The corpse was breathing again

It lingered for a moment at the very threshold of death—then turned away and returned to the land of the living.

The robed figures in the dim, reeking room stared in stunned silence. One or two hadn't even realized that the man had "died." The passage between life and death had been so brief, so ambiguous, that without close attention, it might have gone unnoticed. All they could be sure of was that the dying man's breath—once thin and rattling—had suddenly grown strong.

And then his eyes opened.

He blinked against the meager glow of the oil lamp, pupils contracting as if even that dim light had become blinding. Slowly, his gaze shifted, as if only now noticing the three black-clad figures looming nearby.

"Praise the blessing of the Sun!" cried the youngest among them, voice rising in jubilant relief. "You made it! I thought—"

"Wait!" the low-voiced man snapped, cutting across the celebration like a blade. He thrust an arm across the younger cultist's chest, pushing him back. "Something's not right! He stopped breathing. I saw it with my own eyes—step back!"

Duncan blinked again, the final echoes of the soul's crossing still swirling in his head. The last thing he remembered was initiating another soul projection through the brass compass—his second test of the firebound spirit. Now here he was... waking up in a sewer again. And not just any sewer.

The same sewer.

The same cult.

You've got to be kidding me.

He had selected a new target entirely by feel, choosing one of the flickering lights he'd seen in that otherworldly black sea of consciousness. He had trusted his gut—or the ghost captain's instinct, as the goat head might've put it. And now?

Back in the cult. Apparently wearing a robe this time.

If this was fate, it had a very strange sense of humor.

The hostile stares brought him back to the moment. The man with the low voice had already taken a step back, hand hovering near his belt, his eyes locked onto Duncan's like a man ready to strike.

Duncan frowned—then glanced down.

Of course. He was wearing the same kind of ceremonial robe they were. The ones from the ritual. The ones the cultists had worn around the altar.

He'd gone from sacrificial offering to cultist.

And judging by the others' reactions, he might have just "resurrected" in front of them.

Which would explain the fear.

He looked up, meeting the low-voiced cultist's glare. In the corners of his vision, the others were moving as well—subtle shifts of stance, hands ready to draw hidden blades.

Then something strange happened.

A ripple. A whisper of motion inside his own thoughts.

Memories.

Not his.

They weren't just fragments—though fragmented they were. They came in bursts, flashing across his mind like fading sparks: running through the sewers; offering the last of his coin to a masked priest of the Sun; chanting blasphemous prayers in exchange for healing that never came. Duncan remembered drinking blood, standing under a false icon of the Sun.

He saw the riot at the altar. A boy pushed onto the platform. The ritual erupting into madness. The sun priest collapsing as his heart burned away.

And he—this body—had run.

Duncan's hands clenched slightly. These weren't just images. They were real memories. He knew, with strange certainty, that they belonged to the man whose body he now occupied.

That hadn't happened the first time.

The first projection—the corpse on the altar—had been empty. A shell. But this body… it had memories.

Was it because it was "fresher"? Had Ai's presence changed the ritual? Or had he simply gone deeper?

He didn't know.

But he knew these cultists were about to panic.

And panicking cultists were not good for diplomacy.

He sat up slowly, suppressing the instinct to groan. His body still felt half-frozen—nerves sluggish, limbs slow to obey.

The low-voiced man snapped, "Don't move! Tell me your name!"

Duncan hesitated for only a breath before answering.

"Ron. Ron Strain."

The name came from the memories still echoing in his mind.

The younger cultist beside the leader nodded immediately. "That's right. He's Ron."

But the leader wasn't convinced.

His hand tightened on something beneath his robes—and then he began to chant.

The words were wrong. The syllables twisted, archaic, half-forgotten. But Duncan understood enough: a prayer. A test.

And then—heat.

Burning.

His chest.

He reached under his robes on instinct and pulled out a gold sun-shaped charm.

It was glowing.

Then burning.

A surge of fire erupted from the charm's surface, lashing toward his heart.

"The Sun's light is rejecting him!" the cultist barked. "His soul's been replaced! He's not Ron! Kill the imposter!"

Steel flashed as blades were drawn.

But before Duncan could even raise a hand, something else moved.

The air split open.

A ghostly bird, wreathed in green fire, burst from the shadows like a meteor. It shrieked—a sound that tore through the room like a storm. With a sweep of its wings, it scattered sparks and spectral feathers across the chamber.

All three cultists froze mid-charge.

Literally.

Their bodies slowed. Their limbs moved as if through syrup. Duncan watched their forms blur, as if caught in a stuttering reel of film, moving frame by sluggish frame.

And then they stopped. Mid-stride. Mid-battle cry. Motionless.

Duncan stood.

The charm in his hand had stopped burning. The flames were now green—calm, tame, responding to his will like a living thing. The ghostly pigeon landed on his shoulder.

The cultists stared, eyes wide with silent horror.

"You'd have been better off pretending you saw nothing," Duncan said softly.

And then they were gone.

No screams. No collapse.

Gone.

The pigeon let out a loud caw, then declared, in a voice like broken radio static, "Oops! Page not found! Try refreshing?"

It would've been funny—if it hadn't been so deeply, deeply disturbing.

The bird now looked like something from a necromancer's nightmare. Bone and flame, muscle and light. Its shriek had sounded like the gates of hell opening.

Somewhere, Duncan was sure, the goat head would've been impressed.

He looked at the spot where the cultists had been. His flames still burned faintly along the floor.

"What did you do?" he asked the bird on his shoulder.

It fluffed its spectral wings and responded after a moment's thought: "Sent back to the shadow cache!"

Duncan frowned. He had begun, slowly, to understand some of Ai's bizarre metaphors. "You banished them. Pushed them into a parallel layer, maybe. Or locked them behind some dimensional curtain."

The pigeon went "Coo!" and pretended to peck at his shoulder.

He decided to take that as confirmation.

The room was silent again. And yet…

He could still feel them.

Not see, not hear, but feel. Like they were trapped just outside of reality, desperately clawing at the walls.

A flicker of motion caught his eye—light, shifting oddly.

The lamp swayed. Just once. And for a heartbeat, a mark appeared on the wall. A scratch. A cut from a knife.

And then it vanished.

The last sign of those three men.

Duncan turned and walked out.

The hall beyond was narrow. Lamps still burned on the walls—at least the city's infrastructure kept its forgotten corners from descending into pitch blackness.

He followed the corridor up. Faster.

Fresher air greeted him. Faint, briny wind.

Machinery. Waves. Distant sounds of industry.

He broke into a jog.

The pigeon beat its wings, trailing fire. "The age is calling! The age is calling!"

"Don't talk," Duncan muttered. "Normal pigeons don't talk."

"...Aye, captain," came the reply.

He froze. Turned.

Had it just responded... appropriately?

But he had no time to ponder it.

He had a world to meet.

At the top of the ramp, Duncan pulled off his robe and hid it in a dark corner. Underneath, his clothes were plain enough not to draw suspicion. The sun medallion still burned faintly in his palm, but he tucked it into a pocket—useful, maybe. Dangerous, definitely.

Then, finally, he stepped out onto the streets of the city.

And there it was.

Pland.

A city of smokestacks and spires, of distant towers and grand arches. Lights flickered in the hills. In the far-off heights, domes glinted beneath the pale glow of the sky's eternal scar.

The city looked back at him.

Duncan grinned.

No words. Just breathless, voiceless laughter.

And then, he walked toward his destination.

Ron Strain, the dying man, was gone.

But his shop remained. His place in the world.

And Duncan, captain of the Vanished, was ready to claim it.