Night Watch part 4
Shit Hits the Fan
Reaper Indra Ra’shan
Personal Diary
Preserved: Day 01539
Am I the monster? Is my rot and decay hidden beneath an armor of forgotten star dust? And will this shell erode and expose a misplaced life of horrible deeds? There’s this misconception beings have about selling their soul. They assume you sell it all in one go. One and done, blood drops on the dotted line, and Lucifer leaves with a wave. A little, “too-da-loo”, until hell.
But it’s not like that is it? How could it be when we know energy doesn’t die, when we know how fast we’re propelling through the void right now–intertwining with dead celestial bodies. How many times have you been here? Face to face with a reflection that’s always changing. Alone with a mind running off of millenia if not eons of forgotten memories, and we think we get to keep it all when we die?
Who’s to say you didn’t sell a piece of it in that last life.
Maybe that’s the reason you have those thoughts that make you cringe in the middle of the night. Maybe that’s why you imagine jumping off of that bridge. Maybe that’s why you’re so full of fear, because in the end you came from the same place as the monsters we hunt. A deep dark abyss of ectoplasm thrumming with one singular thought: I wish there were more of me.
Each time a cell separated until something new took shape a piece of that place was taken. A pool of life slowly consumed until it stared at itself in every shape it imagined. Covered in fur, feather, skin, and scale and a new thought joined the first: I’m so hungry.
Our desperation is tasted by every entity interested in our so very human plight. An easy mark. Despite reapers insisting their superiority to mortals, we are the same. A thing already trapped in flesh and bone. Fragile creatures with dementia refusing to remember the gifts of our origin.
We sold our souls piece by piece to the infiltrators. A business deal for a surface level power trip. Gold flickering in our vision, blinding us from the devastation that came from cutting the divinity from ourselves, and we ate their rotted offering greedily.
Because that hunger never faded. No flesh, no drink, no plant could satisfy us. And how could it when the only thing left in us was blood and marrow.
Terrence stared at the woman who shouldn’t have been able to cross the silt circle. No scent of demon or ether, but realm walkers could easily hide their mana. She was staring at him with narrowed eyes, a bag dangling from her fingers. The stench of it reached his nose and curled his lip.
Ensnared by the moss ringing her eyes, Terrence didn’t have time before she cocked her arm and let the bag soar into his chest. The mess that splattered was somehow more horrible than the demon residue clinging to his skin.
“Where is my dog!” she screamed before charging.
The whites of her eyes glared in the darkness. And he felt it then, the surge of ether rushing to meet her hands. Silvy.
Training took over and in two movements Silvy was flat on her back gulping for air.
A breeze picked up carrying the voices of concerned mortals. Terrence imagined their brains humming frantically to shield the truth with calming excuses for Silvy’s sudden disappearance.
There was no sign of a dog though, but animals had a way of seeing through energy, blending in with it.
“Is your dog smart?” Terrence asked after a few moments.
Silvy was sitting up now, and to his horror tears glistened on her cheeks. Had he hurt her?
“Yeah, he’s a shepherd mix. I’m his flock–”
“He can’t smell you in here, can’t see you either,” he cut in.
He watched her finally take in their surroundings. An iridescent ripple against the void of his domain. Her darting eyes finding the stubborn ash lingering on the shrubs and grass. When she finally looked at him depleted of adrenaline he had expected panic to replace the rage. Instead she hollowed out.
“So are you dead?”
He choked.
Krys chuckled.
Silvy cocked her head as if sensing Krys’ amusement. Terrence reinforced his mental barriers, earning a shot of annoyance from Krys before she retreated.
Terrence smiled tightly before crossing his arms over his chest realizing too late that the stinking sludge of feces still coated his shirt. He winced slightly but tried to play it off, and swallowed a gag. He’d been covered in primordial ooze and the entrails of fiends more often than most. Dog shit wasn’t something he’d puke over.
“Look, we have a lot to discuss. Your pal Rudy was very insistent we find you–”
“Rudy wasn’t my ‘pal’, and I’m not wasting my time talking to some weirdo lurking in the dark while Slim is missing,” she seethed.
“Silvy, those nut job neighbors of yours are about ten feet away and I don’t feel like meeting anyone else covered in other worldly goo and your dog’s shit–”
“But–”
“He’s a shepherd, give him a whistle from your doorstep,” Terrence let command enter his tone.
He wasn’t worried she would deny him. Not with how her eyes lit back up at the mention of Rudy. The way her shoulders lifted. A fragile hope set in the thin line of her mouth. He couldn’t help but wonder if Rudy had been haunting her as much as him these past six months.
The fog of his domain moved with them allowing only a few mutterings from her neighbors to pierce its veil. He scented the tang of blood, but there wasn’t time to investigate. The demon would reemerge soon, surely grovelling at the feet of its summoner. With any luck the mortal’s hubris would blind them to reason and they would shorten the leash.
“Luck, Terrence? When have we been given such a gift?”
The lock clicked, but Silvy blocked the door with her arm, careful to avoid touching him. Her pale hazel eyes pierced and weighed him for a long moment. A chilled wind swept around them, pushing them both towards the threshold.
“The guest room is up and to the left. Some old clothes of Rudy’s are in there,” she looked him up and down, “the pants might be a little short on you.”
Once over the threshold he allowed his magic to slip back into him. The shiver of depletion chills his spine. He would be useless soon.
Slim ran over to Silvy’s open arms, his whine of relief ripping tears from her eyes. She pulled him away from her face as the metallic scent plunged into her nostrils. She was so tired of bodily fluids.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, boy,” she said.
Slim sat straight as Silvy wiped his face clean of blood and dirt. His nose kept tipping up towards the creaking floor boards above them.
“We have a guest.”
Silvy smiled at Slim’s tilted head and perked ears.
“He–he’s, well I’m not sure what he is, but he knows Rudy.”
Slim’s tail wagged slowly letting out a low whine, and another crack formed on her heart.
“I miss him too,” she whispered into the fur on his neck.
“Do you talk to animals as well?”
Silvy spun, aiming the wet rag. A part of her ached to launch it at his face. His tone is too familiar, as if he knew her beyond the gossip of ghosts. Then she saw his expression. Serious, curious even. She dropped the rag into the sink.
“Is that a real thing people can do?”
“Some of my kind are able to communicate with all matter of beasts, but it’s rare for the mortals of this plane,” he states flatly before sitting in a wooden chair.
Her knees shake. Reality was slipping through the ever widening cracks in her psyche. Fissures that sprouted when she had met her first ghost, and the edges of truth blurred.
Silvy’s mind swirled with questions, eventually settling on the most obvious if not easiest.
“Who are you?”
The man smiles at her then, in almost a proud way. As if she said something smart, worse, surprising. She scowls, and he chuckles. Pale skin creasing the corners of black eyes.
“My name is Terrence. I am a high reaper tasked to cleanse the various planes of existence. I was on a mission here last year when I felt the first disturbance.”
Silvy flipped through the memories of spirits trapped in the dirt of their death place. Gaping mouths frozen in anguish. Rudy searching for a pattern. Everything leading back–
“The dead are talking, and your name is the first thing they speak. Most worry for you. Others resent your silence,” he continues.
“Well, when Rudy died I didn’t feel much like talking,” Silvy crosses her arms.
She didn’t care if she was pouting. This was a stranger. A cosmic weird guy who had baggage. Silvy saw something lingering in those dark eyes. It swam behind them, watching, and it felt familiar.
“What did you and Rudy stumble on last year?”
If Silvy had time to respond she would have spilled everything to this stranger. She would have basked in the relief of handing off this task to somebody more equipped, trained. No more ghosts, no more hauntings, no more tragedy lining up at her door.
But she didn’t have time before the sirens came. Red and blue lights reflecting from the grey walls of her living room. A knock on her door.
“This is the Brimstand County Police Department.”
Silvy found no answers in Terrence’s eyes. No worry, only confusion that matched her own.