Drip…
Plink… plink-plink.
The rhythm of an unsettling, tiny drop of water falling into a silver cup cut through the cold air.
Again. And again.
The slow movement of tissue knitting back together, bones clinking as they aligned, mended the corpse—pulling the unsettling, dead form back into itself, piece by piece, facing what remained of a broken officer.
The incomplete corpse opened its eyes, unable to take in the whole of the place, its gaze falling instead upon the altar.
A symbol was drawn upon the stone, like the ruinous setting of a broken talisman.
Scattered mortal remains lay strewn, as if tossed by some unfeeling hand, and the splintered flesh of what had once been human covered the chamber in a grotesque pattern that made the skin crawl.
At the front, resting atop the altar, lay—
A sundered crucifix leaned against the chancel wall, its severed arms outstretched in mute accusation.
Moving away from the altar to the left, the pews—long, narrow benches carved from dark Victorian oak—lay shattered. Broken into jagged pieces, they cradled what remained of human organs, strewn into every corner as though the wood itself had fed upon them.
To the right, the pews stood straight, kept in solemn order, their ranks aligned with unnatural precision.
The grotesque stench of flesh clung to the air, resting heavily upon the rows of pews.
Slowly, the first piece came into view—a foot. Pale tissue stretched and tightened as it reformed, the officer's body regenerating at a pace both sluggish and unnaturally swift.
Only the head remained still.
The eyes shifted.
Then, with a faint, sickening pull, the left side of the body dragged itself back into place, aligning with the torso as if guided by an unseen hand.
The frail-looking young officer, with a pale-skinned body, slowly recovered the stance of his body, gaining his balance.
The nauseating feeling of coming back to life—the twitch of his lips.
Taking every step like a newborn, his first movements unsteady as he walked away from the altar, straight forward.
Passing the pews, the scattered remains of the human body formed an unsettling field, his gaze settling on the cobblestones.
He realized he was not the only one that was dead—the scattered pieces of other officers.
Slowly, his gaze shifted away from the remains of the officers to the revolver lying close to his leg.
Slightly bending down to pick the revolver from the ground, his fingers moved, feeling the warmth of the barrel—
with an empty cylinder, showing that the bullet had just been fired.
A surge of pain passed through his head, bringing back memories of the dead officer. Half of the memories were incomplete—seeing a broken church, the slow movement of the bullet after it was fired.
Orin could feel everything, every uncertainty in the dead officer's body. He could feel the pain of the officer as he was about to die.
"Ouch… it hurts," he said out loud, in a blurry, dim voice. His mind and head throbbed with pain.
For a moment, he was reliving the life of the dead officer.
The painful and unsettling moment had just passed—the brutal death of the officer.
Orin, filled with fear, could feel every moment and every last breath taken by the officer in his final moments.
The shattered fragments of the officer's body—Orin could not bear the pain and the feeling, twisting the pieces of memory closer to something spiritual.
His eyes sank into the darkness inside the mind of the officer, tracing the tiny pieces of the manuscript of spirituality.
He could not see anything else; all he could witness was the officer's final moments, the instant before death.
He realized that other officers had been there when the body he now occupied had died.
He traced what the officers had been shooting at before the illusion of the monster appeared—carrying a massive spiritual fragment, a piece of the manuscript.
Orin Morvane—his face filled with disbelief. He had never felt anything like this before—then he shifted away from the mind of the dead officer.
He came back into view, now fully formed in the body. His overtaking of the dead corpse was complete, taking control of the officer's body.
Taking control of the officer's body—mean he had gained the memories of the officer? But the memories were still scattered in fragmented pieces.
Orin was more focused on the reason he had taken the body of the dead officer. His thoughts were filled with different reasons, but all he could come up with was none.
He did not know why he had wasted so much spirituality and all of the manuscripts he had collected over the years just to take the body of a dead officer.
"Truly foolish," he said to himself.
His own memories were scattered in pieces, but the memories of the officer were still in place.
Quickly snapping away from his mind, he had no choice to think about anything yet—
interested to know more about the corpse he was now occupying.
Orin could not stop hearing the particular name of the dead officer: Percy, Percy, Percy, Percy.
"Percy," he said, the name slipping out in a calm and almost painful voice, as if his throat were still regenerating.
The name of the dead officer was all he could obtain from his memory; just a moment of time. The memory of Percy was still blurry, he said to himself, shifting his head.
Tracing the second piece of memory he had obtained,
Following the piece of echo away from the church, Orin passed through tight and narrow corners for some minutes.
He appeared at the position where the memory he was tracing had led him.
Scanning the building, already falling apart, his mind was filled with uncertainty, almost pity—for Percy, a young officer's life ending without gaining anything.
Orin Morvane stepped inside. The apartment was a whisper of chaos—shattered glass glinting among toppled shelves, scraps of paper drifting in the still air. A single bed lay on the floor, its thin mattress sagging, shivering under the weight of emptiness.
Shifting his eyes down, exhausted after using so much of his spirituality to transfer himself into the dead corpse of Percy, he fell slowly, peacefully. The tiredness of his body, the exercise of his powers, all weighed on him. All he could think was why the manuscript fragments—the tiny pieces connected to the dead officer's corpse—existed, and why he had to die.
The calm gentleness of his fall swept cold and silently through the room. Dust drifted away patiently as his eyes closed.
The revolver slipped from his hand, falling closer to the bed.