Ghosts, Ghouls, and the Inbetweens

Chapter 11: Forbidden Secrets

"Follow me," Mouth said, leading on Torso. "I wanna show you something."

"Can you please tell me what it is first?"

"Darling, that would ruin the surprise... I did forget to mention it's a surprise."

If Torso had eyes, they would've rolled them. Nevertheless they continued to follow Mouth, mostly out of curiosity and partially because they feared what would happen if they didn't. Mouth wasn't a violent person, but then again they were quite the wild card. They just hoped whatever Mouth was getting them into wouldn't get them in trouble, L.Leg was always quite strict. He had power over them, and he couldn't definitely use that as punishment.

Mouth finally stopped in front of Right Eye. "Ballie! It's so good to see you!"

'Ballie' snarled at them, "What do you want this time?"

Mouth pouted, "Geez Ballie, you're so mean! But I wanna borrow your mirror."

"What for."

"Honey I gotta look my best for the next client. You of all people should know this." They continued to pout, their way of 'Puppy Dog Eyes' one could assume. R.Eye stared at them for a moment, her stern expression not changing. She finally sighed, "Fine, but you have five minutes."

Mouth smiled so wide they nearly split their lip, "Thank you, Sugar!" R.Eye pulled up her mirror and left, giving the two one last glance before leaving. Torso nervously looked at Mouth, who was messing around with the mirror. "What's that for?" Mouth puckered up, "You'll see."

They suddenly took the mirror in their teeth and started moving again, Torso following behind like a duckling chasing after its mother. Mouth passed through quite a few archways, Torso only realized this now, but the Godly Eight's courthouse was rather large. A pure white building with tons of archways that led here and there, the 'Judgement Room', as the others called it, was in the middle of all these walls and archways. That room was also the only room with furniture, everywhere else was barren, no sources of entertainment, but they assumed that was because they had to handle tons of newly dead souls a day. The breaks in between (if there was even any) were short, longest was the five minutes R.Eye mentioned.

Torso had gotten lost in thought that they didn't hear Mouth calling their name. "Torso, hey, purgatory to Torso!" They suddenly shook themselves, "Y-yeah?"

Mouth directed their gaze to the mirror, it was now laying on... something. Torso had never seen this table before, hell, the only table they've ever seen was the one in the Judgement Room. Mouth smirked, "Now watch." They suddenly moved alongside the mirror, getting close to it and whispering to it. Torso was confused, but bared with it.

They noticed the table had a strange design, like one of a map. Though they quickly made the connection that a map was probably covering the table. They looked back at the mirror, and it was now... different. It displayed a piece of the map, but instead of being something like a zoomed in image, it appeared to take footage from the location, in real time. Torso watched cars zoom by and people walk down the street, holy... this was amazing!

"H-how..?"

Mouth clicked their tongue, "It's simple. The map helps us locate previous rejects." Torso was more confused, "How long did you know about this?"

"Since I first arrived. We used to do this all the time, mostly by Righty's request. But we stopped using it less and less, and then you came along!" They smirked once more, "Its hard to believe you've only been here a couple of hundred years."

Torso turned away, they felt their 'face' (more like their chest) burn up from embarrassment. "I-I was never informed about this?"

"It's not even that hard to find, guess you never searched hard enough."

Torso wanted to retort, but they couldn't think of anything. They looked back at the mirror, suddenly perking up. "W-Wait, i-is that the r-re-re-"

"The reject, in the flesh. Well, not in the flesh, but you get my point Sugar." Torso got closer, sure enough, they recognized the yellow eyes and purple irises. But he seemed to have a new addition, purple translucent hands were at where his sides would be, that must've been whatever power R.Leg gave him. The reject floated along the street, solemnly looking forward.

Torso didn't know what to say, so Mouth filled the silence for them. "New Fawn, that's where he was placed. Although he's seemed to have made it to the town over, uh, Olipium? Good for him, anyways, it's almost been two weeks. He hasn't necessarily been okay, I mean, none of the rejects are when they first arrive!"

They looked over at Torso, and seeing as they weren't laughing, they coughed and continued. "I hate to say it, but I sympathize with him. Scared, alone, in a place you've never been... it's a terrible feeling."

"And you've only felt this sympathy for him?"

Mouth chuckled, "I hate to admit this more, but I've sympathized with a lot of the rejects. None of them deserve a punishment like this, I mean, unless they're a terrible person. But even then Hell has it's torture." Torso suddenly felt a bigger connection to Mouth, sympathizing with the rejects but never speaking up about it?

That's something they themselves did a lot.

Torso didn't know how to respond, so instead they just looked back at the mirror. "Why did you show me this?"

Mouth paused, but smiled, a soft, genuine smile. "You said you wanted to know how he was doing, so I decided to show you." Torso felt their 'face' flush up, quickly shaking themselves. "Uh, thanks."

Mouth didn't respond to the thanks, instead they looked around. "Lefty was the one to put an end to this room, this entire tradition, you ever wonder why?" Torso couldn't exactly answer that question, they had only heard of this room just now, neverless the tradition of checking up on the rejects. Mouth continued even without an answer, "I have my theories; Maybe he believed we were wasting too much time with this, or maybe he was just getting tired of this tradition, or maybe he was jealous that Righty always had her attention focused on the rejects, but my personal favorite is this; he just hates rejects."

They clicked their tongue, "I mean, think about it. He hates imperfection. Rejects ARE imperfections, so he banishes them to Earth because he can't stand the thought of something not perfect running around with the perfect spirits. It's a messed up mindset, but it's my theory with the most evidence."

Torso shivered, their words made sense. It wasn't out of character for L.Leg to just hate something because it doesn't follow his view point. But something as valuable as someone's afterlife and form? Now that was another level of hatred and pettiness. But they weren't given time to dwell on it, Mouth took the mirror off the table.

"Well, we best be leaving. The next soul is arriving in about a few seconds." Woah, what? It was hard to believe this only lasted five minutes, but Torso followed behind Mouth nevertheless. They thought about the 'He just hates imperfection' theory, and it made sense, too much sense.

But they didn't want to believe it. Not because they care about L.Leg, but because there could be consequences with thinking badly of the leg. It was a crooked empire, Torso believed.

They were far from wrong.