Young Writers Society

"There is," she confirmed. "Grim reapers are basically immortal - you just need to have a reaping weapon to kill us. But anyone who would know about that magic is too old and secluded - and people like me aren't really liked by them."


He nodded again, though he doubted his words would be more welcoming than Tristan's. As they approached the two, conversation ceased - it was clear that Mage's friend knew a thing or two about Janos.

"Hello," he said.

There was silence.

"We're heading back to the house now," he said. "You should come with us."

The two glanced at other before nodding.

"I'm just saying, it feels like a lot more people should know about magic?" Jaron said. He heard the house's front door open, quickly catching Arlais, Zogin, and Soul out of the corner of his eye. He ignored them as they crowded into the room, though the metal parts and gears moved out of their way. This room was getting a tad crowded. "Unless they don't want to think about it or deal with it, which is kinda stupid - magic is pretty useful."



Well, that was easy.

Tristan looked over at Mage. "So, uh, how've you been?" the otter said, hoping to strike up a bit of a conversation while they headed back to the house.

She couldn't argue with that.

But she did have one slight question.

"How many people are in your world?" she asked.


"Good," Mage quietly responded, glancing between his friend and Janos. Janos could see a pair of eyes peeking out from underneath his hood and behind his mask - there was a fear in them he hadn't quite expected.

"Mage and I were talking about our worlds," the friend added. His voice had an odd quality to it that Janos couldn't quite place.

Jaron frowned. "A lot? Why's that a big deal?"



"Oh?" Tristan said. "What are your worlds like?'

"What's a good estimate?" she asked. "Thousands? Millions? Billions?"

"Ours is in the millions," Envy said, suddenly joining in on the conversation. "I don't know the specific number, but I know it's high."


"My world is small," Mage said. He glanced over at Janos, unsure how much the fallen angel had mentioned. He had seen him talking with Tristan earlier, but he couldn't tell what the subject of the conversation was. "Most of it was destroyed centuries ago - there's just the kingdom and its three parts left."

"Caelum, Medium and Infernum," Janos quietly added, a look glazing over his eyes at the mention of the first one.

"And my world is many worlds, technically," the friend said. "I can travel to multiple ones. I'm the only inhabitant of the one that I live on, so I don't know much about its history or culture."

"Let's go with millions," Jaron said, nodding his head. "There was plenty of people in the places I went to, and I'm sure there's lots in the places I didn't go to."



Pushing open the door to the house, Tristan looked back at the others. "How does a world get destroyed like that?" he said, looking at Mage before shifting his gaze to the wraith. "And how come you're the only one living on your world?"

"That makes sense, then," Robin said. "Millions of people know about magic in my world, too, but with different levels of understanding. I'm not sure how most of the population forgot about magic, but there are more people who know about it than it might have seemed."

"...How many people are there?" Envy asked.

"The last time I checked, seven and a half billion," she replied. "And that's only counting the humans."

Greed stopped mid-bite, and Envy stared.


"They say it was the demons," Mage said. "Our ancestors did something that caused the collapse of the rest of the world, and the reason we're in Infernum is to pay for that."

Janos shook his head.

Mage gave him a funny look.

"It wasn't the demons," he said. "No one knows what it really was - at least, no one who was at my level. The story you just told is just that: a story. It's nothing more than superstition."

An awkward silence fell on the group.

Zest hesitantly started speaking again, noticing the unspoken something between Janos and Mage. He barely knew either of their stories, but he could understand the discomfort both had with the other.

"It's safer that way," he said. "Humans fear me, and other wraith don't like me."

Everyone being here would've been a lot more tolerable without the food table in the middle of the room. But now, with Tristan, Mage, the wraith, and someone Jaron didn't recognize (and would have to talk to later) walking on in, pieces of metal climbed their way up to the ceiling, casually ignoring the laws of gravity. Trying not to think about all those gears and pieces of metal falling on everyone's heads, Jaron focused on Robin.

"I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure how much millions and billions are? All I can say is they sound like a lot?" Jaron said. "And how many not-humans are there?"

In the meantime, Tristan appeared to be engrossed in an entirely different, and (somehow) much weirder, conversation. "If demons destroying the world is a lie, where did the story come from?" said the otter. "And living alone on your planet sounds kinda rough. Do you ever get visitors?"

Robin's gaze momentarily traveled to the metal that Jaron was conjuring, but she quickly returned it to him.

"They are," she confirmed. "Millions to billions are like tens to hundreds, but with a much bigger gap between them. If I'm guessing right, your world would probably be closer to the millions."

She thought over the last question.

"...I'm not really sure," she admitted. "No one's ever counted."


Janos didn't like how the metal was appearing out of seemingly nowhere; it felt wrong and unnatural. Magic had its rules, and this clearly defied them. He could guess who the culprit was by seeing the unfamiliar face among the large group crowded into the house, but he didn't address them.

Instead, he focused on the question that he had just been asked.

"...I would guess the angels," Janos said. "It's never been confirmed, but it does seem like something that would be said."

There was a pause, and then Mage's friend filled the silence.

"Sometimes I do," he said. "I usually hide when they're there. If I move around too much, they realize that I'm there - as it is, most people think that the castle I live in is haunted."

Jaron sighed - he felt like he had to ask questions about everything Robin said. He couldn't tell if that was because of her being from another world, her not being great at explaining things, or both. "A much bigger gap?" he said. "A hundred is ten tens, but I'm guessing a million isn't ten billions? And it's kinda weird they'd count the humans, but not the not-humans."

"That, sounds pretty cruel of the angels," said Tristan, who was still behind Jaron and still caught up in two conversations. "And have you ever tried to talk to those visitors? I know plenty of times where I was scared to say hello to someone, but the conversation ended up going pretty well."

"It isn't," she confirmed. "And they don't really count the nonhumans because they don't know that they're there - most of them pretend to be human."


Zest gave him a look from behind his mask.

"People don't like my kind," he said. "They're scared of us. And if they saw that I was the only one there, they might think they could overpower me in an act of rebellion. It's happened before, and I don't want people coming to my home just to fight me."

"Do you know how many non-humans there are, or does anyone else know?" Jaron said. "And how many thousands does it take to get a million, or millions to get a billion?"



It took a few seconds for Tristan to wrap his head around what the wraith was saying. "Picking on a single person living in an abandoned castle in the middle of nowhere is an act of rebellion?" he said, tilting his head. "That sounds kinda dumb on their part."

"Someone might know," Robin uncertainly said, "but I'm not that person. I don't deal in souls as much as the other people like me do, and I don't know of any survey that's counted how many nonhumans are in the human population right now."

She thought through the next question.

"...I think a hundred?" she hesitantly said. "I just know you add on three more zeroes when writing it out."



Zest was silent for a moment.

"...My kind isn't the friendliest," he muttered. "I understand why they would want to attack me. I don't know if I would do the same in their shoes, but I can imagine what would lead them to do it."

Jaron folded his arms, taking care not to accidentally elbow Kendrik (who had started slumping forward and snoring gently). "What do you deal in, then?" the fox said. "And that's a thousand, not a hundred. Which means a billion is..." he trailed off, trying to grapple with all the thousands packed into that number. All he could come up with was a lot. It almost sounded like too many people. How could you fit billions of people anywhere? "Just how big is that world of yours?"



"They've got much bigger problems to worry about," Tristan said. "Anyone looking to pick a fight with you is kind of a scared idiot."

"Big," Robin clarified. "I have no idea how big it is compared to other worlds, but we have seven continents and six of them are filled with people - and even the last one has some people on it, if I remember that one assignment right."


Zest shook his head.

"They might be scared," he softly said, "but I don't think they're idiots. When Aegeas attacked me earlier, he was justified. I've never met another wraith like me - everyone has to feed on humans, and all of them are loyal to themselves or to their queens. I'm the exception."