Zane lay on the floor of the Sump-Pit common room, the silence roaring in his ears.
The innkeeper was gone. His wild and joyful laughter had faded becoming a personal "fuck you" to Zane's entire existence.
Then the pang of the failed hunt hit him.
It wasn't a gentle ache.
It was a physical and shredding recoil.
The hunger, which had been a gnawing hole, became a vortex of razors. It was pure, uncut agony, a hundred times worse than before.
Withdrawal.
He'd just been offered a four-course meal of pure, aged despair. He had it on the fork. And he'd... he'd cured it.
He'd turned vintage despair into disgusting, vibrant hope.
The beast inside him was apoplectic. It was punishing him.
Zane retched, a dry, racking heave that brought up nothing but bile. Cold sweat drenched his tunic in seconds.
<...lost it all... lost it... ...the cough... it's in my bones... I'm done... ...just one more hit... I swear...>
The Whispers from the rest of the building were taunts. Every despairing thought was a five-star meal he could smell but couldn't fucking eat.
He couldn't stay here. The common room was a death trap.
He put his hands on the greasy floor and tried to push himself up. His arms "shook" so badly he collapsed.
"Get... up," he spat through gritted teeth.
The high from the alley was gone.
The strength, the clarity, the feeling of power... it was a joke. A free sample from a psychotic drug dealer. Now he was just a junkie, crawling on the floor, begging for his next fix.
He dragged himself, inch by inch, across the common room floor. His ribs screamed where the Nail had kicked him. He was pathetic. He was nothing.
He finally reached the stairs and hauled himself up, one riser at a time, his body convulsing with tremors.
He fumbled with the bolt-pin for his door, his fingers numb and useless. It took him three tries to slide the bolt home.
Click.
He was safe.
He collapsed in the four-by-four closet, his back against the flimsy door.
He was safe from the Nails.
He was trapped with the hunger.
He curled into a ball on the filthy floor, hugging his knees to his chest, trying to compress the shredding void in his gut.
"I... I saved him", Zane whispered, the words sounding insane in the tiny, dark room. "I tried to get him to kill himself... and I saved his life."
He thought about his old job. 'HopeLine'. The endless nights. The binders of scripts.
You're not alone. I'm here for you. Just talk to me. Tell me what you're feeling.
He had been good at it. He'd saved... he didn't even know how many.
He'd talked hundreds of people off the edge. It was the only thing he'd ever been good at.
Mortis hadn't just given him a job. He'd given him a cosmic fucking joke.
Zane's power, Soul Siphon, demanded despair. It fed on the brink.
But Zane... his essence, his instincts, his entire life's purpose... was to heal it.
"My... my instincts are the flaw," he hissed, his eyes squeezed shut. "My compassion is the flaw. No, this feels even deeper."
When he'd talked to the innkeeper, he hadn't sounded like a reaper. He'd sounded like a HopeLine counsellor giving a dark, edgy pitch. He'd zeroed in on the man's core problem—the hopelessness of his situation.
And his instincts, hard-wired from five years of calls, had automatically guided the man to a solution.
"Fuck... fuck, fuck, fuck..."
He couldn't talk to them.
If he interacted with a despairing soul... he healed them.
If he healed them... he lost the meal.
If he lost the meal... he died.
"So don't talk," he groaned, the logic hitting him. It was quite silly.
The withdrawal was peaking. His vision was tunnelling. The dark room was spinning. The Whispers were a deafening roar.
<...it's over... I'm done... ...so dark... so cold... ...just let me die... just let me...>
He couldn't make them die by talking.
He couldn't find another gang fight. That was a miracle. That was lightning in a bottle.
He was too weak to make a kill.
He still had the rusted knife though, but the thought of using it, of plunging it into a living person... he wasn't that person.
Not yet.
He was a scavenger, not a predator.
So, what was left?
He had to scavenge.
He had to find someone already dying.
Someone who was on the brink without his help.
Someone who was shuffling off the mortal coil, and all Zane had to do was be... nearby.
He was in a flophouse.
A shithole at the bottom of a sewer of a city. This building was probably packed with people dying of disease, of old age, of overdoses.
He didn't need to be a reaper.
He needed to be a vulture.
He just had to find a dying animal... and wait.
The idea was revolting. It was "monstrous."
The hunger... loved it.
It was a plan.
The withdrawal eased, just a fraction, at the promise of a meal.
Zane pushed himself into a sitting position. The tremors eased from convulsions to violent shakes.
He had to find a target. Now.
He closed his eyes. He opened his mind.
He pushed past the general, dull roar of the Sump-Pit. He filtered out the garden-variety misery.
<...lost my money...> (Too "shallow." Not food.) <...he's cheating on me...> (Not "dying." Just "angry.") <...need a fix... need it...> (Desperate, but "strong." Wanting something is a "lifeline.")
He needed the opposite. He needed someone who was giving up.
He listened... deeper.
Then finally, he found it.
It was faint. Thin. A reedy little thread of a thought, miles away from the roaring desperation of the others.
<...it's... so... dark... ...so... cold... ...ma... ma... ...just... let... go...>
It was the sound of a guttering candle. It was almost out.
It was perfect.
Zane focused, trying to pinpoint the signal.
It was close.
Not in the common room. "Upstairs." On this floor.
In this building.
Zane's heart hammered.
He had a target.
He had a plan. A horrible, ghoulish, vulture-like plan.
Find the room. Get inside. Silently.
And just... wait.
He was a reaper. He was a parasite, waiting for the host to die.
He "grasped" the rusted bolt-pin, his hand shaking but resolute. He sucked in a ragged breath, the hunger screaming in anticipation.
He was starting to slide the bolt back...
...THUD...
Zane froze.
The sound was real. Not a Whisper.
It came from the rotten stairs.
...THUD...
A heavy footstep. Slow and measured.
It wasn't a shuffling, drunken tenant. It wasn't the scampering innkeeper.
...THUD...
The floorboards in the hall groaned under a serious weight.
Someone was walking down the pitch-black hallway.
Someone who wasn't despairing.
Zane held his breath. His Whispers skill was useless against a predator.
A new thought slammed into his skull, cutting through the Whispers like a razor. It was cold, flat, and annoyed.
<...midnight... time to collect... where is that one-eyed fucker...>
Zane's blood turned to ice.
He knew that mental voice. He'd heard it in the alley.
It was the hatchet-faced Rusted-Nail.
<...Boss said to check the flophouses... find the innkeeper... or find the 'demon'...>
A heavy fist hammered on the door next to Zane's. Room 3.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
"Sump-Pit management!" the Nail's real voice boomed through the thin walls. "Open the fuck up!"
Zane was trapped.
He was in a flimsy closet. The hunger was eating him alive from the inside.
And a homicidal ganger was six feet away on the outside, kicking in doors.