"Come now, kids, settle down. It's story time."
A bearded, old man sat in front of a campfire, telling a story to the children around him.
Gather 'round, let me tell you a tale,
A story I gleaned from a banshee's wail.
It tells of darkness surrounding a flickering light,
Of a dying world's desperate fight.
Of forgotten dead with forgotten goals,
Of tainted hearts and crying souls.
It sings of their sorrow, their anguish and pain—
Yet it's a hopeful tale, for it wasn't in vain.
For a silent reaper came to answer their wails,
Granting their wishes, telling their untold tales.
***
'How could she have done that to me?', Raymond asked himself, 'How could she have betrayed me like that, after all we had been through?!'
Years had passed since his demise and his body had been reduced to bone, stripped of flesh by wild beasts.
And yet, his soul still lingered in the living world, unable to move on.
Trapped eternally within his own motionless corpse, he thought ceaselessly about his death—how it had happened, and why.
He recalled the night bathed in moonlight, the figures hidden in darkness, the blade plunged into his chest.
He recalled the fading of his senses—dreadfully fast, and yet, not fast enough.
Not fast enough to spare him.
Not from feeling his bones shattering from the fall, not from the pain of having his flesh torn apart by hungry beasts.
And not even from the horror of learning who was behind it all.
It drove him mad.
And fueled by that madness, he thought back to those days again and again, trying to understand where he had gone wrong.
But try as he might, he couldn't understand, and that only drove him more insane.
Lost in his mad rage, he didn't even realize what sort of being his cries had attracted...
***
Under the dark sky, a small figure walked through the forest. A young boy.
The woods were filled with wild beasts, staring at him with glowing eyes. And yet, the boy wasn't scared.
Rather, the beasts were the ones who were afraid.
The boy walked with short, calm steps.
With every step, the darkness grew.
With every step, animals shuddered.
With every step, trees and plants bent away, afraid to touch the frightening being.
Approaching the entrance of a cave, the boy glanced over his shoulder before stepping inside.
The cave was cold and dark, and only faint moonlight seeping through its cracked roof illuminated its dreary interior.
Abandoned by it's owners, it was now completely quiet aside from the sound of trickling water and squeaking rodents.
A rotten stench permeated the air, and its source was not too far away...
Corpses.
Dozens of corpses littered the cave floor, their fetid blood seeping into the earth, turning it into a mire of crimson sludge.
The boy approached one of these corpses.
It was the corpse of a young man, the corpse of Raymond.
The boy bent down, placing his skeletal hand on the lifeless body. Wisps of green smoke rose from it, condensing into a glowing sphere.
The sphere rippled, grew, morphed, changing into a tall young man with brown, curly hair and grey eyes. There was a gaping wound where his heart should have been, yet no blood flowed from it.
***
Raymond's eyes were wide open, his mouth agape in shock. He frantically looked around, trying to comprehend what had just happened, when his gaze fell on his body.
His body? He had his old body again!
No, not quite. This body wasn't solid, as if made of light. But it was the same in every other way!
But how?
Looking in front of him, he found the answer.
Raymond froze, gulping at what he saw.
Standing before him was a young boy with messy, raven black hair and an emerald green left eye. He wore a hooded tunic wreathed in an unnatural darkness.
A terrible wound covered the right side of his face, with a bright red dot glowing where his right eye should have been. Yet the boy didn't seem bothered by the wound, his expression completely calm.
But that grotesque injury wasn't the reason Raymond was afraid.
Rather it was because, despite the boy's calm expression, something about him filled Raymond's heart with fear.
Raw, primal fear.
And that fear made him want to either run away...
Or kneel.
Now he knew for certain what had happened, and who it was that stood before him.
After all, few hadn't heard of the Child of Death.
The boy extended his hand towards Raymond, his gaze firm. He was offering to help.
To help fulfill Raymond's wish. Whatever it may be.
But Raymond hesitated. He was not too keen on accepting the little Spirit's help.
Spirits were fickle beings, they really couldn't be trusted.
And while his years of solitude had been chipping away at his sanity, Raymond still wasn't mad enough to trust a servant of Death!
And even if he did accept, there would undoubtedly be a price to pay.
Why else would a Spirit want to help a human?
There was no telling what would happen if he failed to pay that price. The endless void he had been trapped in would feel like heaven compared to what Death could put his soul through.
So, rather than entertaining any foolish thoughts, Raymond tried to think of a way to escape.
Seeing this, the Child of Death couldn't help but facepalm.
This was always the most annoying part of the process. But he had learned a rather simple solution to it.
And so, he turned around, looking to the cave's entrance...and started walking away with a shrug.
Don't want help? Suit yourself.
Raymond was dumbfounded.
It was that easy to make him go away?
'Well, good riddance', he sighed in relief.
Only a fool would accept such an ominous offer.
And who was to say that the spirit would fulfill his end of the bargain?
He could just as easily turn Raymond into his slave. They did say the Child of Death could control the dead.
Yet, as the painful memories resurfaced in his mind, he found himself tempted to accept the offer.
The way all his trust, all his love and sacrifices had been forsaken so easily.
The years he had spent trapped inside his own corpse, suffering endlessly.
The pain he had to go through. while the person responsible for it went unpunished!
The hateful flames burning in his soul grow more violent as a desire for revenge took over his mind, clouding his judgement.
His eyes lit up with a furious light and he spat, "Fine, you want to help me? Then help me get revenge, against the ungrateful backstabber, against my traitorous wife!"
The Child of Death tilted his head, his calm expression turned to puzzled one.
He looked at the man with saddened eyes, his face posing a silent question; Is that truly what you want?
Raymond was taken aback, the light in his eyes dimmed. To think that the heir of Death, of all people, would question his desire for revenge.
Did the boy know something Raymond didn't? Or was Raymond's desire just that unreasonable?
Or perhaps, the Spirit could see his conflicted emotions.
It was true, he still didn't feel entirely sure about his wish for revenge.
The thought of harming someone he held so dear was not a pleasant one, after all.
But then why did she harm him? Wasn't he dear to her as well? Did his suffering not matter?!
He thought back and forth as his love clashed with his anger. The pleasant memories of his family fought with the painful scars of betrayal, and the light in his eyes flickered.
For a moment, his love had almost won.
Almost.
But it was just too much.
He had lost too much, suffered too much.
The feeling of being betrayed by someone he had loved so deeply left a bitter rage that refused to die.
And then, a different thought entered his mind.
His daughter.
Where was she? Was she even alive? If his wife could kill him like that, what horrible things could she have done to his daughter?
The thought of it made his blood boil.
And with that thought, his hatred won.
Anger clouded his judgement, and he threw caution to the wind. He would have revenge, if not for himself, then for his daughter.
If he had to make a deal with Death, so be it!
If he had to pay a price, so be it!
He grabbed the boy's hand and spoke aloud, "Yes, I want revenge, so let me use your power to punish the person who did this! I'll gladly pay any price you ask for! Now, can you help me?"
The boy hesitated for a moment, but then nodded with a sigh.
He didn't seem to like what the man had asked for.
But if that was what Raymond wanted, then his wish was the boy's command.
Raymond flinched as his body suddenly glowed bright, and his spectral form changed into a solid one.
Now it was really like his old body.
The Child of Death took a step back and turned to face the corpses on the floor
Could he help Raymond get revenge?
He most certainly could.
With a wave of his hand, a chilling wind roared through the cave, whispering strange chants as it brushed against Raymond's ears. And in the next second, a cold, emerald flame erupted within the cave, its ghostly light casting countless eerie shadows as it illuminated the skeletal figures littering the cave's floor.
What followed was both breathtaking and horrifying. The flame surged and the shadows danced as the corpses began to quiver and move. The wind chanted with vicious glee as their scattered pieces joined together, rotten flesh and broken bones melting together with a sickening squelch. Their once hollow eyes filled with ominous red light and they rose to heed the Reaper's Call.
Raymond couldn't help but shudder. Within moments, the once silent cave had become filled with a cacophony of rattling bones and groaning corpses and all the while, the one orchestrating this creepy song looked on with an indifferent gaze.
And nearby, shrouded in the darkness of the forest, the spirit of a young girl stood motionlessly, its eyes fixed at the macabre scene, as it watched with keen interest