“Did any of you feel that?”
Kalis, Vetal and Ksatah all looked up from their massive slices of pizza. Arkay had been quiet all day, so his sudden muttering seemed a bit out of place.
“Feel what?” Kalis asked as he folded some of his pizza in half then gobbled it down.
Arkay shrugged, pushing unwanted food across his plate. “I don’t know. Just felt… very unnatural. Like everything just shuddered from a cool breeze.”
Vetal however seemed somewhat dismissive. “We’re on a ship the size of a moon, flying through an infinite void. Bound to hit something occasionally.”
“Isn’t there a massive shield around each sector of Deathven?” Ksatah added. “Probably just crashed through a Voidborn ship or something.”
Arkay sighed some more. “No, I don’t think it was something like that. I’ve crashed ships before, they have a certain metallic sound to them. What I felt… I really don’t know…”
“Was it, like, a ghost or something?” Ksatah asked. “I know ghosts don’t exist but, like, our imaginations like to create things.”
“It’s not… eh. never mind. Probably just my brain being dumb or something…”
Kalis pushed his plate to one side, looking directly at Arkay. “No, it’s not, something is bothering you. And we are here to listen.”
“It’s not… like that…” Arkay tried to explain. “I feel like something bad is coming. But I feel this way all the dame time because I expect something bad to happen. Most of my damn existence is feeling like something bad will happen, followed by something bad happening but not as I imagined it.”
The other three Decaylings all fell silent. After a brief pause, Vetal looked up at Arkay, smiling awkwardly. “So you really are a disaster magnet like we are.”
“A magnet? I’m a walking disaster!” Arkay hissed. “Literally everything seems to go wrong, and I’m spending my time worrying and wandering what it’s going to be! And that cold shudder I felt? It was oddly… Life Goddess-like. I’m scared that something bad is going to happen and I don’t have the energy to work out what it is or try to fight back!”
Ksatah and Kalis both nodded. “Yep, you are definitely one of us.”
“We get it randomly as well!” Kalis did his best to seem optimistic. “But I have faith that we will be safe here. Even if things go tits up.”
Arkay frowned, still idly playing with his meal. “That doesn’t really make me feel better. I go from one disaster to another, that is how my existence has always been. And people get hurt along the way. The last time something disastrous happened, I hurt my closest friend, and he rightfully abandoned me.”
“We can be your new friends!” Ksatah suddenly exclaimed. “We have all been through the same sort of bad patch. But together, we are strong and true.”
“I don’t feel like that though…” Arkay paused, then shuddered. This time however, Arkay realized he wasn’t alone with that cold feeling.
“Okay, yeah…” Vetal whispered. “I think we all felt that one…”
“What do we do though?” Ksatah whispered.
“Simple!” Kalis beamed, not at all bothered. “We just need to make ourselves some little emergency plans. After all, we’re Life Goddesses AND Decaylings! We can do anything if we set our minds to it!”
Vetal and Ksatah both shrugged, then nodded in agreement.
“He’s right, you know,” Vetal smiled a little. “We ARE insanely powerful, even when we are wearing power-reducing collars…”