Signs

"Are you sure? I could take you all to the coast in an instant."

Azazel hovered in the air as glittering dust scattered about her. A hand was outstretched towards Gilgamesh group, ready to act at a moment's notice.

"It's fine. We're gonna take it slow and try to just enjoy it a bit." Ishtar answered for them, worried that Gilgamesh might jump at such an efficient opportunity.

"Well, alright then. I hope we meet again, but if you come across one of my siblings instead, be sure not to mention my name. It will be best for them to not develop any opinions about you that The Creator doesn't want them to have."

"I won't forget, then," Gilgamesh waved.

"Bye Azazel," Marshall also waved, but more with his entire body than his hand.

Sylvia and Ishtar gave her a wave off too, then the angel vanished from their line of sight.

"Anyone up for venison?" Gilgamesh offered, and Marshall immediately volunteered himself to be part of the hunt. He did not care what they were hunting, or even about food; all he cared about was joining Gilgamesh on a thrilling hunt.

"I sure am," Sylvia said, volunteering herself as well.

"It's almost evening. We'll head out now and get back before dark," Gilgamesh adjusted the sword strapped to his back and then looked to Ishtar.

"Till then, I'll handle the rest of the meal. Don't be late."

"We won't," the three said in unison, evoking a laugh from Ishtar.

"How do we even find anything out here. The space around the monolith is barren, and the forest is all the way back there." Sylvia, the more clear-headed of the two, asked this question with genuine confusion.

Marshall scoffed and continued running ahead, while Gilgamesh clenched his teeth and puckered his lips in a weird way. Once he did that, Sylvia saw a purple spark in his eyes that indicated he was about to summon some of his spiritual power.

Using it to bolster his voice, Gilgamesh exhaled three short breaths, sending the sound out over an enormous distance.

"If I do that long enough- and loud enough- I should be able to attract an old buck. It's the best I can do for now."

Marshall ran ahead, leaving the monolith behind and reentering the tall grass. His pace slowed as he brushed aside tufts of grass blades, with some of them gently scraping his skin.

Gilgamesh and Sylvia caught up to him eventually, and so the three of them trekked through the grass. Ever so often, Gilgamesh would repeat the sound, until eventually they vanished into the grass.

Back in the house, Ishtar was standing in the middle of a chaotic food typhoon. Using her spiritual power, she pulled ingredients from her pouch and had them whirling around her, slowly preparing them.

At various points in the whirlwind of raw ingredients, something would be chopped up, peeled, crushed or ground. As time passed, she gathered them all up into three groups, and placed them in their respective places within the kitchen. Potatoes went into the pot, waste to the bin and the rest landed on the counter.

While Ishtar cheerfully went about her business, she felt an unsettling sensation from her nasal passage. It felt there was something trickling down the bridge of her nose, but on the inside.

When she brushed her finger against her nostrils, Ishtar could feel the warmth of blood. With an exhale, blood splattered across her apron and finally alerted her to exactly what was happening.

"My nose... My nose is bleeding?"

The instant Ishtar realized what was happening, all the effects hit her at once. She slipped in and out of conscious as her vision darkened; losing her balance, she fell on her side onto the floor, lucky to avoid hitting her head.

As she lay on the ground, her mind finally caught up to her body, and experienced the pain it was going through. Her head throbbed with the most intense migraine she had ever felt-- perhaps even the only migraine she had ever felt.

As Ishtar's strength left her, she could only think of one word- one name- that could possible soothe her pain in that moment. She was still attempting to speak that name when she blacked out. The entire house fell silent; without her spirit as fuel, everything she had been doing ceased.

The house was all but dead. . . .

Marshall and Sylvia both yawned at the same time, only Sylvia chose to cover her mouth while Marshall just hung his open. Gilgamesh sent out the call once more, and sighed afterward.

"I guess not, huh?" Marshall sighed, scratching his leg.

"We would see them coming from a mile away, so I guess we're just too far away from the forest." Sylvia stretched and looked toward Gilgamesh.

"Even when we were walking through the forest, Inanna and I only ever saw one deer. There were more insects and trees than anything else."

Gilgamesh nodded and turned around, "Well, we'll have to make do without meat tonight."

"Maybe Inanna can magic us up something tasty," Marshall licked his lips and hopped to his feet, preparing to make his speedy return. He looked around a bit and then pointed, starting his march back in the direction they came from.

Sylvia saw that Gilgamesh's expression was a bit complex, and so she inched closer with a soft smile. "Sorry we couldn't find any deer. I thought your deer call was pretty cool though."

Gilgamesh chuckled, "Thanks, but it's fine. What I'm concerned about is the fact that my spiritual perception, as tiny a range as it may have, is being cut off from something."

"Cut off," Sylvia pondered, "what do you mean?"

"Hm?" Marshall turned around because he heard what Gilgamesh said, but once he looked behind him, something caught his eye. "Whoa, shit!"

"What is it?"

They both turned around after him, but they couldn't see anything.

"I swear to you guys, I saw something moving around, cloaked in transparency," Marshall's wide eyes and solemn demeanor was proof enough, and so they turned around, keeping an eye on their rear while decreasing the distance between them and him.

"Did you see what it looked like?" Sylvia asked this, because she was calmly trying to assess the situation.

"When you say 'cloaked in transparency,' you mean it turned invisible?"

"More or less. I didn't see what it looked like, but I could see the outline of something affecting my view of the horizon. It just glided across my field of vision, then stopped."

Marshall brought a sword out of his inventory, and Sylvia retrieved a bow and arrows. Gilgamesh reached for the sword on his back and drew it, his physical and spiritual eyes scanning the horizon.

It was evening now, and the moons were slowly revealing themselves. In that dim light, the three would-be hunters scoured the grassy landscape for their own predator. The fact that their passage had flatted a lot of the grass did not help, and so the keenness of their eyesight had to be sharpened a hundredfold.

"Do any of you see anything?"

"Nothing," Sylvia's report filled Gilgamesh's left ear.

"Not even any movement of the grass," Marshall added from Gilgamesh's right.

"Then we take it slow for now-"

"There!"

This time, it was Sylvia who cried out. She had already taken aim, but when they saw where she was aiming at, there was nothing there at all.

"I saw it. The outline of a figure, shifting about. Unless you pay very close attention to everything around it's invisible body, you won't notice when it passes by your eyes."

"I'm not sensing anything," Gilgamesh held his sword with both hands, and bent his knees.

"If the stealth or invisibility is strong enough, a creature can evade the spiritual sense. Since we haven't sensed it, and thus don't know what it is, the system won't identify it to us." Surprisingly, it was Marshall who dropped that nugget of wisdom, and not Sylvia.

"We move back. The next time anyone sees it, try to make note of its distance. We need to know if its getting closer or further away."

"Got it."

"Mhm."

Huddled together, the three looked to and fro for any more signs of movement. The cool wind blew, and the clouds drifted by.

The night was no different from any other. . .

"...ughter..."

In her unconscious mind, Ishtar heard a familiar voice. There was nothing but darkness surrounding her, yet that voice felt like a hand trying to grab hold of her and pull her toward something else.

"Daught... er..."

It was much clearer this time, but she still could not quite place who it was. However, she could feel the chill of the dark slowly disappearing.

"Daughter?"

With a sudden jolt, her spiritual self opened its eyes to a giant star. It's light filled the entire space around her, yet was not blinding though it should have been. From this star, she heard a voice she dreaded hearing again.

"Why have you left Mesopotamia?"

Ishtar did not answer, but that was because she could not answer. So weak was she now that even using her spirit to communicate was troubling.

"Where did you go?"

Anu did not seem to notice her plight, and continued asking questions.

"Who are you with? Why can't I feel your presence within The Collective? What have you done with Gilgamesh? Is my power still within him?"

Ishtar stared at the burning star with ferocious eyes; this was the only way she could convey what she felt.

"You... know something?"

As she glared at the form that represented her father, a single tear rolled down her eye.

"Do you wish to speak to me, Daughter? Without what connects you to me, you are nothing but an empty shell. I am prepared to forget your impetuousness, but you will be forced to serve me for ten thousand years as punishment, the same way your cousins had to after their betrayal."

Ishtar's glare took a turn for the worse, and she fought with everything she had to move her spiritual form.

"I understand. Since you have made up your mind, then I know what I must do."

Eruptions immediately started occurring on the surface of the star, sending out destructive waves. Though they had little effect that Ishtar could feel, she knew that Anu was doing something to her that would change her life.

"I never thought that you would be the first; Gilgamesh killed the others before they were ripe, and so you will count as my first harvest."

The star slowly moved forward, though it was so large that Ishtar could not tell at first that it was headed towards her.

"Your spirit is merely a seed. I planted it within a shred of matter from beyond, and so were born all my children. In such splendid soil- soil that I risked my life to acquire- I was sure that those seeds would grow into the most beautiful spirits."

Ishtar conscious self and her spirit started tearing; as the star approached, its gravity started reeling in her spiritual self, reabsorbing all of it. In the blink of an eye, everything that made up her spirit was returned to Anu, its owner.

"Incredible... Millions of years of hard work could not compare to this... To think that you, a half-ripe spirit, could be so beneficial. I cannot wait for your siblings to grow further."

The information coupled with the extreme unease of having her spirit drained of its essence sent Ishtar into a state of utter shock. Her incapability to speak, grunt or move actually worsened.

Before long, Ishtar ceased existing in the way she came to know herself. That was when the process was completed.

"Very interesting. This is an aspect I have never come across before. I felt it though... In the void, once... Hahahahaha! Amazing! So this is the nature that has eluded me for so long!"

Anu lost himself in excitement, losing all interest in Ishtar. She was expunged from her own subconscious, which shattered the second she left it.

She returned to the darkness of her body. It was empty, nothing but a husk of inability. Anu was right; she was now an empty shell, housing nothing but an empty spirit.

Before long, without anything to tether her to reality, she would die.