Second-Hand Soul

By [Muhammad Saqib]

In the city of Narith, where neon flickered through acid rain and people traded their humanity like currency, a soul could be bought and sold — provided you had the credits.

Seventeen-year-old Kieran didn’t.

His mother, bedridden and withering from a rare neural decay, had days left without a clean soul to bind to her. Her own was nearly depleted — cracked and leaking, according to the scanners. It had served her through factory shifts, toxic air, and years of sacrifice. Kieran had watched her spirit dim one breath at a time.

The Soul Exchange offered synthetic infusions for the rich, new-grown spirits cloned in corporate sanctuaries. But for those like Kieran, the only option was second-hand: used, damaged, forgotten souls with uncertain pasts. They were cheaper, but not without risk.

Kieran had only 112 credits — barely enough for a Level D soul.

"I got one,” the dealer muttered, dragging a cracked soul-vial from behind the counter. “Flickers a bit. Came from a prisoner. Nobody knows how he died. But if you’re desperate...”

“I am,” Kieran whispered, not asking more. Ignorance was cheaper than truth. He handed over the credits and clutched the vial like it was life itself. It pulsed faintly in his palm, irregular and cold.

His mother lay quiet as he inserted the soul into the transfer socket near her neck. The machine hummed to life, blinking amber.

“Forgive me,” he said.

The soul surged.

Her body jerked once, and then again. Eyes fluttered open, wild and wide. But something was wrong.

“Mama?” Kieran leaned in.

She laughed.

But it wasn’t her laugh.

At first, it was subtle — the way she moved, the change in her speech. She quoted poems she’d never read. She stared out windows like she was waiting for something, or someone. When Kieran asked how she felt, she replied, “Whole... but not mine.”

That night, he found her standing barefoot in the rain, whispering in a language he didn’t recognize.

He dragged her inside. “What are you doing?”

Her eyes met his. For a moment, they weren’t his mother’s eyes. “You don’t understand what you’ve done,” she said. “He’s still here. I am still here.”

The soul wasn’t just damaged — it was fractured. Incomplete. Part of someone who had died with unfinished business. And now, it was using her body as a vessel.

Kieran searched the digital archives, tracing soul ID numbers back through encrypted marketplaces. After hours of digging, he found it.

Malik Crane. Convicted of murder. Escaped execution by soul fragmentation. Soul recycled postmortem.

The reports didn’t mention his victim, only whispers of betrayal and buried secrets. But Malik had died refusing to reveal the location of something — or someone — important.

Days passed. His mother’s moments of lucidity shrank, replaced by Malik’s presence.

“I need to find her,” Malik said through her. “She’s still out there. My daughter. They told her I abandoned her. But I hid her, protected her.”

Kieran trembled. “You can’t just use her body—”

“I didn’t ask to be brought back.”

Kieran faced an impossible choice: let this soul fade again, and risk killing his mother — or help it finish what it started.

“I’ll help you,” he said at last. “But after that, you let her go.”

Malik agreed.

They followed fragmented memories to the lower districts, through hollow buildings and abandoned sanctuaries. Kieran watched strangers' faces soften at the sight of his mother’s frame, mistaking her for someone else — Malik’s wife? Sister?

Eventually, they found her — a young woman working in a soup line, eyes wide at the mention of Malik’s name.

“He didn’t leave you,” Kieran said. “He died protecting you.”

Tears streamed down her face as the truth unraveled. Malik had killed to protect his daughter from a trafficking ring tied to the city's elite. His silence had been sacrifice.

“I forgive him,” she whispered to the soul inside Kieran’s mother.

And something shifted.

Back home, Kieran watched his mother sleep for the first time in weeks — peacefully, breathing in rhythm.

When she awoke, her eyes were hers again.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he lied. “You came back to me.”

She reached for his hand, and this time, it was her warmth.

Epilogue

In the city of Narith, where souls were priced and memories sold in jars, a second-hand soul had found peace — and a boy had saved his mother, not by money, but by empathy.

But deep in the Soul Exchange, other fractured spirits still pulsed in vials, waiting.

Some with rage.

Some with secrets.

Some, simply... unfinished.