Vigor Mortis

Chapter 2: Their Soul and You

I sit in stunned silence for a short moment before panic fills my body, washing away the pain and fury from before. What is this? How did I do this? What’s happening? Did I just grab a man’s soul and pull it out? That’s what I did, isn’t it!? It has to be, I know it is. But how do I know it? Should I trust it? How do I…

Wait! Oh no, I should put it back! It’s his… it’s his soul! I try to shove it back in the corpse, but it just passes through. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!

Souls are not for mortals to touch. The magic to control and manipulate souls, known as animancy, is very illegal. Study on it is forbidden across the entire island. But of course, some people don’t have to study magic… they’re born with it. Am I a natural animancer? Is that less illegal or more?

Doesn’t matter. I can’t do this kind of thing. I can’t be… this. It’s one thing to steal bread, it’s another thing entirely to be a living blasphemy. The guards aren’t going to ignore this. So if I could just put… it… back…!

It won’t go. It’s missing something. I don’t know how I know it’s missing something, but I do. It won’t stay in the corpse without… without…

I reach into my own body, and pluck out a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of… my own soul. I place it carefully inside Grig’s, then put them both inside his body, holding my breath all the while.

Nothing. The soul bits stay inside the corpse, but nothing happens. He doesn’t start to breathe, his heart doesn’t start to beat. Well, hopefully I can get out of here before anyone catches me. I rifle through the dead man’s pockets, stealing everything of value I can find. Time to move.

Fuck, it hurts so much. I almost black out trying to stand up. Using the wall as support, I start staggering away.

Then Grig opens his eyes. The fat man hacks out a cough, causing me to turn. I watch in horror as he sits up, a confused expression on his face.

“What… o-oh! It’s you!” he says, pointing in my direction.

I turn and start to stagger away faster, pain screaming through my body. Crap, crap, crap, why did I do that!? Of course, he catches me easily. His hand grabs my shoulder. This is it. I’m going to die for real now. Maybe I can take his soul back out again?

“I’m so sorry!” he says, genuine concern in his voice. “I can’t believe I did that to you! Please, let me help!”

What? The sudden face-turn to his personality hits me like whiplash.

“I can carry you somewhere… I’ll pay for you to get healed! I’m so, so sorry. Miss, what’s your name?”

“…Uh. Vita,” I tell him, blinking in confusion.

“Miss Vita! Please, let me help you.”

A smile blossoms on his lips, an oddly vacant and disturbing expression.

“I’ll do anything for you,” he says.

…Oh. Oh. Oh no. I messed up his soul somehow and I messed it up bad. That isn’t even all of it, either. Something else is off about him. Is it…?

“U-uh. Um. Baker Grig?”

“Yes, Miss Vita?”

“Could you, um, hold still for a moment?”

He nods, so happily willing despite the fact that he’d just recently tried to beat me to death.

“Of course, Miss Vita!”

I bring a shaky, bruised hand up to his neck, running it along the back of his jawbone. Nothing, no pulse. He stands motionlessly, letting me feel my hand around his nose and mouth. He isn’t breathing, either.

I’m not just an animancer. I’m a necromancer. The Church is going to have my head. The dead have only one destination, and that is reuniting with the Mistwatcher. I’m screwed.

But if I don’t take him up on his offer to get healed, I’ll probably die anyway.

“All right. Please help me, Grig. Just… don’t let the healer examine you, okay?”

Grinning, he sweeps me up into his arms, carrying me back towards the market. He smells alive, still. I wonder how long that will take to change, or if it will at all. Will he rot? What is he now? Agh, it’s so hard to think, everything hurts. It takes a lot of effort to not pass out.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Vita,” Grig says again. “I didn’t mean to… well, I did mean to, but I didn’t realize you… er. I was just so angry before. I… I didn’t know you. I didn’t know how important you are. But now, it’s obvious.”

“Uh, yeah, obvious. What’s obvious, exactly?” I ask. Drip, drip, drip goes my blood on the stone below. A bone probably pierced something.

“It’s obvious that I can’t be mad with you. That I have to protect you. There is no one more important than you, Miss Vita. I’ve never felt anything like this before, but I know it to be true. With all my being, I exist for you.”

“…That’s not creepy at all,” I murmur.

“I’m so glad to hear it, Miss Vita!”

Grig (or whatever it was I made out of Grig?) makes the rest of the trip to the healer’s place in silence. He gladly pays the exorbitant fee with almost all of the money he has on him, most of which I awkwardly have to mention is in my pockets. It’s more money than I’ve ever had in my life.

I’ve never been magically healed before, and have no idea how it works. I know that the magic most commonly used to heal is called ‘biomancy,’ and it’s a spooky sort of magical school that tends to be heavily regulated. Thankfully, there’s enough demand for healers that permits to practice are common to the point of encouraged, and the magic used to heal people is one of the most basic applications of the school there is.

“All I’m doing is speeding up what your body is trying to do on its own,” the crotchety old healer woman informs me, though I’m a bit busy lying in agony to respond. “We’ve still got to set your bones so they heal right, and then you’re going to have to eat, or you’ll starve to death when I cast the spell on you. From the looks of it, I’m about to feed you more than you’ve ever eaten in your life, young lady.”

Well, I’m not going to say no to that. The slop she gives me tastes like shit, but for the first time in a long time I’m actually full. A couple hours later, I’m on my feet again. Maybe things will be okay!

…Or so I think until the grinning face of the man who beat me in the first place greets me outside.

“Where to next, Miss Vita?”

I stagger out of the healer’s building, my whole body still hurting like hell. I stumble a bit, only to have Grig catch me. The man who almost beat me to death over some damn bread. What am I going to do with him? I just… I don’t know. Maybe he can just keep pretending to be alive and act normal? He looks pretty normal.

“Let’s head back to your bakery, Grig.”

It was a simple statement, but I was also testing him. I can’t help but wonder, does he remember his bakery? Is he still, you know… Grig?

“Of course, Miss Vita! Right this way.”

So he does remember. Interesting.

“How about we head down some back ways?” I suggest. I need to get a closer look at him. Figure out what I’m dealing with, how to survive it. Survival is the only thing I’m half-decent at, after all. I’ve had sixteen years of experience staying alive.

Although I don’t think I’ve ever killed anyone before. At least not on purpose. Which is what I just did, right? I was angry, I wanted to hurt him. So I murdered him. In self-defense, maybe. Either way, it’s a little hard to have the whole “deadness” thing sink in while he’s walking happily beside me.

Actually, that’s a good point. Does it matter if he’s dead if he’s still walking around with his own memories and everything? Well, I suppose I mindscrewed him into servitude. That is definitely not a good thing. Morally, I mean. For my immediate survival, it’s fucking awesome. Staring up at him, I try to keep an eye out for anything weird that might tip someone off.

“You’re starting to look a little pale, Grig,” I note. “You feeling okay?”

“Yes ma’am! I feel fine. Although my feet feel a little… puffy?”

…Shoot, that makes sense. He’d been standing up this whole time, so blood must be pooling in his legs.

“Any chance you could get your heart to start beating again, Grig?”

“Er…” he blinks, thinking for a moment. “Huh. I suppose I am dead now, aren’t I? You killed me. Well, I’m sorry Miss Vita, but I don’t have the faintest idea on how to control my own heart.”

“All right. Well. Uh. Try to remember to breathe. We don’t want anyone to realize you’re like… a zombie or whatever.”

“A Revenant, ma’am. A zombie doesn’t remember its past life, so I would be a Revenant. My uncle fought with the Templars, so he smashed down undead more than a few times, ma’am.”

“Oh. Uh. Huh. And you’re just… okay with this?”

He grimaces uncertainly.

“…Well. Forgive me, ma’am, but I’d certainly prefer to be alive. Although, I suppose if I was alive, I probably wouldn’t have realized I am supposed to serve you! Which would have been bad. …So, yes! I suppose I’m okay with this!”

It’s starting to become really, really easy to see why animancy is illegal. This kind of stuff is possible? Imagine a power-hungry psychopath getting their hands on magic like this. It’s kind of horrifying.

“…So, uh, you mentioned while you were beating the shit out of me that you have a son, is that right?”

“Yes Miss Vita! A wife and a son, though she’s an unfaithful bitch and he’s useless swamp slog, if you’ll forgive my language.”

I blink. That’s an… odd way to describe one’s own family. I suppose this guy almost beat me to death for stealing bread, so he’s probably not a great person.

“Uh. Forgiven, I guess. Remember to keep breathing, please. We’re going to need a plan to not, um, get imprisoned or killed I think. If people find out you’re a Revenant, it will be… bad.”

“Don’t worry, miss Vita! I will protect you with my life.” There’s a pause. “Er, well… with my death, I suppose.”

I’m not sure what to say to that, so I let him take me to his shop in silence. It smells like burnt bread. Grig grinds his teeth.

“…Miss Vita. May I go discipline my son?”

Geez, what do I say to that? Well, I don’t want to be suspicious.

“Just do what you’d normally do.”

“Thank you, Miss Vita,” he says, nodding. “BOY!”

He bellows loud enough to make me wince, entering his shop with a face suddenly contorted to rage. Like a switch is flipped inside him, that hateful man who nearly killed me returns.

Grig’s shop is split into two parts: a stall on the street, and the actual bakery behind it. I suspect Grig and his family live in the same building they bake in. A woman who is probably Grig’s wife runs the stall outside. She’s busy with a customer, though she winces as Grig walks past her, screaming into the building.

“How much product did you burn, boy?“

He vanishes inside. I hurry closer, trying not to bring attention to myself. Though muffled by the walls, I hear a hard smack.

No. No way. I knew he was awful, but I didn’t realize he was that awful. It’s one thing to discipline a child, it’s entirely something else to discipline them so hard I can hear it through a stone wall. I wince as another muffled crack is heard from inside. It’s… it’s not my business anyway. I can’t run in there and tell him to stop now, that would be way too suspicious. It’s not like he’s going to kill his own son anyway, right?

Crack.

Screw this. Screw today. Screw everything. I turn to leave, heading back to the alleyways and trying not to cry. I didn’t know he would do that! I didn’t know…

…No. Focus. I need to start figuring things out. I can try to figure out how to be less awful once I figure out how to live. Maybe I can learn a bit more about what I am. I can sort of feel at souls, right? So maybe I can feel my own soul?

I sit down out of sight and try to focus, trying not to think about the beating I just let happen. I touched my soul earlier when I plucked a little bit out of it. I try to focus and remember that feeling. What is my soul? What is…

…It’s so small. Smaller than Grig’s is. Weak and frail, just like me. It’s so dark, a solid, despairing blackness manifested. Something flickers inside it, like tiny flashes of light behind cracks in a wall, but it’s just so little. So pathetic. It makes sense. I am, after all, a weak person. But weaker than Grig? Ugh. That rankles a little. Still, the part I’m missing, that tiny bit I took out to give him? It was even smaller, by a longshot. Maybe a hundredth of my soul, if that. …Although, who knows how much of my soul I could remove and still be me? It feels like my soul is working fine, at least. It’s firmly attached to my body. I’m alive, and staying that way for now.

Crack.

Even hidden in an alley on the other side of a wall, I hear the blow. A chill runs through my body. I’ve seen so many worse things in my life than a man beating his son for burning bread. But this one? This one is partly my fault. I put the soul back in that bastard to bring him back. I unleashed him on his family. This is my business, like it or not. The least I can do is make sure he doesn’t kill them.

This is going to come back to bite me somehow, I just know it.