Idris Point of View

I felt chills running wild on and inside my body.

The ambience is such that one cannot sit or stand peacefully and here I am, experiencing something that no one wanted to.

"Is this, the boy who became your sea?" I heard a very ancient, stern yet slightly warm voice inquired in a hoarse friendly tone.

My whole body, from roots of my hair to the nails of my toes tingled with chills. This must be one of her ancestors that demon girl talked about.

"Become her sea?" I mumbled to myself in confusion, making sure no one hears my voice.

But unfortunately, everyone visible and invisible heard it. So, a female ancestor of hers kindly explained the theory for me.

"We are greatest believers of nature so to us; a wife is like a river and husband is like a sea. Just like how a river ends up meeting the sea and thus live together; we also hope wife and husband of our tribe live in such a way. So, becoming her sea means, becoming her final destination."

Oh, this makes sense. And quite poetic as well!

"Not bad, the looks fine to me. Although he is not as good looking as our tribe people, he can still be considered okay." I heard another ancient voice speaking out without any filters.

I don't know if this ancestor was praising me or praising themselves or criticizing me!

"Thank you, Grandpooh La. That's the reason I brought him inside. I wanted you all to meet the future father of the new beacons of our tribe." Demon girl blushingly said, as she continued to study some kind of formations with the invisible ancestors.

You brought me in?

You forcefully dragged me in just so you could introduce me to those ancient invisible people from your family.

Did you even ask my permission? No!

And the worst thing is, even my own parents are excited to send me in and show my face to the ancestors.

I seriously want to verify again if I'm truly biological child of this family. How can I and my whole family's frequencies are so different?

And so, before I could even think of more wild things, the interview of the dead officially began.

And I was so damn sweating in palms.

It started with a voice booming overhead, like an ancient god was clearing his throat between questions.

"Boy, what is your understanding of commitment?"

I blinked, heart doing double beats, palms sweating like I was taking a final exam I didn't study for.

At least I would do great in the exams I did not prepare for. This is something else!

"Uh... strong emotional investment... backed by consistent action and intention?" I replied, trying not to sound like I Googled it an hour ago.

A murmur passed through the room. Then another voice — drier, amused, "He read that off a scroll."

If only I had a scroll.

"Do you cook?" asked someone else, this one sharp like a military instructor.

"I—what? Uh, I make a decent curry!" I said in a soft tone. The decent curry I make is mixing curry powder in water and letting it cook. If that is passable, then -

There was silence. The kind of judging silence!

"Acceptable."

Really? Umm, thanks. I guess?

"If your wife is spiritually possessed for five minutes, do you panic, pray, or fetch the incense?"

"What kind of question even—?! Uh... kiss her?" I answered it without even thinking much because I know that if I think too much, I might make more mistakes than needed.

There was laughter.

Genuine amusement! Spirits were literally laughing at me. At least they seemed to like it?

And weirdly? I wasn't even mad. I was relieved. Because if laughter meant I wasn't being cursed or exiled, then that was a win in my book.

The laughter finally subsided, though one or two of the spirit mirrors still shimmered suspiciously, probably chuckling on mute. I could feel the room loosening its grip on my nerves, but just barely.

I was starting to think I'd survived the worst when the river of my life said a few words that shocked not just the ancestors but me as well.

And I almost cursed that demon girl in my mind for thousands of times.

"He holds no belief in the invisible." The laughter stopped. Even the air stilled.

Wait.

What?

I stared at Zephyra, who was now calmly fiddling with some glowing sigils on the wall like she hadn't just publicly declared me an enemy of the entire invisible world.

My mouth went dry. I wanted to scream, YOU SNITCHED IN FRONT OF THE DEAD!

But before I could so much as telepathically send her a glare, a thick voice from the mirror closest to my left rumbled like thunder under a wet quilt.

"You... do not believe?"

The voice was slow, accusing and ever so slightly offended. It sounded like an elderly librarian who just caught me dog-earing the corner of a sacred scroll.

And of course, before I could invent a lie fast enough to save my own soul, another voice rang out:

"He believes only in what is weighed, measured, and printed in government-issued textbooks." It was an affirmation that comes from reading minds I guess!

Oh stars, they know.
They know.
They're reading my thoughts.

Can they do that though?

I tried to shrink away without visibly shrinking. Maybe if I inhaled deeply enough, I could fold into a subatomic state and dissolve out of this conversation altogether.

This isn't fair. I'm just... rational. That doesn't mean I disrespect spirits. It just means I like proof. Solid proof. Like gravity!

I so wanted to tell that out loud but my courage, right now, is only so much. How can I even have any mind to talk anything at all?

But they didn't stop. Another spirit ancestor, this one with the tone of a particularly spicy elder who definitely ran the gossip circle in the afterlife, huffed; "He thinks us myths. Children's tales! Floating fairy dust with poor time management!"

"Hey now, that's not what I—" I began.

But they weren't listening to me. Oh no. They were having an intervention.

A third voice, this one gentle but somehow more terrifying, came from the far end of the Spirit Hall, "Let us teach the boy the truths we've carried longer than his world has known the wheel."

Oh dear. I was about to be spiritually mansplained by the Ghost Council.

Not again?

I don't to know about this nonsense at all!

I don't want to be told about all this stuff. Please, leave me and my ideas alone!

The air glittered again, and suddenly a constellation of glowing lights formed above me, arranging themselves into ancient tribal symbols I didn't understand. They pulsated slowly, rhythmically... like a heartbeat in the cosmos.

A faint whisper followed.

"You call it science. We called it harmony."

"You observe atoms. We observed echoes."

"You decode the brain. We danced with dreams."

Not the same stuff again. I've heard this a lot of times from demon girl several times already.

I politely and very respectfully requests you all to at least tell me something new. At least change the words and dialogues!

Instead, a chorus of voices responded like a celestial school committee who'd just discovered their favorite student didn't believe in homework.

"This one needs extra classes."

"Put him in the Remedial Spirit Awareness group."

"Oh, do we still have that syllabus carved on bone tablets?"

Ah, Mommy, I don't want to stay here anymore. I want to leave!

Suddenly, one ancestor with a particularly enthusiastic tone, the kind of tone that makes you suspicious someone just got promoted in the ghost hierarchy, floated forward and materialized into a semi-transparent, very fashionable, very grumpy old man.

He had ghost-glasses.

GHOST. GLASSES!

"You, young man, are suffering from what we call Dimensional Arrogance Syndrome. Symptoms include an overdependence on microscopes and a tragic underappreciation for soul geometry."

"I'm... sorry?"

"You're not. But you will be."

And then, before I could blink, this guy whipped out what appeared to be a chalkboard made of clouds and began sketching something using light beams and a piece of comet dust like chalk.

"This here is a Thought Loop. Primitive humans called it worry. We called it bad alignment. You see this twist here? That's the spiralling ego vortex. It's where your doubt is currently nesting."

He tapped the glowing loop, which made a loud 'Tchh!' noise, and then he pointed directly at me.

"You're in here. Trapped."

"I mean," I said weakly, "you're not... entirely wrong." Whatever can I say anymore!

And so, my classes started in which I had no say in.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the Spirit Whispering House, demon girl who was working on fixing the issues she created all by her own capabilities finally yelled out, catching everyone by surprise.

"Ah, finally done! I finally fixed it."

I watched as Zephyra took a deep breath, her hair glowing slightly under the moonlight dome, then turned to address the entire chamber — the living and the dead.

"All nodes are grounded," she said. "The grid is no longer syncing with wild echoes. It's anchored only to our family line now. No more random hauntings."

I clapped, a little too fast. "Great! You did it! Let's all go home, yeah?" She turned to me with a flat expression.

What did I say wrong?

Since she has done the needed, let's just get out of here.

"No one's going anywhere."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hello Sweeties,

Next chapter is here. Enjoy!

What do you think about the chapter? Interesting?

Idris is so stuck with all kinds of people. Poor him!

Finally! The house was back under control. Pheww!

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Lady Prim