Mutants, a Tale from Another World

Mutes are disgusting things to look at.  Their skin is a dead grey and covered in scars and scabs, probably self inflicted or from fighting each other.  But the worst thing are the mouths.  Constantly moving, like a mute trying to say something.  Their hearing is terrible, but their sense of smell is very powerful.  They could probably smell me a mile away if it wasn’t for my shimmer cloak. 

It is more of an all body suit than a cloak.  One of its features is to keep in any and all smells for when I get close to a person.  The last thing I need is for my smell to give me away as I’m about to kill something. 

I decide to just wait for the Mutes to pass.  I’m not quite sure if they are still capable of conscious thought or not, and I don’t want to have to kill them unnecessarily.  As they pass me by, they get so close that I can smell their unwashed, unclothed bodies and see the individual scars on their faces, some are still oozing pus and very dark blood.  Their hairless heads swaying from side to side in unison with their mindless shuffle forwards.

When they disappear around the corner, I shiver at the cold chill running down my back and continue my way towards the Super Mart once more.  The building is a small one, with an overhang with Super Mart in red writing above the entrances, sliding doors with the windows shattered and boarded up, and a couple broken cars moved in front of the doors as if to keep out an attack.  Another attempt to survive the Apocalypse that failed.  As I near the entrance, I hear lots of shuffling inside so I decide to activate my anti-grav boots and walk on the ceiling to avoid bumping into the Mutes inside. 

When I walk inside, what I see and smell makes me gag.  The place is filled with Mutes until there is next to no standing room.  They are all gathered around something that I don’t quite see at first.  Then I realize that they are gathered around a dead carcase.  Probably some poor animal.  Hopefully it’s just an animal.  The thing that gave away it being a beast was the thrashing limbs of the Mutes throwing what appeared to be red tubes.  I finally put two and two together and came to the conclusion that it was something's bloody intestines. 

It apparently wasn’t the first time they did this either.  Bones were lying everywhere, broken in half for the marrow.  The runts of the crowd were still gnawing on scraps from their previous meals.

The Unnatural

I wanted to get outside and get some fresh air, and I figured as long as I didn’t pass the tree line it wouldn’t be an issue.  I got out there to find the sun having long since set over the mountain tops, but light still radiating through the dimming sky.  The mountain cast a shadow over the valley, but it was still bright enough for me to see clearly with what dim light was reflected into the valley by the sky.  The forest itself was dark and I couldn’t see further than a couple feet past the tree line anyway.  I sat out there for a while, but I started to get a headache for some reason.  It must be my allergies acting up.  They always hit me weirdly whenever I came to the mountains in the Northeast.

“James!” a voice called out to me from beyond the tree line.  It was a kind, feminine voice.  It made me very nostalgic but sent a shooting pain in my heart.  It was Marah’s voice.  “James, where are you?”  What the hell was she doing here?  Before I said anything, it occurred to me that it was most definitely not her.  “James?”

A figure emerged from the shadows.  It was her.  Her curly, black hair clumped up in a rats nest on her head.  He ebony skin darkened further by the shadows, but I could still make out her cute button nose and high cheekbones.  She was shorter than me, which was saying something.  I was only 5 foot seven, and she was five foot two.

“Don’t,” Alec warned, appearing right next to me.  “Remember what yer Grandad said.”  I ignored him, staring intently at Marah.

“James,” she said again.  “There you are.  I’ve been looking forever for you.  I got kidnapped by someone… or something,” she said and shuddered.  “I was so scared, but it let me go.  Something’s been chasing me through the woods.”

“That’s a bloody trick,” Alec said.

“Shut up,” I hissed.

“Marah,” I muttered.  Why would something bring her here?  Are they using her as bait?  Is it even Marah?  I wanted to have her come to me, but I held my tongue.  If I did that, I could be inviting something dangerous into the clearing.  “You can’t come into the clearing, can you,” I said.

“No, something is keeping me from coming in.  It’s like some kind of barrier.”  A tear rolled down her cheek.  A rustling came from behind her.  “James, please let me in.  Something is coming.”  The panic in her voice was too real.

I began to open my mouth to let her in, but a hand rested on my shoulder.  I looked back to find Grandpa.  “It’s not her, boyo.  That’s one of the things I was warning you about earlier.”

“Thank Jesus,” Alec muttered and plopped onto the ground.  “Yeh feckin’ twat.”

“What do you mean?  It has to be her.  It obviously isn’t a changeling.  I’d be able to tell if it was by the glimmering from their spell.”

“Aye, you’re right.  It isn’t a changeling, although I’ve never seen them having that glimmering.  You rely too heavily on the Sight.  That thing right there isn’t one of the Supernatural.  It’s one of the Unnatural I was talking about.”

Marah’s face changed from one of fear to one of twisted disappointment.  She turned around and walked back into the forest.

“Why can’t I see the spell it was casting?” I asked.

“There was no spell to see,” Grandpa said.  “I call them Skinwalkers.  As far as I can tell, they actually turn their bodies into whatever they are trying to mimic.”

“How in the hell did it even know about Marah?” I asked.  “I haven’t even talked about her, much less brought a picture up here with me.”

“Were you getting a headache earlier?” Grandpa asked.

“Yeah.”  I wasn’t liking where this was going.

“That is an indication it was reading your mind.  Skinwalkers are much more crude at reading minds than something like a Demon, so it’s fairly easy to tell when one is rooting around in your head.  I wouldn’t be too concerned though.  There isn’t much it can do with the information in your head other than shapeshift and know some basic facts about you.  As long as you’re in the cabin it can’t even get into your head.”

“I just thought it was my allergies,” I said.  “They always start acting up when I get to the mountains.”

Grandpa shook his head.  “Skinwalkers exist on pretty much every mountain range I’ve visited.  If I were a betting man, your allergies have never acted up in the mountains.”

“Are you saying…” I trailed off.

“Aye.  This isn’t the first time you’ve had your mind read by a Skinwalker.”

The Spirit of the House

The idea for this creature came from my father. He had experiences that he told me that contributed to this, and he always had this theory about houses where they had to have a good feel to them before he would buy them. Some would feel bad. They were dank, or felt of decay and abuse. Others were felt homey. Happy. He brought this idea to me late at night, and I then mutated and altered it to become The Spirit of the House: the cumulative emotion of all a house’s inhabitants from it’s construction to the present. Without further adieu, please enjoy.

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Ordinary humans can use magic, but not like other magical creatures. Magical creatures can convert emotional energy into magic, but the source of the emotional energy is usually humans. Magic can be converted by other methods, but for some reason human emotion is the fastest and easiest source of magic. There is something about human emotion that is unique and strange. In fact, that emotion can sometimes convert into magic all on it's own and even form a form of sentient magic. Humans often invest a lot of emotion into their places of living, so that emotion will come together to form a spirit of sorts. This spirit is referred to as The Spirit of the House. The Spirit of the House is neither good nor bad, and one can be found in almost all places of living. They are the manifestation of all of the emotions of every human to have lived in that house. Ordinary humans who do not possess The Sight, the ability to see the supernatural, can even feel the presence of The Spirit of the House. Every house has a unique feeling to it. That feeling can sometimes be a good and happy feeling. This feeling is often referred to as homey. That feeling is The Spirit of the House. That particular spirit probably had good tenets and lots of happy families. Other houses can feel gloomy, depressing, and even scary. Those spirits most likely had many unhappy families. They may have been poor, there could have been domestic violence, or even just spouses who fell out of love with one another. One family wouldn't be enough to give the house a negative or positive feeling, but rather the collective set of residents would. Negative houses often had a long line of negative tenets.

Not only that but The Spirit of the House could even influence the way its current tenets acted. The negative ones would make future families more likely to have negative emotions, further feeding the Spirit of the House negative emotions. The opposite is also true, where a happy house would make others more likely to be happy.

A Spirit of the House who was primarily fed positive emotion often regulates itself to one section of the house that is uninhabited by its tenets. It could be an attic, basement, or simply an empty bedroom. Normal humans can usually tell which room The Spirit of the House lives in, but they don't know why they know. Children are especially sensitive. They might be afraid to go in one section of the house by themselves. They might be scared to go into the basement by themselves as an example. Adults can also sense the Spirit of the House, but that feeling doesn't usually manifest itself in the form of fear. They might lock a door behind them without even thinking about it. They might also feel like something is watching them whenever they go into the room where The Spirit of the House resides. A Spirit of the House fed by positive emotion is best sensed by those who live in the house, but can be sensed by those who don't live in the house on occasion.

A Spirit of the House fed primarily by negative emotion does have an empty room where it primarily resides just like a positive one, but those fed by negative emotion also like to stretch their legs. They can be found to wander the house. Guests coming into the house will often look over their shoulder expecting there to be somebody behind them, but there is nothing there. They can even manifest themselves to be seen by children. They will take the form of a silhouette and appear in front of a sleepy child who is in the state of mind between dreaming and wakefulness. The reason for why they do this is unknown. Maybe the Spirit of the House is hungry for more negative emotion and simply wishes to scare the child for a quick snack. Or maybe the Spirit of the House wants to be known.

Negative Spirits of the House are often addictive as well. If one grows up in a bad household, they will often not realize how bad it was until they leave. That said, they may never leave. They may think they hate themselves and want to stay where they think they are safe. The Spirit of the House will twist and deform the psyche to the point where nobody can stand to be around the house's tenets. There are ways to "reset" this type of Spirit of the House though. A witch needs to be employed to drain away the decades and sometimes even centuries of negative emotion. Once that happens, The Spirit of the House will remain, but it's power will not. It is paramount at that point to place a good and happy family in the house to feed positive energy to the spirit. That will lay the groundwork for generations of positive emotion for the spirit to come.

Demons

Just a little excerpt of what I was writing today. Let me know what you think and enjoy!

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Demons weren’t like other magical creatures.  They couldn’t make magic from emotion, yet wielded immense amounts of it.  They didn’t eat or drink anything yet had physical bodies… when they wanted them.  How could such creatures exist in our world?  The short answer is they didn’t.  They existed in the realm between realms, the world between worlds, the void, the great beyond, the dimension between dimensions.  They came here by following the dimension hoppers; careless humans too inconsiderate to close the door once they crossed dimensions.  Demons would nestle in the safest place they could find: beneath a child’s bed.  Protected, safe from discovery.  If a parent wished to look under the bed, they would take the form of a small mouse.  They were safe.  And it had a veritable feast before it.  Demons come here weak and exhausted from rooting themselves in our reality.  They need to get stronger by absorbing life essence.  So, they take the next seventy years of life from a child to fuel them. 

Children were special.  Some could see the supernatural because of wild imaginations, hence why they always complain about a monster under their bed or in their closet.  That’s because there really is one!  The other special thing about them is they didn’t quite have a consciousness of their own.  They were similar to an animal, so the Demon could sap their energy.  Once they hit puberty and became conscious of their own nakedness, only then were they safe from having their life taken by force. 

The Demon gets strength from life essence, but it doesn’t particularly like it.  It much prefers souls.  Souls can only be willingly given to a Demon; they can’t be taken by force.  The Demon is cunning though.  It grants you wishes beyond your wildest dreams.  It can make you a movie star, richer than anybody you know, or even a genius.  It can do all of this, with the ultimate price being your soul.  You would be surprised how many people are willing to do this, knowing full well what the consequences are, especially given enough time around the Demon.  The Demon then uses your soul to amass power.  It can turn it into magic or use it to gain a physical form.  The Dragons of old were powerful Demons.  Nowadays, that’s far too conspicuous.  A Demon desires power above all else, so more often than not they choose the form of a man; a successful businessman, a polititian, a leader.  All the while, they make deals not for wealth but for more souls.

Shadow Men

Just a little preface for this. This is an excerpt from a larger part of my story. If stuff doesn’t seem as fleshed out as it could be, that’s because I’m focusing in on the description of Shadow Men. Without further adieu, enjoy!

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The man extended his hand.  “I’m Colt.  First class hunter in the Seventh Sons.  We’re an organization devoted to ensuring the safety of humans and magical creatures.  We see a human harassing a magical creature, we put a stop to it.  That’s also a vice versa thing too.  In fact, that’s why I’m here.  I need to reestabolish a treaty with the shadow men.”

“Treaty?” I asked.

“Magical creatures are bound by magic to obey to agreements they enter in to.  The wording of the original treaty specified so long as the original treaty makers lived and the last one of them died off yesterday.  I need to enter into a new treaty with them, this time with better and more permanent wording. Now, explain to me exactly what you saw of them on your way to the village.”

“They stayed at the edge of my vision.  Alec said not to pay them any mind and they would leave us alone.  What exactly makes them dangerous?” I asked.

Colt grimaced.  “Shadow men are an insidious creature.  They grab a hold of you and put you to sleep and sap your life force over the course of several minutes.  Most live out a full lifespan in their dreams during those few minutes.  They fall in love with people who are nothing more than figments of their imaginations.  They have children that aren’t real.  They form friendships, enjoy barbecues, have careers, all of it just being a dream.  It’s a general rule of thumb to let the shadow men finish their meal before we kill them.  Most who wake up from such a dream have already lived out half their lives and simply can’t reconcile that it was all fake.  They either go crazy, kill themselves, or seek out another shadow man.”

“What?  Why?” I asked dumbly.  Looking back, it made perfect sense.

“Imagine you find out the woman you fell in love with and lived with for twenty years was a figment of your imagination.  Your two beautiful children were fake.  Imagine that your best friend who you worked with, laughed with, and fought with was never actually real.  And once you wake up from that, you can never ever see any of them again unless another shadow man gets to you.”

I sat there, slightly taken aback.  This was oddly specific for somebody to make up on the spot.

“Were you…” I began to ask.

“No,” he said curtly.  “Not me at least.”