Yesterday's word count: 1,767 words
Today's word count: 634 words
Running total: 24, 088
Summary: Kenneth fights his friends out of desperation, but they bring him back to his senses and then sit down and exposit.
Also, "He looks a bit worthless, like he has never done anything worthwhile in his life."
One of the other kids behind her, another face that I barely recognize, seems antsy. He whispers something to a girl next to him that I missed before. She’s holding an enormous, ornate box; at his whisper she drops the thing to the floor with a loud thud and begins fidgeting with a locking mechanism.
That snaps me out of it. Thanks, box!
I pull the girl close to me and use my power to force her to the ground. But alas, I am hungry and my powers haven’t come to a complete fruition yet. Before I can pin her, she pries herself away and scampers out of there. I attempt to give chase but I feel someone strong grabbing me by the upper arms. I try to break free but I cannot; I try thrashing around, doing everything in my power to break out of this man’s arms. Suddenly I realize that I have a tail. Dunno when that got there. Well, regardless, I have superb control over this extra limb and I am able to use it to bring the man to the floor. I turn around and pin him instead.
He looks a bit worthless, like he has never done anything worthwhile in his life. I have a feeling—call it a hunch—that that kind wouldn’t be as tasty as those who have contributed much to society, but I can’t be picky. I just need to eat. I strike, aiming for the jugular, but he reacts in that split second and grabs my hand again so that I miss. I hit his shoulder instead. He tries to get away, but I keep a firm hold on his leg with my tail. Realizing escape won’t be an option, he turns to blind, almost drunken fighting. He hits me square in the jaw. My skin has hardened during my transformation, so it doesn’t hurt as much as it could—but despite his appearance he’s pretty strong. He keeps hitting me, and I start scratching him back. In my weakened state, we’re evenly matched.
Suddenly there is a scream and a bright flash of light. It’s almost too bright for my sensitive eyes, and I reel back away from my opponent and cover my eyes. And at that moment, the most wonderful scent fills my nostrils. The exact scent is impossible to describe. I can’t think of words strong enough to do justice to the heavenly aroma. I know I must chase it down and eat it.
I try to open my eyes. Still too bright. It looks like I’ll have to rely on scent. It’s so very strong that it shouldn’t be too hard. I tense, ready to strike; pinpoint the location of the scent; pounce. It doesn’t quite feel like an ordinary body. It’s cold and I pass through it a little bit, like there’s a mist wafting off of it. Then it dawns on me: it’s not a body at all. It’s a soul that has long left its fleshy prison. It is a ghost. It is the real thing, the best thing. I immediately see the difference between a living soul and a dead one. The dead ones are so much easier to hunt and infinitely more satisfying.
I open my eyes. It’s still hard to look at the ghost—it emits its own light, although the humans in the room can’t see it. Still, I manage to see where the head of the form is located. I don’t relish in the strike this time; I need to act quickly. I run my claws through the neck of the form, severing the head. It loses its shape almost immediately, become a fine mist. I lean forward and inhale the ghastly substance.
It is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever tasted in my life. It is ambrosia, the food of the gods. It has a perfect, smooth texture and easily slides down my gullet, leaving only the succulent taste of the ghost in my mouth. It is exciting, enthralling, invigorating. I feel strength returning to my body, and I quickly make work of the rest of the spirit and consume it.
I am not hungry anymore.
--------------------------------
Scene IX
The End of the Beginning
Brian
“So guys, was I the only one who saw the ghost that time?”
“Yep,” says Chase nonchalantly.
“Yes, Brian,” says Scarlett, who I can tell is on edge.
“I… I think so.” Damn it, Ashley, you’re my girlfriend. You’re supposed to be supporting me here. Stop making me feel totally crazy.
I guess I’ll have to try a different tactic.
“So… does everyone else see Kenny?”
They all answer in the affirmative again.
Well at least I’m a little bit sane.
I look at Kenny. He looks awful, man. Like, really, really awful. He’s like something I’d see when I’m tripping on acid, only I’m totally clean right now. His skin’s black, pitch black—I mean, it’s pretty dark in here, because Chase has insisted we do this intervention or whatever in the dark, but he also brought a flashlight and I can see that his skin is totally black. His hands and feet have these huge nasty claws on them—I can see he’s totally ruined a pair of socks. Perfectly good socks, man. His feet are longer than ours, and his ankles go backwards, kind of like Ariel’s (but they’re not as long as hers. His. Its). His hair’s all white, his teeth are all pointy and, his pupils are both fully dilated and reflective. You know, the whole “tail” thing just puts the cherry on top, and I didn’t know he had it until it was wrapped all the way around my leg. But he’s out cold now. Or maybe he’s just sleeping.
I ask everyone, “Hey, guys, do you think Kenny passed out, or is he just sleeping the meal off?”
“Sleeping it off,” Chase replies. “They do this after their first meal. When they’re first reborn, scuro don’t have a cemented form. It shifts around a bit. Once they eat though—that determines their diet, their appearance, and their abilities.”
“Whoa, Chase. You know a lot about this, don’t you?”
Chase sounds happy when he says, “Well, I wouldn’t if you hadn’t helped.”
Heh. Actually trying to make me feel good. This is a rarity among rarities, now.
You know, we’ve alluded to it before, but I think I should go into detail now. Chase and I were best friends in seventh and eighth grade. We were inseparable. No one wanted to be around me because I was a bit crazy—I still am—and no one wanted to be around Chase because he insisted some weird show about lightning bugs or some shit was the best TV show in the world. We were friends in our strangeness.
But we changed. I changed. I tried LSD; I thought I’d only do it once or twice. It’s not an addictive drug. But I really, really liked hallucinating. I didn’t care about the side effects at all. I was inspired in ways I never got inspired before. It was amazing. I still drop acid today. I got into pot, too, for when I just needed to relax. I haven’t used any pot since the whole ghost tape, ‘cause it totally dulls your senses and I’ve been too afraid to have dull senses in case a ghost ever decides my soul or whatever looks tasty. Looking back, I really made myself look like a dumbass taking that stuff. I’m much better off it.
I also picked up Ashley, and I’ll admit that I cared for her a lot. Maybe too much. Chase put up with me being dumb for a pretty long. Then one night Ashley had the idea to hold a séance. Now, Chase is a bit of a wuss and is totally scared of ghosts, even if he doesn’t admit it, but I still pressured him into doing it anyway. Even worse, I suggested we summon the spirit of Jack the Ripper, and then channel him through Chase’s body, and Ashley thought that would be totally cool and we didn’t let Chase have any say in it. God, I was a real dick to him. No wonder he didn’t want to be my friend.
But he’s talking to me again, and he’s being friendly. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Yeah, it might be petty and simple, but that’s how I feel. Even when we’re in this completely trashed house. I feel bad for Kenny’s mom, and Kenny, too. Repairs are going to cost a lot of money.
No one really says anything else until Kenny wakes up. It’s a slow process: he nods his head, makes a noise in the back of his throat, twitches his tail. Then he slowly stretches sore muscles and opens his eyes. He blinks twice, covers his eyes. His pupils constrict so they look a little more ordinary, although their reflective property still makes them look blood red. That’s more than a little disturbing.
He blinks at us.
We all stare awkwardly at him. It’s pretty obvious that no one knows who should speak first or what to stay.
Kenny does the honors, picking the person closest to him to address. That happens to be me. “…Brian?”
Somehow, it still takes me a few minutes to really react. I guess I still don’t know how to treat all this. When I finally react, I smile. Then I chuckle.
Kenny smiles too, although it looks much more sinister since he has rows of sharp, pointy teeth.
“Welcome back, Kenny,” says Chase.
Kenny looks down at his hands, examining them with a bit of disappointment.
Ashley is suddenly by my side, although instead of getting all physical with me, she puts her arm around Kenny and starts rubbing his chest. I’ll admit, I’m a little bit jealous, but I don’t say anything. She has a right to rub whoever’s chest she wants.
She tells him as reassuringly as she possibly can, “Don’t worry about the way you look right now. You can change back.”
He looks over at her incredulously. Without asking exactly how he’s supposed to “change back,” as I would have done, he says, “You all came for me.”
No one knows exactly how to respond to that, so the ones who are standing shuffle their feet and those of us on the ground just kind of look down at the floor. We all feel awkward.
“You didn’t have to come. You could have just left me here to rot. But you came for me.” He grins. “Thank you all so much.”
Another awkward pause. You know, I can’t take this any longer. I clear my throat. “Well, you know, we have to give credit where credit’s due. Chase was the one who found out exactly what was wrong with you.”
Then Chase chimes in. “Well, he’s right, but it was Brian who got high to ask his fairy friends for help. And what do you know, they pointed me in the right direction.”
“I brought the phylactery!” says Ashley. You know, she tried to explain to me in elaborate detail exactly what a phylactery is, and I still have no clue what it’s actually supposed to do.. It’s like, a box for holding an undead soul or whatever, I think, so that you can live undead. But I think that the soul would do a hell of a lot better if it just, you know, possessed something instead of living in a box. Maybe that’s why it was so damn eager to get out.
On a related tangent, this whole thing where I can see ghosts? I’m trying to keep cool about it because I don’t want to worry anyone, but it’s seriously starting to freak me out. It shouldn’t be happening like this. I’m starting to wonder if I need some professional help about it.
Anyway.
Because Scarlett contributed nothing to the cause, she says nothing. And Kenny doesn’t really say anything, either. I’m sure he’s taking this all in. He looks at his hands some more like he’s tripping or something, but eventually he shifts his legs under him (like he’s going to stand) and says, “So… what exactly… happened to me?”
We knew this question would come up. But truth to be told I really, really wish it hadn’t. Before coming here I tried to ask Chase what was wrong with Kenny, and he sent me an email with all these links that blew my mind, man. I mean, I only sort of understood them. They were written so as not to be understood. Let’s see if Chase can explain this any better than I can.
He takes a deep breath and starts pacing even before talking. Oh God, this is going to be bad. I almost don’t want to be around to see the catastrophe that is about to take place. But I stick around, because I don’t really have a choice.
“To fully understand what you’re going through right now, we need to go back. Far back, long before you were even born.” This sounds like the start of a really bad lecture. Chase, buddy, I love you heterosexually and all, but please can you be not boring and a nerd when you explain something? Because that would make you downright swell.
“Let’s go back to the Renaissance era. It’s right after the crusades in Europe, when hundreds of thousands of people were killed. They were taken violently from this world… as a result, many of them became spirits who haunted this world and harassed the living.
“No one knows when it happened exactly, but one man was attacked by a ghost. His soul—his life essences—was eaten by the spirit. But he got away before he died. When he recovered, however, it became clear that he wasn’t completely human anymore. He had no desire to eat human foods, and he didn’t act… normal at all. Does this sound familiar to you?” We all get it’s a rhetorical question, so we let Chase have his little moment before he continues on.
“One night he passed a ghost on his way home, and he lost control of himself. He ate it—the ghost, the stray soul. Originally he was horrified by his new form, but eventually he realized that he could use his powers to consume ghosts and lessen, maybe even eliminate this threat in the new world. Because his ghastly form had dark skin and could meld with and travel through the shadows, people called the creature ‘dark—‘ scuro. This man eventually gained followers who turned themselves. Together they worked to eliminate the plague of restless spirits. When the numbers were brought down to a normal level, the scuro disbanded and went to die peacefully. They’ve been largely forgotten, which is a shame… they really did defend humanity during their active time.”
He stops there and lets his words simmer in
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