City of Opportunities 2 – Fear and Warmth

Turning the key in the front door was a formality. Miraculously, the door itself was intact, but there was a window not two steps from it that was so thoroughly broken that he wouldn’t even have to worry about glass shards. Climbing into his own building like some petty thief, however, violated his newfound sense of worth.

The lock crunched as unoiled and rusty metal bits ground against each other. All the same, the key turned. The door, a two-sided thing of rusted steel, was stuck in the first moment. Eldred gave it a tug, then a shove. He glanced up to the sides, assured himself that the hinges weren’t on the outside, and gave another shove. Then another. Then he put his shoulder into it.

It wasn’t just the resistance of the screaming hinges that made entry slow. When he finally managed to get the door moving, he did so to the sound of debris being pushed aside. Once there was enough of a sliver for him to squeeze through, he did.

Glass and rotted paper cracked and pulped under his step. The area right behind the door was an ocean of broken and discarded items. There was surprisingly little of a smell. After 30 years, practically everything that could rot had done so already, Eldred assumed. That the walls still stood was testament to the quality of the concrete.

Eldred kept his eyes on his feet as he advanced into the silent structure. The ocean of dreg that he stepped through came to a sudden stop. Now his soles met a carpet that repeated rain damage had reduced to little more than a mesh of rot-resistant fibres on top of concrete.

He took his first look around. The trash was all pushed up to the door, leaving the rest of the entrance area relatively clean. A large desk was the centrepiece of what Eldred assumed had once been the reception of the building. The desk must have been a pretty piece of metal once, but its paint had long since fallen off and rust had penetrated to the core. Now it was a chunk of brownish-red trash.

Same went for the filing cabinets, the shelves, and the weapon racks. Having been a metal extraction company, it seemed the corporation had prided itself on making as much out of the material as it could. The result was flaking furniture. Notably, the cabinets were empty and the weapon racks held not even a remnant of an arrowhead. Everything that was loose had been plundered.

Eldred advanced deeper into the building. He quickly realized that the floor of every room was as clean as a derelict building could be. ‘Did the banshee push all the dirt up to the entrance?’

The ghost did not make herself known yet. Curious, the new owner of the building advanced, continuously checking out what the building had to offer. From the inside, it became apparent just how large it really was. Beyond the reception was a connective point. To the left was what clearly had once been a kitchen with an attached bathroom. To the right was a large office space that, judging by the broken computers that had been left behind, had been where most of the workers had operated.

Advancing beyond that brought him to an area whose purpose he could only guess at. The walls were barren, the furniture was gone, and even the floor was naked. There were two doors to similarly reduced rooms, though those two at least contained piles of rust that may have been tables once.

There were two staircases there, one up to the second floor and the other down into the basement. The decision on where to go first was made when he heard the lamenting song of the banshee in his ears.

Though he was now in the building, it was still faint. All the same, it tugged on Eldred’s soul – the weeping trill of a woman could not go unanswered.

The staircase was the interstice between two worlds. Black ectoplasm had dripped down the steps over the years, only to dry up and leave dark markings on the beige stone steps, as if an ungodly amount of molten wax had been poured all over it.

More curiously, the area beyond the staircase was entirely swallowed by darkness. The room itself barred entry to light, the black radiating its shunning cold down to Eldred. All the same, he put his best foot forward onto the staircase, moving his body against the yoke of gravity.

Lumen flickered on the upper floor. Sparking and flashing, they revealed a figure at the top of the staircase. She wore a tattered white dress over her hunched figure. Her face was hidden by shadows and floating tresses of long white hair. The flickering lights faded for a second. When they came back on, the banshee was gone.

Eldred continued climbing the stairs.

There was that strange calm again. He knew that, not a day ago, he would have turned on his heels and gone anywhere else. In the hours that had passed, some entirely new person had emerged. Every footfall was as certain as the last, downright casual. His heart beat fast. His own pulse reverberated in his ears. The calm was mixed with another emotion.

He reached the end of the stairs, the end of the interstice.

Under the flickering lights above was a world out of a horror story. Black ectoplasm coated the windows, keeping the sun out. The supernatural fluid oozed impossibly from the walls, pooling on the concrete floor. Eldred felt like he had stepped into the intestines of some creature.

Eldred had to do a U-turn around the rusted railing to face the rest of the upper floor. One long path connected the wall behind him to the door of the room the banshee had been spotted in. There were several other doors to his left, four of them. Eldred had as little interest in them right now as he did in the basement.

All that mattered was that door in the distance.

Long strides carried him forwards. Lumen crystals continued to flicker. Pieces of animated debris suddenly launched themselves at him. Globs of ectoplasm, chunks of rust and pieces of concrete loosened by the fights that had happened in this building.

Eldred dodged the first few on pure instinct. After that, he did it with purpose. His lungs protested before long. He was physically healthy, a young man with a good diet, but he had not done any form of cardio in a long time. His pulse accelerated. He tore off the rain jacket to cool himself down. Just as he did, one of the chunks caught his stomach.

The coating of ectoplasm blunted the impact. All the same, Eldred tilted forwards, almost falling to his knees. Intense pain flared up from the bruises left by the thugs’ feet. Clenching his teeth, the young man caught himself and stumbled forwards. Another piece of debris hit his back, but he soldiered on. He ducked under one more, then he gripped the handle of the door. The second he did, all of the flying projectiles dropped straight down, all momentum lost. The lights turned off. All was dark.

Eldred pushed against the door. Once again, it was stuck. Rubbery strands of ectoplasm stretched between the door and its frame, trying to keep it sealed. Determined, he continued to lean into it. His feet pressed against the concrete. His shoulder met the rusted surface. His sweater was stained and chafed, rubbing against the coarse surface.

With a wet squelch, the rubbery seal finally broke. Eldred stumbled into the room behind.

He could see nothing. It was pitch black. Then, he could see one thing. A pair of blue orbs, hovering just a few steps away from him. One was completely visible, the other was covered by a curtain of strands. Hair. Eyes.

Eldred advanced towards the staring banshee. He had no idea where the next step would take him, but he walked anyway. There was a moment where he stepped onto something yielding. For a brief second, he thought he would fall, then a lunging step had him back on firm ground.

He was now face to face with the ghost woman.

Up this close, the light of her glowing eyes was enough to make out her features. She had a heart-shaped face as pale as freshly fallen snow. Her lips were of a deep grey, almost black colour. Marks of tears shed a long time ago were burned beneath her eyes. Her pale blue eyes were staring at him with forlorn sadness.

“Leave already,” she whispered, ever so faintly. Her voice was like moonlight upon his mind.

“No.” The hard answer caused her eyes to widen. Quizzically she tilted her head. Eldred straightened up and continued to meet her gaze. “This is my building now. I will leave it under my conditions or not at all.”

“Are you… are you not afraid of me…?” the banshee’s lamenting tone mixed with surprise.

“I have given up on fear,” Eldred responded and put his hand on her cheek. It was an impulsive gesture, guided by how lonely this gorgeous woman seemed. Never before in his life had he had the courage to touch someone like that. All the same, he did. Though her skin was without temperature, she was anything but cold.

She leaned into the gesture, sighing, her eyes closed to a sliver of pale blue light. “Warmth…” she whispered. An invisible hand layered on his. The undead woman sapped traces of his life ****. Like the pain of his bruises, he refused to let this pain get the better of him. “…it has been so long…”

“May I see you?” Eldred asked, his voice low and husky.

Ectoplasm shifted on the walls of the banshee’s nest. Daylight pierced through the gaps, revealing both her room and her.

It was an orderly little place she had made for herself. There was a bed and it even appeared to be clean, though the frame was held together by ectoplasm. There was a table with much the same fate, stacked on it books that had been read until the spines started to disintegrate. There were little items, here and there, that she had tinkered with or tried to restore.

The banshee herself was not just beautiful, she was the most gorgeous woman Eldred had ever seen. All of her skin was as white as fresh paper. The torn dress did scarcely anything to hide her curves, a nicely balanced model of the female physique. Her breasts were of a moderate size, her hips flaring nicely south of the inwards curve of her waist. Shapely thighs and a butt so pert, so sculpted that it reframed Eldred’s idea of perfection rounded out the image.

Black clad her starting just above elbows and knees. It was ectoplasm, shifting atop her white skin, thinning and fraying at the edges, mending, and rearing all over again, always changing, always in motion.

Her hair was similar. A messy white cascade of long, silky strands that fanned out in rebellion against the pull of the earth. Towards the tips, it turned an ethereal blue.

“You are not afraid of me…” she whispered, this time as a realisation.

“Why would I be afraid of someone so beautiful?” he asked and brushed back the strands that covered her right eye. As he did, he noticed her ears. They had an unusual shape and a slice had been removed from both at the upper back.

She cast down her gaze, a little bit of red sneaking into the cheeks of her pale face. “My voice is the bane of those that fear it.”

“And I do not.” Eldred now framed her face with both of his hands. His pulse quickened further, but there was no fear in him, not even a drop.

“You are so warm…” she sighed, relaxing into his touch like a trusting cat.

“I have inherited this building and I intend to make it my base of operations.” Even as he explained the situation to her, he could not stop caressing her skin with his thumb. It was smoother than anything else he had ever touched. The markings of her past tears were upsetting and alluring. He could not feel them. “We have to come to an agreement on what happens next.”

“I have no attachment to this place,” the banshee whispered. Every word she said elevated her beauty higher. Her voice was like the midnight stars, except it was right before him. “It has been my prison for so long…”

“If you want to be free of it, I will do the best I can,” Eldred promised.

The banshee’s eyelids flung back open. She was just a bit shorter than him, making her quite the tall woman. She tilted her neck back to look up at him. “I am a ghost.” The words were revelation and contemplation. “I must possess to remain… a place… a thing… or… a person.”

The suggestion was understood and Eldred nodded. “How would I let you possess me?”

“…Are you truly not afraid that I mean you ill?” she asked.

“There is nothing you could do to me that would be worse than the place I was yesterday.”

The banshee squeezed his hand, her sorrow etched deep into her soul and the eyes that were windows to it. “Were we suffering two destined to meet, perhaps?” she wondered and pulled him along as she took backwards steps. “Does my saviour have a name?”

“Eldred. Does this banshee have a name?”

“I do not recall,” she whispered back. “Is it my name or a word of import? I cannot say… all the same, you may call me Nyx.”

The banshee fell backwards and Eldred, without thinking, fell with her. They came to a rest on the mattress. Realising the implications, the young man’s heart jumped in his chest. “How would I let you possess me?” he asked again.

“A pact between that which lives and that which yearns to live still,” Nyx answered. “Spill your essence within me and our bond will be stronger than whatever brought me forth in these walls.” She hesitated for a moment before adding. “I do not know if it shall be my first time… but for all intents it will be… I ask that you be gentle.”

Eldred certainly had not thought he would lose his virginity while taking that of a banshee upon a bed of rust and ectoplasm in a ruin he had inherited. If he could have chosen another way… he would not have.

“We will learn together,” he whispered and leaned in for the kiss.