“…a ghost. A phantom to infiltrate ahead of our legions and to spread terror to our enemies.”
Ty closed his eyes as a skeletal hand gently settled around his skull, palm on his forehead, fingers clasping firmly.
“Do you pledge to serve the eternal legions of undeath, mortal?”
“I pledge.”
For a second nothing happened. Ty was about to open his mouth to speak when suddenly his stomach lurched, like the floor had vanished under him. The pressure of the reaper’s hand was gone.
His eyes were uncovered, but all Ty could see was a great void, a chasm that sank out of sight beneath him, like he was floating above some fracture to the centre of the earth. He could see something at the bottom, glinting…
An uprushing tide, black like ink and boiling was surging out of the darkness towards him! Before he could scream or react it was upon him, flowing over and engulfing him, the liquid twisting around his limbs, pulling tight and dragging down. At first it felt wet against his skin, then turned icy, then agonising, a thousand needles of cold lancing into his limbs, reaching right into the bone. Each one was sapping the warmth and life from him, and he no-longer had the strength to resist.
As his eyes sank beneath the surface his heart slowed, then gave one last beat, then stilled. The movement that had been in his chest his entire life now gone, like the sudden end of a background noise he had never really noticed.
Then a blinding light burned into his vision and brought Ty back to the real world. The reaper now was standing back in front of him, mouth open in a ravenous smile. He still felt the chill of death, but now pale blue light was flowing out of him, siphoned into the reaper’s maw.
Ty’s physical form was like sand before a storm, eroding quickly and being sucked away. He raised an arm fascinated at how his wiggling fingers were stripped away, leaving only a phantom sensation and a heat haze where once had been flesh and blood. He felt light, his mass being stripped away, like if he jumped, he would sail upwards. The corrosion was working inward from his arms, then down his torso to his legs, cleansing away the chill of the black void, leaving him free, untethered.
His legs were gone, the front of evaporation now quickly eating up his chest. Ty found himself wincing and pulling his head away, then realised, he didn’t have too. This was him now, a soul becoming free from mortal paints and limits, empowered to go where he wanted. He opened his eyes again and relaxed, embracing the soft tingle of his face being reformed in spectral mist.
Then it was over, all that was left of his mortal form was a pile of dust and the last wisps of blue energy lazily slipping between the teeth of the reaper. But Ty didn’t need his body anymore, he had escaped mortality, escaped the bounds of physical reality itself. He admired his new body, floating just above the floor and nearly invisible against the mist swirling around them. Ty clenched his spectral fists and grinned to himself, now he could have some fun.