Echoes of Eternity - Skyrim Ghost SI

Echoes of Eternity - Skyrim Ghost SI

o-o-o-o-o-o-o—oo-

I stared wide-eyed at the face of my killer.

He was a fairly normal looking white dude, an intense expression, which the knife in my gut explained.

Grasping at it, I choked over the pain hitting me.

Finally, I managed a scream, but all that got me was a stinking hand over my mouth and a slash to the throat.

Choking on my blood now, my vision focused enough through the tears to watch my assailant dig through my wallet and curse at the fact I carried no cash

Hah… hah…..

Fuck you, you bastard.

Free enough to move my arms, I clutched at my throat desperately.

I’m scared, I don't want to die.

I still have a good 70 years or so, I can’t die yet.

I don't want to die!

I dont-

I-

…

…

…

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

…

…

…

Faint images passed by my eyes. They were unclear, almost like after images imprinted by a harsh light, just memories of a sight.

Echoes of reality.

I drew in a ragged breath, though it felt off, as if I was missing something fundamental.

Blearily trying to focus my gaze around me, I tried to stumble forwards, only managing to collapse on the ground.

No pain filled me like I expected it to. Only a dull awareness that yes, my body had in fact impacted with something.

Trying to get up, I scrabbled on the ground for a full minute, breathing heavily and trying to breathe and-

Trying to breathe-

Breathe damnit!-

Tears escaped my eyes as I clutched at my throat, lungs expanding and contracting with great heaving motions yet nothing happening.

It was in the height of my panic I remembered.

The knife, in my gut and in my throat.

My throat felt smooth, yet still I couldn't breath.

I was alive and moving, yet…

I couldn't a feel a thing.

Finally stopping my desperate attempts to breathe no matter how wrong it felt not to, I tried to see my surroundings.

I was in the woods, great pines surrounded me and snow-how hadn't I noticed that?- covered the ground as far as could be seen.

I myself was lying on the snow, not sinking in a single inch.

Patting it, expecting to sink in like I should have, I gasped as my hand fell through, not sinking, but actually passing through the matter with no resistance.

The rest of my body soon followed, and I screamed, the ear piercing wail shocking my ears as I passed through snow and dirt and rock and I was plunged into pitch blackness.

Soon everything began to grow hot, and I grasped at the sensation desperately as it was the first thing I was able to feel since the knife pierced my gut and slashed my throat-

Suddenly everything was too much, I was being burned ali- burned excruciatingly, and I desperately, began climbing away from the heat.

Body incorporeal, and hands alternatively grasping at rock then moving to grasp at more, I slowly made my way back up, mind again in a panic.

After finally breaching the surface, just as I took a deep, unhelpful, breath, tears spilled from my eyes again as I realized what had happened.

I was dead, I was dead and some form of ghost thing and I'd never be alive again.

Collapsing atop the snow, I wished I could fall unconscious, but all I could feel was despair.

Raising a hand in front of my face, I closed my eyes.

For I couldn't see a thing, only the snow behind my hand.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o—o-o-o-

A/N – An idea that’s been floating through my head for years, let’s see how it goes, yeah?
Don't worry about me abandoning other stories, i'm on a wild spree of creativity recently.

 

Echoes of Eternity – Skyrim Ghost SI

o-o-o-o-o-o---oo

A blizzard was ravaging the landscape as I stumbling through the wastes.

I was unaffected, of course. The sight of an increasingly bright sun didn't hurt my eyes either.

Still, I felt increasingly bogged down as I wandered the wastes.

Was there no towns or even a road nearby? I suppose with this level of snow it would be hard to even see lights in the distance, never mind a road that could be buried underneath several feet of snow.

Still, I wandered. I felt no fatigue, after all.

Eventually my wanderings led me to something other than endless snow or the occasional patch of trees.

Staring out over the cliff face, I looked on at the endless sea crashing against the shore, huge icebergs shifting around constantly, loud cracks rending through the air as they shifted against each other.

Staring over this scene, I realized I was far from home.

Looking to the setting sun, I found where west was.

So that meant I was looking north…

Was I in Canada? Have I somehow managed to wander north that far?

How should I know anyway, I have no idea how ghosts work.

Well, at least I had a landmark now.

Making my way down was easy, the waves hit me, but I was barely even able to keep myself corporeal enough to walk on the ground, there was no way the waves would be enough to pull me to sea.

I began walking along the coast, towards the east. If I was going to find any civilization, it would be in that direction.

There should be a number of towns on the Hudson Bay coast, at the very least.

Instead of the mind rending desperation of before, I mostly managed to push that way. Unfortunately, that allowed boredom to take it’s place.

I was forced to contemplate my situation, the nature of death and the soul, I suppose.

So, souls are a thing. I’ve got no better way to explain what I am. So am I just a soul cut off from a body and left to roam? Or is there more to my existence, like some kind of ghost matter? Energy?

What even is a soul?!?

I experimented too.

With extreme effort, I found I was able to move the lightest particles of snow around, though when I tried it seemed to drain me of something, and I didn't get that something back.

So yeah, not doing that again.

After many hours, I spotted something in the distance.

Squinting, I managed to get an image of the things after another hour of walking.

Instead of another iceberg, jutting out from the waters just off the shores from a ginormous cliff-face was a huge stone building, with a very tall tower and two others I could just barely make out.

It was sat on an impossible sea stack, that looked like it would fall over at the slightest provocation.

An equally impossible broken bridge connected it to the mainland, the supports that should be supporting it’s weight had no foundations, broken too.

As I neared, I began to see more and more signs of some strange cataclysm. Broken stone littered all over the shore, the occasional rocky shore that at closer inspection had a large amount of worked stone bricks mixed in, with huge boulders all around.

Finally I reached the foot of the building’s foundations, and found a path leading up the mainland’s cliffs.

“Well, nothing for it.” I muttered, following the dirt path up.

After another fifteen minutes of travel, I reached the top, and there sitting in front of me was a desolate, miserable looking village of thatched huts and ruins of thatched huts.

The closer to the cliff's edge you went the more piles of stone rubble there was, until it abruptly ended at the cutoff.

Following the rubble with my eyes, I turned to see the grand building, taller than it had any right to be, and suddenly very familiar from this angle.

“Wait a second.” I muttered, first walking, then sprinting across the bridge.

I passed eerie pools of liquid, only half noticed as I ran across the familiar yet not familiar bridge until I burst through the closed gates, a strange tingly feeling shuddering through me but I ignored it to gaze upon an impossible scene.

I was standing in the courtyard of the College of Winterhold, from the game Skyrim.

Only it was a bit more huge, with a lot more people.

I saw tall Nordic men walk alongside talking cats and pointy eared elves, Argonians wrapped in ridiculously thick layers of hides with only a passing resemblance to robes quickly walking by to get to new buildings while Dunmer youths competed with fire in their hands.

I saw an old, balding, yet suspiciously angular and handsome man direct a few skeletons as they moved carts full of clothing.

Most of all, I saw a deep pool of magic, just sitting there in the center, a great spire of energy rising into the sky.

Dropping to my knees, I laughed, just a little.

Then I blinked.

“Can’t feint, huh, noting that under ghost fact number… 5.”

o-o—o-o-o-o-oo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

I wandered the college for a few hours, just getting a feel for the society I had been dumped in.

I understood what they were saying, even sounded like English to me for some reason.

I avoided the obvious Phineas like the plague, for that is what the master necromancer may as well be to me. I knew the general opinion necromancers had of the dead’s rights, and I didn't feel like ending up a slave for the rest of... however long I'd continue to exist.

Eventually I realized there wasn't much for me to do here, as after a day of trying to read books over other’s shoulders, with them always eventually being too unnerved to stick around(which I noted under ghost fact number 6), I finally gave up the college as a bad job.

So instead I was turning to leave, but just as I was passing by the central magic pool, something caught my eye.

The magic trails of the pool were surrounding me, and as soon as I noticed they departed, and instead they flowed in the direction of the end of the balconies on the side.

Furrowing an incorporeal brow, I looked at the pool, and scratched my head.

After a few seconds the energies, again, circled me again and then flowed towards that corner of the courtyard again.

...

I think I get the hint now.

Walking over, I eventually noticed a trap door on the floor.

Blinking, my eyes widened.

“The Midden, wait- is that ball of magic guy trying to communicate with me?” I asked out loud, before shrugging.

Hell, I'll take anything at this point.

Phasing through the grate, I made my way down into he tunnels.

Oh boy was that a mistake, I already forgot that everything was bigger here, and more complex.

O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

A/N – Chapter took a few revisions before I found a path I liked, don't want to write some invisible ineffective observer for 20 chapters, yet I also don't want to just jump right into the action.