Of Ice, Death & Monsters-Chapter 48 : And To Conquer Failure

Baba Roga gathered us within her greenhouse. I couldn’t lie, it was kind of cozy. It might have been hot, but after being in the winter storm for so long, I couldn’t exactly tell.
It was beautiful, that’s for sure, rows upon rows of flora lined up tables and shelves, with several insects crawling across the dirt that were the size of my arm, and those were the smaller kind. A few of them were as big as dogs, but they never got close to us.
The plants, too, were massive, most of them as tall as us, but none were so extreme as to cover the whole greenhouse. They bore so many different types of flowers and fruits, all with bright colors such as red, green, orange, and so on and so forth, with different shapes and sizes. I even saw what looked like a giant fly trap chewing on several finger-sized flies.
Godwin was the most curious out of all of us, studying the flora and fauna quite extensively as he took down notes in his journal, sketching every single variation as he muttered under his breath. Carey hid behind him, staring at the plants every so often before recoiling in fear from the bugs that started to approach them.
Rodion laughed as he poked at what I could only describe as a table-long millipede, causing it to curl up into a little spiral. Leonid stared at the fruits as if he was tempted to take some and eat them. Kariya looked intrigued by the nature, yet kept her distance. Katya, however, seemed to be the most unbothered, standing in front of Baba Roga, who had dug eight graves, one for each of us.
She then raised her hand, gesturing towards the Keepers as weapons made of wood, such as spears, swords, and many daggers, flew to their sides. "Here you go, dears, to defend yourself for now before you get anything better." The hag smiled as the Keepers bowed their heads, each one thanking her.
Baba Roga then looked around. “Gather around, and I shall fully explain the rules of the ritual.” She waved her hands as laurels made of chrysanthemums flew to our heads as if we had just won some kind of competition.
As soon as we all gathered, she began to speak while goblets with some kind of strange purple liquid inside of it floated around her. It smelled like lavender, relaxing almost in a way.
“Lay down in the graves, and drink the poison. It shall give forth mild pain for a moment, but soon disappear, replaced with a numbness as your body shuts down. As this happens, I shall summon special flames to enrapture your body and send you further into Nawia. When you’re there, you shall find roots like trees that shall send you upwards towards your destination, but you would need Ivan here to lead you all there.”
She pointed to Matthias, who hid his eyes with his ears as he was mentioned.
“Now, the main landmarks of Nawia that you would all need to know are the Smorodina River and the Kalamov Bridge. The former is the river of souls that is formed from the storm that surrounds the mainland of Nawia. It houses every single soul who ever fell in Galfania not owned by the great spirits or gods, which is to say, billions.”
My eyes widened as I raised my arms in protest. “Billions? That’s insane. There’s barely any life out here at all. How can there be billions?”
“You underestimate the size of Galfania, and the fact that it would contain the souls of monsters as well, or rather, as you know it, those who were monsters. And that does not even account for the souls of everything else that falls within.”
Katya snapped into place as if she were some kind of construct. “Were? What do you mean by were?”
“Monsters are the denial of the afterlife. Those who refuse its call bind themselves to the land as monsters until they die once more. They could continue to be monsters, or let themselves fall into the river of souls. Those within the river then begin to be cleansed if they desire it, boiling within until they rise outwards and claim their individuality. And when they do, they cross the bridge and into the pastures of Nawia. And at any point, if they wish, they could reincarnate back as something or someone else.”
That was certainly a way to do an afterlife. It seemed very strange to have a river of souls around, but the aesthetic does seem cool. But the idea of the number of souls in it was insane. Although another question popped into mind.
“Souls of everything else?” Godwin asked before I could.
“In Galfania, everything is a soul, for a Name is one’s soul.” She grinned as if we could figure out what she was talking about, and I believe we both did. If everything had a Name, and a Name would be a soul, then…
My eyes widened. “That’s a lot more than a billion.”
“Correct~ But, what matters is not the size or why, it’s the warning: Do not touch the river. Under no circumstances should you interact with it. If you touch the river itself while it flows, then it shall utterly consume you, your spirit will join within it and be subsumed as if you had died. I am warning you all here and now so that you can know how dangerous it is.”
She looked around the group as we all nodded and took a mental note of it. Even I kept quiet, that river sounded horrific. I was not going to question it at all, but it also looked like she had something more to say.
“The second notice shall be the guardian of the Kalimov Bridge, that being: Zmey. He is a three-headed dragon, a gatekeeper in every sense of the world. He knows who is alive and dead with his senses. He will ensure that only those who are dead can pass the Bridge; luckily, you do not need to pass the Bridge. But, I am saying this as a warning if ever you come over with the temptation to head to the other side.”
Baba Roga gestured to the ditches. “Does anyone have any more questions?”
“I would have a few questions…”Godwin said aloud. “But, it seems we can’t waste any more time than we already have. I can always ask Baba Yaga.”
He lay in the ditch as the others followed. I didn’t have any questions too. The afterlife was interesting but scary. I didn’t want to pry further and prolong the mission more than it already had been, so I followed suit and lay down in the ditch.
The others didn’t seem to have any, either, so Baba Roga continued. “Now then, simply drink up and I shall cover the rest. Good luck, to all of you, and may the spirits follow every path you ever take.”
I took a deep breath, drinking up the potion in one gulp. It didn’t take long before I felt so disoriented.  My vision grew hazy as I felt my heart slowly beat.
It felt like my body was burning up, as my brain throbbed against my head. My stomach churned, and my skin ached. But I found that I couldn’t move her body in the slightest.
I could barely see Baba Roga’s figure unleash the flames, completely consuming our bodies like waves upon sand. I felt the same pain as I did on the final day of the expedition. It was like needles piercing my body. My skin peeled, charring as smoke filled the air from her burning flesh.
I tried to scream but failed; my throat was constricted. Pain overwhelmed me, and everything turned black as death embraced me once more, welcoming me back into its grip.
For a few moments, I felt nothing. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear or taste anything. It was simply a void that consumed all my thoughts and feelings, leaving nothing behind.
But then, I saw it, a light, a single glimmering light. I walked towards it, gaining form and senses, reaching out to it… And it giggled to me in the most irritating voice ever.
“Well then, looks like you made it this far~ wonderful. Come Peter~.”
It was that damned fox, prancing around without a care in the world. I had had enough with it and leaped forward to try to catch the light, but of course, I missed, landing on the ground as the scenery showed itself.
It was a large mountain range that surrounded the perimeter of a familiar green meadow with rolling hills and small pockets of trees clustered every so often, concentrating especially in the middle.
Dotted across the land, and beside me, are large tree roots that appear as pillars stretching all the way to the sky as if they were all under some kind of giant tree.
“Wait… That meadow…”
‘Yup, that’s the very same one.’
‘So we’ve been visiting you from Nawia? Yeah, that checks out.’
‘Wonder if that means I can meet you all here like this… Wait, n,o I shouldn’t.’
“That must be the inner layer.” Godwin’s voice snapped me out of my stupor as I turned to look at him walk towards the edge. Carey stood behind him, watching in awe at what was ahead.
I then turned to my left as I saw Katya, Rodion Leonid, and Kariya stare at the border between the meadow and the rocky mountain range. I followed their gaze and found a fiery red river that broiled and swirled as if it were in a storm.
My stomach churned, but well I didn’t really feel my stomach at all, nor even my lungs or heartbeat. I patted myself down and realized that much like in my mind, I didn’t have a physical body anymore. This was a manifestation of my spirit or something like that.
“Alright then, we just have to make it down. I can sense where we need to go next.” Matthias walked past me, his ears raised up to the fullest as if they were antennae, monitoring the area around him.
“Lead the way.” Katya looked around, her eyes focused as if she were expecting an attack. I didn’t quite understand it, but I felt like that was the right move, even though I felt on guard, as if expecting something to go wrong.
Godwin took out his journal and began to write in it; however, even as he traced his pencil across the page, it didn’t really seem to leave a mark, not even a small one. “Fascinating, is it because it’s spiritual? Can we not properly interact with each other?”
“Oh, that? Well, everything in this realm is essentially a spirit, from what I know. You can move around, but to affect something or make something affect others meaningfully, you would need to exert your own will on it.”
“Fascinating, but your clothes are still on your body, aren’t they? How does that work?”
“I guess they take less will to move? I’m just basing it on my experience.”
Matthias turned to me a bit, giving me a curious side eye. “How do you have any experience in this?”
“Whenever I dream, I end up here talking to the other souls within me.”
Collectively, everyone went ‘Ah’ as if they immediately understood.
I didn’t really question it. The idea made sense to me, too, so we just continued as I saw through the corner of my eye, Godwin focusing himself to begin drawing on the page, wincing every so often.
Our journey for the most part was peaceful, only broken up when we felt rain drip down on us. I held out my hand and saw fiery red droplets land on my palm before disappearing.
“Those are the souls of the dead, making their way into the Smorodina.” Matthias continued ahead as I glanced at Katya, whose face became a sullen frown as she watched the droplets fall continually into the river below.
Then, right as we began to make it downhill, we heard the sound of… Yelling? Incoherent yelling and screaming of the highest order as a plume of fire came over the horizon.
“You bitch! I’ll make you pay!”
“I will ensure your dreams shall fall into smoke, you whore!”
And then, I realized that I remembered one of those voices.
“I-Is that…”
Without a second thought, I dashed through the others, racing ahead as a single confused thought ran through my mind.
“Jane?!”