A U T U M N ' S D A W N

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INSTINCTIVELY, FABIAN RAISED a single hand to his lips, shielding his mouth from a chuckle that threatened to slip past. Beside him, Wilhelm had failed to suppress his laughter and had already doubled over, his hands clutching his stomach while tears peeked from the corner of his eyes.

On the sand, the girl caught wind of the commotion and spun around. Her eyes burned with fury as she clambered onto her feet, picking at her dress with her hands without care of the sand that clung desperately on the fabric.

"You!" She yelled, pointing a finger at Wilhelm. "Why are you laughing at me? Who are you to laugh?"

"I apologize," Wilhelm replied fluently, biting his bottom lip in order to force his laughter back down. "It's just that I had not expected your first words in Hell to be to curse someone."

"Be careful that I do not curse you instead!" The young teenager had stormed her way over, arms folded across her chest and cheeks painted scarlet by her temper. "Damned foreigner."

"He means no harm, Miss." Smoothly, Fabian stepped in between the pair. Behind his back, he pushed Wilhelm further away so that his silent laughter could not be so obviously seen. "You're just a curiosity."

Maybe it was because the lady felt more comfortable around someone that resembled her townsfolk, maybe it was because she hadn't seen Fabian laughing at her with her own two eyes. Whatever the reason was, it soothed her tantrum and subdued her to a simple 'hmph' under her breath.

Her gaze returned to the people by the beach, scanning everyone over one by one as her frown deepened. Immediately, Fabian knew what she was thinking and what she was searching for. There was no one else that spoke her language nor looked anything like her. She was of a different race compared to the other souls, one that had been scarce in the batches of souls that had been thrown to Hell and expelled from Heaven.

"Why are you the only other person that resembles our people?" She asked, her dainty eyebrows pulled and scrunched together. "Where is this place?"

"You're in Hell, little lady." Having recovered from his fit of laughter, Wilhelm sauntered back, resting an arm on Fabian's shoulder. "You're dead."

"Dead?" The girl echoed, sucking in her cheeks. She then nodded once, muttering to herself, "well that makes sense. Those two scums did poison my tea. I would've been a celestial maiden if I lived through that."

"Poison your tea?" Wilhelm had an incredulous look on his face, lips slightly parting with interest at the young lady's words. "What did you do to get assassinated like that? Were you an important figure? I doubt a princess would act like this, though."

The lady shook her head. "My name is Peng Qiu Xia. I was the general's daughter in my country. Where I'm from, it is common to have more than one wife and a pair of my half siblings plotted to have me killed. They didn't like the fact that I was betrothed to the crown prince and wanted to steal the position."

Beneath his breath, Wilhelm let out a slow whistle. His eyes scanned the Qiu Xia's figure, mentally calculating her age in his head. At fifteen, the girl was already betrothed to be married. What was life like in the mortal world that allowed for such a crazy tradition?

Fabian, who had easily read his brother's thoughts with just the look of horror displayed on Wilhelm's face, coughed loudly. "It's a common age for women to be married in the mortal realm. Don't look so surprised."

"She's practically a child!" Wilhelm had his arms held out, gesturing at Qiu Xia while staring intently at Fabian.

"What a sheltered life you demons live if you think that's the worst of the mortal realm." With a scoff, Qiu Xia flicked her wrist, causing her long sleeve to fly and the water droplets on it to soar. "I've seen battle and treated the wounded. I've buried the dead and schemed for other people's death in order to secure my own survival. Marriage was considered to be the least of my worries."

"And now you have none of those worries."

The term 'demons' rang loudly in Fabian's ears even though he tried his best to look past it. He reminded himself that the girl was still young and new to the rules of Hell, that she did not understand the way things worked for the last thousands of years around these parts. He should be forgiving to the small mistake she made but the term still stuck out like a sore thumb, rubbing salt into his still-open wound.

Looking past Qiu Xia, Fabian cupped his hands around his lips. His use of language swiftly changed, repeating the same sentence multiple times in various dialects. "Those awake, lend a helping hand to those who aren't. We're moving to safety!"

As the group traveled towards the village that was built by the four brothers, Fabian and Wilhelm continuously explained the situation to the newest batch of people that had fallen from the skies. They patiently answered all of their questions to the best of their abilities, stating clearly that although Hell had gained a bad reputation in the mortal realm, it was the final resting place of all souls no matter good or evil. The only difference was that while souls that had done enough good retained their original appearance, the souls that were evil in life were raised as demons under the command of Lucifer.

Throughout the journey, Qiu Xia walked at the back alone. Her head was dipped down, eyes trained on the ground without sparing a single second to look up. She was lost in her own world, enveloped by a silence that sent shivers down anyone's spine if they dared to glance her way.

Right in front of her, a man in his thirties was talking to Fabian. He remained relatively calm, asking the same routine questions that Fabian had come to expect. However, when Fabian thought that the man was finished with his queries, he asked a final question that left Fabian slightly lost for words.

"Are you going to go to war with the devil?"

The question caught Qiu Xia's attention, her ears pricking as she tried to cast a discrete look over. However, it was caught by Fabian from the corner of his eye, making it harder for him to answer. He didn't know why this question, in particular, had caught her attention when the others didn't, especially when given the fact that she understood not a single word of their conversation.

"Yes," Fabian answered slowly, nodding once. "Battle is inevitable."

The man that had asked nodded once, sighing under his breath. "It never stops, does it?"

"What never stops?"

"Wars. People fight every day in the mortal realm. It could be over something small like who gets to eat the last slice of bread or it could be something big like fighting for land and power. Wherever we go, war follows."

Ahead of them was an old man, one that seemed to have died of old age. He must've spoken the same language in life because he slowed down his pace to match Fabian and the middle-aged soul he had been talking to. With his hands on a stick that served as a walking cane, the old man nodded.

"Death is their leader and the apocalypse follows, each on a horse of chaos. The horsemen of the apocalypse are the reason for the mortal realm's demise," he croaked.

"There are no such spirits in the other world." Fabian wrinkled his nose, shaking his head. "Only the spirit of death."

"That's because they aren't developed yet. Hence, there is no one to control these disasters," the old man quickly replied. "The old legends speak of spirits atop of their horses, riding to enact divine punishment upon the mortal world. White, red, black, and ashen pale to represent Conquest, War, Famine, and Death himself. My father speaks of a fifth horseman that, too, rides a white horse: Pestilence."

"The plague," the younger man gasped.

As the two souls continued to discuss the tales from legend, Fabian couldn't help but turn back, looking over his shoulder at the young lady that walked in silence behind the group. He hadn't noticed it before, not even when they were speaking to each other at close proximity, but Qiu Xia's skin was not a ghastly pale like the rest of the souls. Though her skin was fair and akin to delicate porcelain, she was opaque. The other souls were slightly translucent to signify that they were now owned by death. She, on the other hand, seemed to have defied it.

The dots in Fabian's head were starting to connect. He and his brothers were the only ones that did not transform into demonic forms after their fall from grace. Instead, they maintained their appearance, youthful as ever and never affected by the ravages of time. If there was such a thing as spirits that were harbingers of divine punishment, and if Dimitri had been awakened as the spirit of death, that could only mean one thing.

The rest of them were each a horsemen of the apocalypse. Additionally, Pestilence, the fifth rider, might've once been a living human being instead of a fallen angel.

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