Essentia Animus

15-Revitalized Establishment

Even deep into the night, the three girls kept drifting in and out of consciousness. The silence and stillness of the night tried to assure them that there was nothing to worry about at the moment, but could say very little about the next.

Sryine was still unsure how much of the night yet remained. She remembered stories about a wonderful instrument from the Terran Mythos, something called a clock. She personally didn't remember how it was pronounced, but remembered that it was capable of keeping track of the passage of the day and night both, in very fine measures. Such an instrument would be really handy, but it was impractical. There was no way to keep such an instrument from stopping frequently, making it impossible to reliably track time. To such an instrument, it would appear time had stopped when she stopped focusing on it, including while sleeping. With that in consideration, she wondered how accurate such a clock might have been for this night, with how much sleep seemed to elude her.

She turned around to peer towards the window, measuring if there was even the slightest sign that dawn approached. When she turned she found a pale shimmer floating under the window, seemingly watching the night sky above. Something about the pale shimmer looked almost like a person, much the same way as...

"Ahh!!! A ghost!!!" Sryine's scream woke Vwyx instantly and caused Riyxia to stir slightly in her sleep. The pale form seemed to spin around, also alarmed. Vwyx was partially awake enough to see the figure turn, making her face turn about as pale as the shimmer before them. The form dashed towards Riyxia and faded away as she finally woke up too.

"Why are we screaming in the middle of the night again? What's going on now?" "Riyxia, you missed it, there was.. it was... Wait, are you okay, it kinda drifted towards you." Riyxia was confused as Sryine stammered her reply. It had only dawned on Sryine halfway though that the ghost they saw had gone for Riyxia there. "Okay, let's try again, can you tell me exactly what you saw?" "It was a pale shimmer in the air, taking the vague shape of a person somehow. That same figure seemed to drift into you before disappearing, which has me about as worried as Sryine." "Huh, weird." Riyxia seemed considerably calm given the circumstances, even more so than the salvaged calm Vwyx was calling up in her description. Sryine just stared at the two of them, at a total loss how they might not be bouncing off the wall right now. Of all the creepy things that could have happened, to find out the inn was haunted, too...

"So, the thing you saw, was it kinda wispy as it moved, like the shimmers you would expect from smoke capturing light?" "Ah, yeah, actually. Exactly that." "And you saw two of them?" "What? No, there was only one. Did we miss one of them?" "I don't know, ever since the first day I awoke in the laboratory, that's what I see from the two of you. Even when I turn away, it's like I can still see that same shimmery figure sharing your position behind me. Even walls seem to fail to obscure that pale shimmering mist, I've just grown to accept it in the two of you." Riyxia was in contemplation, pondering why her two friends had suddenly seen the same sort of figure she had always seen in them. Vwyx started losing her composure when presented with the consideration of a missing ghost, but was left blank when the matter was further clarified.

"So that's how it's been the entire time, somehow this makes sense. So, just before we woke you up, how were things for you? Mention whatever you can remember, even if it's weird." "Oh, I was just dreaming about the night sky again, wondering how it might look at this hour." "And in your dreams, what did you see?" "I uh.." "Here, come stand here under the window and look up through it at the night sky." "... this, it looked exactly like this. How.." Sryine seemed to have lost it in that moment, laughing as if her sanity had fled her. Riyxia paused in her own confusion and concern, not understanding anything herself.

"So then, more than wondering why that happened, I think the biggest question is why it hadn't happened before.." "Sryine, you aren't making any sense." "Vwyx, do you see? No, of course not, that's our problem. That shimmer we saw, it's basically a spectre of Ryixia, just as she always sees our own. It's probably still there, shimmering where her body is, but we're two blind to see it, not like she can. Not only does she have the advantage of always being able to see ours, but she can even step free of her body and just walk around as a spectre. Oh by the divine, she's probably even walked around countless times before and no one had noticed. I wonder if anyone else can? Would it have been caused because of the flame that night too, like her father said? She said it felt like a dream, she might have even been walking around every time she dreamed. Oh, oh, ow.." Sryine was so busy contemplating the enormity of the situation that she lost track of where she was pacing, tripping over the middle spare bed in the process. Vwyx was still generally worried about Sryine's sanity, but was starting to put the logic together herself.