Joe lay curled on the cold stone, breath rasping, vision blurring.
The dungeon no longer felt real—not the chains biting into his wrists, not the blood crusted against his skin, not even the pain screaming from his twisted leg. Pain had become background noise. Familiar. Almost comforting.
What mattered was the memory.
The words from the Necronomicon.
His father's book.
He laughed softly, a wet, broken sound.
Funny… Of all the things his father had owned—tools, debts, half-empty bottles—that book was the only thing Joe had ever loved.
He remembered it clearly.
Bound in cracked black leather that smelled faintly of rot and old incense. The pages yellowed, edges frayed, ink written in cramped, spidery script that hurt the eyes if stared at too long. His father had kept it hidden beneath loose floorboards, wrapped in cloth like a shameful secret.
He remembered sitting alone in the dim light of a candle, heart racing as he turned the pages. Most of it had been nonsense to him at the time—diagrams, symbols, warnings written in red ink.
But one section had fascinated him.
Spirits of Lament.
Voices of Death.
The Banshee.
Joe's breath hitched as the memory sharpened.
The book had described it in loving, horrifying detail.
A creature born not from mana alone—but from agony.
A banshee was not summoned like other spirits.
It was raised.
The text had been clear.
A banshee requires a living sacrifice.
The vessel must be broken, beaten, and abandoned.
It must know rage.
It must know grief.
It must want the world to suffer.
Joe's lips twitched.
That was why it was my favorite, he thought dimly.
It wasn't born evil… it was made.
The ritual demanded despair—pure, undiluted anguish. The victim had to be alive, heart still beating, soul still clinging desperately to the body while the transformation began.
The book had been explicit:
A willing sacrifice weakens the spirit.
A hopeful sacrifice fails.
But one who curses the world with their final breath…
That one will scream loud enough to tear the veil.
Joe swallowed thickly.
Distress. Rage. Hatred.
He had all three.
The dungeon was perfect too—damp, buried deep beneath stone, soaked in old suffering. Not a cemetery, but close enough. Close enough for a spirit that fed on despair.
And the blood…
Joe looked down at his hands. They trembled violently, slick and red. His own blood smeared the floor beneath him, soaked into the grooves he'd carved earlier with shaking fingers.
The pentagram was crude—uneven lines, symbols warped by pain and haste—but it was complete.
His blood had been enough.
It had to be.
Please… Joe thought, heart hammering.
Just don't let a guard come down here.'
If someone interrupted the ritual now, it would fail. Worse—it would leave him alive, broken, and still hated.
He couldn't endure that again.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Let it work. Let it kill them. Let it scream.
The stone beneath him was slick, cold, and humming faintly—the mana-suppression bricks protesting what he was about to do.
He collapsed onto his back.
The chains clinked weakly as he spread his arms, forcing himself into position. His blood smeared beneath his shoulders, soaking into the central sigil.
He stared at the ceiling.
This is it, he thought.
No more begging. No more trying to be nice.
Joe drew in a ragged breath and began pulling mana toward himself.
The pain was instant.
White-hot.
It felt as if something had reached into his veins and yanked—as if invisible hooks were tearing through his blood, dragging energy through passages never meant to carry it.
He screamed.
The sound tore itself from his throat, raw and animal like.
It felt like his veins were splitting open, bursting one by one. Pressure built behind his eyes until his vision blurred, then darkened. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, each pulse a hammer blow.
Keep going, he thought desperately.
Don't stop. Don't stop.
Mana flooded into him—not gently, not naturally—but violently, forced through sheer will and hatred. His body convulsed as the energy tore through muscle and bone alike.
He began to chant.
"Vael thren kor'ash…"
"Morr senkai, morr senkai."
"Keth'ra om velis."
"Nax ul-thren."
The words clawed their way out of his throat, ancient and harsh, syllables that tasted like rust and ash. He didn't fully understand them—but the book had said understanding was unnecessary.
Intent mattered.
And Joe had intent.
His eyes burned.
Pressure built and built until—
Something wet slid down his face.
His vision went red.
He realized distantly that his eyes had burst, blood pouring freely from their ruined sockets. The pain was overwhelming, blinding—and then strangely distant, as if his mind were already slipping away.
His fingers twitched.
Then snapped.
Bones cracked loudly, grotesquely, stretching and reshaping beneath skin that split and bled. His hands elongated unnaturally, fingers lengthening into thin, claw-like shapes that scraped against the stone.
Joe screamed again—but it wasn't entirely pain anymore.
There was something else.
Something answering him.
He felt it before he sensed it—a presence pressing down on him like a suffocating weight. Cold. Hungry. Curious.
Yes… he thought weakly.
That's it…
His ribs cracked one by one, chest arching as if pulled upward by invisible strings. His spine twisted, vertebrae grinding as his body was forced into a shape no human should take.
His soul burned.
He felt something touch it.
Not gently.
The presence wrapped around him, invasive and intimate, sinking into him like claws into soft flesh. It began to feed—tearing at his essence, devouring memories, pain, rage.
Joe's thoughts scattered.
Faces flashed through his mind—the hunters, the villagers, his wife, his sons, Teclos.
Hatred surged.
Kill them, he begged silently.
Kill all of them. Make them scream like I did.
The spirit answered with hunger.
Joe's mouth twisted into a smile.
Blood bubbled from his lips as his consciousness began to fracture. His body no longer felt like his own—it was just a vessel now, breaking apart to make room for something far worse.
As the last of his strength faded, Joe felt strangely… peaceful.
I won't be alone anymore, he thought dimly.
And they won't forget me.
The darkness closed in.
And for the last time in a long, long while—
Joe smiled.
The black smoke did not rise gently.
It tore itself free.
It poured upward from the blood-soaked pentagram in thick, writhing coils, as if the stone itself had begun to rot and exhale its corruption. The runes carved in Joe's blood screamed silently as the smoke devoured their glow, swallowing the red light until only a pulsing darkness remained.
Joe's body convulsed once.
Then it stopped being his.
The smoke wrapped around him like a burial shroud, seeping into his mouth, his eyes, the torn veins in his arms. Bones cracked—not loudly, but wetly—reshaping under invisible pressure. His spine stretched, vertebrae popping one by one as his body lengthened unnaturally, limbs growing too long, joints bending at angles that made flesh scream in protest.
His skin peeled and hardened, thinning into something like old leather stretched too tight over bone.
Joe's face twisted.
His jaw unhinged, teeth grinding as they sharpened, lengthened, curved inward—row after row of jagged, shark-like fangs forming behind split lips. His eyes burst fully then, not in gore but in collapse—popping inward as if crushed from within—only to be replaced by smooth, milky-white orbs that glowed faintly in the red-lit chamber.
White hair spilled from his scalp in tangled waves, drifting upward as though submerged in water.
The chains rattled violently now, pulled taut by an unseen force as the thing forming at the center of the pentagram rose.
Not stood.
Rose.
Its feet did not touch the ground.
The smoke condensed, thickening, shaping itself into long, clawed hands and taloned feet. Fingers ended in curved, blackened claws that scraped lightly against the air itself, leaving faint ripples where matter resisted its presence.
Joe's final expression—frozen between bliss and agony—lingered for a heartbeat longer.
Then the soul was taken.
The banshee inhaled.
The sound was wrong.
It was not air moving into lungs—it was mana, despair, lingering hatred being dragged screaming into something vast and hungry. The suppression runes embedded in the walls flickered, cracked, and dimmed, as if suddenly unsure whether they still had authority here.
The banshee's head tilted slowly.
Awareness bloomed.
It remembered the summoning circle—not as symbols, but as intent.
It remembered the offering—not as flesh, but as promise.
It remembered Joe—not as a man, but as fuel.
A thin, crooked smile spread across its ruined mouth.
Intelligent eyes—white and lightless—focused.
Its first scream did not explode outward.
It pressed inward.
A pressure wave rippled through the dungeon, invisible but devastating. Stone groaned. Mortar cracked. Somewhere above, a torch fluttered out, plunging a hallway into darkness.
Joe's chains disintegrated into rust and dust.
The banshee drifted forward, phasing halfway through the cell wall before pulling itself fully into the chamber again, as if testing reality—testing how much it was allowed to break.
Satisfied.
It opened its mouth again.
This scream was different.
Not loud—but precise.
A harmonic shriek laced with necromantic resonance tore through the guildhall's foundations. Searching for other spirits that could be used.
Above, Teclos staggered.
The boy gasped as if struck, clutching his chest as a wave of cold terror slammed into him—nothing like his own mana, nothing he recognized. This was ancient. Hungry.
"No… no no no…holy...i have to run." Panic filled his mind.
The banshee hovered fully upright now, tall and lanky, its elongated limbs hanging loosely at its sides. Its claws flexed once.
Then it laughed.
The sound was layered—Joe's broken voice woven beneath something far older, far colder.
"Ahhh…" it whispered, voice echoing in multiple directions at once.
"So much grief… packed so tightly around me."
Its head turned slowly—toward the ceiling.
Toward the living.
"Shall we sing after a long time?"
Mana surged outward again, stronger this time, rolling through stone and iron alike.
The Queen of Wraiths took her first breath.
Another torch above the cell flickered once.
Then it went out.
The guard close to it, frowned.
He was leaning against the stone wall of the lower corridor, half-asleep, spear resting loosely in one hand. The sudden darkness tugged him out of his daze, and he squinted down the hallway where the flame had been burning only moments ago.
"Huh…" he muttered.
No cold rush followed. No pressure. No warning in the gut. If there was something wrong, he couldn't feel it. The mana-suppression stones hummed as they always had—steady, dull, reassuring.
Probably a draft, he decided.
Grumbling, he pushed himself upright and trudged toward the torch bracket, boots scraping lazily over the stone. He lifted the torch, inspecting the wick.
"Cheap oil," he scoffed. "Chief's always cutting—"
He never finished the sentence.
Teclos ran before this even happened.
He didn't think. He didn't question it. The moment the pressure hit—sharp, alien, crushing—his body reacted on instinct alone. Fear surged through him like lightning, and his legs moved before his mind caught up.
He burst out of the guildhall doors, breath tearing from his chest in ragged gasps, boots slipping on packed snow as he sprinted toward the main gate. His heart pounded so hard it hurt, each beat echoing with a single screaming thought:
Run. Run. Run!
At the gates, Talmir stood with Chief Thomas, speaking to two bundled travelers—peddlers by the look of them, a mule tethered nearby, packs heavy with letters and sealed parcels. Their voices drifted casually through the cold air.
Teclos screamed.
"DAD!"
Talmir spun instantly.
Teclos barreled into him, clutching at his coat, eyes wide and unfocused, breath coming in sharp, panicked sobs.
"Something's wrong!" Teclos cried. "Something's down there—it's not me, I swear, it's not me this time—!"
Thomas stepped forward, alarmed. "Teclos, slow down—what are you talking about?"
"I—I can feel it," Teclos gasped, clutching his chest. "It hurts just being here. It's angry—so angry—"
The peddlers exchanged uneasy looks.
Talmir knelt, gripping Teclos's shoulders firmly. "Son. Breathe. Look at me."
Teclos tried.
He really did.
But the feeling didn't fade.
It pulsed.
Just as Teclos ran outside of the guild, deep beneath Ragla, something laughed.
The banshee felt the child flee.
A faint flicker—fast, frightened, bright in a way that amused her.
Let him run, she thought, her awareness unfurling through stone and shadow. Fear spreads fast when it has legs but there was no escape from her.
Her presence thickened, pressing outward. The suppression stones around her began to scream—not audibly, but spiritually—hairline fractures crawling across their runic faces like veins beneath dying skin.
Such a clever cage, she mused.
Such effort… for nothing.
She extended one claw.
Mana recoiled and the stone exploded.
Every suppression brick in the chamber shattered at once, bursting apart in a cascade of black shards and dead runes. The dungeon groaned, then gave way.
She rose.
Phasing through space itself.
The banshee surged upward through solid rock as if it were mist, her form slipping between matter and void, moving faster than sound, faster than thought.
She emerged behind the guard.
The man who had just bent to relight the torch complaining.
A claw punched through his chest.
Not ripping—piercing—sliding cleanly between ribs and straight through his heart. His body stiffened, breath catching silently as his eyes went wide in confusion rather than pain.
The banshee leaned in close and bit.
His head came away with a wet snap, blood spraying across the stone wall in a dark arc. His body crumpled lifelessly to the floor, heart still twitching around her claw.
She swallowed it.
Warmth.
Life.
Fear.
Delicious.
She smiled and looked up.
And for the first time—
She truly screamed.
The sound was not noise.
It was annihilation.
The scream tore outward in a visible shockwave, warping air and stone alike. Windows across Ragla shattered simultaneously. People dropped where they stood, clutching ears, blood pouring from eyes and noses. Some screamed. Others never got the chance.
The guildhall exploded.
Stone walls blew outward as if struck by a siege spell, timbers snapping, debris hurled into the night. The ground buckled. The gates rattled violently.
Teclos collapsed to his knees, hands clamped over his ears, vision blurry as the scream crushed through him like a physical force.
Talmir staggered, eyes wide in horror.
Thomas shouted something—orders, warnings—but his voice was swallowed whole in white noise.
Above the ruined guildhall, a pale figure rose into the snow-filled night.
White hair flowing.
Claws gleaming.
Eyes empty and vast.
The Queen of Wraiths had announced her presence.