“Wes, you’re not in your mind, you’re in mine, and I wanna know how you got here!” Emily was becoming agitated.
Wes was now as confused as Emily seemed to be. Was he still in his own mind? This interaction was too real to be one he had created. If he had somehow navigated himself into Emily’s mind then it was a major breach in her privacy. It was an invasion that would elicit the exact response she was exhibiting. Wes took a few seconds to think over the possibilities. If Emily was a creation of his mind, shouldn’t he be able to change her in some way? After trying without success, he concluded it must be her.
“Emily, it really is you. I’m so sorry! How did I get here?” Wes asked. He was feeling out of control – an uncomfortable feeling, and one he didn’t like.
His confusion seemed to pacify Emily. “Calm down,” she said in an attempt to soothe his irritation. “I may be a little upset that you came here without being invited, but I’m still incredibly intrigued as to how you got here.”
“I don’t know, I was just walking in the nothingness and thought about being here that first time…and then…all of a sudden, I was. I wouldn’t have if I would have known I was traveling into your mind.”
Emily stared at him for a minute. “Let’s sit down and discuss this, Wes,” she said as she did just that. “I’ve never heard of this happening before to anyone. I’m wondering if it isn’t just a creation of my mind.” Emily grabbed Wes’s hand and pulled him down to sit on the sand next to her. They sat side by side and looked out toward the water. “I need you to change something about the surroundings to prove to me you’re real.”
Wes was now fairly certain he was speaking to the real Emily but decided it would be pointless to argue. After all, the entire situation would be clarified when he saw her the next morning. He decided to go along with her request and tried to think of what he could do to prove to Emily, if it was the real Emily, that he was also real. It needed to be more dramatic than what he’d done on their first soul-sync. She would be expecting shooting stars, a jumping whale, and a sunrise.
With that in mind, Wes decided to completely change the surroundings. If he could remove Emily from the world she created in her mind that would definitely show her that he was real. He also knew he couldn’t take her to the theme park. Emily had already seen it once and might believe it to be a re-creation from her own memory and not Wes’s.
The beach slowly faded and was replaced by the rooftop of his antemort apartment building in Chicago. It looked just as it did the night he died. The sun was setting. Emily and Wes were seated side by side on one of the lounge chairs.
“Okay, you’ve convinced me.” Emily stood up and walked over toward the side of the roof that faced Lake Michigan. She stood at almost the exact location where Wes sat on the ledge thinking of suicide. “This place is new to me so I know it’s from your mind.”
“This is the rooftop of my old apartment. The night I died I almost jumped from right where you’re standing. Good thing I didn’t.” Wes thought about the irony of his situation. His resolution not to jump hadn’t saved him. He ended up dying that night anyway. Would his soul have severed from his body if he had jumped or would he have been a walking pile of mush? Jumping or pills aside, it seemed death was his destiny that night.
He joined Emily next to the wall that surrounded the rooftop. She was looking over the edge at the pavement below. “Yes, it is a good thing you didn’t jump. Most Mortuis who jump don’t make it. I guess if you’re desperate enough to jump then you don’t really want to stick around afterward anyway.”
“After learning to feed tonight, I almost wish I had jumped.” The falling and shattering of the glass alcohol bottle was vivid in his memory, and as he thought about the bottle one appeared halfway down the height of the building, completed its fall, and shattered on the pavement. “That’s why I tried to help the girl I fed on tonight before I came to your beach.”
“What?” Emily looked up from the shattered bottle on the pavement below. “You connected with the antemort from the bar?”
“I think I must have if I’ve really connected with you.” Had his meeting with Vanessa really happened? Could he have really helped her to see herself in a new way? It was reasonable to believe that he had synced with her now that he stood here with Emily in her world.
“When I synced with her in the car tonight, I saw how she saw herself,” Wes explained to Emily. “Her perception of herself was so warped I felt bad for her. I figured the least I could do was try to correct her distorted self-image.” Wes paused for a second. “I took life from her. I needed to repay that. Maybe I succeeded in doing it if I’m actually standing here with you now.”
“How did you change her perception?” Emily turned and leaned up against the wall to face Wes who was still looking over the side at the remnants of the bottle.
“Simple. I used a mirror and controlled her image in it to show her how I saw her.”
“And that worked for her?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I think it did. After she looked in the mirror, her mental image of herself changed to reflect what was in the mirror.”
Emily’s face was lit by the light from the setting sun she was now facing. Wes turned and leaned against the wall next to her. The view of the sunset was less obstructed than the lake. Now a large, deep red orb, the sun was just beginning to fall below the horizon.
“Wes,” Emily said, “if you really did connect with this girl and help her change the way she saw herself, then you have succeeded in repaying an antemort for the life she has given you in a way that I could only dream of doing myself. What a powerful thing to be able to do. I’ve never known any other Mortui who was able to freely go between minds without being synced.”
“I don’t know how I did it though,” Wes said, quickly trying to slow the growing excitement Emily showed. “It’s also possible that it never happened.”
“I think it must have. You’re here aren’t you? We’ll have to ask the Ancestors if they’ve ever heard of anything like this. Have you connected with anyone else without syncing?”
“No,” Wes answered.
“That’s probably a good thing. Also, maybe you should try to keep from doing too much of it before we figure out how it works. You don’t want to go strolling into the wrong person’s mind or accidently allow them into yours.” Emily gave Wes a smile.
“I guess not.”
Emily’s last comment made Wes see the power this ability would give a Mortui. Being able to connect with someone without having to sync was like having telepathic powers. What about accidently allowing someone into his mind? If he were able to freely move into others’ minds, could they come freely into his? Apparently it wasn’t common for Mortuis to do what he’d done tonight, but he was still too new to know any of this for sure.
“Now Wes, I have to leave you.” Emily pushed away from the wall and brushed away the sand that was still clinging to her clothes from her beach. “You should go work on that park of yours and stop sneaking up on me at my beach.” She reached her hand out to Wes. “You’re good company so don’t think I’m trying to get rid of you. Still, everyone needs some time to themselves. I know you understand.”
“I do.” Wes brushed the remaining sand off his clothes and then chuckled when he realized that such an act was pointless. The sand didn’t exist outside of their minds. “I really am sorry for intruding.”
“I know you are. Good guys always care about how their actions impact others.” The rooftop faded around them as Emily broke her meditation and disappeared along with the rooftop he had replaced her world with.
Wes found himself in the nothingness again. He wondered how long it would be before Emily discovered he wasn’t the good guy she kept calling him. When he was alive, he never paid much attention to how his actions impacted others. He might not have intentionally hurt someone or made them believe he was a bad person, but he never went out of his way to be a positive influence in anyone’s
life either. Nor could he forget how he neglected his family. His suicide had caused his brother Lyall pain; he saw that the day he was carried out of his apartment. Maybe Lyall was still grieving.
Knowing he should do as he was told and not try to connect with anyone else, Wes couldn’t help wondering if he could connect with his brother. It might be a way to see him and comfort him without having to let him know he was alive. To Lyall it would only seem like a dream and it might allow both of them some closure. If not closure, then maybe comfort. It was worth a try.
Wes imagined his brother just as he’d imagined the girl from the bar and Emily, but his brother never appeared. He tried a few more times, before finally giving up. What was different? Why was he able to connect so easily with them and not his brother? More importantly, if Emily didn’t know anyone else who could do it, who would he even ask?
Finally admitting defeat, Wes took Emily’s advice and decided to work on his version of the Magic Kingdom. If nothing else, it would occupy his thoughts and take his mind off other things. From the nothingness, he created the themed lands that made up the world that would be his escape, and his memories began filling in the gaps. This world was much easier to take on than the world of his new Mortui reality.
Chapter 10
Seth stared out the window into the street. It was a quiet night, and the fog rolling in off the lake filled the streets. There was something poetic about the scene and what he knew they would accomplish that night. After years of studying the possession of antemorts from a scientific perspective, Seth was certain tonight would be the night they would finally find the answer and the waiting would end. It was only a small piece of a much larger plan, but an integral one.
The Atumra of Chicago operated out of a fairly large restored brick and stone office building just north of the city’s center. They also owned and operated most of the businesses located at the street level of their building including an organic bakery, a pub, an antique store, and their newest addition, a specialty cupcake shop. Hundreds of customers visited these businesses, most of them young, allowing the shop to serve as a buffet for the Atumra living and working in the building. It was too easy a trap for Seth and he was never one to graze. He preferred to finish off his meals, and although he did occasionally follow one or two of the customers back to their homes for feeding, he usually favored pursuing his game elsewhere.
Aside from the retail businesses at street level, the rest of the building and indeed a large portion of his Atumra group were more recently dedicated to the research of body possession. Transferring the soul of a Mortui to an antemort’s body was no easy task. There were stories of natural occurrences of the process taking place throughout history, but most of these incidences were described as chance happenings. It was the goal of the Body to eliminate any uncertainty in the process so they could conduct possessions at will. Through their research they had discovered that in order for possession to take place, a number of different factors had to come into play.
Mortuis had known from the beginning of time – or more correctly, the beginning of death and second life – that a living being was made up of several components: the body – simply a shell for everything else, the mind or soul – the part that was uniquely the individual, and energy or life force – the part that kept the other parts united. When the body was badly damaged, it usually resulted in a loss of life energy and the soul would leave the body resulting in the death of the individual. Alternately, the loss of life energy would also cause the soul to leave the body whether it was damaged or not. This type of loss of life occurred when a Mortui consumed the entire life energy of an antemort.
For a Mortui to possess the body of an antemort the conditions needed to be exactly precise. First of all, not every antemort body will accept a soul other than the one that originally inhabited it. There was a biological component to be considered. Recent research had discovered there was a genetic marker that had to be dominant in order for an antemort to become a Mortui; if the marker was present but recessive, the individual would simply die. The spirit could not remain in the body. However, those with a recessive marker were perfect for possession, and these were the individuals a Mortui spirit could enter provided all other conditions were met.
With each failure they were slowly determining what those conditions were. It seemed that it was a requirement that the antemort be unhappy enough with life that he would easily let go of his body. So-called “fighting spirits” proved impossible to possess. Also, death needed to come by natural causes and couldn’t originate from feeding, and the transfer had to occur at the exact moment the antemort’s spirit left the body. That was the tricky part. Once the spirit left the body so did the life force, unless, under just the right circumstance, some spirit was present. This knowledge had led to their current findings.
At the most recent attempt it was discovered that the gender of the individual to be possessed and the Mortui who was to possess it had to be the same. For whatever reason, a body would not accept the spirit of a Mortui of the opposite sex, probably because it indicated that the original spirit was gone.
Even after having discovered all this, the main reason the Atumra still didn’t have any successful possessions under their belts was the inability to create the perfect killing serum. The drug they were developing was supposed to bring the antemort’s body close enough to death so the person’s soul would sever its connection without damaging the body.
Once they achieved the perfect chemical composition for the serum and all other conditions were ideal, Seth trusted the possession process would be fairly simple and easily replicated. It was believed that a Mortui simply had to soul-sync with a dying antemort just as the antemort’s spirit was leaving the body, thus causing the Mortui’s spirit to be pulled in to replace the original spirit.
For many years now Seth and the Body, the council that governed the Atumra, had poured a great deal of their resources into developing a successful possession program. It was an integral part of their plan to recruit Mortuis that belonged to different sects, including the members of the organization called AfterLife. Seth believed Mortuis were superior beings, and it surprised him that large numbers of them yearned for mortality and were willing to give up eternal life for it. They wanted to once again experience the sensations that came with the senses of a living body – taste, touch, sexual gratification. Death made these things only memories. This group of Mortuis who sought a second chance at life would be the ones the Atumra would target. By possessing a mortal body they would grow old and die. Well, Seth thought, if they lasted that long. They didn’t deserve the gift they’d been given.
Mortuis were gods among the antemorts. They could live almost indefinitely as long as they were able to feed. Their bodies weren’t susceptible to the limits or frailties that came from a living body. Antemorts were merely a source of energy and repair.
Mortuis that didn’t understand this didn’t deserve to be Mortuis; at least that was Seth’s and the Body’s view. The plan was to recruit discontented Mortuis by promising the opportunity to occupy a living body once they’d proven themselves to the Atumra. What these new members wouldn’t realize was that once they possessed a living body they were easy to dispose of. Seth thought about all the kids being lured to Pleasure Island in the story of Pinocchio. Once the fun was over it was time to pay. Rahul would be the first to pay for his desire to live again.
Ultimately, the Body followed two long-term plans. The first, using procedures already in place, was the building of an army of Mortuis. For the past few years, branches of the Atumra were locating the best candidates to be part of this army. This long process began with pinpointing the gene that facilitated the ability for the soul to remain in a human body after death. Once they had identified the marker within human DNA, Atumra members began infiltrating hospitals and blood banks to get access to samples of blood for testing. It was from these tests that candidates for both the army and the possession process were being
identified.
An army would be more difficult to build and the selection process for participants was much stricter by Atumra’s guidelines to prevent the recruitment of weak individuals. Weakness would come from the selection of inferior recruits. When a person became a Mortui, he or she was limited by the physical condition of the body at the time of death. Mortuis cannot build muscle or mental capacity beyond the capabilities of the body during its sojourn in life. They had learned that an individual whose body was born with mental or physical handicaps would continue to exhibit those handicaps even if they became a Mortui. A person with a capacity to learn would continue to learn – one with mental limitations would continue to have the same limitations. Physical limitations after death were even stricter. If the individual had taken care of his or her body and developed strength and agility while alive, the body could remain in that condition. Physical limitations present in life could not be corrected after death. A Mortui body was merely a machine that could be restored to its original condition at the time of death but not improved. With the absence of the biological processes that take place in a living body, a Mortui was unable to create or improve any body parts. Seth likened it to the ability some animals have to regrow limbs while humans cannot. A Mortui was as different from an antemort as an antemort was from a reptile.
With the first part of the Body’s plan focusing on the building of an army by turning the very best genetically inclined antemorts into Mortuis, the second part was the perfecting of the possession process. Not only would it be an incentive for recruits from other Mortui organizations to join the Atumra, it could also be used to gain power within existing governments. While dominant markers were relatively rare, recessive markers were much more common. Possession of important persons in society would be one of the quickest ways to gain power.
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