twenty. text. backdated to monday.

[goryteller]

In the 1940s, rumor has it that a prisoner on the island of Alcatraz was killed by a ghost.

Back in those days (unlike these days), they had isolation chambers called hole cells where the prisoners were kept in near darkness for weeks on end. "Bang bang bang," one prisoner cried and pounded. "Someone's trying to murder me in here." But the guards thought he was hallucinating, as those being tortured with solitude tended to, and so they did nothing. When the prisoner stopped screaming, they were quite content until they opened the cell and found that he was dead. He had markings on his neck. Strangulation. No one else was in the cell.

Ghost stories have a sort of charm, don't they? Whether or not you believe them, I mean. I don't generally because we didn't have imports back then and because the living can be fucking horrible enough. I'm certain one of the guards killed him and thought they had a clever way of covering it up. Which they did.

I wonder what the prisoner's crime was. But I don't even have a name.

I know I would take death as a legacy if nothing else.

Comments

[necronarmicon.livejournal.com]

Oh -- yes. I'm an amnesiac. I know a little about my past self, from parts of my diary I've found. From memories creeping back. I would rather not.

[goryteller]

[Pause.]

Why not?

[necronarmicon.livejournal.com]

His was not a happy life. It was full of things best left forgotten. And now I am cursed with his monsters.

[goryteller]

Most of us are taxed with things best left forgotten. His-- his monsters, do you think that's why bad things happen to you? Do you think that's what the curse is?

[necronarmicon.livejournal.com]

I know so. He left me to pick up his pieces.

I don't know if you want to hear the story. My ghosts are real.

[goryteller]

I always want to hear the story.

private I AM SO SORRY FOR THE CANONSPAM :(

[necronarmicon.livejournal.com]

[after a moment of fumbling to private, now that he doesn't have bruno's autoencrypt to do it for him--]

Bear in mind this is through what meager notes I've read.

My previous self was an archaeologist. During a trip to Algeria, my colleague, Herbert, led our expedition to a temple long buried underground. Inside of it was a fantastic artifact of immense power and mystery. I was unfortunate enough to be the one to discover it. I was caught in a cave-in, and it saved my life, though even now I know not how.

But it also doomed me.

What I did not know at the time was that this artifact, the Orb, came with a guardian. Some things are not meant for simple men, and judge our worthiness by devouring those too weak to deserve them. I was from that day forward a hunted man, pursued restlessly by the Orb's protector: the Shadow. It cut a swathe of destruction straight through to me, even as I was sent back to London to recover after my ordeal. Herbert and his men was never seen again. Men I had met only the day before were found dead, their skin flayed, their skulls cut through the middle.

[there's a marked hesitation here, he's unsure how much he wants to say about Castle Brennenburg, about Alexander. but no, it's too risky. too much of a lie to pretend he's not complicit. best to gloss over it. (also of note, the sudden disassociation.)]

He found he could not run forever. He had seen too much to even run anymore, and chose to forget. This was in a sense both my birth, and the beginning of my death. I tried to escape as best I could, finding out the sordid tale secondhand from my scattered diaries. But the Shadow is unstoppable, insatiable. My entrance to the City was my revival after the Shadow took what it considered its due.

And yet, it pursues me still. Even here, years and dimensions away.