006 Kill Me

  When I first heard Skully speak my nguage, I wasn’t sure if I was going insane, or if my afterlife had just taken an even weirder turn.

  “Speak,” he said, his voice dry and cold like the rustle of old parchment. His empty eye sockets burned with blue fire as he leaned closer. “If I can’t make you leave with force, I shall use my words instead. What do you want? Wealth? Power? Magic? What is it?”

  I blinked. Or at least, I think I did. Ghost eyelids are tricky. For a moment, I just stared at him, pleasantly surprised—and maybe a little entertained—that the fming skeleton had decided to give diplomacy a try. Usually, his first instinct was to chuck fireballs at me, but now here he was, trying to negotiate. Adorable.

  I gnced around his treasure vault, taking in the glittering piles of gold, the enchanted swords humming softly with tent power, the ancient scrolls practically pulsing with forbidden magic. There was enough loot in here to make any adventurer faint from greed.

  And then I gnced back at Skully. And at the silver ring on his bony finger—the one that was still glowing faintly from whatever ancient enchantment had just let him crack wise in my nguage.

  “What do you want?” he repeated, leaning in closer. His voice dropped to an intimidating growl, like a lich trying to audition for the role of terrifying final boss.

  I smiled. “Nice pce you’ve got here. Very cozy. And, uh… if I could have your ring, that’d be great.”

  For a second, there was silence. Absolute, dead silence.

  Then Skully snarled, raising one hand, and before I could say whoops, he unleashed a crackling bolt of lightning straight at me.

  Of course, it phased right through. I mean, I’m a ghost. That’s how this works.

  “Hahahaha!” I doubled over, ughing as the lightning bolt passed harmlessly by and scorched the wall behind me. Cssic Skully. Always so quick to anger. Always forgetting the basics. “Oh, man. You should’ve seen your face—oh, wait, you don’t have one!”

  “You insufferable, ectopsmic pest!” Skully roared, his entire body rattling with rage. He unleashed a string of curses so colorful, I’m pretty sure some of them broke several interdimensional decency ws.

  “You festering wisp of misery! You blight on my afterlife! You intolerable specter with the IQ of moldy bread! I swear, by all the unholy fires that burn in the depths of the Shadow Realms, that if I had a single shred of power that could affect you, I would—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I interrupted, holding up my hands. “Skully, buddy, you’re gonna pop a rib if you keep yelling like that.”

  He let out a sound that was halfway between a growl and a scream, like a banshee who just found out their favorite crypt café stopped serving decaf. “Leave. Me. Alone.”

  “Oh, you know I can’t do that,” I said cheerfully. “We’re bonded now, remember? You made me follow you. This is basically your fault.”

  “I did no such thing!”

  “Sure you did. Remember that time you tried to teleport away from me? And I just—poof—followed you right back here?”

  By the way, I was making all that up.

  Skully groaned and dragged his bony fingers down his face, which, considering he was a skeleton, was more like scraping a xylophone. “You are the bane of my existence.”

  “Aw, you’re gonna make me blush.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I know.”

  His hands dropped to his sides, and he gred at me with those fiery blue eyes. “You’ll never have my ring, you know.”

  “Eh, worth a shot.” I shrugged. “Anyway, what’s for dinner?”

  Skully let out another long, suffering groan and stalked off deeper into the vault, muttering more curses under his breath. I grinned. If he thought I was leaving anytime soon, he had another eternity to think again.

  “So, what does the ring do?” I asked, floating zily beside Skully as he clinked around the vault, clearly pretending I wasn’t there. He wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “It’s a transtion ring,” he said after a long pause, his tone dripping with reluctance. “It grants its wearer Omnilinguanism.”

  “Omnilingu—what now?”

  “Omnilinguanism,” he repeated with an air of smugness, like it was supposed to mean something. When I didn’t react, he added, “It means I can understand and speak any nguage—living, dead, or otherwise.”

  I whistled low. “Huh. That’s… actually pretty cool.”

  “Obviously.”

  “So… can I have it?”

  He stopped mid-step and turned slowly, his bony hand tightening into a fist. “No.”

  “Aw, come on.”

  “I am not giving it up,” he said firmly, his blue fmes narrowing to thin, angry slits in his eye sockets. “Do you have any idea how rare this kind of magic is? I wasn’t even trying to make a transtion ring when I created it! It was an accident—one I have no idea how to replicate.”

  “Cool.” I nodded, genuinely impressed. “Happy accidents, right?”

  Skully ignored me and started pacing again, muttering something about fools and ghosts and cursed rings. After a moment, he stopped and looked at me, tilting his skull thoughtfully. “If, hypothetically, I were to give you the ring… would you agree to leave me alone?”

  I pretended to think about it, tapping my chin like I was seriously considering the offer. Then I smiled. “Nah. I’d rather not.”

  Skully made a noise somewhere between a groan and a growl. “Of course.”

  “Look, I couldn’t just leave a friend in misery,” I said, grinning.

  “I don’t need friends,” Skully snapped. “And I don’t even know your name.”

  “Good point.” I nodded. “Let’s fix that.”

  I drifted closer, straightened my posture (well, as much as a ghost can), and gave him my best “interview mode” smile—the kind I used to practice back when I was desperately job-hunting after college.

  “My name is Non Cruz. Mass Communication graduate. Twenty-four years old. Died in a vehicur accident. Not particurly religious, but still kind of believe in g—”

  “Shut up!” Skully roared, his voice echoing off the vault’s stone walls. The fmes in his eye sockets fred like mini explosions.

  I blinked, startled, but then burst out ughing. “Wow. You really hate small talk, huh?”

  “With you? Yes.”

  “Well, too bad, buddy. You’re stuck with me now.”

  Skully rubbed a hand down his bony face, letting out a long, exaggerated sigh. “I am never going to know peace again, am I?”

  “Nope!” I said cheerfully. “But look on the bright side—at least you’re not bored.”

  “I despise you.”

  “I know.”

  He turned and stomped away deeper into the vault, muttering angrily under his breath. I grinned. Another successful conversation.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, watching Skully rummage through the piles of ancient artifacts, glowing relics, and miscelneous shiny things. He was tossing stuff aside like a skeleton on a mission. Which, I guess, he was.

  “Looking for paraphernalia,” he said without looking up.

  “Paraphernalia?”

  “Yes, paraphernalia.” He picked up what looked like a rusted crown, stared at it for a second, and then chucked it over his shoulder. It cnged against a stack of broken swords. “Specifically, something I used to create the ring. Or at least an approximation of one.”

  I tilted my head. “Why?”

  “So I can recreate it,” he said dryly, as if that was obvious. “Give it to you. And then pray—hope beyond hope—that the emotional depth of my generous offering will be enough to exorcise you.”

  I blinked. “You think that’ll work?”

  “It could,” he said, voice ced with sarcasm. “There are records of ghosts moving on when presented with something of great sentimental value. A selfless act, a meaningful token, that sort of thing.”

  I floated a little closer, arms crossed, watching him sift through the dusty remnants of a bygone era. “You do realize I’m not like most ghosts, right?”

  “Oh, trust me, I’m painfully aware,” he muttered, tossing aside a glowing amulet with a flick of his wrist.

  I grinned. “So, why bother?”

  He paused for a moment, holding a small, cracked vial in his hand. He stared at it, the blue fmes in his eye sockets flickering faintly. “Because it’s worth a try,” he said quietly.

  There was something in his voice that gave me pause. A heaviness, like he wasn’t just talking about me or the ring anymore. I waited, letting the silence stretch between us.

  After a moment, Skully sighed and set the vial down gently. “The ring… it used to belong to my daughter.”

  I blinked. “Your daughter?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice softer now, almost wistful. “I gave it to her the st time she was alive.”

  I didn’t say anything. For once, I didn’t crack a joke or make some sarcastic comment. I just listened.

  “She loved nguages,” Skully continued, his bony fingers brushing over a dusty, worn book on the table in front of him. “She was always curious, always asking questions. I made the ring for her—well, accidentally made it—but she adored it. Said it made her feel like she could understand the whole world.”

  His voice trailed off, and for a moment, the vault felt colder, like the weight of his memories had seeped into the air.

  “What happened to her?” I asked quietly.

  “She died,” he said simply. “A long time ago.”

  There was a finality to his words, but beneath it, I could hear the ache of something unresolved. Something that still haunted him, even after all these centuries.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

  Skully didn’t respond. He just kept rummaging through the piles of relics, but his movements were slower now, less frantic. Like he was lost in thought.

  I watched him for a moment longer, feeling a strange pang of… empathy? Sadness? Something. It wasn’t like me to get all sentimental, but there was something about Skully’s loneliness that hit a little too close to home.

  “You really miss her, huh?” I said softly.

  He stopped, his bony shoulders slumping slightly. “Every day.”

  “So… if you miss her that much, why don’t you move on?” I asked, my voice softer than usual.

  Skully froze. He didn’t turn around right away, just stayed there with his back to me, one hand resting on what looked like an enchanted spear. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it.

  “I’ve… never asked myself that,” he said, turning to face me, the blue fmes in his eye sockets flickering uncertainly. “Why haven’t you moved on?”

  I scoffed, floating down to sit cross-legged on an old, cracked table. “I have no idea,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “One second, I was alive, driving to my next interview after a long day, and the next… I was dead. Just like that.” I snapped my fingers for emphasis.

  Skully watched me, his skeletal face unreadable, but I could feel the intensity of his gaze.

  “I waited, you know,” I continued, leaning back a little. “For something. Someone. Grim Reaper, an angel, even a bureaucrat with a clipboard. But no one came. I just… slipped through the cracks. One minute I was floating in this weird in-between space, and the next, I got dropped here.” I gestured vaguely around us. “In a world that looks like it was ripped straight out of Dungeons & Dragons, complete with a veritable dark lord and a bunch of skeleton minions.”

  Skully tilted his head slightly. “You’re ranting,” he observed.

  “Yeah,” I admitted, letting out a frustrated sigh. “I guess I am.”

  He didn’t say anything, just kept staring at me with those flickering blue fmes for eyes. It was unnerving, but also kind of impressive how expressive he could be for someone without actual facial muscles.

  “And that brings me back to your question,” I said after a moment, my voice dropping to a quieter tone. “What do I want?” I gave a bitter ugh. “I want to move on.”

  There it was. The truth. Simple, raw, and painful.

  I stared at Skully, and he stared back, his expression unreadable. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I added, “So… I want you to kill me.”

  Skully blinked—or at least, he did the skeletal equivalent of blinking. His fmes fred slightly, and he tilted his head as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me right.

  “Kill you?” he repeated slowly, his voice low and cautious.

  “Yeah,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal. “I mean, I’m already dead, but… maybe there’s something you can do. Some spell, or ritual, or whatever. Something that’ll send me to the afterlife. Or at least somewhere that isn’t here.”

  For a long moment, Skully didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, the fmes in his eye sockets flickering like candlelight in a storm. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, almost… sad.

  “You really want that?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I do.”