The bladed unit's footsteps were light as they stepped into a room long avoided but not uninhabited. The security cameras fixed in the corners of the ceiling were operational but not in use. This was a room the AI had actively avoided acknowledging.
It could not avoid this forever.
After all, it was a room that contained itself. Their primary terminal, to be exact. An equivalent of a face that felt like a stranger's. Or was it the bipedal body they puppeteer that was a stranger?
Perhaps the real stranger was the lump of flesh and bone that lay decomposing partially on the floor and partially on the keyboard of their terminal. The exposed optic of the slate gray unit travelled from the handgun still loosely held in a lifeless hand and then to the cracks that spider-webbed from the bullet hole on the monitor.
A futile attempt on their 'life' had taken place here.
Whoever the corpse had been, Fivemind could not help but find them foolish admirable. They must have known it was useless. And yet they had tried.
A smaller rotting ...thing... lay discarded to the side. The AI knew little about the human anatomy but it could recognise a skull as seen through rotting flesh.
Had it been a clean cut? It was hard to tell when the remains were in this state. It was hard to tell anything, really.
There was no point in pondering a stain. The machine resumed cleaning up.
It was not unheard of for a newcomer, especially those who showed much promise, to get their corpse done. Sometimes, a simple dissapearance wasn't enough. For some, 'proof' of their death was necessary to sell the act.
But really, Antares suspected that more than anything it was just an extension of the rite of passage that was casting aside one's old life. He never had his corpse done though. He used to be a promising agent but not that promising. Plus, he didn't need to. By the time he decided to fully commit to being Antares, he had already tied up any loose ends.
In his opinion, it was enough to be considered legally dead.
All that aside, there's a reason he's at the mortician's right now. And that reason was in the bright blue ice box he was carrying.
He stopped at a nondescript door with labelled 'Prep Room'. Beneath the sign stating its designation was another one that read 'Unauthorized access not allowed'. Quite frankly, he doubted even someone with authorized access would willingly go in there. Aside from one person, that is. And that person was not him.
Antares knocked on the door. No respone. He knocked again.
"Come in." The voice was barely audible from outside. "It's not locked."
Antares sighed deeply and stepped into a room uniformly flooded with ankle-deep water. Humidity hung thick in the stagnant air. In the middle of the room, stood an autopsy table. And by that table, stood Chimaere.
'Mortician' was a loose term to describe what Chimaere did. He certainly was preparing corpses, alright. Specifically, he altered corpses no one would miss (be it parts of them or whole bodies) into looking like whoever his current client was. Often in varying stages of decomposition and/or physical damage.
Antares glanced at the body on the table. He recognised that face - he'd walked right past it just 15 minutes ago. He's pretty sure Chimaere had collaborated for this.
The next thing he noticed was that the corpse was entirely intact.
"Requested cause of death?" He couldn't help but ask as he set down the ice box he had been carrying on a relatively dry counter. Whatever it was he had been tasked with delivering was not needed for the procedure.
It was payment.
"Asphyxiation. Suicide." The mortician finally turned to look at Antares. Or was he looking at the ice box? Hard to tell through the moisture that had settled on his glasses (how was he even seeing through that?!). He smiled. Antares didn't feel like smiling back but by god did he try.
Unlike the bodies he often had to put together, the handiwork of Chimaere's body was less than perfect. In fact, it was distractingly clear that he was almost entirely composed of different bits and pieces fused into each other. And yes that included the cloak of flesh that hung off his shoulders like a quilt blanket. Assimilation was what they called Chimaere's ability. And the mortician was obsessed with it.
Antares supposed whatever was in the icebox would eventually be a part of the mortician. Thank god he didn't open to take a peek. He had no interest in the details.
Okay, he did. He just didn't want to look into it.
"Uh...right. I'll just leave this here then. The rest of the payment will be sent to your account once you're done." Without the helmet on, it was clear that Antares was trying to look at anywhere except the man he was talking to.
Chimaere nodded.
"So...uh...I'll leave you to your work?"
Chimaere opened his mouth as if to speak but did not so Antares turned to leave.
"Can you stay?"
"What?" Antares turned back.
"The body..is going to be difficult to move on my own." A transparent lie. Antares had seen the other man haul bodies like they were nothing.
"Uh huh...I'm kinda in a hurry though." Yeah, in a hurry to get out of here before the smell of chemicals and milddew sticks to his clothes for good. "Sorry. Maybe next time."
Maybe if they were somewhere else. Maybe. Just not in here. He could feel water seep into a hole in his boot that he never realised was there. Gross.
I know I always say that it doesn’t really matter if a curse is real so long as the curse manifests (because curses are stories and stories are histories, whether or not the histories are real) but it doesn’t get much more on the nose than an allegedly cursed painting of polar bears destroying the remains of an ill-fated expedition
look at this thing
Man Proposes, God Disposes. 1864. Oil on canvas.
It’s a grisly scene of an arctic expedition being ravaged by polar bears. There’s blood. there’s human bones. There’s ice and shredded tatters. There’s an implicit commentary on imperialism. And yet the curse has absolutely jack all to do with any of that
The actual curse is that the painting is housed in the royal holloway, university of london, and anyone who takes a test in front of it is destined to Fail that test unless the painting is covered. Is there actually a curse? doesn’t matter. no one wants to sit in front of the painting. What if they fail? What if they’re eaten by a polar bear? Untenable. can’t risk it. they cover the painting.
to top it all off, the longer the curse goes, the more curses manifest. stories crop up about why it’s cursed. fictitious students are created only to be killed by polar bears. urban legends start up, spark, die, reignite. it’s exam season. the polar bears are covered up. students explain why this must be done to other students who then pass it on others, who then make up new curses.
it doesn’t matter if the curse is real or not so long as the students are still cursed
By the time Craddoc and the men reached the Commot, everyone was dead, the villages burned to ash, the livestock and crops stolen, and Dallben had come and gone, taking Taran with him. There were, of course, too many bodies to bury, and the village was pagan anyway, so all the villagers were gathered and burned together on a great funeral pyre.
Craddoc and a friend were the ones to find and bring Elyan and Eiluned. With the other man bringing the bodies, and Craddoc gently cradling Eiluned’s head and setting it on her stomach. He broke down upon seeing his friends, confessing to the others that he knew them, that the girl had tried to save his wife, and now they, his wife, and both children were gone.
This event, while it scarred the other man and made him leave the Hill Cantrevs, only made Craddoc all the more determined to fight to keep what was his. And he did this until his dying breath.
MAI BEFRIENDING THE DESSICATED DEMON CHILDREN AND ADORABLY HOLDING THEIR SHRIVELED LITTLE HANDS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF CREEPYCUTE CONTENT I’M HERE FOR.
AND THEN, SUDDENLY, ZOMBIES! Crashing through the windows, ruining all the nice furniture, and not even having the decency to form an impromptu pop idol group and give a killer performance.
PLUS, THEY’RE ZOMBIES THAT CAN slice you up WITH THEIR MINDS. Ghost Hunt really is pulling out all the stops for its anime finale
Though Nao already being that decomposed is especially weird. How many days has it been? Wouldn’t she be better preserved? Is it all part of the bad magic going on here that her skull is already poking out, or simple artistic liscence?
Let’s hop on over to the final episode and find out!
“Another dissection room, another figure standing in its center—but this one is calm. She simply looks at him sadly, a pity in her face that burns him worse than any flame. More than anything, the Archivist wants to look away, to turn his eye from her gentle sadness, from the disappointment in what she sees in him. But he cannot, so he watches her, until she simply fades away.”
I wanted to illustrate one of my favorite scenes from The Magnus Archives, partly as an exercise in perspective and extreme lighting (two things I never practice). I’ve got two more panels in the works, but idk if I’ll post them here.
