The night hung heavy over the bandit camp. The coals in the fire pits had burned low, casting a dull red glow that barely touched the edges of the tents. The wind had died down, leaving only a deep, breathless silence. A few distant hounds howled from somewhere beyond the perimeter—but within the walls, it was still.
Everyone was asleep.
Except her.
Celestine Ravel stood barefoot in the shadow of the central storage shed, eyes half-lidded, shawl fluttering lightly in an invisible draft. Her hands moved slowly over a runic circle etched into the dirt with bone ash and psionic ink. Her breath was steady, her voice silent… for now.
She raised a pipe to her lips—long, blackened silver, etched with cracked musical notes. The bowl was packed with crumbling herbs and the last fragment of a dreamroot she'd pulled from an irradiated corpse two months ago.
"It is time," she whispered to no one.
A soft exhale. Pale violet mist seeped from the pipe, curling upward like incense smoke—then snapped sideways unnaturally, sucked into a narrow, rune-carved reed she had placed earlier. The pipe fed into the reed like a flute, which in turn snaked under the dirt, leading beneath the camp… and into every tent where the bandits slept.
She closed her eyes.
The mist thickened.
One breath for fear. One breath for memory. One breath for pain.
And then she whispered the incantation.
"Let them remember what they tried to forget. Let them wake to the eyes of the dead."
The reed pulsed. The mist moved.
From the tip of the buried pipe system, phantasmal shapes began to form—smoky silhouettes with hollow faces, twisting through the air like writhing banshees. They slithered through sleeping bags, around rusted bedframes, coiling across the eyes and mouths of the slumbering raiders like fog born from nightmares.
At first… nothing.
A breath.
A heartbeat.
Then—
"AAAGHHHHHH! WHAT THE FUCK—!"
"GET OFF ME—NO—NO NO—"
"IT'S IN MY HEAD, GET IT OUT GET IT OUT—!"
Lin Feng jolted awake in his tent.
"Wh-What the fuck?!" he yelped, scrambling upright and smacking his forehead on the low tarp. "D-Did we get raided?!"
Yue burst in without knocking, blades drawn. "Movement. West quadrant."
Sierra had her pistol halfway assembled. "I'm up! What is it? Mutants? Rats? Yuzuki snoring again?"
"It's not me this time!" Yuzuki cried from across the camp.
Outside, chaos had erupted.
Bandits poured out of their tents like cockroaches hit with a flamethrower. Half-naked, screaming, sobbing. One had pissed himself. Another was swinging a frying pan wildly at thin air. A third fell to the dirt, flailing and screaming.
"THERE'S FACES IN THE AIR—THE FUCKING AIR'S GOT FACES!"
"THEY WERE WHISPERING TO ME—SHE SAID I'D DIE LIKE MY BROTHER—HOW THE FUCK DOES IT KNOW ABOUT MY BROTHER?!"
And above them—writhing, shrieking, ghostlike forms spun through the camp, weaving between tents like haunted streamers. Skeletal fingers. Hollow eyes. Smoke trailing in the wind. The mist never touched Lin or the girls. It avoided them entirely.
From somewhere high above the chaos, a voice rang out. Soft. Distant. Hollow like it came from the bottom of a grave.
"Sinners. Thieves. Butchers of the weak."
The bandits froze.
Some tried to run.
Others fell to their knees.
"You dwell in stolen tents. You eat stolen food. You serve no master, only your hunger."
"W-Who's there?!" one cried. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"
"Show yourself, you bitch-ass ghost!!"
"Shut the fuck up, Donny!"
The voice only grew colder.
"Your time has been borrowed. You were spared by mercy. But mercy can end. You walk beneath a banner not your own. You wear its color, but not its purpose."
"Cap'n—CAP'N—WHERE'S THE CAP'N?!"
"He's gone, man! He fuckin' left us!"
"No he didn't!" Lin yelped from his tent flap, waving. "I'm literally right here!"
None of them heard him.
All eyes were skyward.
"You serve the Catalyst now. And if you fail to repent… if you return to your bloodied ways…"
The ghostly forms suddenly swooped downward in perfect synchrony—twisting just inches above the bandits' heads, screaming with a sound that no lungs could make.
"WE WILL RETURN."
That was it.
The last thread snapped.
Half the bandits dropped to their knees, sobbing like toddlers.
"I DON'T WANNA DIE—PLEASE—I'LL BE GOOD, I SWEAR—"
"I GAVE BACK THE CANNED PEACHES, I SWEAR—"
"I—I—I prayed once when I was twelve—DOES THAT COUNT?!"
And then—
A soft snap of fingers.
Celestine exhaled.
"Sleep."
From the shadows, a ripple of violet energy pulsed across the dirt, silent and subtle. The mist began to thin. One by one, the bandits slumped forward like puppets with their strings cut.
Lin stood outside, mouth hanging open.
"…Did I just get ghost-whispered into a god complex?"
Yue sheathed her blades. "They'll wake in the morning. Afraid. Submissive."
Sierra let out a low whistle. "Well, that's one way to run a propaganda campaign."
Yuzuki clapped slowly. "Creepy~ But effective~!"
Celestine stepped out of the shadows then, expression calm, her eyes glowing faintly.
"They will not forget tonight," she said, her voice soft again. "Nor will they question your authority again… Catalyst."
Lin stared at the pile of unconscious, piss-soaked raiders in the dirt.
"…Holy shit," he muttered.
He wasn't sure if he should be proud. Or terrified.Probably both.
***
The sun had barely peeked over the rusted skyline when Lin stepped out of his tent, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The air was still thick with dust and the lingering scent of fire ash—but there was something else too.
Silence.
Too much of it.
No morning squabbles, no crude jokes, no clanging pots. Just a row of dirty, beaten-up men standing in perfect square formation outside the tent like they'd been there for hours.
Lin froze mid-yawn. "What the hell…"
Yue Qingling appeared beside him, armor zipped, expression neutral. "They've been there since dawn."
Sierra strolled up while adjusting her harness. "Creepy bastards didn't say a word. Just stood there like statues with PTSD."
"Producer-sama~ They look like they're about to sing a hymn~!" Yuzuki chirped, adjusting her thigh-high socks with an oblivious grin.
Celestine simply stood in the background, arms folded under her shawl, eyes half-lidded, like a priestess watching her flock repent.
One of the bandits, a lanky guy with a crooked nose and mismatched boots, stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Captain Lin Feng, sir."
Lin blinked. "Uh… yeah?"
The bandit bowed his head low. "We… we had a revelation last night."
The rest of the formation mumbled in agreement.
Another spoke. "We saw spirits. Judgement. Our fuckin' sins laid out like meat on a table. Heard the voice of death, man."
"I pissed myself," one muttered. "And cried."
A stockier one nodded. "We all did. Even Grimey Joe. That fucker stabbed a priest once and he was hugging a chair leg."
Lin coughed awkwardly. "Uh. Right. That was… definitely part of the plan."
Celestine smirked faintly behind her sleeve.
Crooked Nose continued. "We realized we've been scum. Lowlives. Bastards. We thought following you was just survival. But now we know. You were sent by something greater."
"Oh god…" Lin muttered.
"You showed us mercy," the man continued. "Instead of killing us, you made us see. So we've decided—"
He stood straighter. Every bandit behind him snapped to attention.
"From this day on, we swear to walk the path of upright citizens!"
"FOR THE CATALYST!" someone shouted from the back.
"Wait, what the fuck," Lin whispered, eyes going wide.
A few others followed suit: "FOR THE CATALYST!"
"WE REPENT!"
Lin held up both hands, panicking. "N-No, no, no—there's no need to yell anything! I'm not—like—I'm not a god or something! I still have athlete's foot and I cried watching Your Name, I'm not divine, dammit!"
Yue glanced at him. "You are their symbol now."
Celestine's voice was calm, almost proud. "They've chosen the narrative. Don't deny them redemption."
"But I didn't do anything! You did the spooky shit! You piped ghost weed into their tents!"
"I merely amplified what already existed. Fear. Shame. Guilt. You gave them the reason to care."
Lin rubbed his face. "I was just trying to make sure they didn't knife someone in Gravetown over a bottle cap…"
Sierra elbowed him with a grin. "Congrats, pretty boy. You're a prophet now."
"I swear to god, if they start building me a shrine I'm gonna dig my own grave."
Yuzuki bounced up beside him. "You'll be the cutest cult leader ever~! We can write a song! ♪ Follow Producer-sama, down the holy road~ ♪"
"Please don't."
Crooked Nose stepped forward again, lowering his head.
"We know we've been a burden, sir. So we won't follow you any further. We'll stay here. Hold the fort. Try to do some good. We'll… we'll spread the word."
Lin groaned. "Oh god. There is gonna be a shrine."
Sierra crossed her arms. "Hell, if they behave and stop stealing every shiny thing in sight, maybe they're not totally useless."
"We'll start cleaning the southern sector first," another bandit added quickly. "It's full of rat shit. Then we'll reinforce the north wall. And set up a watch rotation."
Yue gave a small nod. "They're learning structure."
"No, they're starting a religion," Lin said, pointing at one who had scrawled "REPENT OR FREEZE" on the side of a water drum in charcoal.
Then he sighed.
"Alright… fine. We'll be leaving this morning. You guys… do whatever it is you need to do. Just… don't kill anyone. And for the love of fuck, don't start burning heretics or whatever."
Crooked Nose saluted. "No heretic burning. Got it."
"I wasn't being literal—you know what, never mind."
Sierra slung her pack over her shoulder. "Truck's fueled. Let's roll."
Yuzuki waved to the bandits. "Bye-bye, my new fans~! Keep practicing your foot rubs, okay~?"
Celestine gave a final glance toward the crowd. A faint, eerie smile ghosted her lips. She didn't say a word—but several of the bandits flinched anyway, as if she had.
Yue mounted the truck bed in silence, scanning the horizon.
As Lin climbed into the passenger seat, he looked back one last time.
The bandits were kneeling in a line, hands over hearts.
He sighed.
"…Shit. I accidentally started a cult."
Lin groaned and covered his face as the truck pulled out of camp.And behind him, twenty ex-raiders knelt in the dust, their voices rising faintly in a chant that sounded like a prayer.
Q: What would you do if you were Lin?