Chapter Seven: Vengeance Deferred, The Watcher's Eyes *
The suite in the Imperial Grand hotel was an overpriced statement of stolen success. The thick velvet curtains were drawn, and the air was heavy with expensive perfume and the sweaty tang of lust.
On the silk sheets, Caleb—the beneficiary of the Urca's downfall—was entwined with Serena, the girl whose calculated lie had sent Urca to his grave.
Caleb moved towards Serena, his hands rough on her skin as he pushed her onto the bed. She gasped, arching into his touch as he climbed over her, the mattress groaning beneath them. His fingers dug into her hips, pulling her closer as he positioned himself between her thighs. The room smelled of sweat and desperation, the only sounds their ragged breathing and the rustle of expensive sheets.
He entered her with a sharp thrust, Serena's nails scraping down his back as she cried out. Caleb's rhythm was urgent, possessive—a physical claim over the life he'd stolen. Her legs wrapped around him, pulling him deeper, and he buried his face in her neck, biting down hard enough to bruise. Serena moaned, her fingers tangling in his hair, urging him on.
It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was hidden, but suddenly, the air in the room became inexplicably cold.
Urca arrived in silence. He didn't use the door or the window; he used the space, the shadows, allowing the black, oily influence of Origin to part the molecules of the room. He appeared beside the king-sized bed, standing over them in his horrific, zombified form.
The sight was meant to be unbearable. His face was a gaping ruin, his torso twisted by the force of the mob's final, righteous blows. He stood still, a monument to betrayal and rage, focusing his consciousness to ensure that only Caleb could perceive him.
Mid-thrust, Caleb's rhythm faltered. He blinked, squinting at the flicker at the foot of the bed. A shadow? A trick of the curtains? His mouth went dry.
The figure didn't vanish. It sharpened. Hollow eyes locked on his. A rivulet of phantom blood slid soundlessly down its jaw and spattered onto the carpet, vanishing on contact.
"No," Caleb whispered, shaking his head. "Not real. Just… nerves."
Serena laughed lightly. "Did I scare you? Come back." She pulled at him, oblivious.
Caleb's chest seized. The thing was still there, closer now. And it was smiling. His breath came in shallow gasps, his body frozen in place. A chill sweat ran down his spine. His blood ran cold as his brain short-circuited.
"Did I say something wrong, Caleb? You just froze." Serena giggled, playfully nudging him back to attention. She saw nothing, felt nothing but the sudden, slight dip in the room temperature.
Caleb's lips trembled. He couldn't speak. His eyes darted from the phantom to Serena and back again. She was blind to it. That realization broke something inside him.
He recoiled at last, scrambling backward off the bed. His face paled, mouth agape. Serena stared up at him, flushed and confused. "What's wrong?" she asked, reaching for him.
The ghost's lipless mouth twisted into a smile. It pointed a bony finger at Caleb, then dissolved into nothing. The air turned ice-cold. Caleb trembled, naked on the floor, teeth rattling in his skull.
A heartbeat later, Urca appeared before him, pressing a single finger to his forehead. Caleb's voice tore free at last—a strangled, wet sound thick with terror. His eyes refused to blink, locked on the memory of the rotting face that had hovered inches from his own.
"Get… get away from me! What are you? No! You're dead! You're supposed to be buried!" he choked out, scrabbling backwards on the sheets.
Serena, completely bewildered, grabbed his arm. "Caleb, stop! You're having a bad hallucination. Look, there's nothing there! Just me. Calm down, darling."
"The eyes!" Caleb shrieked, pointing wildly over Serena's shoulder. "The rot! He's come back for me! You did this, Serena! You lied!"
Urca remained utterly silent, his zombie face a perfect mask of frozen hatred. He was simply present, a silent, unkillable consequence of Caleb's wickedness.
Your life was my death. Now, your terror is my feast. This isn't the end, Caleb. It's the beginning of your penance. You profited off a lie, so you will spend the rest of your life arguing with an inconvenient truth. The chilling indifference was part of the punishment. Urca felt a satisfying surge of cold energy—the Totem feeding on the sheer, unfiltered terror.
Miles away, in a cramped, dusty annex of the Church, Father Thomas hunched over a brittle, leather-bound volume labeled Forbidden Apocrypha. He was tracing the vague historical records of the consumed soul.
"'...The Idol of Consumption: it takes not only life but the vital spark, the memory, to fuel its terrible preservation.'" Thomas read aloud, rubbing the deep lines of worry around his eyes. He closed the book sharply, raising a small cloud of dust. "No. Too specific, too ancient. It must be the Soul Eaters. These old texts are sensationalized garbage. But why are they active in a city like ours?"
He sighed, folding his hands and bowing his head in prayer, seeking clarity and protection.
The candle beside him guttered once, though no draft stirred the annex. Thomas's eyes flicked up, weary suspicion in them for a heartbeat. Then he exhaled and closed them again. "Fatigue," he muttered under his breath, returning to prayer.
Unbeknownst to him, a slight distortion formed in the dense shadow behind his high-backed chair. It wasn't a shadow, but the absence of light itself—the faint, abyss-like eyes of the Totem watching with calculating, devious interest. The low, protective field of his prayer, however, acted as a spiritual repellent. He was saved by the very faith that shielded him from the thing he sought.
The Totem lingered, testing the barrier. It could not breach him, not yet. That amused it. The little bug has a strong shell.
Back in the Imperial Grand, Caleb's hysteria had devolved into a raw, animal terror. The sight of the rotting corpse that no one else could see was driving him mad.
"Ghost! Ghost! Lunatic!" he screamed, completely losing control. The noise drew a sharp knock and the voice of the floor manager demanding quiet.
The staff burst into the room—the floor manager and two housekeepers. They saw only a naked, sweating Caleb screaming at an empty space near the window, while Serena scrambled to cover herself, crying.
"Sir, stop screaming! You're terrifying the other guests!" the manager shouted.
Caleb's eyes, however, were fixed on Urca, who remained perfectly still. The irony was palpable: the man who engineered a crime by screaming "Rape" was now institutionalizing himself by screaming "Ghost" at a time when only he could hear it.
"It's him! Don't you see him? The ghost! The rotten… I don't deserve this! Get away!" Caleb was crying now, tears mixing with the sweat and snot. He stumbled backward, desperately trying to put distance between himself and the dead boy. He didn't notice the expensive panoramic window behind him until it was too late.
With a crash of shattered glass, Caleb fell backward. He plunged several stories, his terrified scream cutting off abruptly with a sickening, heavy thud on the pavement below.
Serena rose to her knees, her high-pitched scream cutting through the shocked silence of the hotel staff.
Urca looked down at the ruin below.
So eager to escape… yet he cannot even flee correctly. Honestly, the fall was a bit much. A heart attack would have been less messy for the hotel staff.
But death was too kind. Death was an end.
A surge of the Totem's dark power rushed from Urca's hand. Not to kill, but to prevent the final escape. He focused Origin into a precise, cold spike, forcing Caleb's fleeing soul back into the dying, shattered body.
No. Death is too clean. You will live with the knowledge of what you have seen, and you will recover only to suffer a little more. You will be a wreck, a gibbering lunatic who tried to escape a hallucination, forever trapped by the cost of your betrayal.
The life light surged back into Caleb's eyes—a flicker of agony mixed with absolute, paralyzing fear. He was alive, for now.
Urca smiled, satisfied with the terror he had sowed, and vanished, leaving behind the shrieking Serena, the panicking hotel staff calling ambulances, and a man who would survive to wish he hadn't.