Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“Stay close to me and don’t leave my side. I don’t want you to get lost.” I pulled the kids closer toward my side and took a step out into the busy main terminal. I had been in a lot of airports in my life, but none as big or as busy as this place seemed to be. There were so many people that I literally needed to squeeze my way into the mass of souls.. I felt like I was going to be swept away into the never-ending flow of lost souls and end up lost myself.
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Riviana
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The moment that I stepped into the flow of the ‘traffic’ I felt myself being pushed and pulled in a million different directions. It was hard for me to keep a hold of the boys, but I refused to let them go. And I also refused to move at the speed that the souls around me wanted me to.
Instead of me moving like they tried to force me, I slowed down and stood my ground to force them all to go around me. Oddly enough, once I made one person move around me, all of the others followed them. It was like they were nothing more than a never-ending stream of mindless lemmings. All of the ones in the back only followed the leader. Wherever I moved the first one the others would just blindly follow him.
Now that I was forcing them to move around me, I was able to stop and get a good look of the area around me. Not to mention, now that they were moving around me, the three little boys clinging to me didn’t have to worry about being swept away.
The sign that I had seen earlier was not doing this place justice. It was way bigger than I thought that it was. Just being here, looking at the various halls and terminals leading off of this section told me that I hadn’t nearly grasped the size of this airport of souls. It was easily hundreds of times bigger than the biggest airport that I had ever been in.
“What is this place?” I wondered out loud, only to have the other me respond.
‘This is the Hall of Regrets. This is where all the souls too hung up on what they couldn’t do in life get sent.’ She, like always, was straight to the point when she explained a part of the underworld. Now, if only she could have been that straightforward when we were having our ‘discussion’ in the Hall of Self-Reflection.
“OK, so these people all regret something. Is it that they regret not doing something or that they regret doing something?” That was a stupid question to ask, only because it didn’t truly matter, but I asked it anyway.
‘It can be either. However, I feel like those that get lost in this place are more often than not, the people that regretted not doing something. If you start to focus on them, use your Goddess ears rather than your mortal ears, you should be able to tell what it is that they are all saying. It’s loud here, is it not? You should be able to hear their words. Try to focus on one at a time, that way you do not get overwhelmed.’
“Alright.” I was apprehensive, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to see what they were saying. At the very least, I could see what the souls of this part of the underworld felt.
I knelt lower to the floor, hugging the boys to me tightly so that they couldn’t be separate from me. I closed my eyes so that I could concentrate and started to think more like a Goddess than like a mortal.
It was hard at first. And I felt like I looked like an idiot as I searched the area around me. I could hear the sounds of the voices but hearing the words one was saying was like trying to make sense out of nothing.
At first, all I could hear was a sound like the disgusting scraping and chirruping that ants made only a lot louder and repeated millions of times. It was too much for me and I just wanted to cover my ears again. I didn’t though, and after a while, I was able to focus on one chirrup, or voice in particular.
It was a man’s voice and he was probably in his mid twenties. I focused in on his voice and heard the words that he was saying.
“Why didn’t I tell her? Why did I leave without telling her what I truly felt? Things could have been different. I might not have been there for the accident. We could have been happy. We could have had a family.”
This man sounded like he regretted not telling the woman he loved about his feelings. He sounded heartbroken and lost. It was a major life changing decision for him and he never had the guts to do anything about it.
I focused on another person, trying to hear their regret, their voice. It didn’t take me as long as it did before. This time, was easily able to work past the disgusting chirruping sound to hear the true sound of his voice below.
“WHY?! Why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I accept the job? Why didn’t I take the leap? Yeah, sure, I would have had to move across the country and I would not have seen my family as much, but then I would have been happy in my career. Instead, I lived my life in mediocrity, never fulfilling my passion or my potential. I let that job suck the life out of me. It stole my soul and I was miserable! Why didn’t I take the job?!”
This man had been older, he looked and sounded like he was close to or just past retirement age. And he looked, and sounded, like he had been miserable for most of his life. I can understand why he felt so insecure at the time, and I could also understand why he regretted the decision that he made. He didn’t want to leave his family, even though it meant taking a better opportunity. That’s a hard choice.
OK, one more, then I will be done with the regrets. I don’t know why, but I needed to hear one more. It was like some sort of morbid curiosity for me. So, I focused on one more person, another man who was in his thirties. He was severely overweight and looked like he had actually enjoyed his life.
“WHY!? Why didn’t I have that dessert? Why did I choose that night to go on a diet? Why didn’t I just eat the rest of the cake that was sitting there? It’s not like it would have mattered anyway. I was killed by a random idiot on my way home. I should have savored what was my last meal. Honestly, if I would have stayed at the restaurant to eat more, I might not have died. I might not have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why didn’t I just give in to temptation?”
OK, I am sad that he was killed, that isn’t good. However, is it bad that I wanted to laugh at him for having his everlasting regret be over dessert? That didn’t seem like something that should have kept him here in this place. In my opinion, he needed to move on and get out of here.
Then again, maybe food was his whole life. And if that were the case, missing out on something like that right before you died, I guess it could have a lasting impression on your soul. I am only guessing here, grasping at straws, really.. And I was doing my best not to laugh at him.
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Riviana
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“Hey, other me, why am I here? For what purpose is there that I came into this part of the underworld? What exactly am I supposed to do here?”
‘Who said you needed to do anything, Riviana? Why do you think that you need to fix everything? Are these people here because of you? Did you send any of them here? No, they are not. And no, you did not. These people have regrets because they were not able to do things in life that they wanted to. There is nothing in here for you to fix. You cannot take away their regrets either. For better or worse, they are stuck here.”
“But, wait a minute!” I was so confused by what the other me said just now. “Aren’t you the one that made me see what all of my actions and inactions caused? Aren’t you the one that told me that I needed to stop letting people suffer? Aren’t I supposed to do something about this like I did the people in Limbo?”
‘In truth, you didn’t have to help the people in Limbo. These souls are already dead, Riviana. There is nothing you can do to help them. They won’t live again. They will still be dead. The purpose of me showing you those things was to make you understand that we all have faults, even a Goddess. And that you need to accept those faults. Only when you stop trying to be perfect, can you truly hope to reach perfection. Perfection has flaws. Perfection has failures. Perfection doesn’t actually exist since you could always get better, you can always improve yourself and as long as you don’t forget, that failures build you up. They don’t tear you down.’
“You’re talking in circles, and it is making me dizzy. First you tell me that perfection has flaws and failures then you tell me that it doesn’t exist. Which is it?”
‘Hahh.’ The other me sighed in my head. ‘Perfection is something to strive for, but never reach. If you think you’re perfect, then you might as well give up. And if you think that one flaw or one failure makes you anything less than perfect then you might as well give up. The thing that makes someone perfect is the drive to move forward and to never give up. You may never truly reach what someone calls perfect, but you will always be improving and that alone makes a world of difference.’
“Hahh.” I matched the sigh that she had just done moments ago. “Fine. Never stop trying and keep moving forward. Is that what you’re trying to tell me? So, in other words, you showed me hell to tell me that there is room to improve and that I need to just do better from here on out. I am flawed person and I need to accept that.”
‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’
“Gee, thanks for that lesson. You could have just told me about it sooner instead of the big run around.” I crossed my arms angrily and glared at the souls around me. There was nothing for me to do here but push my way through the crowd.
