» Hauntings & Healings

Erebos

The fiend should’ve been used to ghosts. He spied them in his dreams as they suffocated him, gnarled hands, knotted coils clasping over his throat, calling his name into the throngs, the bewitching arts of damnation. He saw them from the corner of his eyes as he wandered, the few he couldn’t help, couldn’t save, or couldn’t protect. He witnessed them when he stared into water, his father’s eyes mirroring back as his, or his mother’s gentle grace in the bloom of a rainstorm, of a tempest, of a squall. But when the wraiths glimmered, when the phantoms shuddered, grew and thrived on his misery, on his melancholy, on his anguish, grief, and acrimony, the twisting, turning revolutions of rage, he still couldn’t bear to look away.

The fog inspired those wafting wails, those poignant images, and he stood in the silence, allured first by screams and shouts, then stilled, stranded, caught in the crossfire. Now he was ensnared by the potency, by the fervency, by the awakening stones and souls who were dead, gone, perished, smothering his soul, stifling his movement.

He could name them all – little Arwen, never able to grow past her first birthday, bloodied and stained, asking, calling, screeching to him in hideous waves: Why haven’t you done anything? She kept crying, and his heart raced, his chest throbbed, his mind scurried to conform, mouth parted on a fiendish whisper, “I tried.” It sounded so fake, so pathetic, like he’d done anything at all, and before he could whittle away at her appearance, beg a spirit for forgiveness, more struck at him, blow for blow. There was Ode, his head detached, bellowing at him All you did was run and Aithniel, all embers and flames, fire and fury, casting her proffered speech with ardent decibels and relentless umbrage Weak, you were so weak, Erebos. It was enough to make him break, to make him shatter, to make him unravel at the seams, and he could anticipate the ground rushing at him, his knees shuddering before they gave out, his breath a hostile inhale and exhale, gasping, clawing for a redemption they couldn’t give him. He’d never had time to mourn, time to plead, time to say he was sorry, he was so sorry he couldn’t do anything to liberate, deliver, or save them. It was a losing battle, one where he’d held the knife, the sword, the shield, but done naught – the cutlass clean, the heartlessness real, tangible, and unrelenting.

Orsino, who’d been silent, who’d been quiet for so long, suddenly carved his way through the streamlined hallucinations, the nearly-formed tears, the cavalcade of horrors and terror.

Fight.

The scion swallowed, looking up into the crowded mists where the foils of his youth had gathered, where their wispy entities preserved his guilt, his follies, his inability to do anything for anyone – valor and gallantry that had been empty, useless, and inept. Not real, the kitsune spoke again, as if it took him great effort, gravelly and hissing, and in some part, Erebos knew it was true, but in another, he knew these demons had been granting him veracity too. He’d never been enough.

He rose, not a titan, not a soldier, but just a being immersed in too many raw, iniquitous things, broken, beaten, haunted. His mind funneled down to the simple act of violence and animosity, unleashed the havoc, the upheaval, the sedition stoked between his spirit and his soul – forced the tenors of his darkness to wash over his proximity. The youth wanted them gone, wanted them banished (but knew it was impossible – they were already stuck there, waging war in his head) – tried to send their demonic entrails back to their commander, tried to make them turn and coil elsewhere, tried to make them feel the reflection of his pain and torment.

I'LL SHOW YOU HOW GOD | FALLS ASLEEP ON THE JOB
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{tries to use his mind altering magic to send the ghostly little demons away}