The tiny village of del Sol was even smaller than the nearly nameless Village where I called home. Just one petrol station and a pub, and that was it. Everything else was hidden in the woods. It was ten miles to Plainview and ten miles to Covington, the middle of nowhere that you drove through while going somewhere else.

There were hundreds of people living in the surrounding area, but you would never see them unless you drove onto a potholed backroad to find them. Farmers with a few dozen or a couple hundred acres to tend, raising soybean and corn mostly, but some had cattle or sheep and I knew of two peculiar individuals who raised emu and blueberries respectively. I allowed myself to relive a fond memory of spending a day at the blueberry farm while visiting with my family, hauling away buckets of ripe berries with blue-stained fingers and faces. My memory seemed to be getting funny, as I could recall that day with crystal clarity, like reliving a movie. Even the fight with Sylvia over me paying the farmer a bit extra for all the blueberries we had consumed while filling our baskets. I wonder if I still have any of that blueberry jam left in the cabinets?

The sun had sunk far into the west by this time, and only a couple hours daylight remained. A long bridge crossed the Chitto river just past del Sol and I planned to make camp on the other side of the bridge. As I came near the city limits of del Sol, a man emerged from the bushes holding a bow. Two days! Literally two days have passed since the Event and there are already highwaymen. I didn’t know whether to be saddened by how fast people had sunk into savagery, or impressed.

I yanked the arrow from the bow with one tentacle and sent him sprawling on his ass with the other. “You picked the wrong day to fuck with someone,” I snarled.

Pain shot through my torso as something smashed into my back. I looked down to see an arrow sticking out of my chest. Shocked, I poked at it with a finger. Another punched through my gut and I tumbled from the saddle to impact on the hard asphalt below.

“Get the horses!

Sparky and Miguel were a worried knot of emotion in the back of my mind. I screamed at them mentally to run while I concentrated on not passing out from shock.

“Gawd Damnit!” Another voice yelled. “They’re running away! Get ‘em!”

At least three attackers. I could handle this easily if I could just catch my breath. I grunted and pulled at the arrow sticking out of me, my fingers fumbling around the bloody shaft. A boot in the kidney caused me to scream in agony, black stars swimming before my eyes. Rough hands rolled me over, presenting an unwashed face wearing a scraggly beard. The eyes were animalistic, a feral yellow in colour like a wolf’s. He grinned at me with a mouth stained brown by tobacco juice.

“Careful, Jim” Someone yelled. “I think he’s like Mike. My arrow flew outta my hand like magic.”

The grin vanished, replaced by a look of fear. He pulled out my knife from its sheath and thrust it into my chest.

* * * * *

I floated over my body, watching while two of my attackers chased after the horses. The other one rifled through my pockets, relieving me of my wallet, guns and knife, then dragged my body over to the ditch and left me for dead. At least I had company with the other two bodies already there.

The golden glow of my aura swirled around the damage, slowly sealing up the knife wound with green sparks, pushing against the broken arrows still lodged in my chest and gut. It would probably be damn painful if I were conscious. My forehead was a blaze of light beating in time with my heart, pulling in filaments of my aura and sending waves of gold over my body.

Reaching down with spectral fingers, I tried to grasp one of the arrows and pull it out. My fingers kept slipping through it, no matter how hard I concentrated. If I wasn’t an emotionless astral body, I would have howled in frustration. Grabbing the silver cord that tied me to my body, I was about to yank it and take my chances on waking up when a thought occurred to me. I can push energy down the cord, so can I pull some out?

Holding that thought, I focused on reversing the flow of my aura, pulling some of the golden energy out of my body and into my spirit. Amber light crept up the silver cord and into me, making me feel more alive, more substantial. I reached out for the arrow, and this time I was able to grasp it and pull it free. I pulled out the second one out and the amber aura sloshed around the wounds and began healing them with green motes.

I watched as the white glare in my forehead began to steady itself and fall into a stable pulse, the accretion disk around my spark flaring as it fed motes into the source of my power. Satisfied with the progress so far, I turned my attention to the horses. Two silvery threads lead away from my navel to the horses, who had stopped running and were watching the thieves approach.

I suppose I should be more specific about running next time I issue a command, like ‘keep running until you’re tired’. The comment about ‘Mike’ had me both worried and curious, so I decided to gather more information before taking action. Mike was like me, Goon #1 said. Just what sort of psychic powers did he possess, and was he the leader of these filthy bastards?

The aetheric form I was in had no sensory connection to the material world, so I couldn’t hear them talking as they tossed the contents of my saddlebags and pawed through my possessions like animals. I watched calmly, divorced from emotion, detached as they squabbled over my belongings then stuffed it all back on the horses.

I could observe them though, watching their auras shift colours around them as their emotions changed. What interested me most was the black filaments running from the coal-black spark in Brown-teeth and threading through his body like veins or nerves. I’d seen corruption like that before, with the Porcuweiler. The man wearing a red baseball cap had a blue spark in his chest with no signs of corruption, but his companion wearing a tight blue polo shirt was filled with it, veins of corruption spread through his body from the black spark in his chest. [1]

I floated around the trio to get a better look at them, noticing that both Blue-shirt and Brown-teeth possessed feral animal eyes and bodies that made me believe they were devoted gym-rats. Brown-teeth was wearing my Stetson. You know, maybe I can feel emotion in this state, because I’m a bit irritated right now.

There seemed to be some argument among them, possibly about me because Brown-teeth pointed in my direction. The argument came to a conclusion when Red-cap clumsily swung up on Miguel, prompting Blue-shirt to mount Sparky. Brown teeth argued with them for a moment, then swung up and rode bitch behind Blue-shirt.

They rode to where my body lie in the ditch, then Red-cap pulled out his bow and shot an arrow into my gut. Dismounting, he walked over and yanked it out, along with a yard of intestine before wiping it on my shirt and returning to Miguel. Believing I was dead, they rode up to Marcus road and turned off the main highway.

Hovering near my injured body, I examined the new damage. If I had emotions, I would be shitting myself at this point. Punctured and exposed intestines is a slow death sentence without stitches and strong antibiotics. I wondered if my healing abilities included built in antibiotics. Of course it did. Right? Right. Have some faith in these new ghoulish super powers.

Directing my aetherial hands to my exposed gut, I tried pushing them back in, focusing until I had managed the grim task. The golden glow surrounding my body immediately concentrated in the area, throbbing in time with the white pulse in my forehead. Detached from the reality of the situation, I trusted my spark to manage the healing and floated up and away from my body.

I followed the three bastards down Marcus road, which passed by the abandoned Green Acres Pecan Farm. I remember visiting it as a child, long before I had my falling out with my father and moved overseas. It was one of the few good memories that I had of those times. Why do we always remember the bad stuff so clearly, but the happy times are so vague?

After a mile or so, the cord in my navel began to pinch uncomfortably. By the time they turned onto Mizell road, it was a miniature sun burning in my ghostly gut. I pulled more of the amber juice from my material body and the pain receded to a tolerable level. When they turned off and started down a dirt driveway, I floated back to my body.

Golden waves pulsed over my material form in time with my breathing. I probed closer and observed the healing process, watching the damaged flesh knit together with each breath. Impatient with the slow process, I willed it to go faster. Heal everything! Heal faster! Get a move on! I’d be ranting if I had emotions, but this alien, emotionless existence didn’t allow for it. I was a dispassionate observer, urging the mysterious forces in my body to work harder.

As the accretion disk of motes swirling around my spark depleted, [2] I tapped into my body fat to ease the price. I could sense the bill being paid — Lung puncture, repaired. Lacerated liver, repaired. Torn intestines, repaired. Cracked pelvis, repaired. Contusions, lacerations, concussion, skin, repaired. The butcher’s bill kept climbing as the minutes crept by. Muscles, enhanced. Bones, strengthened. Joints, repaired. Teeth, growing. Scalp, rejuvenated.

I am going to rise up from this ditch and rain down despair like an angry god.

As the repairs to my body accelerated, the spark in my forehead lost its brilliance, slowly fading. I felt… thirsty.

I sank down into my body slowly, like I was putting on a skin suit. After a moment of disorientation, I opened my eyes and ground my false teeth together.

There was a reckoning to be had.

* * *

Footnotes

1. Possibly proto-orcs, not fully evolved into Orcs as we know them today.

Orcs (Homo sapiens aprum) Status: Sapient. These muscular humanoids possess greenish skin, yellow eyes, and tusks that constantly grow which must be filed down. They are known to be belligerent and war-like, gathering in hierarchal societies ranked by strength. Oddly, they are very protective of children, even those of other races, and will avoid harming them.

See Also: “Orcish Society” by George F. Hopton

2. Living things collect mana through respiration and ingestion, which is carried through the bloodstream where it concentrates in the brain or heart, forming a seed that grows into a mana stone. A cloud of mana will gather around this seed, feeding it and enlarging it over time. The creation of a mana accretion disk will naturally occur over time and allows for increased growth and on-demand power for spells.

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