Chapter Text
Usually when you get isekai’d, you get to meet whatever being is responsible for your transfer, or at least get to spend a childhood with your incredible meta knowledge in tow, capable of making the best choices to lead the best life, with an incredible and unbreakable work ethics. Sometimes you even get a fantastical ability like some kind of shortcut to effort, or a great power that lets you summersault through the ranks and history of the best warriors and scholars in the world.
I woke up in an underpass in a parody of the city I lived in just the night before. The air was polluted and thick with noxious car fumes, the city was absolutely sprawling, with buildings way taller than I remembered the law authorizing them to be. I wasn’t a drinker, so I just didn’t know what I was doing there, groggy and smelling of piss. I wasn’t in pajamas either, so it was very possible that I simply had a psychotic break after an extremely stressful day. I barely remembered what I did half the time so… truly the fact that I found myself in an underpass was the true mystery.
I had my phone, my keys and my wallet, the perfect male combo to brave the world, and shoes on my feet, so I didn’t feel too bad.
“Well, time to go home… at least we’re Saturday I think,” I groaned to myself, internally partying because I didn't miss work again. Hey it was difficult to care about it when the teenagers you also taught didn’t care.
So I decided to walk back home and complain about it online, maybe try to search for a psychiatrist again and maybe buy some ice cream to completely empty a tub in two days and run in complete shame. I checked my phone, it showed the date I expected, but then the screen flickered and it shut down completely, producing smoke in the process. Well great, I had a fire hazard in my pocket… At least I knew that it wouldn’t be too long until I reached my home, no more than thirty minutes of walking would lead me there, because there might have been some holes in my memory, but I could still navigate with my eyes closed.
Strasbourg was my city, I had spent some time being a private tutor, and it led me to being lost more times that someone would reasonably look at a map of the place. I could find my way again through instincts alone, although the frankly weird prominence of skyscrapers and lack of trees really weirded me out. Maybe I should really see a psychiatrist if I could see a city change so completely from day to day. Here's hoping that home doesn’t get the Saya treatment the next time I get up.
I got to my building and realized that it was way taller than I remembered, and covered in graffitis. The little garden full of roses and cherry trees was also way smaller than I remembered. That wasn’t… normal. That wasn’t normal at all in fact. That was also really, really ugly.
I walked up to the door, and tried my keys, but they didn’t fit. And I knew that I kept the keys from before, in a paranoid need to be sure to have… something. And would you look at that, they actually did fit. Maybe those were the new key. I would not lie, I had an impressive amount of brain fog, and walking didn’t make it go away. It made it way more powerful.
The hall smelled musty and full of smoke. I didn’t get to see my name on the mailbox, and I got a growing suspicion that something really, really weird was happening to me. A dry fear that clenched my heart and the top of my stomach, feeling more like a gut punch than apprehension took over. I nearly tripped on a homeless man that apparently found a way to sleep in there and spammed the elevator button. At least elevators were still functional in this weird parallel universe. I had to see if I could be some kind of trans dimensional creep.
I selected my floor on the weed scented platform and waited until the doors opened completely before I stepped out. Nightmare vision goggles firmly strapped on my head, barely nothing had changed. I got to see, to my utmost displeasure, that the door was exactly the same. Why ? Because there was a journal right at my feet, that I managed to open and read, and I got a date. May 1996. My keys from 2025 perfectly fit the lock. I didn’t have a watch on me, so I could only estimate that if the apartment was currently inhabited, the residents would likely be at work.
I stepped in and made myself at home. There was a kitchen/living area, a bathroom and a bedroom. A perfect two person apartment if you didn’t care about having a special space for your guests. It was also weird to see that space being occupied with furniture. Seeing a bed in my bedroom and functional roller shutters was something weird. The bed was queen sized, and I could see two distinct sets of clothes and furniture, it was likely a couple’s apartment.I made a quick inspection and noted the computer on the desk with a disappointing post it stuck to the screen.
The kitchen was furnished, and I took and cooked the eggs and vegetables they had for breakfast. Got to say that I was disappointed with the taste, they were bland in a way I never found vegetables to be before. It was utterly unappetizing, and the eggs were passable, but they clinged to the inside of my throat and formed a sleek trail of oil in my esophagus.
It was like someone had tempered with them in some ways. Having finished my meals, all it took was for me to return to my host’s computer and boot it up to see something that made me double take.
The hardware producer for this machine ? Sunburst Incorporated. My brain automatically associated the brand with another name, Pentex.
And I knew exactly where I had ended up in this weird dimensional merge.
That was bad, really bad.
I copied the password and username those idiots had put on a post-it and tried to see if they were rich enough to afford the internet. Suspiciously, they could. Even more suspicious given the poor computer literacy I imagined them to have, they had a direct mail box. Everything was pretty well set-up. That could mean that they had a benefactor from work.
I took interest in that, and got into this mailbox. It was interesting, especially since I could see that there were a lot of orders in the messages. After a diagonal reading of most of what I could skim, I could put the majority of the messages that weren’t spam in four categories. Do that. Come get your fix. Let’s meet, I need you for an assignment. Stalk this person. All the time stamps were nocturnal in the mail, which got me queasy. So I apparently was in the room of someone that moonlit as a member of a drug cartel, or a ghoul. I failed to see a real difference. I think that Mafia was a splat too ? Never got to see the books or play it, and to be fair, my font of knowledge was as vast as the ocean, but frankly shallow, except when it came to very specific things.
I knew that my best option would have been to have been born in the ancient world and benefit from the spell of life. How to acquire the spell of life or enact it in modern nights, or even where to search was a complete unknown for me. I knew Paths and Golconda were a thing. I knew that to achieve Golconda one eventually needed to accomplish a suspire. But those were key words. Not actionable knowledge.
I was functionally homeless and poor. In complete danger of death too, either because I was in the apartment of a criminal or the servant of a supernatural predator, and what I knew would get me killed and tortured twice over by people that could find ways to leverage my shallow knowledge. As a storyteller, I always functioned under my World of Darkness.
Where Changelings had barely any presence, Hunters were disorganized and Go-driven, the Camarilla was losing grounds to the Anarch and the Ashirra and the Sabbat was losing ground to the Tal’Mahe’Ra ; where Mummies were the big good rising in power to cancel the apocalypse and the Technocracy had true arguments for its domination of the consensus.
Nothing told me that they wouldn’t dissect me, or brain wash me and put that same brain in a Hit-mark here, or that the bane spirit likely present in this very computer wouldn’t jump and attack me.
I frowned and leaned on the Ghoul’s chair. Extremely comfortable, nothing like the broken down crap I took from the street and kept until it was broken beyond all possible repair. I needed to think, and I hoped that I would be kept alone.
“I need money, what I have in my wallet is useless. I need to contact someone, to get protection,” I said to myself, inspecting the white walls nearly completely hidden by softcore pornography and racecar posters.
Ghoul or mafia, the person here must have hidden liquidity, so I just needed to steal and be gone, find a motel or buy a cheap sleeping bag and live rough while I passed as a refugee. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have a legal identity and that made me easily exploitable by the government or…
My gaze turned to the sunburst computer. Strasbourg was well known for its chemical industries. In my world, they were contained, mundane and the local government made regular drills to protect the citizenry. An industrial accident in Europe’s capital wouldn’t be accepted, especially not with the econologists in power.
Here however, the people were stupid and cynical enough to accept it with their heads down, while the politicians were likely either corrupt or formori. It was likely that refugees were dumped into chemical baths for extra cruelty, worked to the bones, or experimented upon with Wyrm-tainting prototypes and treatments then released on Garous while in agonizing suffering. That meant that glass-walkers, Bone gnawers and other shifting critters were battling here.
I had always wanted radioactivity powers, but I wasn’t born a formor, and I wouldn’t risk it.
I knew that the kindred in the city were likely under the control of Marconius the Kyasid and he was possibly paying lip service to both the Camarilla and the Sabbath. Possible Baali infiltrations given all the local legends about the devil I knew about the place and the historically horrific tortures inflicted on prisoners during the middle ages. I was speculating. But the Cappadocians could have been saved by the Kyasid and enjoy a presence in the university. I saw it while coming back “home”, the university was still prevalent.
Likely a lot of Brujah in there too. Possibly the other kind, hidden away as well from the usurpers. Perhaps, and I hoped to be mistaken, the Salubri found a refuge here as well, the city had been Sabbat controlled for a while.
But being a vampire sucked. Like, sure there was immortality, but when you knew where souls went as a vampire, you didn’t want to die, ever. And knowing about Golconda only puts you slightly ahead of the pack when trying to find a mentor demanded to risk one’s neck and likely hundreds of years of favor. I didn’t even know if it would un-damn someone. I doubted it.
I didn’t even read the book of Nod. Malkavians were likely dreaming about me, and the Nosferatu had likely pinged me accessing this computer.
Fuck me and trying to find a job when reading about the one most precious piece of literature would have saved my ass massively. Even though it was vampire propaganda. There was the Ashirra…
I massaged the back of neck in frustration, being a vampire offered some security, but so many risks. And nothing guaranteed an embrace. I could just be killed, that was more likely. Or trafficked to a Tzimisce that needed material for a chair.
The garous would likely enslave me, or kill me. They’d likely kill me. I wasn’t kin. And beside walking sideways and the fact that they had a breadth of gifts, I didn’t know very much about their society. Just the base of how they organized, the importance of Caern, some tribes and Auspices… and the Triat. And the wars of rage. Meaning that I knew way too much, enough to enrage them. Not enough to work against or with them. Just enough to be killed.
I didn’t know a thing about Changelings, and I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw a troll. Same with Demons, but worse. Being a Theist made me immediately hate them on principle.
Wraiths… Ok I needed to make my peace about my impending death, because there was no way I was going to be a wraith. Never. Nope siree. Being a wraith meant that you disappearing forever and ending your character was the best possible outcome. I took some breaths and resolved myself to accept death. If it comes for me, so be it. That was the way of this world and I wouldn’t rage against that. Everything to never endure the Caul.
Oh yeah Caul… mages. Funnily enough, being an extraordinary citizen could be one of my best bets. I didn’t think that I had an avatar to awaken, but begrudgingly working for the man was already what I had been doing as a job ever since I became a teacher. But maybe I could prove to be useful enough to the Progenitors.
Then again nothing told me that the NWO wouldn’t just disappear me, neuralize me and blank my brain to make some kind of Iteration X wetware database. Or that a Nephandus would catch me first. Again, with Pentex likely operating right here, I wasn’t safe from that.
I looked sadly at my phone, now a useless glass and plastic brick under the power of consensus. Man I hated that. I wanted to go to Alpha Centaurii and fight dinosaur riding nazis in one of the many Hollow Earths, and I wanted my phone, my computer and my memes.
I took some time to think about it, knowing exactly what I wanted to do after only a few seconds. I wanted to be an extraordinary scientist. Possible fascism under sci-fi conditions with the possibility of social advancement after a while and a great dental plan beat fascism under any other supernatural circumstance that wasn’t the traditions. Now, I needed to advertise my brand of crazy. I needed to be wanted. I needed to be seen, flagged and courted by everyone.
Or enslaved. Or killed. or Tortured. Or Eaten and shat out into the mouth of Oblivion. Or all of the above. But I didn’t have an easy choice.
I was already working on making my peace with the very real possibility of death or damnation. It was hard, and I guess that I needed to get used to the pit in my stomach and the slightly nauseous feeling of walking at the edge of a precipice. But I’d managed. There would never be an easy choice anymore.
I needed a public library or an internet café to announce myself to every faction. Thankfully, I knew exactly where to go.
The clock on the wall indicated that it was 11 AM. Just enough time for me to get out of dodge and find a non-spiritually harrowing meal by the end of the day. Still, I needed money so I began to search in the closet, getting to all the pockets of all the coats, finding some small change and some bills. At the very back I found a gun, a beretta M9 with two magazines, and a dozen rounds. I clumsily put them in the magazines, completely discharged the beretta and decided to appropriate one the trenchcoats of my gracious host.
They had been modified for the occasion, it was likely that this one was doing wetwork for its master, but who wouldn’t with blood on the line ? At least it allowed me to hide this uncomfortable new find.
Prison sucked less than the afterlife.
Looking under the mattress of our ghoul, I found a few thousand francs lying there. I thought about disconnecting and shutting down the computer before I searched the desk to find another wad of a few thousand francs. I had about 10000 francs to my name, mentally converting, that was enough 900€. Enough to live for a few months on the run if need be. I grabbed a bottle of water and decided that I did enough. I’d find a public restroom for the needs I would have to relieve later.
I made my exit, closing the door and using my keys one final time before I entered the elevator, pressed to leave with apprehension, made it to the hall and got out. I breathed a sigh of relief, looked at the trenchcoat, finding it ridiculously edgy but fitting here and made a beeline for the public library. I had watchdogs to alert.
I entered the way better funded and way younger establishment with a winning smile directed to the librarian at the center of this central floor, and approached him.
“Hello, may I use the computers to access the internet ?”
“Hmmhm, you have fifteen minutes of internet usage. Ifa are here to make an inappropriate query, know that it will be flagged and logged in the systems, but that we also have filters that make these searches impossible.”
“... Does it happen often ?”
He looked at me, eyes dead. He didn’t seem to express a lot of emotions, but I knew that he was utterly done with that kind of nonsense. I recoiled in internal disgust, even though I unfortunately wasn’t surprised. I had seen it happen in my very own reality, in my own time, in a lab. Here, it would be all too common.
“I see… by the way, don’t I need a subscription for that kind of service ?”
“No, it’s free as long as you mark down your name on a sheet I’m going to give you, the hour and that, of course, you agree not to bypass the filters. Otherwise, it’s all paid-for by the city.”
Surprisingly philanthropic. That was likely either an effort from the Technocrats to democratize knowledge and push their agenda, a way the vampires used to track down possible Masquerade violations from hunters that thought that they could be clever by going to a public terminal rather than a personal one, or both. Nothing prevented conspiracies from crossing over when it suited the worse agenda possible. It served my purposes though. I wanted to be as highly visible as possible and snatched just as quick.
“What’s your name by the way ?” I asked as he gave me the sheet.
“What’s it to you ?”
“Just making conversation.”
“Julien. You ?”
“Call me Ishmael,” as I signed the sheet with this very name adding the family name of Fischer. Something pretty common in Alsace.
“Is that a Moby Dick reference ?”
“Yes, and I was also completely honest. My parents loved that book and so do I.”
“Tsk, yeah, I only see it as the story of a guy deadset on killing a whale, nothing of note,” Julien said with a note of bitterness. That… was strangely a good sign, despite the fact that he was feeling upset about a masterpiece of literature.
“Oh come on ! Replace the white whale with a megacorporation and you’ve got the best tragic hero tale of all time !”
That got me a raised eyebrow, but I took it in stride and blew a kiss in the air while going to the computer with a wink.
I loudly sat on the chair with a sigh of contentment knowing that what I was going to do was to announce my presence in a forest full of predators with a megaphone, and I knew from the bottom of my soul that it was likely to be the worst idea of my life.
The grin turned vicious when I saw that the post had a webcam attached and I had access to Yahoo !, ouch, I think that I was hit in the nostalgia. I cracked my knuckles and began to utterly annihilate all of my chances to get a normal life.
I had a few research queries to make, and the Masquerade Breaches to end them all to create.
Everyone always asks where Enoch is, but does anyone ask How is Enoch ?
I didn’t get any pertinent results, but I didn’t care, I laughed to myself and continued
Best way to prevent a Sabbat attack on Saturdays.
Progenitor and Extraordinary citizen employment form
How can I know if I’m a reality deviant ?
Best way to dewyrm my computer ?
How can I contact good Weaver spirits to repair my non-consensus phone
My smartphone is not part of consensus, can I contact management to ask a faster rate of Terranorming ?
How can I awaken my extraordinary potential to manipulate the fabric of reality through self actualization ?
Best way to raise a hollow Earth dinosaur ?
Help the spirit of Saulot is asking me if the order of Hermes is done with its body and if it can come back now.
Best shortcut from the Umbra to my own reality.
Where can I find a new copy of the book of Nod ?
I forgot my Schrecknet password help !!!
Best discount spell of life
How can I know if my cab driver is Caine the dark father or not ?
Why do I see demons in my burgers ?
And for the coup de grâce…
I know who you are. Every single one of you who go bump in the night. I know your heroes, I know your villains.
I know what you fear and what you hope.
I know your secrets and your scryers are going to have aneurysms when they concentrate on me. So here’s what I propose : The first one that offers me a job gets everything.
Masquerade, Veil, Secrecy, whatever. No one will take me seriously but my knowledge is as vast as it is damaging.
I have a document full of info on everything that you people get up to on a hidden and secured server, ready to be sent globally and infect all possible computers, so that the truth comes out. Should I die, you’d never find it, and it will be released in a week’s time. The world will EXPLODE.
I know that you are watching me, out of the light, using this webcam.
So come and get me. I will wait at the Cathedral. Take me as soon as you can and I will deliver all that I know without resistance and cancel the launch of this very literal truth nuke.
You want to stay in the dark, and I want to join you there. See you.
And that was it. That was the most stupid thing I ever did. Whatever I did now, I was under extreme scrutiny. I was dead. I will say that it is hard to keep my countenance. I finished my call into this vast and distant forest, and I was waiting for one of them to take me. Of course, my threats were full of air, it was a lie.
But I needed to lie to survive here. Or at least to not have to live too long. I’d be a meal, a splatter on the wall or a lobotomite before midnight. I’d find my place, and it was the most important thing. I was in control of my destiny now, I had chosen roads, even if they lead to damnation. I was a player now, as bad a player as there could ever be.
I disconnected the computer with a newfound grim focus and smiled at Julien, who was looking at me a bit weird. I winked and got out of the library without taking the time to talk. I needed to go to the Cathedral, and given the position of the library and my own altered sense of directions (because I managed to grow one this time). I had trouble breathing in trouble, something was worming itself inside of my chest, and I didn’t know if it was a parasite from beyond or just pure and dreadful apprehension, asking who would get to me first.
We were still in the morning, in fact, we were beginning to see lunchrush, and I did it this early rather than taking my time and taking a coffee because I wanted the first responders to be Glass walkers, Technocrats and Virtual Adepts. Also because I didn’t trust food anymore.
Walking as fast as I could while trying to look unbothered, I got to see a literal O’Tolley’s where a KFC should have been standing. And I could hardly stop myself from vomiting when I saw the greasy food, slabs of meat with disgusting caloric drinks and all their colorful additives, and the ball pit… Seeing people chew like pigs on the fattening mix of bread, meat cheese, epic sauce, lettuce and pickles all of it coated in a literal film of triglycerides, packed with sugar and and a grey substance inside the nuggets that suspiciously looked like the inside of a cyst.
“Hey there sir ! Do you want to enjoy our new promotional O’Tolley Mega Gutbuster ? It’s only 50 francs ! And only at O’Tolley’s!” said a young woman in uniform that handed me a flyer.
Holy shit that was cheap… And looking at the leaflet she gave me, a sheet of glossy red paper with a lot of popping colors, the Mega Gutburster was whole menu that promised french fries, three sauces, a whole Gutburster burger with 2 patties and one big cup of fruity soda. American size. That made my eyes nearly jump out of my head. That would almost be tempting if I didn’t know what that was. I looked at the woman’s rigid smile and smiled myself.
“Sorry, I’m muslim, can’t exactly indulge on-”
“Oh don’t worry sir ! All our meats and processes are completely halal ! We want everyone to be able to enjoy the best burgers in the world at the best prices !”
Oh god please save me. That usually worked ! France was so freaking secular that a non-ethnic restaurant assuring this kind of service was nearly untold. They just wanted to be able to corrupt everyone, and here… the muslim population was the biggest minority. Impoverished, and ready to be part of the masses ready to devour their disgusting meat.
My community was the best prey for them. We all dreamt about affordable meals, and processed goodness. They were ready and likely had a monopoly on that kind of inclusive approach to fast food. The Wyrm was perfectly adapted to this ecosystem. My faith wouldn’t protect me against them. Not like that. Her eyes scared me, and so did her tone. It was… reassuring. And too well trained. Too forcibly human.
“Gluten allergy, Can’t digest corn syrup ! I don't like burgers ! Sorry bye !”
“Sir please !”
I ran as fast as I could, taking advantage of the narrow streets of the old city to cut visual contact as soon as I could. I found a bin and threw the leaflet in it without looking back, then I took some time to look behind me. A Ghoul with Obfuscate could very well be trialing me, I would be none the wiser.
Fuck ! Fuck ! I was already regretting everything. And panicking too… Fuck. Ok, I took my time to collect myself against a wall and continue my little walk towards the Cathedral. I went to place Gutenberg to see that the statue was pristine, and I bought a handful of magazines and journals to keep occupied. I turned, literature under the shoulder, and then I saw it, in the middle of buildings that had thankfully been preserved but had become an even bigger proliferation of tourist traps and beggar homes. Here it was in its baroque beauty, the Cathedral of Strasbourg. A building made entirely out of Vosges pink sandstone, this rock, a symbol that whatever dimension I was in, I could find some kind of home, of familiarity. That, of all things, stayed identical. There was still that highschool I worked at, fused to its backside. Yeah, just a bizarro version of home…
I walked amongst the tourists and pickpockets, walked to one of the tourist trap restaurants that looked like a mom and pops shop and asked for tea. Just tea. I had lost all appetite. I took my time to read about the world. I had spent a whole of 200 francs to buy time, hoping to find some man in black trying to convince me to follow them. Or an angry punk.
But no, that wasn't the case. I just waited, and I waited, and I waited. And then the sun set, and I had to use the lights from the cathedral itself to read more, face right in the news, finding that everything was just about the same as I would remember but just a bit worse and more crass. I looked up from my magazines as soon as I began to struggle reading them. The sun wasn’t up anymore, and it wasn’t even dusk. I guess that I wouldn’t be able to go out on my own terms. I also felt a wave of bitter amusement at the weight that was burning the pockets of this stolen trenchcoat. I didn’t know how to use a gun. I saw videos, but that was about it. It was as useless as my-
A thing appeared next to me, I turned my head as fast as I could and I felt something collide with my face at extreme speeds, but no pain. And I saw black.
“Wake up,” said a cold voice. I couldn’t resist, and so I woke up.
I was on the ground, my hands tied, as well as my legs. My head felt like I had seen the underside of a car, and I felt ill. As soon as I groaned to indicate my return to consciousness, I was forced to stand by two men that each took one of my arms and manhandled me like I was a child. I kept my eyes on the ground however.
“My head…”
“Your head indeed. How did you learn about our secrets, kine ?”
“I studied them, with the Arc-”
“Do not lie. The Arcanum is infiltrated, their knowledge curated. You couldn’t have had access to it. Jurgen, please introduce our guest to the consequences of lies.”
I was punched in the liver. Hard. My knees buckled as I felt the deep pain radiate in all of my abdomen.
“I was hoping for Lupines, or the Technocratic union to find me before you did in truth… But I learnt about you from books.”
“Paul, make him look me in the eyes,” ordered the cold voice, unemotional.
So they did, they pulled my hair, and I could barely manage to hiss and didn’t resist and forced me to confront a tall man with grey bluish skin, slick back raven black hair, a cloak made of literal shadows and black holes instead of eyes.
Marconius, the millennial vampire, a monster that I couldn’t identify as part of humanity, sat in front of me, implacable and unreadable. On his right there was a vampire that looked like a corpse in medieval clothing, standing straight, and on his left, an sneering monster with muscles that bulged out of its skin, deformed teeth and and a hunchback posture.
“You will tell me exactly how you came across informations about us.”
I tried to resist, I tried to think that I could maybe that some sort of inherent resistance, but it was utterly futile. I found that I didn’t even want to resist the implacable tsunami of sludge that forced my brain to take certain patterns.
“I read it in books, found it in videogames and on the internet. It took years to parse everything I know. And I remember little of the whole.”
“Is your threat real ?”
Once again, I tried to resist, but all attempts to close my mouth were met with the sensation of blood vessels popping in my eyes and an immense sense of distress as my brain was pried open from my pupils. I vomited a little and then answered.
“No, it was nothing but a bluff to make sure I didn’t immediately die.”
“So you had nothing but a bluff and your wits and you tried to outsmart everyone ? Why ? You will tell me why.”
“Because I was desperate. I don’t feel my wallet on me, so you already know that my documents don’t look like anything that is in distribution here, and that I am not even supposed to be born yet. I didn’t want to die in squalor… I wanted to be included here, or at least a quick death. And the best way to do it was to show what I was right away. I wouldn’t have lasted long anyway.”
“Good, we understand each other then.”
“May I be embraced, my prince ?”
The creature briefly raised an eyebrow, but didn’t emote more than that. It kept the statue-like composure it always did. Minimal mouvements. Corpse-like. It then looked at what was surely his ghouls and waved his left hand.
“You know where to take those kinds of problems. As for you, kine, you’ll find that when you reach for the dark, it may as well devour you. Dismissed.”
“Oh no ! Please no ! Have mercy my prince ! Have mercy !” I cried as I was dragged into the dark complex of old electric lightbulbs from the previous century and naked old stone polished by a centuries of shoes stomping on it.
They dragged me for two minutes while I tried to struggle out of their grasp, opened an old door that led to a trapdoor and threw me down there, shutting me out of the world and into complete darkness. It was a long and terrifying descent, less than a second however, and I landed without any grace before I saw the light of the trapdoor close on me.
“Wait ! Wait ! I can help your master ! I can help Marocnius !”
There was a single lit lightbulb sending weak yellow light right in my opened retina, enough to see a carnage of old blood on the stone and dirt, a collection of bones, and a wall with so… so many tally marks. At the opposite side of the room, sitting on the ground with her back to the wall was a single woman, dressed with nothing but a filthy brown cloth that I could distinguish to have once been white silk. She had been sitting muttering in the dark, her eyes, previously hidden behind her arms, met mine. The eyes of a predator, cold. So utterly cold.
I was to die. I was to meet death with this monster.
She stood up, terrifying in height, while I struggled to do the same, barely average. This amazon of a woman, ashen in skin, walked toward me as I walked back, trying to find any leverage that would keep me alive a little longer, or at least convince her to not drain me.
“Hello, you can call me Ishmael ! May I know the name and clan of my killer before I die ?”
That stopped her. She didn’t emote, but it did stop her. Asking for politeness could work on certain paths, so at least she wasn’t completely… out of morality. A low humanity vampire just wouldn’t have hesitated, so maybe I could appeal to a path if she followed one I was familiar with.
“I had a lot of names, none of them for you to know, prey. However, you may call me Kali, for I shall lead to your death. I am not from a clan of Cain.”
“... A pleasure to meet you Kali. Are you from India ?”
“I am from what you would call India. But I travelled long and far. My life has been longer than the nation you name. Now time to-”
“Can you tell me about Enoch ? Please I need to learn before I die !”
Now she was properly puzzled, and her lips retracted in genuine incredulity. Razor sharp teeth glistened in the dark. I knew exactly what she was now, and it terrified me.
“Who told you of Enoch, even the fae-leech on his throne never pried anything about it from me. So who ?”
“... I really got into the supernatural. I read it in a book and I got really interested in the ancient traditions of the Chakravanti ! It’s from the Euthanatoi point of view,” I needed to think faster. To get something that would convince her to do it as painlessly as possible rather than keep me in bits and destroy me and my ghost in days of grueling torture.
“You are a surprising one. Nearly as educated in our lore as a young chatterling, six years of age to summon these names. It is rare to see such agreeable company.”
“Thank you. All I ask, miss, is for you to kill me quickly after you’re satisfied with our talk and to spare my ghost, please.”
She considered it. It was like she tasted those words like a vintage and then her eyes went back to me.
In an instant, her claws dug into my throat, her fingers expertly slitting my throat. I felt pain, illness. I felt warmth spread on my chest as she supported me against her body and drank from the fountain of my throat. I uselessly tried to reach for my throat to stop the bleeding. Then I tried to push her away as she continued to suck my life away. Quickly,she went for the throat, drinking deeply and powerfully from me. I faded away with nothing but her cold contact for company, in a musky underground oubliette. Bon appétit Kali.
That frankly wasn’t the worst end. The pain itself became a very distant concern, pretty much like everything else. My mind fired in all directions, but I tried to concentrate on a single fact despite the panic, trying to calm myself in knowledge that I could pass into the true afterlife. A mantra repeated itself in my mind.
Please don’t become a Wraith, Please don’t become a Wraith, Please don’t become a Wraith.