted the entity's already monstrous features. "You aren't even feeling any fun emotions anymore. Pathetic." As if discarding a piece of trash, Jun's warped copy threw her aside, sending her tumbling through the warm sand of the beach.

More pain ripped through her, but her thoughts started to clear. Through the rictus of pain, she recognized this place. The place between lives. An endless ocean of possibilities concealing treasures both mundane and rare. Her soul filling the sky. No, her soul was the sky.

"Soul Parasite!" Jun gasped, stumbling away from the monster in pain.

"It's about time," the creature wearing a mockery of her form said with a smile. "But it's too late to do anything about it. I've been riding alongside you for weeks, quietly watching what you're doing. Your foolish little kitty didn't teach you anything useful, and now you'll die." Jun watched as the creature raised its hands up and conjured magic. An oppressive gust of wind knocked her off her feet and stone wrapped around her limbs and neck, locking her to the ground. Ice coated her, sapping her warmth and stamina away, while bolts of lightning slammed into her, sending her muscles spasming as more pain ripped through her.

Jun screamed.

The Soul Parasite laughed. "I've always been a bit of an ability hoarder you know," it said. "Every life gave me some new kind of magic to play with, some new aspect to try. A boringly studious Earth mage named Thomas spent decades studying rock and stone. So boring. Stress, heat, pressure, density, mass, composition, so boring. Did you know that marble is called a metamorphic rock that forms when limestone is subjected to heat and pressure? That the color and veins are determined by impurities in the stone? It's the impurities that make it beautiful. You humans are like marble, terribly boring when perfect, but it's your impurities that make you beautiful."

Jun's muscles stopped spasming as the lightning magic dissipated, leaving her aching. Ice and stone coated her, restraining her and sapping her of strength. Struggling weakly against the magic did nothing, the stone and ice refusing to budge.

"Thomas was so boring, so obsessed with perfection that he was like pure marble, plain and boring. Died of old age, an archmage of Earth magic that did nothing interesting with his magic. But you can bet I had my fun with his magic once he croaked. It's fascinating the way you meat sacks scream as the earth beneath your feet swallows you whole or crushes the life out of you. So messy, so satisfying."

Jun thought of giving up, just accepting her fate and letting the Soul Parasite do what it wanted. It might be her soul, but the thing was too powerful.

"But you Jun, you're full of impurities. Carrying the burden of your abusive father and wallflower mother, hiding who you are from your friends and family for fear of their anger. Obsessed with how others see you, afraid of violence because you might be called a murderer, can't even properly talk to that cute elf Sara. Oh it's just beautiful to behold. So many people support you and yet you're still so useless. But don't worry, I'll make better use of your body once I eat your soul and release my full—. Oh my, I seem to have begun monologuing. How cliche," the Soul Parasite laughed.

Full what? Jun latched onto that last word, hope surging through her chest. Something didn't make sense, something that had slipped by her when her mind was foggy. If this Soul Parasite was so powerful, why was it bothering with torturing her and poking at her? Restraining her? Why not just kill her already? "Because it can't. It's bluffing, not as strong as it plays itself to be," she whispered to herself.

"What was that? You finally have something to say? To make this interesting?" More lightning slammed into her, drawing another pained scream from Jun's throat as the monster laughed.

The pain faded quickly and Jun took several gasping breaths, the pure, scentless air filling her lungs. Wait, scentless? What about the lightning? Wouldn't it have seared her flesh? She still remembered the sharp, sticky smell of burning flesh. It should be an overwhelming smell, but she didn't smell anything. Not even the salty air of the ocean.

As if summoned by that thought, she felt a stiff breeze blow across the beach, bringing with it the scent of salt as grains of sand blew into her skin. Looking around her, Jun saw the Soul Parasite with its back to her, staring up at the sky as more darkness consumed it.

The Soul Parasite turned around, smiling its twisted smile. "It won't be long now, just stay there and enjoy the show. I know I am," it laughed excitedly before turning back around.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jun ignored the Soul Parasite and focused on the salty sea air. It definitely hadn't existed before she thought about how it should be there. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense and felt right. She felt something click and a strong breeze blew in from the ocean, spraying a fine mist across her face.

"Wait, what did you do?!" the Soul Parasite whirled around, lightning bolt after lightning bolt forming and slamming into her in a chorus of searing pain.

But as Jun screamed, she couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction. She'd done something and it pissed off the Soul Parasite. That probably meant it was good for her and bad for it. Minutes passed before the barrage of lightning stopped, leaving Jun slumped and aching, her throat raw and the Soul Parasite gasping for breath, its stolen chest heaving.

"Just stay there, you can't do anything," it spat.

Jun didn't respond, instead focusing on what she knew as she caught her breath. The soul parasite was able to use magic here, but what about her own magic? Could she use it? Reaching for her magic, a fear made itself known. What if she couldn't touch her magic here? She'd only been learning for months, and that monster claimed to have eaten arch mages, people who'd studied magic for decades. She couldn't feel her mana, couldn't feel any mana. What if it sealed her magic away, or knew she couldn't use it?

Despair clawed at her as another spike of soul crushing pain ran through her. No. Magic wasn't just mana, it was also her will. Her intent that something would happen, willing the mana to take shape. Hadn't she already willed something to happen here by just believing the beach air should smell salty?

As if responding to that thought, another gust of wind rolled across the beach, carrying the briny scent of the sea with it. That proved it to her. Her thoughts shaped this place. She thought there should be wind and salty air, and there was. But did it extend to other things here? She pictured the Soul Parasite's magic, calling back her experiences with it. It's magic hurt her. The wind knocked her down, the stone pillars restrained her, the ice stole her strength, and the lightning inflicted pain. But did it truly? She could feel her muscles spasming after every lightning bolt as electricity coursed through her muscles, but lightning wasn't just electricity. It was plasma as well. It should burn, at least a little, shouldn't it? But the monster's lightning hadn't burned her, it'd shocked her because that's what she believed should happen, forgetting that little fact that'd been mentioned in passing during her past life's science courses. Of course everyone thought it was just electricity. Signs on Earth used lightning bolts to represent electricity all the time, but it wasn't wholly true.

So maybe the parasite's magic wasn't that powerful. She thought the parasite's magic would hurt her, so it did. She thought the lightning bolts would shock her like a taser, so they did. She thought the ice would steal her strength and the stone would keep her restrained, so it did.

So she stopped believing.

The cold ice sapped a little less warmth, and the unyielding stone pillars budged slightly as she struggled against them. It wasn't much, and she was sure she was missing something, but her thoughts definitely affected things. Buoyed by that discovery, Jun reached out for her mana only to run into a thin barrier that seemed to block her from touching it. Another thought drifted up from the dark corners of her mind that the parasite had sealed her magic away from her, that she was alone and helpless against the thing. The barrier seemed to grow thicker and bit at her mind as that thought drifted through, sending another lance of pain through her soul.

She was getting sick of the constant pain. Growling, she grabbed that dangerous thought and pictured herself tearing it apart into tiny shreds before burning it . She could imagine the shrieking that thought made as she tore it up, picture it struggling to stay and get in her way, but she refused to let it stay. It kept coming back, but every time Jun pictured herself destroying it in a new way. Shredded papers that she burned in a fire, a statue that she destroyed with a hammer, a monster that she killed with magic and left to rot in the forest, letting nature repurpose its body. She wasn't sure how many times she killed the thought, but eventually it stopped coming back, and Jun could feel the barrier again. Thin, weak, fragile. Her mana lay just beyond.

Jun called to her mana, and it came. New strength flooded into her being as she pictured the arcane energy cycling through her body. Thin barriers appeared between her skin and the parasite's magic, and she felt warm again. With a flex of her muscles, she ripped through the stone pillars binding her as they crumbled into sand.

"What the—" the Soul Parasite said with shock in its voice as it whirled around to see Jun standing up. How did you—"

Jun didn't give it a chance to speak as a long buried rage came to the surface. How dare it throw her pain back in her face?! How dare it mock her for her struggles, as if it understood when it didn't?! Her memories might seem pathetic to others, but it was her life that shaped her, her struggles to overcome! Not things to be used by others for their own amusement! Snarling, Jun lashed out with her magic. As fast as thought, barriers formed around the Soul Parasite and slammed into it as Jun tried to crush it.

"Grrr damn you! You don't know what you're doing," It screamed. Earth, ice, wind, and lightning lashed out at Jun's barriers, both the ones pressing in on the Soul Parasite and the ones she'd wrapped around herself, but the spells glanced off, barely chipping away at her mana. It took no effort at all for her to reinforce her spells, repairing the superficial damage.

"I know that you don't belong here," Jun said, taking a step forward. Her barriers now formed a box around the parasite, the magic shuddering as it tried to press in around the creature.

The Soul Parasite screamed with rage as it pressed against Jun's magic, its muscles bulging as its body expanded. Pain shot through her mind as her magic started to get pushed back and her knees buckled.

For a moment Jun feared it would break free and her magic began to fail as her mana rapidly drained, but she got ahold of that thought and crushed it with her will. Her magic responded, the barriers holding the monster firming and crushing back in around it as her stance steadied.

"I know that this is my soul, and you are an unwanted intruder here. You so badly want what is mine, but you can't have it. Not my joy, nor my sorrow. My memories, my magic, my life are mine, not yours. My life has never been pretty, but it is mine and I will still fight to protect it. Fuck you."

With a surge of mana, Jun pressed in with the barriers.

"Wait! Waitwaitwaitwai—" the Soul Parasite burst into a cloud of dark smoke as Jun's magic crushed it, before slowly dissipating, leaving nothing but a small cube of empty barriers behind.

Looking up at the sky, she could still see the inky black void marring the sky that was her soul. With the monster's defeat, Jun felt an invisible weight lift off her soul, but it hurt like something had taken a bite out of it. She wasn't sure what the wound meant for her, but for now she would just take heart that she'd beaten the monstrous thing.

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