The man's loud voice booms back from the lounge: "I want a six-pack!"
"They don't deliver beer!" she yells back. The man grumbles, but the woman is already listing the next item. "...And cocktail weenies."
She steps out of the kitchen, turning into the foyer. She is round, wearing a stained apron, and she freezes instantly.
Her eyes widen as she takes in my appearance: a sickly young woman, caked head-to-toe in freezing mud, standing in her doorway with a piece of firewood clutched in her hand. A person who should have been dead.
The woman screams, a high, piercing sound of pure terror.
I answer her fear with a sinister smile. I don't hesitate. I fling the log with a surge of amplified magic. It strikes her squarely in the head. The sound is a dull, sickening thud. She collapses instantly, a dark stain of blood seeping down her face and soaking into the dirty carpet.
The man, Al, erupts from the lounge, yelling in blind rage, "What's with all this noise? Is it a fucking rat again?"
He stops dead when he sees me standing over his wife's body. His eyes meet mine, and his complexion instantly turns pale as ash. Fear registers faster than anger. He tries to scramble away, back toward the lounge.
'No. You don't get to run.'
I chant a single, soundless word, a spell of physical manipulation. An invisible force grabs his torso mid-turn and hurls him violently into the far wall. The old plaster and drywall shatter under the impact, raining dust and splinters.
The man and the woman are now on the floor, groaning in pain. There is one more. I chant again, a simple, focused binding spell. The pair instantly freeze on the ground, unable to move a muscle.
"Stay," I command, my voice low and unsteady, belonging to the young woman but filled with my cold authority.
I walk past them, unhurried, ignoring their muffled sobs and pleas. I snap my fingers, a reflexive gesture from my old life, and the muffled voices vanish. Silence.
I follow the sickening thread of the young woman's memory, guiding me up the creaking stairs. I push open the bedroom door at the end of the passageway.
The young man, the smug, cruel boy who kicked her, sits at a desk, wearing large headphones that cover his ears. His fingers fly across a keyboard as he speaks into a headset.
"...I can't get you anymore videos," he mumbles. Then, answering an unseen person, he adds, "It's not that I didn't try, I did, but she fought so hard."
He's talking about the attempted assault. The memory flares: his fear when she threatened to tell his mother, and his subsequent retreat. But he made up for it by peeping on her and sending photos in his online chat.
He replies again to his invisible friend: "Can't try that. She's dead."
A moment passes. Then he laughs, a high, ugly sound. "You're right. She won't fight anymore. I will dig her up and send a video."
My lips twitch, the sheer, brutal arrogance sending my rage soaring. The time for slow torment is not now. The time for satisfying the ghost's first demand is.
I chant a destructive spell of localized entropy. With a sound like a wet sack dropping, the entire roof above him collapses. A deluge of wood, plaster, and asphalt shingles crashes down. He yells, "What the—" before being buried instantly, trapped beneath the rubble, a patch of bright blood seeping from the crushing weight.
I don't leave him there. I chant an invisible binding spell, a magical grappling hook, and pull him out of the debris. I drag his screaming body down the stairs and toss him onto the ground floor, right beside his frozen parents.
He screams, a real, heartbroken sound of pure pain, his arm and leg twisted at unnatural, painful angles. I immediately silence him.
I turn my attention at the three of them and begin my descent. I walk down the creaking stairs, slow and deliberate, the silence from the snapped spell broken only by the rasp of my bare feet dragging on the wood. My aura is intense, terrifying—the fusion of my ancient rage and the young woman's raw, amplified magic.
I reach the foyer, standing over the wreckage of this family's evening. The father is lodged in the broken wall, the mother bleeds onto the carpet, and the son, Wendel, weeps amidst the shards of plaster, his body ruined. They are all still paralyzed by the binding spell, their eyes wide with disbelief and terror.
"Now that the entire family is here," I say, my voice steady now, "how about we have a family meeting?"
Their eyes, glazed with agony and fear, lock onto me. This is what the ghost wanted. This fear.
I stretch out my hand, flicking my fingers dismissively. A wooden kitchen chair slides over the floor, scraping loudly, and stops perfectly behind me. I sit down, sinking into the weak body, and cross my muddy legs.
"Tell me," I begin, my gaze fixed on the mother, "did you know that this disgusting filth you birthed tried to assault me?"
I pause, letting the cold accusation sink into the air. The mother's bound body can't move, but her eyes are frantic, cycling between me and her whimpering son.
"Oh," I continue, tipping my head, the sinister smile returning. "According to you, it's my fault, right? I seduced him by just breathing?"
I focus the spell that silenced their voices and allow a single pathway to open, Wendel's ability to speak and scream.
"Wendel," I say, my voice dropping to a dangerous hiss, "tell your mother how you were just laughing about digging me up and assaulting me. What was it that you said? 'I won't fight anymore.'"
The woman's eyes snap to her son, a look of sudden, horrific realization cutting through her terror.
"Tell them, Wendel," I urge, my voice dripping malice. "Tell your parents how much of a disgusting filth you are."
As I speak the word filth, I twist my hand. The raw magic of this body's soul grips the son's un-shattered arm, twisting it unnaturally at the elbow. Wendel screams, a shrill, heart-wrenching sound, his body convulsing against the binding spell's hold.
"Tell them," I repeat, feeling a warm tickle flowing down the inner corner of my eye.
"Yes! Yes! I am disgusting filth!" Wendel sobs, his pathetic face a mask of tears and mucus. "Please let me go! Please spare me!"
I release the pressure, and he gasps, scrambling to speak the words that will save him. "I tried to force her! She—she didn't seduce me! I took pictures of her and sent them to people online! Let me go, please!"
I look from his tear-stained, snot-streaked face to the silent, horrified face of his mother.
"And your son is as rotten as you are," I state, delivering the final, cold verdict. "Makes sense. Filth breeds filth."