Chapter 41: The story's still the same
In the next weeks, Vlad read during the days – except, of course, those days he wasn't feeling so well and couldn't be sure he wouldn't throw up half his blood on one of the books, those days he stayed in his room and tried to work on his business degree instead – and trained less during the nights. If he wanted to understand what he read, he needed to be rested, that much was obvious. Something had to be sacrificed if he wanted to learn, and sleep could only be foregone so often.
Besides, he had time.
potentially an entire lifetime stuck in the clinic potentially more than that
did dead people age?
he thought he did but how to be sure
He still trained a bit, because he knew what happened when he didn't use his powers at all blood fevers pain and unchained uncontrolled untamed lashing out and getting a better mastery at everything other deadly about him could only help.
Vlad found books about everything occult he could think of in Bianco's collection. Not all of it was in English or had a translation available, but he had more than enough to start with, and he'd also spotted the workstations under the windows, deeper into the library.
Up to six different people came there on weekdays – and Vlad suddenly realized he had no idea what day it was, that he'd had no means to keep track of the days of the week until now – and took notes upon notes while working on a single book. They were translators, he soon found out, and were the ones working on every text not in English.
On the thirteenth day, Vlad wandered to one of them as she started complaining that none of it made any damn sense: she was a specialist of Cantonese who'd had an unlucky encounter with a ghost but didn't really know more than that, and her problem was the occult aspect of the text she was supposed to translate. She understood the words themselves, but was never quite certain of the overall meaning behind it all.
Before Vlad could even think about it, he found himself the translators' sounding board. Though he didn't have personal experience with ghosts because a portal to the afterlife exploding in your face and corrupting your very being into an abomination better kept secret didn't quite count, he knew the vocabulary and most of the theory behind it. The hours they'd spent trying to straighten up occultism into something usable in science, and how they'd eventually given up...
It was... not unpleasant, to talk to people who didn't know or care why he was there. People who were interested in him for his skills and knowledge and not because he was a broken corpse failing at staying properly dead.
Vlad couldn't, of course, confide in any of the translators and keep that part of him a secret, but at least it gave him some time away from the clinic.
Between his sessions with the translators and his own reading, he found repeating patterns and possible truths about ghosts. Spectral apparitions happened all over the world – in some spots more than others, yes, but those spots existed everywhere and ghosts could likely travel away from those too – and while some minor facts changed between ghosts and places, mostly the rules remained the same.
The things they were vulnerable to. Exorcisms, protective talismans, natural flora and minerals.
remember the blood blossoms Vladislav? red poison in an inconspicuous mug and your upper torso gaping lungs hanging out nothing to do to help except cradle them back into the hole
The powers they exhibited during most encounters.
Some were common to every ghost, such as flight and intangibility or invisibility – Vlad had never worked on that first one, but he'd accidentally levitated once of twice, and falling through stuff happened more than often before he'd got a hang of it – and something akin to ectoplasm manipulation, but with various manifestations. The cold fire Vlad could use to burn away bits of ears that would not turn back human was, for example, a regular in many tales across the world. Not all ghosts used it, but it was always present in at least one story in each chronicle and other compilations Vlad had looked through – except no one ever talked about pink ectoplasm or pink fire, always blue or green or grey, always a cold light and nothing else was ever pink from what he'd read about because of course Vlad was a freak even by ghost standards.
Intangibility, honestly, he'd known about even before the accident, and if he hadn't then... lungs hanging out through the bed through the floor falling legs disappearing under him and then here again just in time to painfully crash on the floor Vlad would have learned of it by now.
Ghosts also seemed to be only vaguely affected by material strength even when tangible, reacting more to the shockwave itself or cutting edges. They did not seem to bruise or break anything – which, considering they most likely didn't have bones and some of them could even change the form of their body, made sense – even if they could be beaten back temporarily.
Vlad couldn't say as much, but he did heal quickly, to the point that grave injuries could disappear in a matter of hours, like it had happened with his spleen. Cuts and minor accidents didn't even last minutes.
Maybe that – bleeding, still, getting hurt and bruised – was the part of him that was still alive dead alive dead alive instead.
Some ghosts, he learned, passed themselves off as human, hiding their ghostliness under a disguise of skin and smiles, stealing moments and emotions and energy from people who had no idea where the sickness and fatigue came from.
a cold stone in his stomach rolling around heavy impossible to ignore
Those were more often and obviously malevolent than the opposite.
but if anything Vlad was the one sick and tired and stuck in the same nightmare day after day
Unlike Vlad, though, those human pretenders disguised themselves on purpose, actively hiding their ghosts traits in order to get whatever they wanted out of their victims. Vlad, him, had to actively or accidentally turn into a ghost and though going back to his human body without any leftovers wasn't always easy, it still felt like more of a default state. He wasn't like them on that point at least.
but still
what if he had only convinced himself enough that he wasn't completely dead that the ghost part of him bleeding through was not the truth begging to get out what if it was only a lie an illusion for everyone including himself what if
he had a body yes but it might only be a corpse he hadn't been able to let go of
There was overshadowing, too. Bianco and the doctors spoke of that one before, and besides everyone knew ghosts could "possess" people – whether they believed it or not. Possession, in the end, didn't really exist, even if it was the word the staff had finally settled on for what they thought had happened to Vlad: being the host to a ghost and affected by it, but not being used by the ghost itself. Overshadowing, on the other hand, was temporary, a ghost taking control of a person. It seemed more active, perhaps more tiring – if ghosts tired at all, Vlad did, but Vlad also was perhaps not entirely dead – and could be fought back against, though it was unclear how anyone managed that exactly. Suggested explanations were willpower, lack of focus from the overshadowing ghost, forced actions that were much too extreme for the person being controlled...
"I don't know why I did that I I don't remember"
was overshadowing what had happened to that sobbing woman in the clinic did something use her body and then discard her the moment it was done to deal with the consequences the losses the accusations
was that the kind of things Vlad
Some of the powers he found described seemed more random, more rare – not necessarily without equivalent, but at least uncommon and with variations. Teleportation, size alterations... Vlad couldn't help but remember the times he'd siphoned electricity from the heart monitor and then the rest of the clinic almost causing the power to go out. It hadn't happened in a while, but it could get dangerous if he didn't stop in time – something to look into. Maybe with just a battery or something unconnected to the rest of the building. There was no point endangering the patients there or getting himself noticed for more than the usual weirdness. The "ghost", after all, was gone and not inhabiting him anymore, and even if the doctors thought the ectoplasm left behind had bonded with him, they probably didn't expect big shows of power out of it.
Occasionally, Vlad would find several books talking about the same ghost – and that was obvious, because those had unique powers, were particularly dangerous and were difficult to deal with and banish back to wherever ghosts went when they weren't harassing the living.
Or, as Vlad and his friends who weren't there hadn't written didn't care had taken to calling it, the Ghost Zone.
Monsters spilling into the material world, trapping you in dreams and nightmares, taking over the flora around, causing tempests and catastrophes.
wreaking havoc while their victims could do nothing but fear
and perhaps
if they were lucky enough to know
rely on unreliable exorcisms and other occult means that meant nothing against the most powerful ghosts
There was always more to discover, more powers, more abuse of those on innocents.
A few – relatively new for the most part – essays focused on behavioral observations of spectral apparitions. How ghosts interacted with the living world, how they treated used discarded humans around them. What they wanted to accomplish.
The general consensus was that, while not all ghosts were focused on hurting people, most of them demonstrated a different set of priorities from humans. Each instance of spectral misbehavior had a goal, to the point of obsession in some cases. Over common sense, over human morality, over casualties.
A ghost's desires, it seemed, was always more important than anything else, and it didn't matter what it may cost to living people. Almost as if those ghosts had forgotten that they – most of them – had been alive once, that one person's reasons weren't enough to destroy everyone else.
as if they didn't care at all
Vlad
Vlad didn't want to be to become like that
it hurt and he couldn't help it most of the time but at least at least he cared at least he felt horrible for what had happened to June at least he was terrified by the wounds he could guess when he crossed paths with other patients on the way to the library at least he was worried by how much Bianco had aged since he'd come back from Florida at least he tried not to endanger anyone with his powers not just himself but others too they didn't need another incident like June's no one deserved that
sometimes it was too much and Vlad would rather pretend none of it existed that he wasn't an abomination breathing between life and death
but it wasn't because he didn't want the responsibility for his mistakes only because he didn't want the mistakes at all
He found no books or papers on the matter of victims, but most stories told enough on their own. It wasn't only existential horror after having been used and thrown away, or all the other reactions to ghost powers, but also broken bones, bruises, sometimes death. Being left in the middle of solid matter and suffering the consequences.
As the doctors had already alluded to, different people had varying reactions to ectoplasm and ecto-charged attacks: some would shrug off contact, barely inconvenienced past the event itself, but others would have an allergic reaction to the green stuff, leaving rashes or infections – burns, for the stronger attacks, like the man in the clinic who Vlad thought to be an agent on medical leave and then there was June who'd tried to help and he'd. Some people would get used to the presence of ectoplasm and develop "psychic" abilities – during their time at Madison University, they hadn't agreed on the truth of those claims, Maddie had been more than skeptical, and...
Vlad's pink ectoplasm corrupted they called it in the reports abnormal dangerous perhaps it was the reason the patient went through so much was a lot more corrosive than the usual, too. He'd gotten used to it, now, but other people...
just one more thing for him to worry about another way to hurt people even if he didn't mean to
On the matter of the Ghost Zone, though, Vlad found even less in the library: there was nothing at all. No mentions of what laid behind the portal they'd built for their master degrees.
Sometimes, ghosts left and then no one could find them. They reappeared, or not. None of the authors and other witnesses seemed to have an answer to that – or to want to think about one.
Vlad, Jack green hurts his fault and Maddie had, them.
maybe that was their original sin
and Vlad's agony was the toll he'd been the only one to pay