Isekaied Too

Despite her exhaustion, Anna found meaningful sleep fleeting. Instead she would drift off for a short time, then awaken abruptly without reason. Rain splashed steadily against the glass panes of the room’s small window. Dressed in a borrowed linen shift, Clara’s voice echoed in her head.

‘Necromancer.’

What a terrible, horrifying power.

Anna pulled the bed’s heavy quilt off her head, down to her shoulders, staring a hole into the wood beam rafters. The movement shifted her pall as well which laid spread out atop the quilt. Initially she had tried to sleep without it but couldn’t. The hope was if she finally fell deep asleep with it properly spread out over her from head to toe, maybe she would return home.

It didn’t work.

Not that it mattered.

‘Returning home? To what? Being dead?’

The alternative was being stuck in this world, capable of destroying the living by just a few written words. Could she carry that burden for the rest of her life and not accidentally resort to using necromancy during a lapse of judgement?

Shifting the stylus to both hands, Anna held the object over her heart, at a loss for what to do. She gripped it tighter and tighter with worry.

Suddenly the stylus grew intensely cold in her grip.

GASP!

Pale blue light filled the room at the sharp inhalation. With her pupils dilated, Anna squinted painfully as the apparition sat up abruptly in bed, seated exactly where she would be if she sat up. The spirit’s shoulders rose and fell abruptly, breathing instinctively for a body that no longer existed. Anna had never seen the stylus do that before!

The apparition looked around slowly, left, then right, but not back. Was he confused? She thought to say something but decided it was better to observe.

The spirit looked down at himself, then finally turned around to look at Anna. His face, her borrowed face, was that of blank perplexity.

“Stylus?”

The spirit stared in silence.

Anna recognized the expression. She remembered it on her obachan’s face, during the waning days of her life, the dementia slowly consuming her mind while her body remained relatively healthy. Anna was too young at the time to fully understand, but now it felt like the most undignified way to die, not knowing who you were, who loved you, or the life you had so dutifully lived.

Emotion bubbled up as silent tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

Best to not startle him.

She repeated his name again, gently. “Stylus.”

Acknowledgement slowly reshaped his perplexity into visible disgust.

“Yes, I know. I know.”

His irritation was obvious. Likely driven by fear, waking up in a foreign place in a foreign spirit body and not even knowing your own name. Instead being referred to as an everyday object.

“What’s the last thing you remember,” Anna asked softly.

The apparition turned away with a hand flip, “Not talking about it.”

“Tough. You are stealing my shape. I deserve an answer.”

“Whatever,” he sighed. “Don’t care.” The spirit faced the foot of the bed.

“It… was… all part of the plan,” he began slowly. “To see… how you would respond. I am disappointed in you, apprentice. Letting your master get pulled apart like that. And here you pretend to be a hero.”

Anna doubted that was the truth.

“I heard your screams. Did you think you were dying?” She paused to clarify. “For real?”

He shrugged. “What’s it matter to you?”

“It matters.”

The spirit paused for a while. Likely weighing whether to tell the truth or not. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I thought maybe I would finally cease to exist, once and for all. … Which would be a relief. That way I don’t have to keep engaging in philosophical discussions with you.” He sounded particularly disgusted.

The spirit slid off the bed and floated over to the window on tip toes, still dressed for the café, cute heels and all. “Apparently even I don’t understand all the rules of the stylus.” He sighed. “So it looks like you’re stuck with me.”

He looked out. “I wonder who’s up at this hour that I could creep.”

Anna slid out of bed then smoothed out the covers so that the pall had no wrinkles. Somehow despite everything it had endured, from a trip through the bog to being stretched during a life saving tug-of-war, it remained clean and pristine. No dirt. Every tassel was still attached. No sign of stretching. No mark or defect where it had been hit by a crossbow bolt.

“Stylus, is this yours?”

The spirit looked over and shook his head. “Definitely not. You brought it with you into the catacombs, remember?” He floated over beside the bed, arms folded across his chest. “Now who has the memory issues.”

Anna chose to ignore the snide remark. “How do you specifically know it’s not yours,” she probed.

“Because,” the apparition replied, holding out a glowing index finger and running it slowly along the line of arcane silver embroidery that followed the perimeter of the pall, just above the edge. “Let’s see…” His voice trailed off into mumbles as he read it to himself.

“Definitely not mine.”

“How come?”

“Because it says so.”

“Excuse me,” Anna said dryly, “but I can’t read funeral pall embroidery."

“Haha you’re illiterate,” the spirit mocked.

“Would you just not right now?” Anna pleaded in exasperation. “I’ve had almost no sleep and apparently I have the power to kill the whole world.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” His tone shifted, suddenly serious.

The two Annas stared at each other from either side of the bed, one corporeal the other not.

“I’m sorry for whatever they put you through,” Anna said at last, calling on all her patience to be kind and not snap back at the spirit. She wasn’t talking to herself, but from her perspective it looked like that. Was there any good way to approach an extremely painful subject? Seeing herself looking back made the weight of the conversation feel even more immense.

“Stylus.” Anna forced her voice to be gentle.

“What.” The reply was sharp, wounded.

“You were isekaied too, weren’t you.”