Sexta and Sextus woke up from their sleep, both got up from their benches and tried to open the window to change the air and let in some light, since the lightbulb in the room had become quite dim. In addition, a mist had pervaded the entire room, but the window just wouldn't open. So they decided to go downstairs, even though they were still a bit groggy from sleepiness. As they were about to reach the stairs, they heard various voices coming from downstairs and noticed that this mist was inside the entire building.

  ?Aaaah, I wonder how many people arrived while Sexta and I were sleeping, there's an absurd commotion.?

  As soon as they reached the stairs, they looked over and Sextus made a very fierce retreat, immediately going back into the room and going into hiding. Sexta didn't understand the reason for that reaction and went ahead, reached the stairs and saw that the place was full, full of deformed and humanoid beings that resembled: ghosts, mummies and skeletons, it almost seemed like all her worst nightmares had gathered in that place and were calmly talking and celebrating among themselves. Sexta took refuge inside the room with Sextus.

  ?W-WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!?

  ?QUIET, DO YOU WANT THOSE BEINGS TO HEAR US!??

  A deathly silence fell over the tavern, nothing could be heard anymore. Sexta and Sextus put their hands over their mouths to avoid making their breaths heard. They heard a myriad of footsteps slowly approaching their door more and more, and as they did so, they heard the doors of all the other rooms being slammed violently, until no more doors were slammed, the footsteps had completely stopped and our two protagonists were scared out of their minds.

  The door burst open and Sextus had completely fainted from fear.

  Suddenly they heard trumpets and confetti cannons like those used at birthday parties.

  All those beings shouted together:

  ?SURPRISE! WELCOME TO THE SCARLET REALM!?

  Sexta was completely confused but their leader who was a skeleton made of bones as black as coal came forward and continued to speak.

  ?You might find this hard to believe, but if you're here, it's because you're dead, so you'll have to get used to it. Anyway it's time for introductions. I am the King of this realm, my name is Seth, how about you come and celebrate with us? And bring your friend who is so cowardly that he fainted from simple noises, we'll be waiting for you downstairs!?

  Everyone left together with Seth, Sexta and Sextus remained alone and so Sexta who was in total panic sat on Sextus's stomach and began to slap Sextus in the face until he woke up.

  ?Could you please stop??

  Sexta got off Sextus and then replied restlessly.

  ?We have to get out of here and immediately!?

  Sextus who had woken up from his faint and sat up.

  ?Finally you're awake Sextus!?

  ?At first I was overwhelmed by my fear, but now it won't be like that anymore so I would like to find out what this realm is, how we ended up here and what those beings are.?

  ?You said you wanted to know more about them right? They invited us to celebrate downstairs with them and…they said that if we are here it's because we are dead so…?

  Sextus got back on his feet abruptly.

  ?I understand, so this is the end that life has decided for me…I'm fine with that but let's start with the first question, Sexta how do you think it's possible that we died??

  ?Well, could we have contracted some strange disease in this world that led to our death??

  ?Wrong.?

  ?Did these monstrous beings take our lives and so now we find ourselves here in their realm for this reason??

  ?Also wrong, in that case they would have devoured us and not welcomed us with joy if it was as you say.?

  ?Then I don't know, tell me.?

  ? Full Name

  ??????????????????????

  Seth

  ? Age

  ??????????????????????

  Unknown

  ? Height

  ??????????????????????

  Unknown

  ? Hair

  ??????????????????????

  I doubt he has any unless

  he is a musician skeleton.

  ? Eyes

  ??????????????????????

  Aquamarine

  ? Ankhom

  ??????????????????????

  ???

  ? Description

  ??????????????????????

  A skeleton as black as coal, he wears clothes that resemble the elegant ones of the nobles of antiquity. His eyes are small aquamarine flames. His seriousness intimidates anyone who sees him; he is scary and seems extremely powerful. He is undoubtedly the one who commands everything and everyone in this place.

  ?It's very simple Sexta, we were poisoned by the food that guy served us, he filled the food with an excess of spices so that we wouldn't notice that there was poison inside and then he invited us to rest, so doing we died while we were sleeping and so doing he will have entered our room and undisturbed robbed our two corpses of all our belongings.?

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  ?What a jerk, I'll give him a piece of my mind when I wake up!?

  Sextus put his hand on his face and had a very disappointed expression.

  ?As if you could come back to life, Sexta.?

  Sexta turned to the side and started whistling with her arms behind her head.

  ?You know what, let's go see what's downstairs??

  ?You're crazy, they'll probably devour us and you want to make friends with them??

  ?Well, after all in this realm nothing is “normal”, besides the very concept of normal is something abstract and non-existent. Then we have nothing better to do, so…?

  ?Then let's see what the “kind” dead inhabitants of this realm offer us.?

  Sextus and Sexta headed towards the stairs, began to descend and saw that everyone downstairs was ready to welcome them with tankards and goblets full of a dark red drink. There was a buffet on a series of tables close together, full of dishes hidden by a large white veil. Seth turned to them and, while raising the goblet he had in his hand, shouted:

  ?Let's start the welcome feast for these two new souls in this nefarious realm!?

  Sextus began to wonder why he had said "nefarious realm", but his question was immediately answered. They pulled off the large white cloth that was hiding a bunch of trays full of organs and whole pieces of human bodies. Sextus and Sexta were trying to hold back vomit and disgust, but it was now clear that this realm was not at all peaceful. Seth approached both of them and stated:

  ?Seeing this for the first time as dead people is always shocking, don't worry, it's normal. Although I imagine you're a bit used to it, if you ended up here you must have committed serious crimes. But I certainly won't be the one to ask you what you did. Would you like to make a toast with me? Bring a glass of blood each to these two, thank you very much.?

  Two of those beings brought two goblets, one to Sextus and one to Sexta, of that reddish drink which apparently turned out to be human blood.

  ?Before continuing, I would like to tell you the story of this realm. You see, I am one of the two children of the legendary Thoth. The red color that this realm has represents the anger he has for me, while in the realm where my twin Osiris is located, it is a shining white because he has always been proud of her and her choices.?

  Seth, thinking back to this, broke the goblet from the excessive force with which he had squeezed it.

  ?Excuse me, now I'll continue with the story. My father only had eyes for my sister. Whatever I did, he never cared about anything. After quite some time, I got tired of the situation and that is why I started casting curses on human beings. As a consequence of these actions of mine, I was confined to the scarlet realm with this body that represents my sin, while my sister lives the good life in the celestial realm.?

  Thinking about this, you could clearly see the anger he was feeling, clenching a fist with all his strength. He was intimidating everyone present in the room, including Sexta, who was paralyzed with fear, and Sextus, who was so traumatized that he fainted while standing. No one noticed because his arm and hand were still holding the goblet with the blood without letting it fall, so no one paid attention to his closed eyes.

  ?Anyway, the best pastime to be able to do in this realm is to torment, curse and appropriate the life energy of human beings, although we can do it very limitedly, except when the eclipse of Ra occurs. But it is a mythological event that occurred only once and we have never understood what triggered it so we could recreate it.?

  Sexta understood that he was referring to that event that happened 7 years ago and tried to pretend she knew nothing about it. Meanwhile, Seth took another goblet full of blood and sipped a little. ?To finish the speech, this realm was created specifically for us, rejected by society who committed serious acts of crime such as stealing, injuring or killing someone else. While in my brother's realm there are the little angels who have always behaved well and who have never harmed anyone, yeah right!?

  Seth shattered the goblet again into a thousand pieces with the sole force of his right hand and a aquamarine flame began to appear on his head, covering it completely. Seth had to calm down a bit before continuing. The flame gradually began to die down and so he took a nice tankard of blood and, while raising it to the sky, looked at everyone in the room and then fixed his gaze on Sexta and Sextus, who had just recovered from his faint.

  ?To our newcomers, and to our health!! Hahahaha, of course I'm kidding, we're dead, we can't get sick!?

  Seth began to drink the blood. Sextus and Sexta looked into each other's eyes and began to drink the blood from their goblets, but the taste wasn't the best and they made a completely disgusted face, spitting it out of their mouths. Despite continuing to cough from that bad taste, Sextus communicated his disgust towards that drink.

  ?Cough cough, how can you drink this stuff??

  Seth was looking at Sextus and Sexta perplexed, remaining in complete silence. Everyone remained silent staring at Sextus and Sexta.

  ?H-how come you suddenly stopped the festivities? And to think you were having so much fun hehehe…?

  Sextus immediately understood that something was wrong and so he was beginning to prepare for the worst.

  ?Of course, I understand! You don't like blood because you've been spirits for too short a time, and your taste buds aren't ready for such a delicacy I apologize for not thinking about this possibility before, for a moment I was thinking that you didn't like it because for spirits that are still connected to living bodies, any food or drink from this realm has an unbearable bitter taste.?

  Two of those beings brought goblets with a pink drink and gave them to Sexta and Sextus.

  ?What you see is the juice of the death strawberry?, a type of plant that grows in this realm. Despite the name, the taste is definitely better than any strawberry you tasted when you were alive.?

  Sexta and Sextus began to drink the juice of the death strawberry. At first it had a very pleasant taste, just as Seth said, but then a damnably bitter aftertaste arrived and they both understood that something was wrong. They looked at each other, nodding to each other and pretending that they liked it.

  ?Officially welcome to the scarlet realm, my friends, hahaha! Let's continue with the celebrations, guys!?

  Everyone in unison raised their tankards and goblets, shouting the exact same thing.

  ?Yesss!?

  While everyone continued to celebrate, Sextus and Sexta continued to chat quietly with Seth, all three sitting at a table.

  ?I might be tactless asking this, but do you know how you died??

  Seth got up from his chair and stood up.

  ?You see, if there was someone who wanted to kill you for some personal gain, you just have to say so, and I'll make them pay.?

  A aquamarine flame began to appear around his head, representing the anger he was feeling in thinking that such a possibility might be what caused them to die.

  ?No no, don't worry about us. We died of food poisoning, we probably ate something that was poisonous without realizing it.?

  ?Alright, ehm… now that I think about it, I haven't asked your names yet. Would you be so kind as to introduce yourselves, please?? ?Certainly! Let me introduce myself, I am Kuroki Sextus and this is Tokiko…?

  ?Sexta.?

  Everyone suddenly fell silent, no one was moving a muscle anymore. The air inside the room was incredibly tense and yet both Sextus and Sexta didn't notice anything.

  ?But then she already knew our names, huh? Admit that you just wanted to play a joke on us.?

  Sextus saw Seth's face and understood that something was wrong. He got up from the table and stood in front of Sexta as if he wanted to defend her.

  ?Sexta, unfortunately for us he's not joking at all. Look at everyone in the room, they know something we don't know, it's obvious.?

  Seth was there, completely paralyzed, speechless as if he no longer knew what to do. Sextus took advantage of the situation to take Sexta with him and take her away from there. They reached the end of the stairs when:

  ?Let go of my arm immediately if you don't want to find it amputated. I can very well move on my own, huh!? And then explain to me why we ran away like that without saying goodbye to anyone??

  ?You are completely out of your mind, Sexta. There was clearly something wrong there, they were about to take us out. Now let's hurry up and barricade ourselves in the room, but I don't know how much it will help, honestly.?

  They both proceeded into the room where it all began. As soon as they entered, they saw that their bodies were on top of those benches but they were transparent.

  ?With all the commotion earlier, we didn't even notice, Sexta. So we're still alive…but at this point, why did we end up here??

  ?Honestly I have no idea, you're the one who thinks between the two of us. And considering that I hear a myriad of footsteps heading to this room, if you don't hurry up and figure it out, we'll really die.?

  ?Think, Sextus, think, why did we end up in this realm…? Suddenly Sextus remembered one of the prophecies that the old man Asahi said:

  ?When darkness falls upon the sight of the inhabitants of Nada, Thoth will take Ra's place and thus a new nightmare will begin…when darkness falls…when darkness falls upon the sight of the inhabitants of Nada, OF COURSE! It refers to the eyes, when the eyelids of the eyes bring down the darkness closing on those who are currently on Nada, you end up in the scarlet realm.?

  ?Correct answer, my dear Sextus.?

  A very distorted voice, but which seemed to be female, coming from who knows where, addressed these words to Sextus. Suddenly a spirit gem appeared in the middle of the room. The monsters were coming and so Sexta took it without thinking twice, looking for a way to use it. As soon as she took it, the entire room lit up with a blinding white light and when all that light disappeared, the noises disappeared and that mist that was in the whole room disappeared, but they had fainted.