The neverending knight, the black fog intro chapter.

The Neverending Knight

Fog of discord

“Well met my son.”

“It has...been a long time father.”

“Have you finally come to join me in remaking this world? Can it be that...after these long years in hiding and in contemplation...you’ve...finally seen it my way? Can….can I assume that my prodigal son has finally come to his senses?”

“…..”

“Son…..your mother would have wanted this you know...she would have wanted this revenge as much as I do now.”

“…...how many father? How many have you killed these long one hundred years?”

“At least six billion…..i’m saving the last billion and drawing their deaths out in order to ensure they never, ever forget what they did to me. i’m ruling over them, ensuring that they, and their children, and their children’s children suffer over the next twelve hundred years!!”

“Have you….no heart whatsoever? Can you see that these are not the same people who took mother from us?”

“it does not matter. They were spawned by them and they are beholden to the same evils. They cannot help it. Thus, I am punishing them.”

“Then no...father…..i have not come to join you. When I heard you were ruling mankind I had hoped...against every bit of hope that it was you who had finally changed..that you had chosen to…...forgive them...despite what they did.”

“Forgive them? HA! That was a fine joke my boy! No son...i can never..ever forgive them for what they stole from me….for what they did to your mother. But enough of this….if you’ve not come to join me then you can leave. Return to me when you’ve finally seen it my way and….what are you doing?”

“I’m putting an end to this...father. D----la! In th----- of m----- mot----- I will defeat you a----- ---- the humans from your evil!!”

“Evil? What------------ you are nothing but a sp---- child w------ a h---- for ----de----n! but enough talk! h----- a- -ou!”

[Audio Recording Ended Due To Corrupted Data]

Chapter 1

The Night, Eternal.

11/18/1103 BD

On the matter of the black calamity, urgent request for assistance.

My name is jonas harkon, formerly of val britannia, a nation that lasted for nearly fifty years...before the black fog came.

The black fog was...even as I pen this...a monstrously devious force…

Where to even begin?

At least a year ago, our alchemists, chief researchers of the world at the time, sought to explore the mystery of a phenomenon known as the “black fog” there are ruins far to the west of the city of ghol bhandor, and these ruins are of a curious castle. Only the foundation remained of course, but that didn’t stop the alchemists and choniclers from discerning that it was a fascinating and massive keep. One that doubtless towered over the world and spread as far as the grandest mountain range. They found..pieces of it buried deep in the ground for miles..hundreds of miles you see..and at night, a curious black fog would seep from the stones and shroud the region the castle was settled on in a deep, thick, icy curtain of the stuff...the fog was blacker than pitch, and nothing that went in came out.

Of course monsters would..sometimes very rarely venture forth from it.

The alchemists, thinking the cloud a potential work of alchemy, elected to investigate the monsters, they had sir chevaut and his knights twelve capture one of these things, and upon studying the ravenous, slobbering...almost doglike monstrosity, they discovered that it was in fact...a rabbit.

A rabbit that had been warped and mutated beyond all recognition. Apparently a study of its blood led to the revelation that its blood was almost identical to a rabbit’s. Supposedly, the alchemist’s claim that blood contains a sort of…..well this sounds strange, but it contains a blueprint or ladder….something that dictates how the body is formed.

According to them this “ladder” or “blueprint” was a rabbit’s...save that specific parts had been altered. I know naught of alchemy and less of this thing called “genetics” but many people put stock into the claim and thus I am inclined to trust their findings.

Well, upon dissecting the monster they discovered that many of its organs had been enlarged but were still functionally a rabbit’s. Comparing them side by side the shape was virtually identical, and the creature even had the sharp looking fore-teeth, but the ears were closer to a canine’s and it had antlers and was a muscular thing with fiendishly long, curved fangs like a carnivore’s.

In their excitement they decided to investigate the prospects of utilizing the black fog as an enhancement alchemy, thinking that, under the right circumstances...they could wield it given enough time.

So the fools brought a few stones from the ruins into the city of ghol bhandor.

The effects were….slight at first. They sealed the stone in the deepest part of the lab and began experimenting on it.

A few days later…..one of the scientists began muttering something before stabbing himself through the eye socket.

Many of us began to have...terrible dreams….dreams of demonic women who would hold us fast to a bed with crimson silk before ravishing us, yet the act of ravishing us would then drain the very life from our bones.

The women began having nightmares of being devoured by great muscular goblinoids, and the children….gods the children…..i can still hear the screams each night as the nightmares wracked them. One of them woke in such a fit of terror that she tore her own eyes out….she was only eight years old…

suffice it to say it didn’t take long for us to determine that the stone slab was cursed, or the mist was the cause, thus we had the alchemists move it out…

but by then the fog had its hold over the city.

Each night the darkness grew darker, each day the people within the city found their own paranoia increasing as the continued presence of the nightmares began eating away at our sanity.

The nightmares became an enemy we actively tried to escape, but when night fell it was as though we were forced to sleep.

Something was antagonizing us, of that I am certain, something wanted us dead or wanted us to suffer for all eternity. It hated us, reviled us and thought of us as truly terrible. We deserved this, it felt like that’s what the presence behind the fog was saying.

Then...one day...the black fog erupted from the stonework and shrouded the city….

And then it grew blacker as the weeks wore on, daylight ceased to exist, and the children had all found ways to kill themselves or maim themselves beyond repair..leaving many families so distraught that suicides only seemed to……

gods just writing about this is...awful….i can’t bring myself to write on the matter for much longer...but you must understand...whatever was in that fog...it was truly evil.

That some of us were relieved that the screams of children had ceased each night only made us feel worse, it was as if we were being confronted with the most basic flaws of our personalities...we stopped wanting to hear them suffer and thus took relief in their deaths..it’s dreadful I know but the mindset of our society began to change.

Weeks later, we formed mobs and lynched the alchemists who brought this upon us, they pleaded, begged us to let them fix the problem...i stood there and watched from a distance as the distraught families let their rage play out.

It was like a carnival of madness had taken hold, as if mankind’s twisted, dark side had deigned to show itself, almost in celebration of the inky black fog that slowly choked the very spirit of the town.

But weeks later..the mutations began…

a hulking..brutish monster wearing tom hiddleston’s clothes came out of an alleyway and tore a woman cleanly in half while she was still screaming at the...ape-like beast...another, far less generous death came about when a pack of..what appeared to be skeletal gremlins ate a man’s face off.

News from the gravekeeper later confirmed that a number of the children’s corpses had vanished from their coffins….and the reports of the curious gremlins only further confirmed our suspicions that the children had become undead ghouls…

a few days after the gremlin incident, monster reports became all too common, and the dreams we shared now included another figure, a tall...cold looking man with skin paler than moonlight, whose eyes were burning crimson pinpricks of light in the darkness.

He said nothing at first, he simply watched me, chained to the bed in the nightmare while the fiendish women had their way with me.

Only after they had finished and I lay there, once more drained of life and skeletal to the point of death, did he speak.

His voice was like a cold length of steel being fed into my heart, a deep, judgmental thing that sang out with all the colors of night and barely had he uttered a word, yet I found myself recoiling, for I could hear the voice in my very ears! As if he was right there, whispering to me.

He said “You deserve much...much worse human.” and then with a snap of his fingers the she-devils began tearing me apart limb from limb, laughing as they did so!

Many others experienced the same...dark..ominous figure in their nightmares...the women claimed he watched them being devoured and laughed coldly as the goblinoid finished them. The other men had the same dream occur to them, right down to the way their limbs were torn off..tendons ripping and all else.

We called this figure “the will behind the fog” and we confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that this...specter in black robes...absolutely hated us.

What have we done?” I would ask in the next nightmare, facing him down.

He said nothing, he merely watched as I was violated and then torn apart.

Every nightmare I had, I made it a point to question him, every time I did, I was met with ruthless silence and that same...hate-filled glare.

Then one day I called the specter out...i told him that he deserved this torment far more than I, for he had caused the deaths of so many already….how many had died by this fiend’s hand? How many children?”

he personally tore me apart in the dream, and when I awoke...my arm was halfway across the bedroom...and a bleeding stump had already soaked the bed in crimson.

My wife, bless her, had the presence of mind to cauterize the wound, and I lay in bed, recovering from the injury, all the while I silently endured the torture in my never-ending nightmare.

But I endured. I let the fiendish devil women have their way with me, and I glared at him, not with hate...for I do not believe in hate..but pity.

What sort of being was this? What wrongs had he endured to afford him such hatred?

What had we done to him?

This became a twisted contest between us, he would match my glare and the two of us would stare one another down, through it all he found the game perfectly amusing.

Others in the city killed themselves as the dreams proceeded to wear down their sanity, but I became angrier, more determined.

I would face this devil down, I would endure the pain and misery he inflicted on me...and I would die a victor...every...single...time.

Each nightmare became like a contest, and I could sense the figure’s growing frustration, even as he glared in stoic silence at me, I could feel him seething.

But I didn’t taunt him, I didn’t allow my pride to get in the way.

This devil wanted proof of my wickedness, yielding to wicked desires such as pride would only get in the way.

I awoke chained to my bed that night, one of my arms gone, i’d been out for a few weeks...and surrounding the bed were a group of winged women...one of which I recognized as my wife.

And a cold realization hit me...the dream had become something of a prophecy.

The women had been transformed by the black fog in the same way that the fog had transformed mere rabbits into hulking, canid abominations.

I struggled to break my bonds, but the devil women had secured them well, and so each one of them took their turn with me, leaving a bite mark on my good arm once they were finished.

My wife simply watched coldly, the same way that the man had, all the while half the town’s women took their time, making it just as pleasant as it was painful.

All the while she simply watched, not pleased but not exactly unhappy, a glare fixed upon me that spoke murderous thoughts more loudly than her voice ever could.

Why was this happening? There wasn’t a truly logical reason for it….it was simply the fulfillment of the twisted dream.

So then, as before, I stared the presence down, my glare falling on my wife, now turned into a she-devil with wings and horns and watching, arms folded beneath her breasts as the firelight in the room played off her eyes.

Once they were done, I had grown quite thin, and she gave a sigh and approached, gently stroking my chin with a talon, for her hands now sported knife-like claws.

“A pity...” she said. “I had hoped to have you after you were done being unfaithful to me.”

Most men would have backed down then and there, their emotions getting the better of them, but I simply stared angrily, letting her know that I was keenly aware of who and what she was.

She wasn’t my wife...she was a proxy for this….thing!

She left the room, and the she-devils all gathered round, their fangs elongating and their wings shuddering in anticipation.

Truly my situation was hopeless, but at that moment, a great green fist crashed through the walls of the house and a number of them were grabbed up.

Many began screaming hysterically as a towering goblinoid creature….one of many in the distant fog, grabbed them and held them before its gaze.

The sheer horror of their cries revealed to me the truth of the situation.

they’d been driven mad by the antagonism from the dreams, all who succumbed or died were then transformed into whatever the opposite gendered dreamer suffered from.

For the men who succumbed it was the towering goblinoids, for the women, they transformed into devilish succubi intent on dominating whatever men they found before ripping them apart as a sort of cruel vengeance for being similarly dominated and murdered in the nightmare.

Through it all I could hear the fog laughing through my terror, and I could almost hear the stranger’s voice as he said “look!! look!! is this not the true form of man? Is this not glorious in its evil? They became the very things their lovers had nightmares about, to visit their wickedness upon one another as vengeance aahahahahaaa!!”

no such voice was there of course.

The drain on my body had caused the manacles to slip free, and so I crawled out of the building even as devil women and towering goblin-like giants murdered each other in the streets, while packs of skeletal gremlin children hunted down those too weak to be worthy of note.

I crawled through alleys and slowly made my way out of town, but in one of the alleys a pack of the undead children found me and would have slain me, had a devil woman not shown up, almost immediately the fiends gave a shriek and fled, terror apparent on their visage, but if the woman had any interest in killing me, she didn’t show it, she simply made her way for the gremlins, bloodlust apparent.

This….macabre situation lasted the whole night, and I managed to clear the fog after 8 hours of crawling, escaping well beyond the city limits and finding my way to a nearby copse of trees.

I was weak, starving, and surely would have died, but a strange fellow suddenly appeared before me, materializing as if from shadows, I tried to fight back against him, thinking this was another devil seeking to unmake me the way my wife and the towering man in the black cloak had, but the stranger, his hair a pale silver and falling around his shoulders like a curtain of molten metal, his skin like moonlight, was far gentler and kinder.

He forced a potion down my throat, which seemed to restore my vitality after the initial panic fell off and i realized i felt much better, then he calmly asked “tell me what happened...where is the fog?”

he wore a tricorne and his hair, though unbound, was like a woman’s. Indeed the man was quite feminine, only his deep, yet calming voice clued me in.

he spoke very little as I managed to explain the situation through my tears, and he nodded and seemed to think about something as he listened.

Finally, he picked me up, as if I weighed less than paper! And then said “I am taking you somewhere safe. The potion I gave you will heal your flesh, but your mind needs a different concoction to rid you of the black fog.”

he brewed another potion at his camp, practically demanding I not sleep until I drank the draught. Once I downed it, a foul….darkness seeped from my body, he seemed quite perturbed as he watched it vacate my flesh through my pores, and once it was done he fed me tonic after tonic of restoratives...and...to my surprise and horror..this caused my arm to grow back!

It was small at first..like a child’s...but as the weeks passed it finally became...whole again...more mature...it felt quite different from my old arm.

Though I asked about the miracle...he would tell me “it’s from ancient times...the knowledge is dangerous and I use the potion only to restore your body….do not seek it..it is no miracle cure...merely a forbidden recipe that comes with risks.”

he then told me the risks of overuse, including addiction which would cause horrific transformations.

I declined to inquire further...i thought the man an alchemist but he called himself an “ancient” and would say no more on the matter, claiming to be four thousand times my own age before ceasing to speak altogether.

Finally, restored to full health, I had the courage to ask for his name.

He did not reveal it, claiming that I only call him “pale one” or “pale knight”

I decided to instead call him solus, for if the specter of nightmares was the moon, surely this gentle being was like to the sun.

the most curious thing about the fellow is how he would vanish the moment sunlight so much as touched him, in my sentimental haze I merely assumed that he was the sun, and that he would vanish because he was returning to the heavenly body to resume his duties. He laughed at this and explained that he simply could not exist in sunlight, he existed exclusively in the night and thus whenever the sun would come up, the rays of sunlight would dismiss him to the shadows nearby where he would sleep, as if he was a devil to be summoned from hell only to be returned when the summoner tired of him.

My ordeal finally ended, I thought of my wife, under the control of that...monster in the fog. Solus told me she was lost, and that I should give up on her. I was not turned because I did not submit to my despair...he claimed...that the despair..the fear...was exactly what led to the transformation.

I didn’t fully comprehend it but I took to naming the specter in the fog “morpheus” after the god of dreams. I asked solus about him, but solus wouldn’t say anything other than “he was an old friend...once...”

he told me to write a report and told me that by the time it was sent the city would be cleansed of the fog, but that none left in the city save myself would survive. And apparently I only survived thanks to my good fortune.

Leaving me in the neighboring city of khal dhathis, I elected to do precisely that.

Though it is difficult to believe, this black fog is indeed a threat to the great empire. I beseech you, lord brannigan! You must bring together the great alchemists of this world and have them determine how to deal with the threat of the black fog that comes from the castle ruins at bal dhammur!! our city is gone! My wife is gone! I have nothing left now...for a mercy, my dreams have returned to normal, but now all I see are visions of my wife, torn apart by monsters...rarely are my dreams pleasant.

Whoever solus is...he is an expert on the matter! I ask that you find him, though know you cannot find him during the daytime...for he cannot exist in the sunlight...i understand this tale sounds bizarre, but go to what’s left of our city..and you will see for yourself the nightmare inflicted upon us! A nightmare made reality by the man in the fog of nightmares!!!

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The Neverending Knight

The moon rose above a cold, snowcapped mountain that resembled a rusted dragon's fang, at its base, the glittering flames of a township being burned down sparkled between the grasping talon-tipped boughs of a spiderweb of tree branches, generously suffocating the light of that tragedy and turning it into an illusion of beauty.
as the sunlight cried out against the ominous lavender blanket of the night pressing against its final struggling throes, as the two north stars that marked lorian's night skies shined in full brilliance over the moon like a pair of domineering serpent's eyes, he came.

Shadows gathered and he stepped forth from them, brought to the world of the living once more by the presence of the night, if one ceased to exist with the coming of the dawn only to reappear with the night's rebirth, it was this strange, hooded fellow.
A reflexive twitch of his right hand summoned forth a large blade of gemsteel, its pommel decorated with the menacing head of the white dragon of the north, a symbol of a long dead nation that none remembered and none gave much thought to.
appearing, almost as if from a wall of smoke, surely this figure was an elemental of darkness, for surely he existed in night the same way shining a candle over a hidden criminal would reveal them in that same gloom. and just as darkness revealed him, so too did light conceal him, concealing his existence, forcing him into a deathlike slumber.

the figure shuffled toward the burning township, giving no thought to his actions, his hair spilling forth from the hood was a faint silver, or perhaps a deathly gray, and as he passed through the wicked forest that had so cruelly swallowed the truth of the image far ahead, the trees seemed to step aside for the guest.
he marched, relentlessly but so slowly, his body obeying him only out of necessity.
finally he found himself before the gates of the village, a wooden frog's head had been carved into the top of the flaming gate, and the googly eyes seemed to contrast the scene beyond with a degree of brevity that almost betrayed the horror beyond.
the figure didn't smile, didn't speak, he simply pressed onward, giving the oddity of the townships queer design no more thought than a wolf gave a four leafed clover more than passing disinterest.
bandits had come, their bodies corrupted by a terrible blight known as daemonshade, a horrific illness that robbed them of their sanity and reason.
this illness was responsible for much of the maladies that wracked the world, and thus had been called "evil mist" for its nature was surely wicked, and it always came in the form of a deathly fog of blackest coloration.
that fog clung to their blackened forms, even as one of them lifted a screaming woman in his arms and hugged her, squeezing her until her bones cracked and her screams became gurgling protests, and finally her eyes bulged and she went limp.

unsatisfied, he squeezed all the harder, until her body was pinched cleanly in half, he then proceeded to fly into a rage and struck her broken corpse, beating it into the ember-studded ground.
the figure watched with a hint of amusement at the display, not at her demise, but at the seeming humorous scale of cruelty the human exhibited.
the other bandits quickly caught on to the specter's presence, and drew their weapons.
one came at him, screaming in some unknown tongue, and the figure caught the weapon between his fingertips, flashing the man a glance that spoke volumes of his boredom.
a backhand sent the fool spinning away into a nearby building, where he caught on fire and proceeded to struggle and scream while his fellows rushed to help him.
the gemsteel sword suddenly moved to block the way, and the figure stepped in, picking it up as it floated there and with the ease of swinging a feather, he swept the weapon across with such force that the air blasted a cloud of dust that veiled him from their sight.

from there a new massacre unfolded, one man managed to parry an attack only to be sent flying by the might of the sword's stroke, his arm was numb and when he looked up, the sword was already entering his brain.

another raced up behind him, only to be forced to bring his sword up to block, a quick horizontal swing threw the weapon out wide, and it took him a moment to register that the opponent's strength was on par with a chimera's.

too late, for he reversed his momentum with an ease and grace that defied reason, following up the strike with a decapitating backhand stroke.

the third was not so foolish as to let the warrior get in close, and he swung his weapon about, repeatedly forcing space between him and his opponent.

until the figure vanished into a cloud of fog.
looking around, terror painting his heart as he began screaming, thinking the cries would be sufficient to hold his enemy at bay, a pair of frigid hands clamped over his head, pulling it back while a pair of fangs entered his neck, and the chill of this man's bite, his tongue lapping away at the hot blood within, was by far more sinister than the dull sensation of white hot agony spreading throughout his neck.

his body soon went cold, and the figure pulled away, tearing his head off in one deft motion, his mouth now stained with blood that clung to his lower lips like a syrup.

taking a napkin from his cloak, he wiped the blood away, turning to see if there were more bandits.
when none were forthcoming, he then labored to find victims, haunting the streets and sniffing as he glanced all around.
there were a few hiding in the cellars, and he coaxed them out before the buildings could collapse on them.
gathering them in the streets he addressed them all.

"This land is cursed, you should all consider fleeing immediately, for the fog haunts this region and may one day claim you as well. do not let yourselves become monsters." and with that, he left, some tried thanking him, others asked for his name, but he was far from sight even as their queries were completed.

he continued his hunt, and that very same evening found the lair of the bandits.
the five he'd encountered were stragglers, but these were the bulk of the group, twenty of them, sleeping like babes in their poorly constructed cots in a deep cavern.
running low on time, he set about with his cruel work, biting the necks of each bandit as he slept and drinking their blood shortly before tearing their heads off.
by the time it was done, the bodies turned to dust as the fog rejected their deceased forms, and now he had a cavern with which to rest within.

he moved out of the cave and found a hill overlooking the village, and there he stood, waiting for the sun to rise.
a girl managed to find him, and she approached the figure, a basket of goods in her arm.
"I thought i told you and yours to begone from this realm." he said coldly.
"I...we wished to thank you before leaving." she explained.
she set the basket down, and despite himself, he managed a smile.
"I am glad you are safe, but begone...soon. you've not the luxury of a single night...the fog will want a replacement...and your people will do quite nicely....I suggest you flee before it comes for you."

"who are you?" she dared ask and he shrugged.
"I am." was all he would offer.
the sun began to rise, and as it did, he suddenly collapsed into smoke.
she gasped as it happened, and fled, terrified.


When next the night came, he reappeared there, as though he'd never left.
striding down into the cave, he inspected the weapons within and found a few with promise.
he spent the better part of the next evening scouring the caverns for ore, and once he found it, he used his magical prowess to fashion a forge flame spell, and from there he spent the next night melting down their weapons and reforging them into something he could use.
from throwing stars to knives, daggers, and even crosses, he let not an ounce of metal go to waste, and once he was done, he had a vast number of implements for throwing and tools to use on his journey.
the dawn came while he was working, and yet again he collapsed into smoke.
night returned and he reappeared as though he'd never left, and once more work continued.
by the fourth night he had refashioned the cavern into a living quarters from which he could freely roam and hunt down anything infected by the fog, and kill it.

he returned to the village, and to his delight found that it had indeed been abandoned as he'd demanded.
without hesitation he set about looking for supplies for his journey, he found a dead horse.
sighing, he cast a spell of necromancy, its body decomposed until the skeleton alone was left, and from it sprouted lavender fires that seemed to cover its form entirely.
fashioning a saddle for the beast, he took it for a ride but soon realized that it wouldn't serve as an adequate form of transportation the moment daemonblighted hounds began attacking it.

and so he released the spell, thinking it far better that the creature remain dead.

he envied the beast.

with his preparations completed, he would then set about hunting down the fog, or trying.
for that was always the way of it....the fog would appear, he would hound it, and it would then flee and settle in another region. he felt like the wind chasing a cloud, for surely that was what their relationship had been this past two thousand years.
yet he persisted, the fog had to be destroyed.

the dawn came, and he watched the sun rise once more, just before he turned into smoke, banished from creation by the light of day.
for him, the night was eternal, and daybreak was little more than a rumor hinted at by the fading sun. He'd never experienced daytime, not once in all his life, and he doubted he would begin experiencing it any time soon.
he was a figure that haunted the night like a ghastly specter, an immortal vampire who made it his purpose in life to hunt the cruel fog that fed on the innocent.
it was all he had left now.

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the neverending knight chapter 1

The Neverending Knight

Chapter 1

He sat there, waiting patiently for the rain to stop. Always the rain was his nemesis, if he were to stand within it, he would be paralyzed by its hold over him.

He was an immortal, a vampire. He'd lived for centuries just wandering the world, righting wrongs with his crimson blade, intruding where he did not belong and slaying those he deemed evil. Equal parts villain and hero, he was little more than a specter here, in the rainstorm.

But it had not always been so. Once, he had loved the rain as dearly as if it were a lover, he lived for running through it without an umbrella, felt sheltered by it.

Now however? It was like a prison to him, it would force him into a frozen state and he'd not be able to move until it subsided.

And so he sat at the base of the tree, his long devil's horns, appendages that had grown thanks in part to his long life, gently accepting droplets of rainwater. They were jet black in appearance and jutted forward from his temples, just below his hairline.

Once, his hair, a proud ebony, had gone silver due to his long transformation into a creature of the night, and though his face would remain eternally beautiful, it had once been the face of a rugged barbarian. A bit babyfaced as well, but his eyes had always glowed with a feral hunger since before he became a vampire.

With the change to his flesh came the change to his very genetic coding, and his body took on a more “Noble” appearance, his face had changed drastically, he was almost unrecognizable now. His nose was thin and narrow, his eyes were gentle and serene, his lips full, but not as they had been, a bir more drawn than before, but not to any extreme. His chin, once thick and full, had become thin and graceful, and even his brow, once jutting out like a sheld, had sunken in a bit to allow more of his hair to fall forward.

He wore a wide brimmed hate to hide all save the horns, which were a foot long and could not be hidden or cut off. They would simply grow back within the week thus the effort was futile, indeed, he vampire had adorned them with gems and jewels, all of which were enchanted.

He wore a slightly off-green trenchcoat that was riddled with spelltags designed to keep his power from overwhelming him, to take the coat off meant he would be consumed by his own vampiric side and become monstrously hungry. To avoid this problem he had designed the coat with healing spells and great sealing enchantments to keep the hunger from wiping his senses away.

His name was lost to history, now he had none. He was a thing now, not a man. No identity, for ego was a decidedly human need. He was no longer human.

He sat in the rain, thinking only of the next meal, thinking only of the next person he might save. But he gave no thought to how, or why he saved them, he thought only of food, and of things to distract himself during his long eternity.

Ten thousand he was today, his birthday had come and gone faster than he had bothered to keep track, and now he was trapped in a rainstorm, waiting for it to pass.

He leaned against the tree he used as shelter, wrapping himself comfortably in his rainproof cloak and he settled in for the long wait.

The vande forest, a place belonging to the old fairy king, did not harm him, indeed it knew better than to even try. Even so, one could never be too careful, even now, amid the towering celestial trees, trees the size of the skyscrapers of old earth, the realm he once called home, he could see them leering down fearfully, watching him.

His kind weren't welcome here, but the fairy king had long ago struck a bargain with him, out of gratitude for his aid.

Once, his humanity and thus his “ego” had granted him the desire to save the fairy king's daughter, and the fairy king, understanding him to be young at the time, had acknowledged this desire and repaid it with an eternal welcome in his dominion.

But the king knew a fundamental truth that he did not, could not have known. That when one is a vampire, ego will eventually cease to be, and function will dictate one's actions. Humans, as far as he knew, were creation's greatest actors, for they made for themselves a “self” and acted it out, the very idea of identity was intrinsic to them. But becoming a vampire would eventually reveal a haunting truth. Selfhood is a lie, a fabrication of the mind. When a vampire grows to be a certain age they are “cured” of the madness of self and simply cease to allow the middleman of ego into their thoughts. They become what they always were, beings whose actions come without the pretense of self.

But a hero requires a sense of self, to be aught else is dangerous. All that allowed the vampire to identify himself as a hero was habit now.

He wondered...how many had he wrongfully slain out of this habit? How many lives had he taken in his immortal journey? Who deserved to live? Who deserved to die? To be a vampire was to ignore this pretense of “heroism” entirely. Paradoxically, the “self” of the vampire as he was now was one that continued gripping tightly to the idea of heroism, even though it held next to no value now.

The young man who had saved the fairy king had died due to slow decay of the self, and in its place, an altruistic monster that followed its former ego's commandment without giving any particular question as to “why” it just did.

The fairy king had known this deterioration would take place, had known the vampire would eventually lose his humanity and become like the dogs or the wolves of the world. A creature that didn't base its actions on its sense of identity, but its needs, thus their relationship was doomed from the onset.

Though they were on good terms, there was a keen understanding between the two. The vampire was welcome, but only up to a point. He could pass through, sleep and even hunt. But he could not live in vande. That was forbidden to his kind.

The rain subsided hours later, and the vampire rose, shaking the rainwater free from his cloak, it struck the soft, green grass with a gentle splatter as he took off, his black leather boots making not a sound as they all but floated over the thick grass and loamy soil of the forest floor.

“I'm leaving.” he said, largely out of habit.

He made way for his mother's castle, on the other side of this great forest. His “Mother” who had adopted him when he first came to this world, she was very much a gentle, kind hearted being, and had served as his mentor for many, many years.

But once upon a time, the two had been rivals, nay, enemies. He was a trespasser in her castle, and she was a vampire hungry for the blood of said trespasser.

Once upon a time, he had been a man called “jacob peregrin” and his life had been mundane, ordinary even. He was a barista at a coffee shop just doing what he always did, serving coffee in modern day america.

That is, of course, until the dragon king arrived to subjugate that world.

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World Of Final Fantasy PC Playthrough Part 19

The king of the night

His cape flowing in the gloom, the fog reaching deep into the vast city, past the pale sickly light pouring from the moth-graced lanterns as he watches with eyes aglow with an inner fire, watching for a sign in the darkness of a fog-drenched night, a sign of the blasphemy that should not be present in such a deep, discordant gloom.

He watches for life.

As he stood there, contemplating the glistening face of the moon as her slow, weary ascent sent streams of tears trailing behind her, cars sometimes passed, always they passed with due haste when they saw the figure clad in jet-black robes, his form more of a shadow than the shadow that writhed beneath him.
His fingers ended in talons with the cold glint of steel and his pale skin almost seemed to glow in the gentle hum of night, yet despite the pale glimmer of the moon and her distant relatives, the stars sparkling in the firmament, the artificial glimmer of the lamps all about the vast city with its networks of well lit bridges and skyscrapers crossing over and beholding a vast stretch of river quickly stole the light of the firmament, reducing all to darkness as false light battle with twilight to deepen the darkness.
and the fog devoured the rest.
He watched, and waited as the victim came to him, a woman leaving from work, fearless and with a grim visage and a resolve to defeat all who stood in her path.

Such sacrilege could not be suffered, for the night was a time of death, and darkness, and cold. the light of the celestial reaches was meant to bless the night and those kin to the night, yet this woman carried the heat of one who lived in the day and one who trespassed in the gloom.
she stopped before him, having only just noticed him and she returned his stare with one of her own, as though daring him to harm her.
He made no moves against her, instead waiting patiently for the inevitable, the inevitable always happened.
there were two kinds of human in the night, those kin to day, with pretenses of hopes and dreams, and those who embraced the night in all its glory, who hid their liberties in darkness and became dark themselves.

as if on cue, a thief appeared from behind a nearby tree in the parking lot near the street they were on, a weapon in his hand.
he knew already that the weapon wasn't loaded, the man was too poor and frail to afford even that, a bluff to hide his desperation.
"give me your money!" he roared hungrily, his eyes glinting in the false light of the nearby street lamp and she saw the gun and cowered.

"How rude." he said, and the figure turned to face the thief. "I was just about to have a nice chat with this lady and you come here with an unloaded pistol to threaten her?"
"And who the fuck are you?" he asked angrily, brandishing the impotent weapon. "this thing's loaded! I ain't messing aro-" with a swipe of his clawed hand he cut the man's throat with his razor sharp talons and slowly his gaze turned to the woman, hellish coals peering forth from the darkness behind his high collar.

"a beautiful night, is it not?" he asked, grinning to reveal two hellishly long fangs, and the woman felt her blood run cold.

The sun rose, and two corpses were discovered by the police early that morning, both drained of blood, a woman's and a man's/ Reports of these facts were suppressed, the police knew of the killer and knew too that there was precious little they could do about him. the "king of the night" as he'd come to be called, had once taken out a swat team without any weapons, he was something no gun, no modern weapon, could possibly defend against, and the police couldn't protect anyone or anything from this enigmatic figure, one who didn't show up on cameras or on footage of any kind, whose image was itself impossible to capture.

the king of the night simply didn't fit into the power paradigm of portland's law and order system, orders in the event that the king was spotted were to shoot on sight in order to distract it from potential victims, but no bullets could kill it.
the king of the night was something nobody could do anything about, they could only suppress proof of his existence and pray the media didn't catch on. if they found out that there was a killer about who could not be killed, the ensuing panic would lead to an assault that would inevitably lead to more casualties than the police were willing to accept.
it was purely a pragmatic decision, the thing was too powerful to be dealt with, there was simply no answer for it, no weapon could kill it, no prison could detain it...it...could not be forced to obey the law, and thus had to exist outside of it.

the most they could do is avoid its usual haunts and find ways to keep people away from areas it frequented in the hopes that somehow, somewhere, the king of the night could be stopped by someone or something.

The next night two officers were reported missing, they'd patrolled the area where the victims had been discovered despite being told to avoid those areas religiously, and when the bodies were recovered, there was precious little remaining to identify as human.


One evening the chief of police received a call from a nearby parking lot, they sometimes got calls like this, where a homeless person wandered into the lot and began breaking into vehicles or was causing trouble, but the person on the other end of the line was panting and gasping as though injured.
"Hello? this is chief jansen speaking, who is this?"

"Jim.....jim lathenger..." the voice rasped. "i....fought...something....it looked like....a...a..man...god.....i'm hurt bad....it's.....it's in bad shape too though....it attacked me while i was patrolling...looks like a guy...but his eyes....his eyes are....like fire...he's down right now...unconscious....i.....fucking hell i might be dying..." a rather wet cough resounded from the phone and he rasped out "Officer.....I.....would...advise against....sending any police...to this lot." he said after an abrupt moment of silence.

"why?" jansen asked, already motioning for the two in the room to listen while he put him on speakerphone.

"the thing...the....god whatever it was...it just disappeared....its body is gone....meaning whatever i did to it...it recovered..."
"what weapons did you use?" the chief demanded. "what did you defend yourself with?"

"defend? I.....god that's complicated...i'm a berserker.....i.....my....adrenaline can....overload and cause my strength to double...i just...flew into a....mad rage and threw him around...broke his arms and legs...but i'm coming down from the high....i'm certain i'll be dead by the time you find me...." another wet cough issued forth and some dripping sounds followed.
"fuck, coughing up my own insides it seems, ha...haha.....oh god it hurts to laugh....anyway....just....send....send someone near the sight..but not...directly to it..understand? whatever that thing was it went.....head to head with me while i was berserk....no normal man could do that....play....play it car.......caref...." the sound of clattering could be heard and his labored breathing rasped out.

"Station....place..." he managed to gasp. "Near station....place garage...."

jansen nodded and snapped his fingers. "get some guys over there, if you can save him, fucking do it, am i clear?!"

they nodded and rushed off to dispatch a small swat team.

Jim remained quiet in the booth he'd been sent to work in, he could tell that the fiend was still out there, crippled, hungry, and desperate. as a berserker he had access to a unique trait where he could overdose on his own adrenaline without immediate negative consequences, this gave an immeasurable boost to his strength that allowed for unbelievable feats of strength, including a momentary resistance to mortal wounds, momentary, but nothing more. if he had his heart torn out while in a berserker rage, he'd still be able to fight for five solid minutes though how or why was unknown. he was also usually the shy sort, preferring to avoid people. He enjoyed graveyard shifts specifically because he didn't have to deal with people and their stupidity. he loathed interacting with them, loathed being around them. although he, ironically, liked people, he was averse to them due to having been betrayed and ridiculed more than any boy should in his childhood. his deep-seated mistrust also led to an almost predatory amount of paranoia, preferring to remain on top of any potential threats, he had a habit of overestimating dangerous foes and not giving them the luxury of tasting victory. if he encountered something he couldn't defeat, he'd try to outwit or out-predator it.
and the man in black was something he was going to need to outfox quickly.
when he'd cast a look at his opponent, he'd seen it laying down in a pool of its own blood due to snapping its legs and arms cleanly and smashing its solar plexus, the fact that it was gone meant that it had outright recovered, and was even now hiding and nursing those injuries.

"alright jim, think..." he muttered to himself. "if i were a vampire, what would...."

Heights, it was above, no doubt hiding in the upper floors, meaning if he passed through the garage doors it'd swoop down on him and devour him right then and there, and though his body was in rough shape from slashes and stab wounds, the greater danger was his coming down from the berserk state. berserkers suffered from a problem where their bodies overcharged their adrenaline, this led to an overexertion that taxed the berserker on a cellular level, his body coming down from the high would mean that he'd need rest for two days, or rather, he'd go unconscious right then and there if he came down all the way, which would get him killed.

he clenched his teeth, he needed to get the drop on his foe, needed to bait it out so he could feed on his adrenaline more, the longer he fought it, the better his chances, hiding would cause him to come down

his eyes widened, that's probably what it wanted! it wanted to make him wait to swoop in for an easy kill! or worse, if he did anything in his weakened state he'd fight it with half of his strength as a berserker.
"think gods dammit...think..."

He couldn't buy time, the police likely didn't have a defense against vampires...and if it was sticking to an upper floor then that meant he could potentially draw it out by simply doing the rounds, walking around, being a sitting duck, it alone would cause his adrenaline to pump just enough to give him even a modicum of strength needed to keep the bastard occupied.

Hunting the hunter was the only way to go here, be the bigger beast. it was a dumbassed method, to be sure, but he was up against a predator that wanted an easier kill, one that preferred to avoid fighting.
he had to fight, to push it out of its comfort zone like before.

gritting his teeth, jim lathinger, son of gadot lathinger, an abusive confused drunkard, son of alecia lathinger, a former corrupt officer, and son of a bitch, made the resolution to face this monster despite knowing he would almost certainly die.

he opened the booth but didn't bother to lock it, he stepped out on the first floor, the pale lights of the low ceiling were casting shadows that seemed to shiver, the air was frightfully cold and his breaths came out in raging hot curtains of fog, which spoke volumes of how hot his internal body temperature must be to allow for that.

flexing his hands, he growled and coughed up more blood, he had ten minutes to get enough adrenaline flowing, ten minutes to be scared and stressed enough to prompt an overcharge, and then he had five minutes to mess this abomination up before he lost his mind to the blood rage.
he could sustain a sentient rage only so long as the adrenaline wasn't pushed too far.

Bait it out, its injured, or at the very least, pissed and hungry, lure it out.
he made his way to the elevator and opened it, as he did so he noted that his own reflection in the glass resembled some sort of demon, his eyes had sunken into their sockets and the rings had only grown wider, yet the eyes seemed to glow with an inner light, not like the coals of his foe, but with the fury of a berserker high on his own adrenaline, his face was smeared with blood and his face was tightened as the muscles jerked and spasmed, giving him an almost demonic appearance.
pressing the button he thought to himself "floor 3" averaging out the likely floors under the assumption that the vampire would choose the 2nd floor first, then decide to move to floor three just to play the ambush safe.
he already expected the vampire to flee to the back of the lot at the mere sound of the elevator rising up, or perhaps wait in ambush in front of the doors, which was good for him.

As the elevator doors opened, he quietly moved to the side of the doors and waited, knowing that a reflection wouldn't help him here instead relied on his hearing, even as his pulse thudded against his skull.

the doors opened and the vampire's hand lanced through to find thin air,
after a moment the talons retracted and it stepped into the elevator uneasily, its legs wobbling.

"YOU'RE MINE!!" he roared, and he grabbed it by the hair, normally the king of the night could resist the pull with all of his strength and reverse it, but a berserker was another matter, and he instead went through the glass and fell below.

racing out of the elevator he initiated the next step of his plan, the standoff, he rushed to the top floor, expecting the interruption of a two floor fall would be enough to buy him a minute before the vampire recovered from the shock and ascended the floors seeking him out.
as he made it to the top floor, the pantheon of portland came into view, its skyscrapers and buildings like a magnificent display of stardust, and the moon glimmered brilliantly overhead.
turning back he saw a shadow in the night sky as it reached its ascent and softly landed, unperturbed by the opinions of gravity.

Jim rolled his shoulder and slowly circled around the vampire, who even now offered only a smoldering stare, it didn't move, it didn't pace, it stood there like death itself, simply waiting.

Waiting, waiting for the overload to come down.
"I hope you brought some snacks, this is gonna be a long night." jim said, but the vampire offered him no words, only a gesture.
He knew right then and there approaching it would be suicide, so he wouldn't approach it.
he turned to a car, it was mercifully small, an uber of all things, the average berserker could outright lift a normal car by a few feet, but an uber could be thrown, and with quite a bit of force.
the trade was, that it would break many bones in his body.

rushing to the vehicle as though trying to make a getaway, he congratulated himself when he heard the vampire take the bait.

"you outta snacks pilgrim?" he shouted, grabbing the uber and swinging it around, his overloaded body performing feats quite beyond a normal man as he swung the vehicle around.
the vampire's eyes went wide and its advance halted as the uber came crashing down on its body, and jim heard several important bones crack immediately.

backing away, he felt his back, which confirmed his worst fears, he'd fractured his spine.
he had to end it quickly, roaring to overload his adrenaline, he shrugged off the crippling injuries and rushed to the vampire, still pinned by the uber even as it struggled with an unamused look on its face, a frown showing from beneath its beard as it paused to consider the berserker hovering above it.
jim grabbed it on both sides of its head and pulled, and the head came off without issue.

a look of unamused surprise evident on its features only made him angrier, and he crushed its face against the stone floor of the garage in a fit of rage.
Backing away from the body, he immediately knew he hadn't won, he'd at most bought himself more time. overestimation would save him here, he knew.
without thinking he made for the elevator, and as he pressed the call button, the sound of the uber shifting confirmed his worst fears.
the vampire wasn't just alive, it was recovering.

"five minutes.." he rasped, and coughed up blood.

"five minutes before it regrows its damned head.
it was a guess, he didn't know for sure, but given the condition of its legs when it tried to kill him in the elevator, he assumed that five minutes was the range of its healing factor.

"gosh...healing factors'd be..mighty handy for berserkers.." he lamented.

two minutes later the elevator came down to ground floor and he staggered out of the garage just as the uber came falling down at the front floor to explode in a blast of fire that knocked him back.

the vampire's body fell down to the ground shortly afterward, and slowly it picked itself up, its head slowly reforming on its shoulders, just enough to make it seem more like a fanged abomination more bat than man, a skull in the shape of a bat's with elongated ears and canines like daggers, the eyes were empty sockets and its face was little more than muscle drawn taut over its newly reformed skull.
jim got up and rushed at it, punching it in the chest with all of his might, and the vampire flew back to catch fire in the remains of the truck.

jim immediately lost his mind right then and there, the injuries and adrenaline triggering a full on blood rage, and he leaped into the fire after his foe, soon the police arrived to a scene of two feral demons locked in mortal combat, jim's clothing burning away as he thrashed at the vampire, repeatedly breaking its legs and arms and tearing them off while the vampire's maw tore into his shoulders with abandon.
jim took the mutilated limb and beat its skull in repeatedly, and the cops could only watch as jim overpowered the fiend and proceeded to tear it apart with his bare hands before opening his mouth to tear into it with his teeth, the sense in the man had fled, now he was lost in the madness of a true blood rage, and unless he came down from it right away, the two police would be in far worse danger.
the vampire punched with its newest arm and sent him flying away, and as it approached him, the police open fired on the fiend.
yet bathed in flames and with its limbs and ribs sundered and crushed, the vampire came on, its face fully reforming into a mask of cool rage, racing after the real rival, the berserker that had dared to mutilate it so violently,

jim rose from the ground, his coat aflame and he raced after the vampire only to have it sidestep him and smack him, sending him spinning into the burning uber.
without thinking, he grabbed the hot steel of the uber's burning frame and threw it again, hurling it into the vampire before rushing in and grabbing the frame and using it as a hammer.
over and over he smashed it into the vampire, over and over he ground the king of the night into the dirt, and the king responded by throwing the car away and rushing at him.
pinning him down, the king went for jim's throat, convinced that its victory was at hand, but just as it was about to finish the job, an alarm on jim's shirt went off, and the vampire turned and glared at it before turning to face jim, who was returning to his senses.

"Just...." He coughed up blood, spitting in its face. "According....to.....keikaku." he grabbed the vampire and with the last of his remaining strength hurled it into the skies as high as he could throw it, which for a berserker peaking at its limit, was well above the five story garage.

right into the light of dawn as it came peering over the edge of the mountains to assail the vampire.

the king of the night suddenly understood that it had been deceived, this entire bout was merely a means to buy time.

time enough for the dawn to take over.

falling now and weakened from the sunlight, but hardly seared or burned, the king of the night hit the ground with a sickening thud.

jim rolled away from it, coughing up more blood and falling to his knees.
the vampire cast him a final, exasperated glare, and vanished into a swarm of bats that flew off into the darkness, retreating from the paralyzing touch of the sun and jim spat on the ground and collapsed, fully expecting death's sweet embrace due to the overexertion.

he awoke a few nights later in a hospital bed, and though he wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, he knew he couldn't.
the vampire was no doubt preparing to finish the job.
when the door opened he fully expected it to be the black clad, bearded man with glowing eyes, but instead it was the police chief, jansen.

"O-gak! o-officer..." he rasped weakly.
"Hello jim." jansen began tentatively. "I heard...from my boys that...you managed to beat the vampire down....quite a feat..."

"i didn't win..." he replied.

"No....but you did scare it...i'd wager." he continued.
"No.....I delayed my death." jim rasped. "I'm a berserker...t-kef! t-that's how i went...toe to toe with it...but my body....oh gods....i'm probably gonna be paralyzed for life....i threw a fucking uber at it...i pushed my body way too far....i should be dead."

"doctors told me you'd not make a full recovery." jansen explained, stroking his mustache. "It's a damned shame too, you could've been a great asset to the force, we've been trying to figure out how to fight that thing for a long time now. guns won't work, nothing works. the "king of the night" effectively rules portland and we've no way to fight it...but you? you thrashed it."

"it was a one-time deal." jim explained. "berserkers don't get second chances when they push their bodies too far officer.....we just....die...or live as cripples..."

"I'm sorry son, but i'm gonna have to ask that you not mention the vampire to anyone. we've had to keep it under wraps to reduce casualties..."

"yeah yeah, i figured that something like that wasn't going...unnoticed....i'll keep quiet...one way or the other." jim muttered, shaking his head. "now get out of here. you're in danger."

"Well you're strapped to a bed!" jansen replied with a light hint of amusement in his voice.

"Yeah, the perfect fucking meal." jim replied and jansen went pale and nodding, left.

Hours seemed to pass as he waited for the inevitable, and soon the door to his hospital room opened a second time, and as it opened, jim sighed.

"took you long enough." he grumbled, as the king of the night entered the room, his eyes glowing like hot coals as he glared at his quarry triumphantly.

"Yeah i got nothing." jim said. "No more tricks up my sleeve, no clever plans or one-liners....i'm tired and i'm not gonna live either way. Take your fucking victory you lout....you've earned it."

the vampire slowly crept forward, hands stretching wide as it reached forward, its prey, helpless, bound to a hospital bed.
the perfect meal.

as it knelt down, slowly inhaling to draw in the scent of its prey it opened its mouth wide to reveal rows upon rows of glimmering fangs.

"Enough with the damned theatrics ya perv." jim growled. "you here to kill me or put on an act?"
the king clamped down on his throat and as it did jim muttered "that makes twice now i beat you."

the vampire's eyes went wide as the pencil jim had taken from the lamp stand was jammed into its chest, yet caught up in its feeding it had no way of retracting, even as the wood went straight into its heart.

jim twisted the pencil and promptly bit down on the vampire's throat, determined to take a victory in these final moments.

and the king of the night realized, to its horror, that it had been outfoxed by a superior predator.
the two broke apart, and the king clutched his throat and tore the pencil out of his chest, gagging on his own blood even as the wood weakened him.
staggering away from jim, who lay on the floor, it pushed the doors open and ran through, desperate to be clear of the hospital before it was attacked. the wood from the pencil had stymied its healing factor,and in so doing, had all but doomed it for the next ten minutes.

a swat team barred off both ends of the hallway and the king raced back into the room and grabbed jim, it hadn't killed him, not yet, but it was going to try after using him as a hostage.

slowly making its way out and holding jim by the throat as it hid behind him, it glared at the officers with their guns leveled at its back and brought its talon-tipped hands to jim's back.

jansen was at the other end of the hallway, arms folded behind his back.

"figured you might've showed up!" he shouted, and the vampire glared at jim.

He'd set this up, it realized.
"release the civilian!"

the vampire put a hand on jim's throat. "I'll kill him!" he warned.

the police seemed to hesitate at that, and the vampire grinned, thinking victory was at hand.

except that jim began laughing.

"silence!" the vampire hissed desperately, driving its fingers into his back.

"Officers, fire on the goddamned vampire, i'm dead either way and you have my permission to shoot through this meatshield if it means killing this son of a bitch!! NOW FIRE!!"

"that's not gonna happen!" jansen replied.
"think officer, why would something immune to bullets be using a hostage!"

"QUIET!!" the vampire snarled, digging deeper.

"look at how desperate it is to shut me up!! it knows goddamned well that its healing factor is either spent or not working....maybe because i jammed a pencil into its heart?"

"SILENCE!!" the vampire roared and its hand went through jim's chest, tearing through his heart, as did, it realized to its own horror, any chances of surviving.

as the police from the front brought up bulletproof shields, the police down back fired, and the vampire could hear jim rasp out "Just....according.....to keikaku."

And the king of the night dropped the corpse of the superior predator and gave a resigned sigh as hot lead tore through its remaining vital organs too fiercely for its weakened healing factor to keep up with.

its hands and body melted into dust and the vampire shook its head, laughing.

"so.....ends the reign...of the current king of the night....all hail the king....." he faded into dust and jansen had a body bag ordered for jim, shaking his head in horror at the loss of life it took to kill this one thorn in his side.


weeks later in the morgue, jim's body went missing, reports were filed by nothing particularly unusual happened in the following days. Jansen considered it a mercy that the end to such a fiend had come at so generous a price, and yet the mystery of just where jim's body had gone was one that had the coroners puzzled, the footage in the morgue only showed the shelf with his body opening, but nothing was inside.