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As many know, the beings known as wraiths are usually entities born of desperate souls who are either on the verge of death, or those who have recently passed on and cannot find peace. They are usually either vengeful spirits or wrathful undead creatures and usually either have unfinished business in the mortal realm or have had great injustices done to them while alive and crave revenge. For this reason, they tend to be very focused on vengeance and revenge. Typically they appear to be skeletal or rotting humanoid figures with long, thin corpse-like arms and legs and extremely thin, twisted bodies.
They are almost always draped in layers of tattered rags, billowing silks, or other overlapping materials, but most common is their preference for black cloaks. Additionally, the face of the wraith is usually akin to an endless black hole. On the occasion they have eyes, it is said to gaze into them is to invite suffering into your life.
They are most commonly associated with graveyards or other abandoned or dilapidated locales, as many tend to guard where they died or where their remains still are. Wraiths can also be created when something goes wrong in regards to spellcasting. This is most often the result of a practitioner who tries and fails to extend the years of their lifespan or tries to manipulate time and reality in some shape or form. The result is the tragic birth of a powerful undead wraith. In some capacity these individuals did get their wish, as wraiths they are now immortal beings with incredible power, but the price they pay however, is extremely high. Their very sense of self and humanity is striped away and they are condemned to never reincarnate, find peace, or move forward through their spiritual journey. This is a terrible fate. Wraiths born this way are denied the privilege of ascension and enlightenment, and are forced to wander between dimensions for eternity, their sins and their loss forever replaying in their mind.
There are cases where wraiths can be worked with of a sort of business level but most wraiths are inherently very malicious and will sap a human's life force without a second thought. With a single touch, a wraith is able to drain the life force out of a person and steal their natural abilities to work with magic and energy. Wraiths are intensely powerful, highly energetic, brooding beings that manifest as shades, in dreams, omens and illusory visions.
I smile politely to the wraith across from me, I as what her name is.
"It doesn't matter anymore what my name was as a human, now i am simply called Bri. Bri, thats but a shadow of my old name, but then again, that's what I am now too. A shadow of what I once was. I was once an average human girl until I was kidnapped, assaulted, tortured, and left for dead. I barely recall my mothers name, nor the color of my boyfriends eyes." She says in that hunting voice, she glares at me now, as she continues and claims to have been a sweet, outgoing girl while alive, if not a little bit of a drama queen. I notice she is missing one eye, and she tells me that she was blind in that eye as a human. She speaks to me softly, with a detached coldness as she explains how she struggled with depression, not just as a human but even now as a wraith. I listen attentively, taking notes as she goes on to tell me how when she was alive she wanted to be a model so very badly but always said if she couldn't cut it as a model, she would be a nurse. I nod and ask her how she became like this. Did she die? Did she do this to herself?
A wave of dread washes over me as the glowing blue flame that is her eye flares in rage at such a question. I apologize and explain that these are questions I ask all the entities I meet. It takes a few uneasy moments for her to recompose herself, the smell of swamp water and rancid meat still stinging my nose as her aura fills the room. She is situated across a table from me, primed for the interview. Her body is elongated and rotted, her arms are long and thin, rot eating gaping holes straight through the slimy decomposing flesh.
Her boney hands are more bone than flesh, her finger bones warped into curved serrated claws, and her face and the rest of her body shrouded by layers of a tattered black tarp, shredded bed sheets stained in blood, dripping swamp moss, and mistlike shadows seeping out from this makeshift hooded robe. Her glowing blue eye burns like fire from the shadows of her cloak with white-hot hatred and is her most distinctive feature.
She shudders and a sound like a sigh escapes her, she starts to explain. Her voice is double pitched, a light breathy voice meating a harsh, cutting tone. It echoes in the air even after she speaks, each word invoking a primal fear in me that baits me to run. I know better, I must endure.
So she speaks, she tells me how before her death, she asked her mother if she could go to the beach for spring break with her boyfriend and some of her friends and her mother told her no, so this led to a lot of tension between them, but after a bit, She had asked if she could go to a friend's house for a day or two to calm down instead and her mother agreed to that compromise.
The wraith sighs again, the sound pulling my heart into my gut as her own mourning forced its way into me.
The wraith tells me how she regrets lying to her mother like that. She tells me that instead of hanging out where she said she would, she and her friends then snuck away to Myrtle Beach and that was her undoing. That fateful night during her last spring break, she had been hanging out with her friends and was partying at a club when a man promised to talk to her about an audition for a modeling gig. She says the guy seemed legit and she was only too happy to accept the drink he offered her as he aked about her interests. She admits this was foolish and naive, that the drink had been drugged, and she awoke and there were men around her…
She lets out a wet, gurgling sob as she describes how they raped her, how they tortured and used over and over for so long. She lets out more whimpers and gurgles as she whispers that she doesn't even know how many days she was kept in that strange house.
The wraith went deathly still and then leaned forward suddenly, making me cry out and reel back in surprise. “I heard someone talking about selling me…” the wraith said, her voice sounding more like a frightened teenager now. “I was terrified and at the first opportunity I ran from that godforsaken house… but… they caught me…” her voice was barely audible as she went on, “Someone hit me in the head with a gun and … they dragged me back inside. I struggled and fought, I even tore out my fingernails in the struggle but then… I heard some loud bangs and all i felt was the sharp burning agony as one of the bullets tore through my stomach and the other through my throat.”
She gurgles and coughs as if reliving the experience, her body writhing in mid air as that bitter, callous voice of this wraith returns to explain how they wrapped her still bleeding body in some sort of tarp then threw her in some sort of water. She remembers her weak last effort to survive, how at the end she heard a deep earthy rumbling voice bubbling up from the water around her, ripping her to shreds as she made a deal to defy death and get revenge…
The wraith wavers for a moment, calming down before continuing. “That is how I became this shadow of myself, what you call a Wraith. All who would dare harm another in my presence, or who I know to dare commit sexual or violent crimes will feel my vengence.” She states with a bitter cruelty.
I nod and write that down, I ask her about her family. Her mother. Did she ever try to contact them?
“I do mourn the loss of my family and the pain they still struggle with, as they cannot move on since my remains were never found. I would rather my mother did not know what truly became of me now…” The wraith admitted. “I am still trying to move on from my past as a human, after all these years I am finally coming to accept that who I was is dead, I am a wraith now.” Her voice holds a bitter, resigned tone. I thank her for her time and she nods.
“Now, I answered your questions. It is time to pay. Give me the name of who shall now die.” the wraith says, sending a rattling shiver through me. I knew there would be a price, there's always a price...
“His name is Jim ...and he is my biological father…” I finally relent, looking down at my hands.
“His crime?” She asked formally as if this was just a business meeting.
“He is a pedophile… When I was four he-”
The wraith raised a single hand and the words caught in my throat.
“Consider it done.” Was all I heard before she completely vanished.
A lump formed in my throat, tears welling in my eyes as I bent over to the side, the bile I had kept at bay now released as I vomited onto the floor. What have I done? I shuddered and quacked, finally allowing my terror to show. What have I unleashed? I struggled to stay conscious as hyperventilation overtook me at the realization that I traded a human life for the pursuit of knowledge. I was the true monster.