Post by galleron on Jan 7, 2009 1:45:02 GMT -5
[glow=green,2,300]Ghost[/glow]
you don't remember darkness, you don't remember light, one minute you weren't there, the next you simply were.
A graveyard, for some reason you thought you should be a man, or a woman, or at least have some kind of body, but there was nothing. No hands to feel, no heart to beat, no eye lids that could be shut, but you can see, you can hear. You saw the breeze move the leaves and branches of the willow planted on the small hill you stand (?) upon, and feel the cold damp air brush against you as if you had skin, as if... you were alive? The breeze makes you drift, but when you desire to remain, and look upon the mourners at the base of the hill, you stop. The man's name was Michael Devree, apparently a man with many friends, a father of four, formerly married to a now weeping young widow.
Perhaps this is your funeral, clearly you are a ghost. You know the meaning of the word, but cant remember where you first heard it or who might have taught it to you... you think back... you realize you also know Chinese-鬼魂, Spanish-fantasma, Swedish-spöke, ancient Babylonian-gruteh... Atlantian-word-thought/spirit-drifter? All the languages of earth, seemingly from all ages... how could this be?
The service ends, you try to walk to the people, think about moving the legs you don't have... it doesn't work. The attendants move towards their cars, you "will" yourself towards them the way you willed yourself not to be moved by the breeze, this works. You yell, scream, shout... They don't hear you, you don't hear yourself. The people, all wearing black, get in their cars and drive away, leaving you alone with the gravediggers quickly filling the gaping hole. The workers leave with the setting of the sun. You grow cold, feel a hunger you cant explain, and wait, and wait, and wait. Hours pass, until finally you decide to explore.
The city seems extremely familiar, you know the layout of every street, almost every building, but at the same time the city feels strange, like it should be different some how. No street feels any more familiar than the next, you drift through people's homes, their lives, nothing more than an observer.
Occasionally, when you look at a particular person you are filled with a deep sense of sadness and grief, not for yourself but for them. You begin to suspect perhaps all of these people are dead and just not in the same state as yourself. That explanation feels absolutely right but you're not sure why. Days pass this way. Drifting, looking, your hunger ever growing. One night when your invisible and unheard sobbing can go on no longer, in an alley, you... sleep.
When you awake you are over the ocean, drifting ever slowly with the wind away from the city... but something happens, you feel pain, beyond your hunger, beyond your frustration, it is the feeling of being weakened, of a deeper sense of loss than you have felt since you had first risen, a horrible sense of wrongness. Worried, you focus your will and hurtle towards the city, the draining lessens, the hunger is still there but the sense of being drained is gone.
It is morning, the sun rises, you feel tired and fatigued, and you wonder... "Is this all there is? That one day I will sleep again, drift off, and in my weakness become nothing? Something somehow less than what I am now?" The thought troubles you as you drift aimlessly through the familiar streets, you believe there is something you must do, some wrong you must right, some act that must be avenged, for why else would a ghost be here, in this wrong but familiar city?
As you're thinking this... you catch a glimpse out of the corner of your vision... a little Chinese girl of perhaps five or six years, wearing a traditional red and gold silk dress, holding the ancient hand of (perhaps) her grandmother? They are waiting for the light to change, but both appear to be looking right... at... you!
You eagerly move in their direction, the grandmother says something to the child, they both look straight down at the street. You ask "Can you see me? please say something! HELP ME!" they ignore you and continue walking, but at least once the girl looks up at you, and you know she sees you.
You keep following them, into the Chinatown of the tempest district, they enter the back door of a store front. When you try and enter you are blocked some how, a force bars your way. You continue to shout and yell, pounding against the only force you have found that restrains you.
Eventually the old woman returns, she cracks the door of the business, and pushes out a bowl of steaming rice topped with a peppered fish head, and a sliced orange. The little girl is peeking around her grandmother's black dress, again looking directly at you, something about her cold stare seems to pierce your soul. The old woman, pretending not to see you, says in English... You eat now evil ghost, then you go way, you leave old woman and child alone!
You smell the rice, the hot pepper, the pungent fish, the tart orange, and you are filled with tremendous hunger, you think you can feel your mouth watering even though you don't have a mouth... you move towards the bowl until your vision is right up against it, you can taste rice, orange, pepper, and fish in your mouth, feel its warmth filling your stomach... even if its just your imagination it's wonderful!!!... and whoosh... you fall about two feet with a loud thud and the sound of a breaking bowl. Human, naked, frail, and quickly loosing consciousness.
When you awake you are in a bedroom decorated with Chinese antiques. The old woman brings tea and soup and feeds you. When you attempt to speak with her in Chinese she stops you and explains that you have done something very wrong. That you crossed from the hells or afterlife into the middle kingdom. You try to explain that everyone here is dead, that this IS one of the hells! She says you are crazy, that you were most likely a crazy homeless person when you died and so angry and hungry that you wouldn't pass over to where you were supposed to be. You try and speak with her more but she wont hear any of it. She says she will bring you clothes, but then you will have to leave, and never return. finally full you pass into another deep sleep.
When you wake again, you find clothing laid out on the bed at your feet. cheap shoes, no socks, sweat pants and a black T-shirt. You get dressed, then you hear some commotion coming from downstairs.. the old woman is yelling at some one, the young girl is crying and screeching loudly until she suddenly stops.
You sneak down the stairs, still feeling a bit weak. Three young Chinese men holding Tech-9's and wearing wild fashions and golden sunglasses are yelling at the old woman, now lying on the floor with a bleeding bruise above her eye. The leader is that she has to give up the girl, that the V'sori will want her and that she has no choice. The largest of the three is duct taping the young girl's mouth closed.
You are filled with a desire to avenge all the wrongness you have felt over the last few days, something twists, you move like lightning, your a ghost again but this time slipping back and forth between being and nothingness, some how you know your ghostly touch can now decay flesh, you pass your hand through the leader's head and watch his face crumble. Something about this feels very very right.
The others start shooting wildly around them, you pass your form through their guns and they cease to fire, you grab the big one and begin his decomposition while the other leaps through the window and dives into the waiting car. Very quickly the gangster turns from large heavy man into a small withered skeleton. As you drop him you fall to the floor exhausted.
Clearly you are not thrown out into the streets, the older woman's name is Peng Man-Yao, the grand daughter is Pan Kai-Long (Kailee as nick name). Peng moved to the united states in the 1990's, she says she is descended from a long line of Feng Shui (earth magic) praticioners. she says she was directed to come to this city which has extremely good Feng Shui increasing Chi and bringing Joss (luck, wealth, power, fertility) to all its residents. When her daughter died in child birth, her son in-law came to america with the infant but was reciently captured by the V'isori and has not been heard from since. You are currently staying in his room.
Peng believes that Kailee will be the most powerful Feng Shui praticioner of this age as her powers already far exceed Pengs, even at her very young age. Peng feels she must be protected and kept safe from the V'sori if earth is to survive. She believes you were sent by the spirits of ancient Emperors and dragons to protect them in this dangerous time and help defeat the V'sori. She is not afraid of any retribution from the gang as it is not their way, and they will assume if they disturb the girl again demons from the east will curse them and end their flow of Chi and ruin their Joss... they have learned their lesson well this evening.
Peng also fills you in on the entire story of the V'sori, and claims she knows members of the Omega resistance movement. She promises to help you discover your past, sort out your problems, cure your insanity, and meet with the resistance if you agree to protect them.
you don't remember darkness, you don't remember light, one minute you weren't there, the next you simply were.
A graveyard, for some reason you thought you should be a man, or a woman, or at least have some kind of body, but there was nothing. No hands to feel, no heart to beat, no eye lids that could be shut, but you can see, you can hear. You saw the breeze move the leaves and branches of the willow planted on the small hill you stand (?) upon, and feel the cold damp air brush against you as if you had skin, as if... you were alive? The breeze makes you drift, but when you desire to remain, and look upon the mourners at the base of the hill, you stop. The man's name was Michael Devree, apparently a man with many friends, a father of four, formerly married to a now weeping young widow.
Perhaps this is your funeral, clearly you are a ghost. You know the meaning of the word, but cant remember where you first heard it or who might have taught it to you... you think back... you realize you also know Chinese-鬼魂, Spanish-fantasma, Swedish-spöke, ancient Babylonian-gruteh... Atlantian-word-thought/spirit-drifter? All the languages of earth, seemingly from all ages... how could this be?
The service ends, you try to walk to the people, think about moving the legs you don't have... it doesn't work. The attendants move towards their cars, you "will" yourself towards them the way you willed yourself not to be moved by the breeze, this works. You yell, scream, shout... They don't hear you, you don't hear yourself. The people, all wearing black, get in their cars and drive away, leaving you alone with the gravediggers quickly filling the gaping hole. The workers leave with the setting of the sun. You grow cold, feel a hunger you cant explain, and wait, and wait, and wait. Hours pass, until finally you decide to explore.
The city seems extremely familiar, you know the layout of every street, almost every building, but at the same time the city feels strange, like it should be different some how. No street feels any more familiar than the next, you drift through people's homes, their lives, nothing more than an observer.
Occasionally, when you look at a particular person you are filled with a deep sense of sadness and grief, not for yourself but for them. You begin to suspect perhaps all of these people are dead and just not in the same state as yourself. That explanation feels absolutely right but you're not sure why. Days pass this way. Drifting, looking, your hunger ever growing. One night when your invisible and unheard sobbing can go on no longer, in an alley, you... sleep.
When you awake you are over the ocean, drifting ever slowly with the wind away from the city... but something happens, you feel pain, beyond your hunger, beyond your frustration, it is the feeling of being weakened, of a deeper sense of loss than you have felt since you had first risen, a horrible sense of wrongness. Worried, you focus your will and hurtle towards the city, the draining lessens, the hunger is still there but the sense of being drained is gone.
It is morning, the sun rises, you feel tired and fatigued, and you wonder... "Is this all there is? That one day I will sleep again, drift off, and in my weakness become nothing? Something somehow less than what I am now?" The thought troubles you as you drift aimlessly through the familiar streets, you believe there is something you must do, some wrong you must right, some act that must be avenged, for why else would a ghost be here, in this wrong but familiar city?
As you're thinking this... you catch a glimpse out of the corner of your vision... a little Chinese girl of perhaps five or six years, wearing a traditional red and gold silk dress, holding the ancient hand of (perhaps) her grandmother? They are waiting for the light to change, but both appear to be looking right... at... you!
You eagerly move in their direction, the grandmother says something to the child, they both look straight down at the street. You ask "Can you see me? please say something! HELP ME!" they ignore you and continue walking, but at least once the girl looks up at you, and you know she sees you.
You keep following them, into the Chinatown of the tempest district, they enter the back door of a store front. When you try and enter you are blocked some how, a force bars your way. You continue to shout and yell, pounding against the only force you have found that restrains you.
Eventually the old woman returns, she cracks the door of the business, and pushes out a bowl of steaming rice topped with a peppered fish head, and a sliced orange. The little girl is peeking around her grandmother's black dress, again looking directly at you, something about her cold stare seems to pierce your soul. The old woman, pretending not to see you, says in English... You eat now evil ghost, then you go way, you leave old woman and child alone!
You smell the rice, the hot pepper, the pungent fish, the tart orange, and you are filled with tremendous hunger, you think you can feel your mouth watering even though you don't have a mouth... you move towards the bowl until your vision is right up against it, you can taste rice, orange, pepper, and fish in your mouth, feel its warmth filling your stomach... even if its just your imagination it's wonderful!!!... and whoosh... you fall about two feet with a loud thud and the sound of a breaking bowl. Human, naked, frail, and quickly loosing consciousness.
When you awake you are in a bedroom decorated with Chinese antiques. The old woman brings tea and soup and feeds you. When you attempt to speak with her in Chinese she stops you and explains that you have done something very wrong. That you crossed from the hells or afterlife into the middle kingdom. You try to explain that everyone here is dead, that this IS one of the hells! She says you are crazy, that you were most likely a crazy homeless person when you died and so angry and hungry that you wouldn't pass over to where you were supposed to be. You try and speak with her more but she wont hear any of it. She says she will bring you clothes, but then you will have to leave, and never return. finally full you pass into another deep sleep.
When you wake again, you find clothing laid out on the bed at your feet. cheap shoes, no socks, sweat pants and a black T-shirt. You get dressed, then you hear some commotion coming from downstairs.. the old woman is yelling at some one, the young girl is crying and screeching loudly until she suddenly stops.
You sneak down the stairs, still feeling a bit weak. Three young Chinese men holding Tech-9's and wearing wild fashions and golden sunglasses are yelling at the old woman, now lying on the floor with a bleeding bruise above her eye. The leader is that she has to give up the girl, that the V'sori will want her and that she has no choice. The largest of the three is duct taping the young girl's mouth closed.
You are filled with a desire to avenge all the wrongness you have felt over the last few days, something twists, you move like lightning, your a ghost again but this time slipping back and forth between being and nothingness, some how you know your ghostly touch can now decay flesh, you pass your hand through the leader's head and watch his face crumble. Something about this feels very very right.
The others start shooting wildly around them, you pass your form through their guns and they cease to fire, you grab the big one and begin his decomposition while the other leaps through the window and dives into the waiting car. Very quickly the gangster turns from large heavy man into a small withered skeleton. As you drop him you fall to the floor exhausted.
Clearly you are not thrown out into the streets, the older woman's name is Peng Man-Yao, the grand daughter is Pan Kai-Long (Kailee as nick name). Peng moved to the united states in the 1990's, she says she is descended from a long line of Feng Shui (earth magic) praticioners. she says she was directed to come to this city which has extremely good Feng Shui increasing Chi and bringing Joss (luck, wealth, power, fertility) to all its residents. When her daughter died in child birth, her son in-law came to america with the infant but was reciently captured by the V'isori and has not been heard from since. You are currently staying in his room.
Peng believes that Kailee will be the most powerful Feng Shui praticioner of this age as her powers already far exceed Pengs, even at her very young age. Peng feels she must be protected and kept safe from the V'sori if earth is to survive. She believes you were sent by the spirits of ancient Emperors and dragons to protect them in this dangerous time and help defeat the V'sori. She is not afraid of any retribution from the gang as it is not their way, and they will assume if they disturb the girl again demons from the east will curse them and end their flow of Chi and ruin their Joss... they have learned their lesson well this evening.
Peng also fills you in on the entire story of the V'sori, and claims she knows members of the Omega resistance movement. She promises to help you discover your past, sort out your problems, cure your insanity, and meet with the resistance if you agree to protect them.