Failed Experiment

It’s time for the anti-climatic climax. A truth I should have accepted from the beginning, and one I’m sure anyone who’s made it this far has already pieced together.

I noticed the pain was gone as I awoke. Pain afflicted directly on the soul doesn’t have a recovery period or leave any scars. It’s a one time deal.

Eris still hadn’t shown up, so not much time had passed. I think Rakki and Sanson were standing around the body.

It was there. I was there. That stranger’s body had been replaced with a new one. Mine. If it wasn’t for her brown hair it would be like staring into a mirror. Well, a mirror that made people slightly less attractive.

“It worked! What do we do next? And thanks for the clothes.” For the sake of the narrative let me point out that one of them, probably Sanson, dressed my new body in the dead guy’s clothes. They didn’t fit well, but it beat the alternative.

“Next? There is no next. It’s finished.” Rakki spoke as if he’d already lost interest. “I was just waiting around to see if you’d wake up.”

“If? There was a chance I wouldn’t?” Wait, no. It wasn’t time to return to the comedic banter. “What do you mean finished? You haven’t put me back in the body yet.”

“Huh? This isn’t a possession ritual. It was a ritual to revive a human, and that’s what I did. If you’ve regained consciousness it shouldn’t be much longer for him.”

“Her, and I’m the human you were supposed to restore!”

“You’re not a human. You’re an undead.”

“Thanks to you! The whole point of this was to turn me back, tell him.” My attention shifted to Sanson as I spoke.

“Rem, my friend, I thought this was the only way to make you accept it. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to deceive you, but. . .” Sanson actually looked pretty guilty. That just made me feel worse about the whole situation.

“Stop. Both of you. Stop talking like you know something I don’t.” I want to remember my voice filled with anger, but more than likely it was a desperate plea.

“I’ve come across many undead, Rem, but none like you. Your strength and regenerative abilities are far beyond anything possible from a human turned undead.”

I wanted to continue my pointless struggle, but the sound of a waking village girl silenced us all. She slowly sat up, wiping the sleep from her green eyes. I didn’t have the foresight to hide myself.

“Why am I alive?” A voice I was longing to hear. It never sounded right, coming from me.

“Because of me. Through a series of events I paid little attention to, I ended up restoring you. I don’t have a good reason, or even a bad one. It just seemed interesting. I’m the Witch of the Wilds by the way.” Rakki casually answered her question.

“The Witch? That makes sense then.”

“Oh? An interesting reaction. You villagers almost always run and hide with even the mention of my name.” A fair point. Not only was she ignoring the feared Witch of the Wilds, but also a half naked paladin; which half is a mystery I won’t be touching; and her original body staring back at her. She didn’t seem to be fully awake yet.

“A person brave enough to face death has nothing else to fear. What are you going to do, sacrifice me again?”

Memories I’ve long since abandoned started flashing through my head. My last devotee, willingly giving up her life.

“Wait. No, you can’t. I shouldn’t be alive.” The tension in her voice was rising and her face started to contort in ways mine never did. I found myself wishing I could be jealous of her emotional range. “The village, what about the village? I was the sacrifice. I can’t be alive.”

Like I said, completely untrue. Everyone, living, dead, or in between has something to fear.

Without wasting a motion she stood up and started running, toward her village I assume. Part of me wanted to stop her, but I needed time to think.

“Let’s go, my friends, after her!”

Sanson took off after her while Rakki and I ignored his call to action.

“I wasn’t human from the start.” Apparently this wasn’t news to anyone, but I still needed to say it.

“I’ve been telling you that from the beginning. I had no idea forcing you into that body would cause your memory to get that jumbled up.”

“You think? Why’d you put me in this body anyway?” Even then I wasn’t upset, it was more curiosity than anything.

“A whim.”

“Even if it’s a lie, give me a better reason!”

“That’s all it was though. I just happened to see you longingly watching her body, so I thought I’d help you possess it.”

“I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think I was trying to possess it. It was probably. . .”

Probably mourning.

“Either way, we should go after her. If she suddenly shows up at the village they’ll probably kill her, thinking it’s me.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with me, but you don’t need to worry about the village. By now they’ve already fled, and if they didn’t have time for that, they’re already dead.”

“That seems like another good reason to worry. What happened?”

“You know. You nullified your deal with the soul reaver.”

“Ah.” I can’t remember making it, but I can definitely remember nullifying it. “What were the conditions?”

“The deal itself took place, before I started living in this forest, so this information comes from some of the chattier monsters. Apparently, you promised the village would bring him a sacrifice every twenty five years if he agreed to never attack it. And that soul reaver was a good guy, he always stuck to his word. Now that might seem like a bad deal for the humans, but his presence made it impossible for other aggressive monsters to show up. All in all, a pretty good deal for the humans. I never understood why he keeps up the cat image though.”

“So, you think it destroyed the village already?” Didn’t waste much time, did it?

“Yeah, like I said, he was a good guy, but without any contract holding him back he can be just as vicious. It might seem cruel from a human’s perspective, but isn’t a soul reaver going out and reaving souls completely natural? Now that he’s drained the village I’m not sure where he’ll end up going. Maybe closer to a big city? I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of instability that will end up causing. Somewhere like Aizus would definitely set things off in a fun direction.”

“I’m not concerned with his travel itinerary right now. I just got an entire village wiped out, show some compassion.”

“For humans?”

“For me. Why was I in charge of something so important?” Even I can admit that’s a terrible idea.

“It had to be you. You’re the spirit of the forest.”

“Huh?”

“You haven’t even remembered that? I really messed up on this one.”

“Don’t act like I’m a failed experiment.”

“Experiments never fail, they just give us different answers to questions we didn’t want to ask.”

“Making it sound like sage advice isn’t fooling anyone!”

“You’re a forest spirit, the one in charge of these woods. A protector of any human that passes through, and a god to elves and druids. Within these trees even I would listen to your judgement. Can’t say I’d follow it though.”