Ghost in the Grain

[Otto]

Open to The Hollow


Radasanth, a city of fading splendours. Its houses are sturdy monuments to racial collaboration and ingenuity, but stand increasingly dirt-encrusted and empty in the lee of war. Though cut off from the other baronies, and squeezed in the choking grip of the Empire's Assembly, it is still a city of trade and bustle. Carts trundle in from the eastward fields, full of good from the orchard, farm and mine. But Radasanth looks towards the sea for true commerce, its entire waterfront devoted to docks and warehouses along the river Nieme and the coast. All this means that the city of Radasanth is a crowded, smelly, and noisy one, even among its peers. There are the sailors guffawing as they come into port, gulls crying overhead and from the middens, vendors doing their best to attract attention, even the occasional scream as the less-than-legal businesses claim another victim. And, of course, there are the guards.

"Stand back! Back, I say!"

Two figures trudged towards a stout portcullis, caught in a widening circle of uniformed onlookers. One of them was doing the majority of the legwork - the other was refrained from falling only by his comrade's arm placed across his shoulders, and still his feet slipped as often as they stumbled across the muddy stones. He held a soiled cloth up tight against his mouth.

They got as far as the gatehouse opening before a brass-adorned officer stepped into their path. The duo staggered to a halt, and the more cognisant of the two attempted a weary salute.

"Hillsborough?" the officer enquired of him. "What's going on?"

Private Hillsborough grimaced as the other fellow hacked and sputtered into the kerchief. "Corporal Faldew collapsed while we were on patrol, sir. He'd been looking a bit peaky all morning, reckon he's been crook and hiding it for a bit now. He's in a bad way, sir."

The captain's eyes were drawn to the kerchief, and took note of the fine spray of red soaking through the material.

"Alright. Take him to the infirmary. Use the back and avoid as many people as you can. And you are to remain under observation until the doctors say otherwise."

Private Hillsborough nodded. "Yessir."

"Alright, dismissed." The captain spun around to the rest of the guardsmen around the garrison entrance, and turned the volume up a few notches. "Alright, step aside! Keep clear, yes, you too, Bromley! Look lively, now!"

The subordinates leapt away with a synchronised jingle of mail. Slowly and painfully, Hillsborough and Faldew stumbled through the arch, soon emerging in the strong afternoon sunshine on the other side. The loitering soldiers watched them cross the wide open yard, at least until their superior's clipped command brought them back to the mundanity of the task at hand.



* * *


Otto also watched the pair haul themselves to the low infirmary building. He stared morosely down from a first floor window with a face to frighten the beholder, until a scrunched up ball of paper bounced innocuously off the back of his head. It took a little while for the sensory information to reach his brain, and when it did, two bushy eyebrows contracted to meet in the middle of his jutting brow.

"Oi, Otto. What's going on?"

Otto turned around, skillfully caught another ball between the eyes, and focused on the youth seated before him.

"Hillsborough's dragging someone to the infirmary."

Carrin Fitch, junior squadmate and paper-flinger extraordinaire, flicked his feet off his desk and sprang towards the window. After a moment's observation, with his upper body leaning out into thin air, he shouted his findings back over his shoulder to the room at large.

"That's Faldew. Gods, he don't half look pale."

"Not surprising," said a third man. Otto looked to Corporal Bill Tallow, who was engrossed with one of the damnable stacks of forms, receipts and reports that seemed to colonise each desk. He spoke without looking up. "Those two usually get early patrols along the waterfront. There's bad air down there in that chill."

Otto nodded, bent down, wrapped his arms around Carrin's shins, and wrenched upwards so that the rest of the lad's body was dangling, upside down, outside the window. There were four other people in the room, each of whom glanced up at the first of Carrin's shrieks, then nonchalantly returned to their various tasks and chores.

Otto's face appeared in Carrin's peripheral vision, blocking out the sky. "Stop throwing things," he said.

"Okay! Alright!" Carrin yelled.

"And I haven't forgotten about the mustard powder in my sallet, either."

"I'm sorry! Won't happen again!"

"Or that thing with the bra-"

"Fuck's sake, Otto! I get it! Now lift me up!"

It was intense internal struggle, but Otto eventually complied and hauled Carrin back in. The lad took a few unsteady steps towards his chair, but had only just sat down when - with a suspicious sense of good timing - the squad's lieutenant stepped smartly in through the door. Everyone rose lethargically to their feet except of course for Otto, who was already standing by the window, and saluted. Lieutenant Orman let them hold the pose for a little longer than usual, in which time she looked meaningfully from Otto to the aperture, but refrained from comment.

"At ease," she said at last. "Lieutenant Grimhold just swung by my office. Apparently, he needs two replacements for a patrol tomorrow morning."

"Yes, ma'am," Carrin sighed. "We know."

Orman huffed irately, and continued. "Since you're already working tonight, Otto, I don't want you taking this. But I have this incredible intuition that the two lucky volunteers will encounter a rather generous error in their favour when it comes to payday."

A shaven-headed woman at the back of the room immediately put up a hand, but she was alone. Carrin looked wryly around at his hesitant colleagues.

"How good's this intuition, ma'am?"

"Practically prophetic, I'd say," she snapped back.

Carrin nodded. "Aye, count me in, then. Didn't have much planned for the morrow in any case."

"Alright," Orman concluded. "Report to the gate at three hours past midnight. Full kit. As for the rest of you, double time on the paperwork."

Orman was, by the general consensus of the soldiers in the room, one of the better officers to serve under. Even so, there was a palpable sense of tension relaxed once she had marched back out the door. A part of her always seemed restrained, like a pressed steel spring - ready to shoot off and skewer some poor bystander through the metaphorical eye. If that's what commissioned officership did to you, the squad reckoned, then you could keep it.

Otto shook his head and returned to the present. He looked down at his desk, and its mess of unfinished paperwork. And to think the grunts had it easy...

[The Hollow]

I have been adrift within these busy streets for what seems to be decades. The noise and static of life has become the same ambient noise as the wind or the birds. It all is so fruitless. They move about their daily routines, some smiling, some crying, and the occasional one dying. Dying... If seen hundreds, no, thousands of them perish. I watched them struggle to hang on for those few precious seconds, but was all this meaningless commotion worth it? Is the day to day more than just dying to a slower tempo? I do not know anymore...

"Ugh! It's so gross looking!" I heard a little girl shriek.

I turned my head to face the source of this racket to see a child with blond hair, but with ears and tails of a cat. My head lifted to observe the one covering the girl's eyes. It was far more feline, one of the feral tribes no less. Still, she looked upon me with that familiar expression of disgust and shuffled her daughter away from my alley.

"Not much time left in this one," I whispered to myself. My hand lifted into sight with a struggle to maintain control. Black runic markings, similar to tattoos riddled the skin. Both sides were afflicted, and my exposed legs as well. In fact, the strange scripture covered the entirety of my body. I let out a faint chuckle. It did its job, I needed to move on anyway.

Tension left the muscles, my head hung low. The luster from the flesh dissipated and through an open jaw, I began to emerge as a black haze. I pulled myself from the corpse, slowly but surely. The process was not the most pleasant, but without a real body to call my own, pain was lost to me. Finally, the last wisp of my ethereal form escaped and I was free of my temporary vessel. My face, a mask of enchanted bark, lifted from the dead man. It rotated in mid air so that I could gaze upon the expended vessel.

I felt empty looking at it. It was just another body, one of many I have used through the years. Men, women, children, animals, I have used whatever corpse fulfilled my ability to interact with this timeless world. This man was left to die just three streets down. From the sounds of it, he had a disease of the lungs. Those gurgles as he struggled to breath his last still hang on my memory.

I need to move on.

I lifted my phantom form to the sky, oaken face and all. It was time to find another fading life. The sky above the darkening city always lets me listen for the final hours of the living. Several opportunities arose: the screams of a woman caught in the grip of a killer, the wheezing of an old man dying of hunger, the tears of a child suffering from an unknown ailment, but most intriguing was a male coughing his last few wet breaths. That one would be the next to carry me through the mortal realm.

As I descended, the sound of hissing furnaces, metal striking metal, and grunts of effort grew. The clang of a sword on wood sounded as a trainee struggled to perfect his form. The man who would soon expire was one of the Radasanth Guard. The barracks were always a mystery to me, and although many people perished inside, their bodies were typically too mangled to reanimate. Disease, I could work with.

"They never look up," I mused internally.

Without any issues or unneeded attention, I successfully descended upon their infirmary. I slid from the roof to the window, glancing a hollow oaken eye within briefly.

"No visitors, perfect."

Entering sealed buildings was the most difficult aspect of getting around like this. People see me as a dark spirit. Who knows, I may as well be one. Luckily, there is always a window ajar or vent I can slither through. Sure enough, a vent would be my ket inside. Something about the living needing fresh air was lost on me. I can't smell even when I have a host to possess. Stale or fresh, it is just air to be used in speech.

I finally made my way inside. Enchanted sconces gave the place an eerie glow. Though I saw several rows of beds, only one was occupied tonight. This poor soul was failing in his fight for life. The blood that misted into the air on every cough indicated a disease of the lungs. This was unfortunate as my puppeteering of the corpse may require a similar cough to rid fluids from the lungs. Although I do not need to breath with the corpse, speech does require air, and air cannot fill what is already full with blood. A bother, but I may finally get to see what this barracks has to offer.

My wooden eyes hovered above the body, listening to the faint gurgle of blood within. It would not be long for this one, but wait I must until they have passed. Though I cannot recall a time I tried to possess the living, it only made sense to use what others had discarded. Until then, I'll just nestle my tangible form against the window. People rarely think much of a simple wooden mask - part of the perks of being insignificant.

[Otto]

The sun drifted down. It hit the ocean in a burst of blazing copper, which lit the clouds a neon pink, fading to a sullen red as the disk slipped lower. By the time the sky was just a thin umber horizon below the night's advancing blanket, the ruckus of the training yard had almost ceased completely. Radasanth's gulls were putting in one last, desperate chorus for the day before they returned to the nest. Otto was just in time for their evensong when he stepped outside the central keep, and took a few curious sniffs of the dusk air. A few traces of jasmine had somehow found their way in on the breeze, but it was faint and fading as the flowers closed up for the day. Already he could taste the burgeoning scent of climbing moonflower usurp it for dominance.

He moved away from the tall doors and headed across the beaten dirt yard, towards a squat grey building near the garrison wall. Out of the relatively sheltered lees of the buildings, it was barren soil all the way; with no water but the rain, and under the relentless heel of endless military drills, no grass could get a foothold here. Crickets chirped at him from the shadows, then lapsed into affronted silence when he passed nearby.

When it came to noise, though, there was no beating the garrison forge. So long as you weren't deaf, you could find your way to it with your eyes closed from anywhere within the walls. All you had to do was hone in on the ring of metal, heavy thud and clack of machinery, and the shrill screams that signified a hammer had missed its mark. Even if you were deaf, you still had a reasonable chance of finding it just by the waves of heat that rolled out each aperture. Even Otto's colleagues could probably manage it, albeit in the uncomplicated way of guardsmen the world over, by which having the skin burned from your fingers would be considered conclusive evidence.

Otto peeked in through the open door, into a long room full of dim lamplight, sweat, and noise. There were three men moving in the gloom, but things didn't look particularly busy.

"Evenin'," Otto called out. Ryan and Quinn looked up from the workpiece they had combined forces on, and offered a small nod and a wave in reply. The remaining smith, Orlannes, wandered over with a slate in one hand, chalk in the other.

"Here's your rota for the night," said the elf, handing over the tablet. Otto gave it long, slow glare. Then his lips moved in half-formed words. He frowned. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, but to be fair, that might just have been from the heat roiling off the hearth.

After some time, Otto put the slate down onto a bench, grabbed a beat-up old kettle, and moved towards a large water cistern at the rear of the forge. "Shouldn't be a problem," he said, while reaching into the relatively cool water. "Unless the delivery was short again?"

Orlannes shook his head. "Nah, the brass got onto the suppliers after that cock-up." He watched the orc extract a stoppered porcelain jug. "I don't think we can expect anything like that again, not for some time."

Otto trawled the kettle through the water, then brought both it and the jug back to a bench. He took a straw-edged dagger from his belt and used it to smoothly slice apart the jug's wax seal, and set the cast-iron kettle down on the lip of the hearth. A few brown leaves went into it as well. Back at the table, the unstoppered jug revealed nothing within it more dangerous than milk, but Otto gave it a few cautious sniffs even so. Otto and Orlannes waited, and continued to chew the fat. The kettle was whistling by the time Quinn and Ryan started to wrap things up, so Otto poured out a measure into four mismatched and heavily chipped mugs.

People fill their lives with rituals like this. The brew-up was a small one, an informal changing of the guard in miniature, but one which marked a boundary nonetheless. As the final hints of red bled out from the sky, Otto's friends washed their cups and walked back beneath the stars to their beds. The day was over. The night shift had begun.

[The Hollow]

“How is he,” asked a man who wore the armor of a ranking official.

“Bad,” the nurse replied to him in a distant corner of the infirmary. “He may not make the night.”

“What about the Ai’Brone?” he quipped back, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“They say even if he is revived, the condition will permit.” She placed her hand on the guardsman’s shoulder. “It’s terminal. We could heal him, but that would only prolong the suffering.”

I could hear his sigh from across the building.

“Have you told anyone else?” he remarked, and the defeat in his tone was noticeable.

“Only medical personnel,” she replied.

“Keep this to yourselves. I’ll notify the troops when the time is right,” he brushed her hand from his shoulder and positioned himself in the doorway of the exit. “You’re dismissed for the night. Get some rest.”

She saluted her superior, and then he was gone. The small woman turned to the man dying in the bed below me. She closed her eyes and shook her head softly. Then, she too was gone.

“Finally,” I thought, waiting for some distance to be placed between her and the infirmary. I expected silence, but the music of the dying I know too well prevented it. Crickets chirped, faint winds hissed, and the hoarse breathing of my future host combined together in symphony. This time, it was met with the steady percussion of clashing metal. It was faint, and in the distance, but a new tone added to this death hymn.

I finally had the opportunity to stretch out. Well, however spirits “stretch out” I assume. The black haze of my body leaked from my oaken face, lifting me free from the propped position. The haze grew, longer than I typically desire, until I stood six feet tall with phantom arms and legs. Even though I couldn’t feel my feet on the ground it felt good. I already missed walking in the material plane.

“Captain…”

Corporal Faldew, as the nurse called him, seemed to be speaking through the delirium of his final hours. Even though this one of thousands I’ve watched perish, I still felt a pang of sorrow for the dying. I can’t honestly label it as “sadness”, because I do not know this pain of death. Perhaps it is “jealousy”?

“I… I can keep going…”
My phantom hand reached out to him. I tried to lay it upon his damp forehead but instead, it just passed through. Faldew wrenched himself in the bed as one might do in a nightmare, and I snapped back my ghastly appendage. His writing became convulsions and the blood from his coughs whipped up into a scarlet foam. I looked at my misty fingers, then back to his thrashing body. I sometimes forget that my touch, both in and outside of these hosts, has terrible repercussions on the living.

“This is it…” was all I could think while I watched his struggles lesson. If it weren’t for the bandages the nurse placed around his eyes, they’d surely be in the back of his skull. Poor bastard kept saying the candlelight hurt his eyes. Whatever was destroying him internally was wreaking havoc and leaving no mercy.

“It’s over.”

The seizing stopped, and the one sound that I’ve come to know so well gurgled from his throat: the last breath. The twisted position his tightened muscles put him him grew slack and an arm dangled lifelessly to the side of his cot. My mask tilted to the side as I observed him for good measure. The candlelight that plague his vision revealed two damp spots on the gauze. Likely tears from his final memories. If I had lungs, I would pay him a sigh of remorse.

“Well, time to borrow that corpse of yours,” I mused to an empty room as my dark body split into slithering appendages. They lashed into him without any physical repercussions, pulling the mask closer to his face. Possession was similar to riding a bike - a meaty, recently expired bike. Each person was a new bike with different features, and this all took some time to acclimate. I liked to start with the fingers first, and so his hand began to twitch.

“The index finger damn it,” I cursed as the intent translated to a full hand spasm. I kept trying to fine tune the urge until finally a spasm became a coordinated twitch of the index finger.

“Good”

More of my ghastly appendages penetrated his fleshy shell. Closer I came to his face, almost fully assimilated. This time, I would focus on the feet. Walking was always new. I should have this down by now, but no one human is the same and each one has balance issues starting out. Arms were much easier to coordinate.

“Wiggle your big toe” I encouraged myself, and for the first time in a long while, I forced a twitch response right off the bat. Today was going to be a good day. Since everything was moving along smoothly, it was time to seal the deal - literally.

I brought his arm up to his face. The strength was different than the old man and a meaty palm slapped against the bark of my mask. It nearly jostled me from the ritual and would have forced me to start all over again. Luckily, I succeeded in sandwiching myself between face and hand. I gave it another go and worked the fingers around the wrappings. The torso lifted rigidly so I could get them around his head. Each pass of gauze tussled his dark, curly locks. Finally, the face was free of linen and with gratifying force, I slammed myself into his face. The body pressed against the bed like a plank.

Senses were another thing I should be used to by now, but the first time smelling the air through someone else was unique. This time, the musty aroma of ammonia and bleach mixed with the stench of copper from dried blood. Taste was next to experience. Sometimes the lower class had this terrible flavor of old food or dead tissue. Refreshingly, all I could taste from this host was the metallic flavor of blood. I rid myself of the taste, and it seems the Corporal was of decent dental hygiene. Sound never really changed. Sometimes it was muffled due to disease, hygiene, old age, but this poor bastard died relatively young and in good shape.

“Lechs tahsd hh v--” I attempted, and miserably failed. Vocal chords were an art, like music. It took some tuning to get just right each time.

“Lesh… Lecks… Let’s try this again,” I finally managed, and I twisted my new lips into a smile.

Eager to explore the barracks, I sat up. The bed jolted forward as I still struggled to control this man’s surprising strength. A few twists of my torso, couple flexes of the arms, crack the neck a few times, and I was ready to try the worst of all, walking. I rotated my new legs over the edge of the cot, and they fell like dead weights. I kicked them a few like I had seen children do many a times. It started to feel right, so I jumped from the nest.

“Shit..”

Soon as the stone flooring met possessed feet, I knew I was going down. The knees buckled and forward I went, barely catching myself on the adjacent cot. Only a tin mug of water suffered the wrath of my learning blunder. Shakily, I rose to balance myself.

“Standing, standing is good,” I encouraged. “Now, walk.”

I must have been getting used to the process after so many years. Although, my performance was akin to children’s stories of the undead, I successfully make my way to the wash basin’s mirror. Out of habbit, I forced my new face to sneer at the sight. The blood dribbled from the mouth and nose, down to the few splotches on the pristine uniform. I gazed into the two black slots of my mask where eyes should be and watched as more thick red fluid pushed from my mouth.

“Lovely…” I thought, remembering that he suffered from some form of internal bleeding. Though it no longer pumped blood or had the need to breath, I did need to clear the lungs to maintain speech. So, I pushed the diaphragm and what would make most people cough, just dribbled from open lips to the basin below. At the apex of an “exhale” I took a deep, moist inhale.

“Much better,” I spoke in the Corporal’s voice.

It took a moment to wash the basin free of the man’s blood before addressing the final handicap: me - well, my mask. I popped open the mirror in front of me and inside were various medical supplies. Since he died with gauze, that would be my covering of choice. I plucked it from the cabinet and with a few rounds over the mask, I looked nearly good as before robbing his body. Vision was considerably diminished, but nothing some exertion of my ethereal form couldn’t fix. The little black haze I mustered near the surface of the gauze looked like moisture in the faint light of the infirmary.

I was ready to wander, and I knew where I wanted to go first. I wanted to explore the source of the constant clanging.

Through the windows, I caught the glimpse of a warm glow pouring through slots of a rather robust building. Thick plumes of white spewed from towers above the structure, and being one of the only places still lit, my search was swiftly shortened. With my clearly uncomfortable gait, I exited the same door the prior visitors used. I offered a few glances left and right for late night watch, and nothing was in sight. Only crickets and ringing metal filled the cool night’s silence.

“Now let me see where all this racket is coming from…”

Shakily, I carried myself to toward it. The sense of touch was another strange feeling. It wasn’t necessary, but more like a point of reference. Pain was just a reminder that something bad was happening to the body. Heat and cold were refreshing, though without a heartbeat, the cold was most common. Yet as I neared the noise, the warmth was very apparent.

“A forge…” I thought as I stumbled against the doorway. At my feet, danced the flicker of the flames within, and I felt anxious to explore. Observation was my only joy through the eras. With a grip of my hand on the handle, I gave the door a shove and opened it to the impact of heat against the lifeless skin. Not only that, I located the source of the racket: a large figure with green-blue skin, hammering away on the glowing metal upon his anvil.

[Otto]

Metal burned cherry red in the dim forge. Otto clasped his workpiece in a set of long tongs, and held it firm around the anvil's horn. The burly orc's gentle tapping soaked into the wooden beams, or else drifted out into the night.

He appeared to be talking to himself.

"... half of Third Company are still waiting on regulation arms," he seethed, apparently at the metal. "They can't even train properly without them, let alone fight. And they tell me this takes priority?"

The workpiece shifted. The hammer beat a little harder, and sparks made a futile assault on Otto's apron. Some smouldered briefly on his glistening forearms, but he didn't seem to notice. Behind his mess of hair, his steel-wool beard and heavy protective goggles, a visage of intense concentration was still plain across Otto's features.

"Bigger isn't necessarily better," he went on. "And it looks ridiculous." A pause. Then: "Are you laughing?"

Otto put down the hammer, and grabbed a mug from the bench. His other hand still gripped the tongs, which he used to hold his current job up for inspection. Though the metal's colour was quickly bleeding out, twin reflections still glimmered faintly on his glass lenses.

"Mmm," he murmured, with reticent pride in an unliked job done well. "In any case, I don't envy the poor sod who'll have to proof it."

He took a gulp of tea and, with a dismissive snort, laid the codpiece aside.

"I don't know. Probably his squire. Anyway, don't tell me you care..."

Otto took another sip and waited. After a little while, the orc began to look troubled. He unstrapped the goggles from his face, which revealed a leaden frown across his jutting forehead.

"Hello?" he enquired of the empty air. "You there?"

His golden eyes, which had remained fixed ahead, started to dart cautiously about the shadow-filled forge. They soon settled on the open doorway, and stayed upon it, as the brow above them furrowed even more. Otto crept slowly over to it, leather soles padding gently over the flagstones, and stuck his head outside.

There was nothing there but a fresh breeze and cool stars above.

Otto swung his head around a couple of times, before withdrawing back into the stifling heat. The door closed behind him a second later, and he slid the bolt across with a rusty click. He returned to work, but his lips were now pursed shut, and his uneasy eyes kept traveling to a small plate of untouched meat in one darkened corner, and an accompanying tankard of ale.