"Where am I?" It demanded, "Where's my family? Who are you?"
Amos stepped back from it. He held out his hands. It advanced on him.
"What did you do to me?"
Amos' backpedalling disturbed the waters. He looked around him frantically for anything to help against his aggressive mirror image. There was nothing, of course. There never was in this place.
"Stop," Amos said. His voice cracked, "Just wait."
The duplicate waited, standing above him. It reached up to push its wet, blond hair back. Its hand seemed to waver in and out of existence, phasing through its own hair. The duplicate looked at its fingerless stumps in confusion, then back at the appendages it left in the obsidian.
"What?" it whispered, then louder "What in Maur's name is going on?"
"I don't know," Amos dropped his hand in shame, "I don't know anything."
The replica's anger softened, but didn't disappear entirely. It looked so much like Leila, with those eyes, searching Amos' face. "Who are you?"
"My name's Bailey," Amos said, "You were watching my life, just now. Before I died."
"You look like me."
"I woke up in this body after I died. I don't know why."
There was a pause where the two appraised each other. Amos knew that he didn't belong in the body he occupied all too well. Being interrogated by a replica of the person he expunged via transmigration only exacerbated Amos' feelings of guilt.
Is it really a doppelganger?
Or is it the real Amos?
"That's my body," it said, interrupting - and confirming - Amos' internal thoughts.
Amos just nodded, defeated. "I'm sorry."
"Give it back."
"I don't know how. I didn't do any of this."
"Give. It. Back."
A vein on the soul's forehead bulged. The muscles in its hands flexed, clenching phantom limbs. It stiffened, its arms trembling slightly.
From the ruined stumps where it ripped its fingers out of the obsidian, new growths of skin and bone pushed their way through. The pale digits unfurled like flowers budding from soil, forcefully. Amos and his soul looked on in horror.
Amos' soul didn't appear to be afflicted with pain from the sudden onset of new growth. It was shocked, certainly, but hurt? No.
It turned its new hands around to examine them properly, flexing the fresh fingers to repeatedly form fists.
"Then," it said, its expression twisting into a sneer, "I'll take it."
It lunged.
The soul didn't give Amos any time to react. He still tried to scrabble away, scratching at the obsidian and sending splashes of water into the air. It was upon him in a second, new hands wrapping around his neck.
The sensation was strange. Its hands were incorporeal, but the effect on Amos' body was the same as if they were physical. He spluttered, choking for air, grasping at the soul's wrists. His struggles didn't faze it, sliding through the murderous hands like smoke.
There was confusion in the spirit's eyes as it saw Amos's hands passing through it. Its grip loosened for a moment, and it locked eyes with him, grey on grey.
A moment passed.
"You should've stayed dead," Amos' soul gritted its teeth. It redoubled its efforts, grip tightening.
Just when Amos was losing his grip on consciousness, vision waning, pulse slowing, struggle ending, breath fading, his soul - his original self, the person whose life he had unwittingly ripped away - disappeared.
Amos gasped for air. Sweet, preserving, oxygen.
Amos looked around for his original self. There was no sign of it. He shook his head and walked over to the patch of obsidian where he first found the soul kneeling.
There were ten cylindrical holes in the smooth obsidian. A tiny hairline fracture appeared as Amos stared at the proof that everything he saw was real - he wasn't imagining the old Amos. It had an effect on the Infinite Lake. A dangerous one.
Amos felt a stabbing pain behind his eyes. A headache unlike any he had felt before. He staggered from the force of it, putting his hands to his head. He pressed, hard, hoping the pressure would help.
It didn't.
The pain increased, sharper and sharper. Amos began screaming. He fell to his knees, hunched over the smooth surface of the water. Through the strands of hair falling over his face and the tears welling in his eyes, he saw his sobbing reflection.
His skin was boiling, the flesh shifting like sand. His vision split in two. A second, ethereal face pushed itself from the side of Amos' head chimerically. It was a visage of torment, screaming silently.
Amos retched, throwing bile onto the reflection, obscuring the horrific sight.
He pushed himself up with a frenetic energy, desperate to get away. The void - the portal - was still hanging in the air. He staggered towards it.
Stop.
Don't leave.
We can talk.
The pain stopped suddenly. Amos gasped and doubled over, throwing up again.
"What," Amos rasped, panting, "the fuck. Was that."
"You stole my body. I tried taking it back."
The original Amos stepped into his vision, clutching at its chest. It had taken on a paler hue.
"I don't feel good."
"Yeah, no shit. It didn't work?"
"No, obviously-" the real Amos began before being interrupted.
"Don't try pulling that shit again."
"It's my body!" the soul shouted at him, "My life! My family! You took it from me!"
"Fuck you," Amos spat, "I didn't ask for this."
A beat of silence.
"Neither did I," the soul said, "and yet here we are."
The original Amos exhaled an empty breath, fists still clenched.
"So what now?" Amos rubbed his neck gingerly, "Why shouldn't I just leave?"
"Because," the soul hesitated, "when we touched, just now-"
"You strangled me,"
"When. We. Touched," Amos' soul clenched its teeth, trying very hard not to resort back to violence, "It was like I was back in your - my - body. It hurt like anything else, but I was there. I felt you, too. We were one."
Amos nodded, trying to keep up. He had felt a presence, but was mostly distracted by the overwhelming pain.
"I saw your memories, the ones you made with my family in the last two days. But... something pushed me out. I couldn't stay. It was like I don't belong in my own body anymore, like it was physically shoving me out,"
Amos' soul searched its oppressor's face, a sense of urgency and fear creeping into its micro expressions, "Did you do this to me?" it asked, "Are you Drai?"
Amos frowned, "A what?"
"Don't play dumb with me," the soul growled, "You owe me the truth, at the very least."
"No, I seriously don't know what a Drai is," Amos protested, "I don't know anything about this world! I didn't even know about the, uh, chicken things."
The soul's lips quirked upward slightly at the mention of the 'chickens'.
"You saw my old life. If you really saw my memories, then you'll know I'm not lying."
It acquiesced, holding up a hand to stop any more of Amos' explanations, signalling that it knew what he said to be true. It began to pace, twirling blond locks around a single finger.
"This doesn't feel like any of the Orders I know..." the soul muttered to itself. It stopped pacing and turned to face Amos, "I-"
It disappeared.
No ceremony, no puff of smoke, no screams. It was there one moment and gone the next. It was like it had never existed.
Amos panicked, thinking it had decided to try its luck at forcibly regaining its body. He braced for the pain, but it never came.
Amos waited for some time for his soul to return, eventually calling out to the empty space, "Uh, hello?"
No response.
"Do you want to come back and try killing me again?"
After a while of this, Amos was reasonably certain he was alone in the Infinite Lake once again. He sat down in the gentle waters, thoughts and emotions tumbling through his cyclonic mind.
Amos sighed. His throat still burned where the soul had wrung it. He needed the time to process everything that had just happened.
I didn't kill the real Amos when I transmigrated. He must be stuck here, in the Infinite Lake.
How terrible this must be for him... To see someone else living his life, catching glimpses of memories.
He lowered his gaze to the water.
That's not me. I can pretend to be Amos all I want, but even if I didn't want this, it's still my fault that he's stuck here.
"I don't know how to fix this," he said out loud, "but I have to try."
Amos made the declaration to himself, more than the void or anyone else that might be listening.
Maybe... maybe the real Amos will help me. So I don't fuck up his life so much.
He mentioned Maur… could it be like their god? Or some kind of authority figure? The Emperor Maur?
And he said something else about 'Orders' in relation to his separation from our body...
Orders... magic factions, maybe?
And what the hell is a Drai?
Amos stayed in the water and mulled over the implications of everything his soul had said. He couldn't come up with any other precious droplets of information. He waited a little bit longer in case the soul returned. Eventually, he gave up and decided to head back home.
Amos meandered towards the sphere of anti-light. He reached inside, meeting no resistance. His whole arm sank into the portal, the suction increasing in strength. It felt like the centrifugal force of a carnival ride spinning in fast circles, but only in one direction.
There was a popping noise and Amos' entire body was pulled through the portal forcefully.