The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 4: The Huntsman's Garden)

Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.

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SpoilerTidied this up a bit from when I posted it in PF. That version was done so late at night it wasn't even funny. This is much more concise, correct and longer.

Thanks to Wojj, Drakenforge, Ix and Malky for the help they gave me at various points in the making of the following. I forgot to say that last time, I'm sure...

Name: Zachariah Shaw
Gender: Male.
Font colour: #404072
Race: Human
Biography: WARNING! TEXT WALL AHEAD!

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SpoilerBarring his surprisingly continued sentience, Zachariah Shaw was reasonably certain he was dead. Not that he had much experience of what it was like to be dead, but he could at least take an educated guess. For a start, he'd just suffered the misfortune of having a couple of bullets tear their way through what he was reasonably certain was his stomach (he'd never been good with Biology at school). It didn't take a genius to postulate that, after a couple of excruciatingly agonising minutes twitching on the concrete, the sudden evaporation of every last needle of pain he'd been able to feel probably meant he'd passed on.

That and the fact he was standing up. Admittedly, he couldn't remember having instructed his legs to do so, but his present view, taking in the dumpster at the end of the alley, illumined under the suffusion of a faulty streetlight somewhere behind it, was not one he would have thought you could see in the night sky.

With the arguably naïve idea that some miracle might have occurred, Zachariah looked down. There was his corpse, lying there silent and still, with something rather similar to a wisp of smoke flowing from the aperture where the bullets had struck him. With trepidation starting to tarnish his euphoria, he followed it up. It turned a corner about two feet above him (the dead him, that is), then came back towards him. The “living” him. Which, it seemed, was indeed the vapour floating freely above his cadaver.


Lovely.

-~-~-~-~-~-~

Down a rather unfrequented alleyway, slightly out of the main city centre, someone had traced an outline onto the floor in off-white chalk. It was the figure of a man. You could tell that, since at some point since the time of death a passer-by had added, in their own yellow chalk, the correct genitalia.

Meanwhile, fifteen yards away, in an equally secluded warehouse, Zachariah Shaw was squatting. It had taken some considerable time to drag his body out of the elements, but that hadn't exactly been bothersome. Counting the passing hours was by now a mere distraction, rather than a fundamental part in his existence. Time wasn't that noticeable, really; sure, the sun did set occasionally, but had that stopped mattering shortly after everything else did. Eating, for example. He'd had quite the panic after a day or so when he suddenly realised he'd been forgetting about sustenance altogether, but that, he'd concluded, was merely denial. About, well, being dead.

For a fair while now, huddled into a corner that seemed far too small to him, he'd been sulking. Not crying, mind; no tear ducts. The mental trauma of being noticeably undead was taking its toll. It turned out that it was a pretty expensive fare. Toying with explaining it all to the police, to his friends, to his family; all of those hare-brained schemes had been shot down after several “hours” of back-and-forth thinking. For a start, he had found himself tethered to his immobile cadaver and lugging the bugger around was surprisingly tiring. Attaining tangibility for any extended period was proving frustratingly difficult.

Outside, some patchy drizzle was pattering out soft rhythms onto any surface it could find – he'd found, if you listened hard enough, and for long enough, the constant drumming became melodic and tuneful, all on its own. Then the radio guys switched to some new rap-heavy crap and it became more about trying not to listen at all.

At the moment, it was fine. The radio, perched on a girder that would soon make up the neighbouring construction, was playing something peaceful. It had a gentle beat, meandering between harmonies with graceful ease. Another rhythm faded in, more regimented, getting louder with every passing tap, ceasing abruptly, jogging Zachariah out of deep hypnosis.

To his left, someone cleared their throat.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Afternoon.”[/background:1vyawuoc]

Someone had crept up on him, it seemed. Well, actually, in retrospect, those footsteps should have easily identifiable, but still. It was a man, sporting a frivolously long ponytail in an impossibly shiny shade of blonde. A pair of old-fashioned pince-nez was perched precariously on the end of his nose, through which he was currently staring intently at Zachariah. Setting him back another couple of decades was the cane he held in his right hand, covered with a velvet glove as per the time-honoured fashion.

He had a smile on his face that made him look a little crazy, but an air about him that reeked of the rational, albeit impossible.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Zachariah Vivian Ernest Douglas Shaw? Were your parents sadists or something?”[/background:1vyawuoc]

Amazingly, all five names had been correctly recited, but after what he'd been through these past few days, nothing could really surprise Zachariah. Besides, he had a theory; it was a tad leftfield, but he drew on what remained of his courage to voice it:

“Are… are you Death?”

The smile quivered a little, then grew.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Oh no, of course not! What a silly thing to say…”[/background:1vyawuoc]

Before a look of surprise could even find its way to Zach's face, the other man continued.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“No, I'm afraid he couldn't make it today. Too much paperwork. Honestly, you'd be amazed how quickly it piles up when you go off for a few dozen millennia, swinging an oversized farming tool around the place like it's nobody's business. It was I who noted he could do with filling some of it in, actually. ”[/background:1vyawuoc]

In that case…

“Um… are you God, then?”

His response was another unfathomably enormous grin.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Not exactly, mate. If my memory serves me well, I'd say I fall short of the definitions you people have come up with over the years. What were they now? Omniscience? Bugger that, I have trouble knowing what day of the week it is sometimes... omnipotence? Well, for certain definitions, maybe, but if you want a miracle or an earthquake or a choir of angels, a week's notice would be appreciated… what was the other one? Oh, omnipresence; only every other Tuesday, when I remember it is actually my turn, that is... honestly, you guys have set the record awfully askew. It's been like that old game where you whisper your message to someone, then they pass it on and on and on until it ends up being about cheese-eating ducks or the like…”[/background:1vyawuoc]

Zachariah hadn't the faintest idea what his new acquaintance was rambling on about. He was pretty sure it was a “no”.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“And another thing; I'm a bachelor, dammit. I never got anyone pregnant, alright? I haven't had a son, courtesy to popular belief. You know, apparently, if I was God, according to your manifold religions, I should have one hundred and thirty different sons by now, not to mention seventy-two bleedin' daughters. I don't exactly appreciate being portrayed as a promiscuous lovemaking machine. I mean, I've been around, yeah, but not that around. It says a lot about the sex life of a species as a whole if they have to make their idol a slut…”[/background:1vyawuoc]

The overwhelmingly bemused expression on the face of his unfortunate listener stopped him from getting any further.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Anyway, actually, I kind of am your god, for the moment at least. I suppose I'm more like a repairman, to be truthful. If you haven't already gathered, something's gone wrong… Talis couldn't fix it remotely, Sirru almost ripped my hair out over it, Anton couldn't care less… um, long story short, I've gotten off my ass and come to see to this myself…”[/background:1vyawuoc]

Though he wasn't sure if he really had a head or not, Zach damn well knew he had a headache. It was the only possible result of this insurmountable monologue…

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Right now, your fate is in my hands. Well, no, hang on; technically, it's in yours. You've got a decision to make. See, what power I have is currently all geared up to do one of two things. The first is to leave you be, as you are, right here, right now. I'll do away with the past couple of minutes, if you like, just for your peace of mind. Existence will continue. You'd make a pretty good ghost, to be frank; I expect you could find yourself a better building than this to haunt… oh, but you'll still be attached to that corpse of yours. Sorry in advance, but unless I have to, I'm sure as hell not uncoupling that mess…”[/background:1vyawuoc]

The deity paused, absent-mindedly peering through a hole in the warehouse wall. Zach's patience was being tested; not that he could tell that was the case, of course.

“And the other choice?”

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Well, I reluctantly decouple you from that wretched body of yours and you'll be a free man, eventually. You'll still be a ghost; I can't fix that. But you won't have to lug yourself around and I guarantee you things will be an awful lot easier. ”[/background:1vyawuoc]

The smile turned into a sneer

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“On one condition. ”[/background:1vyawuoc]

“What is it?”

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“I'm not telling you. Partly because I'm not allowed to, because of some silly old clause, but mostly because I have a sadist streak about me. Yeah, sorry, can't be helped…”[/background:1vyawuoc]

The internal musings and reflections required to make a decision took about ten seconds. Zachariah didn't really see that he had a choice.

“Promise you won't do anything nasty?”

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“I am a man of my word. I shan't do a thing to harm you. ”[/background:1vyawuoc]

“Alright. What've I gotta do to please you, huh?”

The Gentleman known as Sruix smiled.

[background=indigo:1vyawuoc]“Try not to blink. ”[/background:1vyawuoc]

Everything suddenly went very, very dark indeed. For Zachariah, anyway. In the warehouse, everything was as it always had been, up to and including the distinct lack of any dead bodies cluttering up the place.

Abilities & Weapons: After the events described below, Zachariah Shaw is now a man of two halves. His ghost is still existent, but is now disconnected from his cadaver, as per the agreement. The twist is that, along with the detachment, his corpse has been reanimated as well. There are now two iterations of him about the place, each with half the life of a full soul. They are independent entities; one is not privy to the inner thoughts of another, nor to their other half's actions, but they share the same memories and basic personality.

The ghost half is a classic ghost – totally intangible normally, he can, through some considerable exertion have an effect on the world around him. Small objects are easy enough, but anything too big and he'll have a problem afterwards. Slipping through objects, be they chairs or walls of bullets, takes no effort at all; all that's required is for him to forget that he's trying to be reasonably normal. His range is by rights unrestricted, but if he ends up going too far from his corpse, movement through the air becomes more like pushing through treacle. Presumably there is some kind of link still present between them.

The three-day dead Zachariah is a zombie, pretty much; he's still as sentient as a normal human being, having not been dead for too long, but has some difficulties with concentration, the sort that come from your brains starting to decay. Slower than before, both in movement and articulation, but with the superhuman strength that I seem to recall the undead sometimes have.

Description: Before death he had a reasonably dead-end job in an accountant's office, being a typical twenty-something graduate with bookish tendencies and a passion for a healthy debate, particularly science explaining the rational. Reasonably tall, his hair is almost a literal mop, black in colour, that was forever getting in his eyes. It still does, actually, but it's not much of a problem now, what with it being translucent and all. On the fated night, if it is at all important, he happened to be wearing a scarf and duffel coat. Both still adorn his corpse, though they are a little more ragged than before, and their spiritual versions still clothe his ghost that, for some reason, happens to be slightly tainted purple.