Nameless bodies in unremembered rooms know how a man becomes a beast when the wolfbane blooms

Picture me, a conga line of spinning bones dancing around my waist like a grim hula hoop. Staring age thirty in the face, I’ve finally figured out what I want to do with my life – raise the dead. This is who I am now. This is what I have become. Catherine is my name, necromancer is my trade, and I am hot on your trail that has long gone cold.

Do you think you can elude me? Oh, mister, you’ve simply left too much of yourself behind, and if you think crows are the most efficient carrion scavengers, you haven’t seen me pick a carcass clean. But if you watch closely, if you don’t give in to the mounting urge to tear your eyes away, you’ll get to witness just how meticulous a mage I can be. Does the prospect sicken you, or are you as eager to be reanimated as I am to do the deed?

Rhetorical question. It’s too late; I can’t be stopped. Already I’ve scoured this realm, exhuming you piece by tattered piece, unearthing every scrap of you that still loiters here. The trace outlines of your sentiment will be the material for my monster. I’ll play seamstress, stitching together all the maudlin patchwork until I’ve mothered a being to rival Frankenstein’s. Yes, the sum of your parts will amount to a ghostly doppelganger, awash and squirming in the ectoplasm and afterbirth of my contrition.

Whether with or without your consent, your wight will rise and shadow me, breathing down my neck and whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

“Your exterior of fabricated joy makes my stomach turn , ” it will tell me as I greet someone on the street.

“Just because I’m talking to you right now, doesn't ever mean that there aren't sharp instances where I want to punch you in the face,” it will croon in my ear as I’m drifting to sleep. I’ll respond with a lullaby of my own, humming King of Brooklyn until consciousness finally escapes me.

Asleep, tucked in by ghastly fingers, blanketed with its imitated ire, I am haunted by dreams imbued with your presence night after night. Memory lane is a toll road, and I pay for the commute each time I wake slick with sweat and nostalgia. I’d be keen on meeting the mysterious travel authority responsible for setting the rates for backward journeys. Who decided that the price for my unconscious reveries should be shortness of breath and excess of perspiration?

And whether you like it or not, you are the toll collector. You once said that you wished it would cost me more than it costs you, so I’ll employ you to hold me accountable for each fleeting fantasy and every indulgent notion. If I am to pay, you are to make me do so. This, mister, is a compulsory service, so don’t think you can dodge the draft. I’ve assembled the perfect ghoulish goon, and it wears your face.

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Conceptual Trap (11:18:29 PM):	you know though
Conceptual Trap (11:18:34 PM):	that's two years you'll have to attone for
Conceptual Trap (11:18:37 PM):	atone?
Conceptual Trap (11:18:41 PM):	fuck it

The writing. It comes, but it don’t come cheap. I pay a price, charged by the letter. Somewhere, a fatalistic cashier rings me up with a deadpan stare while each beep of the scanner burdens my soul a little more. I have significantly more than two years to atone for now, and I still owe interest on that debt, yet I stand here racking up more.

Have I outspent you yet? I’ll admit that if I could, I’d steal a glance at the subtotal on your register, but you’re too many aisles away now, posted next to a clerk of your own and breezing through the express checkout. I anticipate the winds of change whisking you right out the door while my paper chains keep me tethered inside.