Lenore
I didn’t sleep that night. I had been sleeping for years already, and I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t in my old room. I didn’t know what had happened to it, or all my stuff. Matron had become short with me for asking. All I had was the sword I’d been stabbed with. I had held on to it, and no one had tried to take it from me. Besides, I figured having a sword was better than having nothing at all.
It was difficult to even tell when the morning came. The sun was dimmer. It sat low in the sky, dull and orange, the few times I was able to spy it through gaps in the muggy clouds.
I waited for the breakfast bells to bring everyone to the dining hall, but the temple remained quiet and sedate, even as the morning wore on. Finally, I lost my patience and left of my own accord.
There was no one in the hallway, except for that ghoul. The same one that I’d seen when I was unsealed. She was standing right outside my door.
“You!” I said, surprised, my voice loud in the quiet of the hallway.
I got a good look at her semi-human face, a twisted mix of simian and feline. From what I could see she had all-black fur. An ugly creature, to be sure, but the kind of ugly that was kind of cute. She didn’t really look like the ghouls I’d fought in the past. She looked small and tame in comparison.
The ghoul bolted as soon as she saw me, nearly tripping over the hem of her tatty brown robe in her rush to escape. I followed her as fast as I could, but I wasn’t really up for running yet, and I only made it a few paces before I was forced to slow to a walk.
They had stuck me at the end of the hallway, but the ghoul was much faster, and nearly silent. I only caught a flash of movement as she turned a corner. By the time I reached the other end of the hallway, the only sign of the ghoul’s passage was a softly swinging door. I burst through it to find an empty stairwell, with no sign of the ghoul. I looked around, half expecting to see that cat face looking down at me from the floor above.
Was that monster following me?
I backed away from the still, silent stairwell, suddenly self-conscious, and half-expecting an ambush. She might be smaller than the ghouls I’d fought, but she still had sharp teeth and claws. And she was a monster. They’d slaughter us all, Lydia had said. That had always been true, but why invite them into your house, then?
The itchy feeling of being watched didn’t subside as I left the dorm and made my way into the temple proper. It looked almost the same, but I felt the lack of people in my heart.
At one point, I thought I saw a person, sweeping in the great room but when I rushed up in excitement, i I saw it was another ghoul, one with striped tabby fur. A different one than the one from earlier, at least.
He stopped what it was doing and looked at me with a blank, animal stare. He had a collar as well, and it made him breathe loudly, like it was too tight. I tried to recognize the runes, but I still couldn’t remember them.
“Uh, sorry.” I said awkwardly and walked away quickly. I looked back and saw the ghoul had gone back to sweeping. How many of those things were there, anyway?
I reached the kitchen, which was still in the same place, and was greeted with the sight of even more ghouls, and one human. The ghouls were hard at work, peeling vegetables and stirring pots, but aside from the clanging of pots and pans, it was eerily silent. The woman stoked the large hearth on the opposite end of the room, and she stood immediately when she saw me.
“You must be Lenore. Hello!” She said merrily. She waded through the ghouls, shoving the monsters out of her way carelessly.
“Hello.” I said, nonplussed. I’d never seen this woman before, but clearly she already knew who I was.
The woman, who introduced herself as Daphne, wasted no time in furnishing me with some bread. She was clearly happy to have someone to talk to, and she answered my questions as best she could.
Daphne told me a little more about the esurient-sickness had swept from city to city, and how many of the ones that didn’t change were killed by the ones that did. She herself had been a young child during those times, and there was a lot she didn’t remember.
Esurient-sickness had been a problem during my time, too, except it was hard to catch, and it was easy enough to kill off anyone changed by the ravages of the disease before they fully turned and infected others. That had changed shortly after I was sealed away. The outbreaks had started in Mizure City and had spread more easily than before, changing humans from into ravenous beasts in hours, not days.
I looked a little closer at the ghouls around us. Did I know any of them? They were so changed that I couldn’t tell.
“Don’t worry about these guys, the yoke makes them tame.” Daphne told me, misinterpreting my not-so-furtive glances for fear.
“How does that work?” I asked. I heard a crash behind me, and felt a spatter of something hot. I turned to see one of the ghoul workers had dropped a pan of food.
“Perfect. Watch this.” Daphne said, her smile turning sharp. The ghoul made no motion to clean up the mess, and merely stood there, staring at the roasted vegetables strewn across the floor.
The ghoul was taller than Daphne, but it cringed visibly when Daphne grabbed it’s arm, her sweet countenance turned mean. The runes on the side of the ghoul’s yoke grew white-hot.
“You’ve spilled food on our guest. And remember what I said about wasting food?” The ghoul’s eyes went wide and then dull and it began to pant and tremble, clearly with pain. Daphne remained standing there, her gaze stony, as the ghoul’s loud panting turned into choking. The other ghouls kept working, ignoring the plight of one that had drawn Daphne’s ire.
“It’s okay. I didn’t get hurt or anything.” I supplied uncomfortably, trying to placate Daphne. I must have done something, though, because the ghoul thankfully stopped gagging. Daphne released the ghoul, looking slightly irritated at me.
“Our guest has given you mercy. Clean this up before it runs thin.” she told the ghoul viciously. “I would have kept him there for longer, honestly. That’s the only way they learn.” Daphne sat back down, her face flushed. My emotions must have shown on my face, because she quickly added, “Don’t worry, it won’t kill them. They heal really fast.”
I nodded numbly, like what Daphne had done was normal. Daphne resumed our conversation like it hadn’t been interrupted, but I couldn’t get out of that kitchen fast enough.
I avoided speaking to both the humans and the ghouls that I saw around after that.
It seemed as if the ghouls had been well-integrated into temple life. The few humans about had at least one ghoul assisting them in their tasks. The humans I saw around acknowledged me, me but the ghouls were happy enough to keep their heads down and ignore me in kind. Occasionally, I heard a ghoul choking, and more than once, getting beaten. Aside from the horrid choking, the ghouls never made noise.
Keeping monsters as slaves was bizarre to me. In my day, they were so rare and dangerous that they would have been killed off immediately, but that still seemed kinder than keeping them how they were now. It was hard to stomach the casual cruelty the humans showed towards the captive ghouls.
In my bid to avoid others, I made my way up to my mother’s observatory.
It was clearly in a lesser-used part of the temple, and I found the door barred by a pile of moldering furniture that took the better part of an hour to clear a path through, since I kept having to stop for breaks. But at least no one came across me while I did it. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally managed to force the sticky door open and step out onto the wide, covered balcony.
The large telescope that had once been there was missing entirely, but the height still gave me a good view of the landscape that was no longer familiar to me.
Of the three towns that were visible from the temple, only one remained. The other two had long since been retaken by the forest, and from this distance there were no traces to be seen. But even the forest looked different. The trees were darker and wilder, swallowing what little traces of human settlement that remained.
I felt the little hairs prickle on the back of my neck. I turned around to see that same ghoul that I had met the day I’d woken up. Now I knew it was somebody; possibly even somebody I grew up alongside. Whoever it was, I didn’t recognize her. She’d been following me around ever since, but she always ran away when I noticed her watching me, or if anyone else.
“Hey. Come here.” I hissed, forgetting she had to do what I said. She stopped, foot slightly raised as she was prepared to flee. She didn’t seem particularly vicious as she came over with her gaze averted. All the ghouls I’d seen acted afraid of the human population.
My stalker was easy to tell from the others because she was so much smaller, shorter than me, even, but I was tall, except with much longer limbs, and a thick tail. Whoever she’d been before, it was impossible to tell.
“Why are you following me?” I demanded. “Who are you? Did you see who pulled the sword out of me?”
She looked at me, her eyes big. They were holly red and had pupils like a cat’s.
Her mouth dropped open and for a moment I thought she would say something. But she didn’t make a noise. It was futile. Monsters couldn’t talk.
On a whim, I reached for my magic and cast the only spell I had, [Reveal]. The real problem with [Reveal] was that it would only work on people I knew already.
The ghoul’s ears went back, and she crinkled her nose, but the spell didn’t fail. The information from [Reveal] appeared in my tome, and the words appeared in my mind’s eye immediately:
[Reveal]
Name: Ayda
Race: Ghoul
Class: None
Level 1
“Ayda?” I read out loud, immediately angry and confused. The name immediately brought up memories from my childhood. Of course I remembered Ayda. She’d been the only other priestess who had been both close to my age and magic level. Unlike me, she didn’t have a goddess mother who granted her levels and new skills just because she was in a good mood that day. She was simply skilled at healing. It was hard for me not to feel inadequate. Our relationship had been... contentious.
I barely looked at the rest of the information. At such a low level, [Appraise] didn’t tell me much more than the basics.
“Ayda--” It felt kind of wrong to call a ghoul that. I reached for her sleeve, and she backed up like my touch would hurt her. She turned and ran, and I was left feeling oddly empty.
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