The Melting Mind of One Fictum Ernest

Cycle 4: The Wilting Florist

when I finally rouse my entire body felt like a cookie made with too much milk, wet and soft. After a few moments, my eyes dilate enough to make out shapes in the darkness encircling me, for a moment I wasn't sure I had come back from the abyss yet. I feel no bindings on my limbs but, like I was trying to move in a from fitting coffin. I could make out the vague form of someone sat in a chair surrounded by crates or maybe something covered in a tarp the details are too muddy in the pitch black, but I can't let my mind get too creative with this blank canvas.

"morning Fictum, did you sleep well?" a familiar voice rung through my ears alerting me to how much they hurt.

"honestly? No; not in the least. who are you?" I feel my fingers finally twitch with a herculean effort, but it isn't enough to work with.

"do you not remember?" the amorphous humanoid shadow rose before walking past me to roll up the blinds that had been blocking out the orange light of dusk. The now illuminated room is coated with red paint; just gonna call it paint for my mental health. the substance composed symbols and pictures of nonsense, or maybe I just couldn't read them in my state. The figure rounds back to their chair perching on the edge, in the light I could see Alexi's face. My brain had experienced some decent rattling since I last seen Alexi, but I thought it had been a few days, they looked to have aged a thousand years from the look in their eyes (you just pick the best people to piss off) "well Fictum. I spent so time researching, learning more about your kind" Alexi scratches their jaw with the iron sights of the revolver they held, (smith and Wesson model 14, uses 38 special)

"what are you- "it would appear my request for elaboration was a step too far.

"NO! I'm not letting you mess with my head, I know what you are I've proven it, your not human so don't act like it" I think it is best if I leave them talk to themselves for a bit, any interjection is going to result in escalating tension "you know what I've been doing all day? I've been killing you. Acid, poison, even had some pit bulls rip you apart" Alexi grabs my shoulder, and it gives way like putty "and yet... here you are."

"I noticed" what is with my compulsion to flap my stupid gums. Alexi takes a few steps back "Draugr, revenants, dead men walking" they traced the barrel of the gun along a folder in their hand "sound familiar Upiór?" I don't think this is going to end well, but I feel as though silence will make it end worse.

"yeah- something like that" I cough up something I could not begin to identify while Alexi takes a calming breath, chewing on the revolver's wooden grip.

"how do you do it?"

"wha- "

"defy death! How?" I had misread their earlier outburst, it was desperation not anger in their voice.

"well. Y'know..." (I'm all ears Fictum) "it's more of an art than a science" they did not appear overly pleased with my answer, their eyes betraying a concoction of emotions I wouldn't imagine going together, fear, intrigue, fury bound by a glue of panic.

"Fictum I am willing to do anything to have what you have" Alexi thumbed back the hammer of there revolver before easing it back into place "Fictum, I've look everywhere and while ritual sacrifice seems the most achievable but I don't want a new soul" Alexi bunched up a manila folder along with it's contents before spiking it into a tin of indistinguishable food stuffs "I need my soul to be deathless!" the crumpled folder unfurled as Alexi continued screaming at me, the document held inside showed a mangled corpse alongside a description of what would seem to be a ritualistic murder, wavy dagger and all. I read and reread the passage as it unfurled from it's crumpled state which is when the gibbering of Alexi pushes some pieces into place new soul, ritual, the enneagram, the whole bloody thing. My days prior were screaming at me the answer and it was so stupid and nonsensical, but what has? I should be dead, some lanky monster crashed through a brick wall in my context it made perfect sense.