Koshva stared at me for a solid three seconds. His mouth twitched. Then, a strange, wheezing sound escaped his lips. It started as a chuckle, but quickly grew into a full-blown, gut-busting laugh. He doubled over, slapping his knee with his metal hand, the clang, clang, clang echoing through the glitching dome.
"A-Anchor?" he wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. "Oh, that's rich. The God of Humanity, the terror of the station, scared of a cheap light show! I wish I had a camera. This is going in the official report. 'Subject displays extreme aversion to non-corporeal entities. Recommendation: assign to poltergeist duty.'"
Heat flooded my face. I could feel my ears burning. "Shut up," I snarled, taking a shaky step back from the still-pointing phantom. "I'm not scared. I'm... strategically retreating. It's a tactical assessment of a high-threat, low-substance entity."
Koshva just laughed harder. "A 'high-threat, low-substance entity'? That's the best thing I've heard all century. You're a Class-2 Deviation who can rewrite reality, but you're spooked by a ghost with less substance than your ego."
"I faced down gods," I shot back, my voice cracking. "I led armies. I've seen things that would turn your insides to jelly."
"Did they have see-through sheets and go 'woooo'?" Koshva asked, finally getting himself under control.
"He's not saying 'woooo'," I muttered, glaring at the phantom. It was still standing there, its arm outstretched, patiently waiting. It was the patience that was really getting to me. A screaming ghost I could handle. A polite, determined one? That was unnatural.
"No, he's not," Koshva agreed, his expression turning serious again as he glanced back at his scanner. "According to this, he's a 'Seeker' echo. They're rare. They're not just mind loops; they're fragments of consciousness tied to a specific object or person they lost. They're looking for it. They're trying to find their anchor."
He looked from the scanner to the ghost, then to me. "And it thinks its anchor is you."
"Great," I said, my sarcasm back in full force. "Just what I needed, a new dependent. Can't we just... delete him?"
"And cause the fracture to widen? No, thank you," Koshva said, tapping his scanner. "The energy signature from a negation field would be like throwing a grenade into a crack in the dam. We have to do this the hard way. We have to find what he's looking for and give it to him."
"The hard way," I repeated flatly. "Of course. Is anything ever easy in this universe?"
"Only paperwork," Koshva grumbled. "And even that's a nightmare." He started walking towards one of the flickering archways, the ghost's head tracking his every move. "The signature is strongest this way. It's probably an object that fell through the fracture with him, or something that's native to this zone that's similar to what he lost."
I stood my ground. "You go ahead. I'll stay here and... supervise."
Koshva stopped and turned around, a smirk on his face. "What's the matter, your highness? Afraid of the big scary ghost?"
"I'm a god. I don't do 'fetch quests'," I said, trying to sound regal.
"You're a god who's about to be left alone in a haunted house," he countered, his smirk widening. "Or maybe you'd prefer I mention in my report that you were... unable to assist due to a sudden onset of spectral-phobia?"
I glared at him. I hated him. I really, truly hated him. But he was right. The thought of being left alone with this... this thing was worse than the thought of playing along with his stupid scavenger hunt.
"Fine," I gritted out. "But you're buying me a real drink after this. Not that synth-toxic waste."
"Deal," Koshva said, his smirk turning into a genuine smile. He was enjoying this far too much. "Now try to keep up. And try not to scream. It attracts more of them."
I swallowed hard and followed him, keeping as much distance between myself and the ghost as possible. The phantom didn't move. It just watched us go, its arm still outstretched, pointing at the spot where I used to be. It was waiting. And that was somehow scarier than if it were chasing us.
We stepped through the archway and into the broken city. The air here was thick and smelled like burnt sugar and static. The ground beneath our feet was a patchwork of real pavement and glowing blue grid lines.
"So what are we looking for, exactly?" I asked, trying to distract myself. "A rusty sword? A lost dog tag?"
"Could be anything," Koshva said, his eyes glued to his scanner. "Seeker echoes are tied to concepts, not just objects. It could be his 'honor,' his 'hope,' his 'left sock'. The scanner just gives me a direction. The hard part is figuring out what the 'anchor' actually is."
The ghost of the soldier shimmered into existence beside us, silently keeping pace a few feet away. I flinched, my heart leaping into my throat.
Koshva glanced from me to the ghost, and the smirk returned. "You know, for a god, you're a terrible actor."
"I'm acting," I lied through my teeth. "It's all part of the act to lull it into a false sense of security."
"Right," he said, drawing out the word. "False sense of security. Just keep telling yourself that. And don't pee your pants if they jump out"
He took another swaggering step forward, tapping his scanner like a conqueror claiming new land. That was his mistake.
A new figure flickered into existence directly in his path.
It wasn't a soldier this time. It was small, no bigger than a child, with a tattered dress and long, dark hair that obscured its face. It didn't walk; it just appeared, hovering a few inches off the ground. It didn't make a sound.
It just raised its head, and a wave of soul-crushing despair washed over the alleyway.
I'd faced down gods. I'd commanded armies. I'd felt the cold emptiness of true death. But this was different. This was the pure, distilled sorrow of a lost child. It was the feeling of being alone, forgotten, and abandoned for eternity.
I stumbled back, my breath catching in my throat. But I wasn't the target.
Koshva froze solid. The smug look on his face evaporated, replaced by a mask of sheer, unadulterated terror. All the color drained from his face. His one good eye widened, and for the first time, I saw genuine fear in it—the fear of a man who has seen too many horror movies and knows how they end.
The scanner slipped from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the glowing grid floor.
"What... what is that?" he whispered, his voice trembling. The little phantom-thing drifted closer, its unseen gaze fixed on him.
My eyes darted between the terrifying child-ghost and the terrified Ment. And then I saw it.
Peeking up from the ground, directly between Koshva's feet, were two wide, luminous eyes. They were embedded in the floor like gemstones, staring up at him from the void. They weren't attached to a body. They were just... eyes.
Koshva, paralyzed by the ghost in front of him, had no idea he was being watched from below.
A cruel, petty impulse surged through me. It was the only thing that could cut through my own fear.
"Your pants, Koshva," I managed to say, my own voice shaking slightly. "You might want to check your pants."
His gaze flickered to me, confused for a split second. That's when he glanced down.
He saw the eyes.
He saw the two unblinking, luminous orbs staring up at him from the solid floor.
And Koshva, the Class 4 Ment who had seen it all, who had mocked me for being afraid of a simple ghost, opened his mouth and screamed.
It wasn't a shout. It wasn't a yell. It was a high-pitched, undignified, blood-curdling shriek of pure, primal terror. It was the sound of a man who had just seen the rules of reality break and look up at him. It echoed through the glitched-out city, louder than any alarm.