Phantoms of the Dead

Author’s Note: The following chapters include depictions of depression, emotional isolation, and/or psychological tension. Certain words or expressions have been censored to avoid disqualification. If you’re sensitive to these themes, feel free to skip Chapters V and VI or proceed with care.

A frontal collision. Another car on a wrong lane. My dad dead on impact. My beauty of little sister dead on the hospital. And my mom? Found hours later ------ --- a bridge.

ㅤㅤAnd the date.

ㅤㅤ11th Nov. 2009

ㅤㅤThe day I stayed after school.

ㅤㅤThe day we were supposed to go to the zoo.

ㅤㅤMy sister had been so excited. She drew animals and put them on the fridge that morning. Told me she was going to see real lions. We made a promise to go together.

ㅤㅤA promise I would never fulfil.

༺═─–⸻–─═༻

ㅤㅤNothingness again.

ㅤㅤFloating in empty space.

ㅤㅤThe same void moved me through space and time.

ㅤㅤAll of a sudden, my feet wet.

ㅤㅤI looked at my hands. These weren't the hands that didn’t know violence; these were the hands of an adult disguised as a child hands; Iren again.

ㅤㅤA shallow swamp discerned with tick fog. Unknown whispering all around me, until a voice noticed my presence:

ㅤㅤ“You killed us, Iren the kid,” barely a shadow. A silhouette in font of me. Unrecognizable. All whispering stopped. “Your selfish vision brought us here, to a place of eternal torment, not alive, not undead.”

ㅤㅤWho or what was this voice?

ㅤㅤ“Who are you?” My voice echoed in empty air.

ㅤㅤNo answer came my way. Just silence.

ㅤㅤI then realized.

ㅤㅤTeleportation had nothing to do with this.

ㅤㅤNeither time travel.

ㅤㅤ“All the lives you took away,” it said, “all the suffering and death. What was it for? What did you expect to accomplish?” Those were questions I knew the answers to, or so I thought.

ㅤㅤ“To free the world from malice.” I answer rotundly, “not from ‘grater villainy’ or some evil individual, but from human vileness.” I said.

ㅤㅤ“So you became the devil itself… to accomplish that?” The voice asked again, with clear confusion. “What makes you different from the people you slaughter?”

ㅤㅤThat became a question I had not thought an answer for. Something I did not even consider.

ㅤㅤI was different from them, I thought, because I knew they were evil.

ㅤㅤ“Your reasoning is wrong.” The voice interrupted, as if reading my mind. “The people you leave behind, the ones that can not defend themselves, the innocents, are who suffer the consequences in your place.”

ㅤㅤThat was right.

ㅤㅤWhenever I actuated, I disregarded the aftermath of my actions.

ㅤㅤThey couldn’t keep putting heads at the same pace I chopped them off—at least that’s what I thought.

ㅤㅤI stood there, wordless, drowning in the weight of what I had become. The voice gone now, but its echoes wrapped around my mind like chains.

ㅤㅤWas this what justice looked like?

ㅤㅤI couldn’t answer. Not anymore.

ㅤㅤMy body felt heavier. So heavy, in fact, my legs couldn’t hold my own weight. I fall back and started to drown in murky water.

ㅤㅤMy vision started to twist around.

ㅤㅤand then—

ㅤㅤThe world folded on itself. Black again. Although this time different, it felt more like waking up from a long dream.

ㅤㅤAll my bones ached, as if thrown off a cliff.

ㅤㅤI had returned to the same basement.

ㅤㅤThe candle extinguished. A light beam halted complete darkness.

ㅤㅤThere I was, still alive.

ㅤㅤI had experienced true magic for the first time.

༺═─–⸻–─═༻

ㅤㅤThe house stood at the end of a path, hidden among trees and fields.

ㅤㅤIt looked intact from afar, just a simple and rural like hundreds of others.

ㅤㅤBut I felt the disturbance even before seeing it up close.

ㅤㅤIt wasn’t intuition. A developed instinct.

ㅤㅤThe door hung open, crooked on its hinges. The lock, splintered. Someone forced their way in without even bothering to be discreet.

ㅤㅤI approached, limping. Every step a blow to the mind. A drumbeat of warning. My heart pounding, but not in the pursuit or battle.

ㅤㅤFear.

ㅤㅤReal fear.

ㅤㅤThe kind you don’t learn about in academies, and that no weapon can overcome.

ㅤㅤThe smell hit first. Not blood, at least not only. The dense, sour stench of despair.

ㅤㅤThe main room was upside down. Chairs overturned, the table broken, tapestries torn. Nothing of value missing. No coins, no artifacts. It looked like the aftermath of a struggle.

ㅤㅤAnd in the center, lying as if death had dropped her without care…

ㅤㅤMy mother.

ㅤㅤI didn’t scream.

ㅤㅤNo wail or plea. Only silence.

ㅤㅤThe cut across her stomach wasn’t too clean. Unprofessional. The aftermath of a sword slice. The work of a careless nobody. The work of a guard in armor.

ㅤㅤHer face still, eyes open, mouth ajar as if still trying to say something. And her hair… that same hair that had so often brushed my face—was now soaked in blood, tangled with filth on the floor.

ㅤㅤI placed a hand over hers. Still warm.

ㅤㅤThey hadn’t stolen. They hadn’t plundered.

ㅤㅤOnly destroyed. Only killed.

ㅤㅤA quiver.

ㅤㅤFirst in the fingers. Then in the shoulders. And finally, like a collapse from the inside out—the crying.

ㅤㅤNot loud. Not theatrical. Just… a wet whisper. A sob that couldn’t find its way out. A crack in the chest that couldn’t hold back what was growing inside.

ㅤㅤI thought of my other life. Of how many times I had been close to death. Of how many times I had delivered it.

ㅤㅤThis was not but a repetition of my previous life.

ㅤㅤThe fact she wasn’t my only mother—that we didn’t share the same world… didn’t make her any less than my mother.

ㅤㅤOne half of the two I had in this strange world.

ㅤㅤThe one who held me tight when I had a fever. Who sang songs to lull me asleep. The one who made root soup with care and love.

ㅤㅤI remembered her laughing. Her scrubbing with her elbows high.

ㅤㅤA knot formed in my throat. Clenched my teeth.

ㅤㅤ“Why…?” I murmured.

ㅤㅤDidn’t expect an answer.

ㅤㅤOnly the echo of my voice, thrown back by the walls of what I had once called home.

ㅤㅤThat day something changed.

ㅤㅤThe quiver gave way to heat. Not fever. Not sorrow. A spark.

ㅤㅤMy heart was already pored in gasoline from the event in the plaza.

ㅤㅤNow… the spark lit it.

ㅤㅤMy chest on fire. My shadow, fuel.

ㅤㅤThis time, there would be no survivors.

ㅤㅤI stood up slowly. My shadow grew across the floor, stretched by the sunset light coming in from the windows.

ㅤㅤThe eyes no longer were ash.

ㅤㅤNow, they were a storm.

ㅤㅤI walked to the corner where, under a loose floorboard, I kept my map. Spread it over the broken table, pushing aside splinters with a bloodied hand.

ㅤㅤThere it was. Marvalen. Nolvar.

ㅤㅤAnd to the north, that arrow.

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓒𝓪𝓹𝓲𝓽𝓪𝓵

ㅤㅤMy sight rested on that name. They stared at it like a target. Like a debt.

ㅤㅤA whisper escaped my lips. It was no prayer nor plea.

ㅤㅤIt was a promise.

ㅤㅤ“They will pay,” voice cracking. “Every one of them. No matter how far. No matter how powerful. I’ll find them.”

ㅤㅤ“And kill them.”

ㅤㅤIren died that day.

ㅤㅤNot from a dagger. Not from magic.

ㅤㅤIren died when the world executed his only love.

ㅤㅤMy new childhood wasn’t lost—it was incinerated. Carbonized and scattered, leaving no trace.

ㅤㅤBut the ashes unscattered. They compacted. Hardened. And forged.

ㅤㅤSomething else rose from the ash.

ㅤㅤDirectly returned from the dead.

ㅤㅤNeither hero nor avenger.

ㅤㅤA raven, for it was the messenger of death.

ㅤㅤAnd white, for it would purify the world.