The morgue door was still open. Beyond it, he could hear the shufflings and moanings from dozens of bodies without coordination.
Forty seven souls from people who had died and gotten trapped in their own corpses.
If he didn't process them, they would corrupt fully. Become the hostile revenants, or whatever the hell that meant.
And if he did process them…
He looked at the number again.
[HUMANITY INDEX: 98%]
Forty seven souls at two percent each. It would be zero before he was halfway done.
"What happens at zero?" Eli asked.
The system didn't answer, but he could guess.
He would become the monster that consumed souls not because it had to, but because it wanted to.
Sighing, Eli picked up the scalpel from the floor, not because it would help. Just because holding on to something familiar made him feel slightly less insane.
Then he walked toward the morgue door.
"Alright. Let's get this over with," he said to the system.
[MISSION ACCEPTED: CLEAR THE MORGUE]
[REWARD: RANK INCREASE TO E]
[PENALTY FOR FAILURE: DEATH]
Eli rolled his eyes, then stepped into the hallway.
Fluorescent lights flickered overhead—on, off, on—casting everything like a horror movie.
Bodies in hospital gowns and surgical drapes shuffled in the hallway. Some still had IVs dangling from their arms, tubes trailing behind them like leashes.
Eli counted twelve in the immediate hallway alone.
All of them turned when he stepped out of the morgue.
All were having the same walking dead features—glowing blue eyes, slack jaws, adn their movements were just wrong.
"Okay. Twelve," he breathed. "I can do twelve."
[CORRUPTED SOULS DETECTED: 12]
[AVERAGE CORRUPTION LEVEL: 22%]
[RECOMMENDED APPROACH: PROCESS INDIVIDUALLY TO AVOID OVERWHELMING HOST]
"Thanks for the pro tip," Eli muttered.
He focused on the nearest one, an older woman. Her name bracelet was still visible. SANDRA PHILLIPS.
Sandra took a shuffling step toward him, and Eli did what he had done before. Reaching out with that weird mental muscle, found the soul tangled inside its chest, and grasped it.
It came easier this time.
Its body crumpled and the soul rushed into him, then dissolved.
The memory of the soul flooded into his mind, however, it cut off abruptly as the soul finished processing.
[SOUL CONSUMED]
[+50 EXP]
[SOUL PROCESSED: 2]
[HUMANITY INDEX: 96%]
This time, he barely felt the loss of his humanity index.
'That's not so bad,' he thought. 'I can handle this.'
The next one was closer now—middle aged man, surgical gown, and vacant eyes.
Eli reached out, grasped, then pulled.
The body dropped.
David Chen. 48. Accountant. Heart attack during tax season—
[+50 EXP]
[HUMANITY INDEX: 94%]
Easier.
The third, fourth, and the fifth didn't even make him flinch.
By the time Eli processed the sixth soul, his hands had stopped shaking entirely. His heartbeat was steady, and his breathing calm.
He looked down at the bodies scattered across the hallway, and felt…
Nothing.
There was no guilt, no horror.
'I'm helping them,' he told himself. 'Was it…?
He couldn't tell anymore.
[SOULS PROCESSED: 6]
[HUMANITY INDEX: 90%]
[WARNING: CONTINUED CONSUMPTION WILL ACCELERATE EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSION]
"Yeah, no shit," he said flatly, turning toward the next section of the hallway.
That's when he heard it. A snarl, different from the mindless moaning from the other corpses he processed.
Eli froze.
One of the bodies at the far end of the hall wasn't shuffling.
It was standing. Its head cocked at an unnatural angle, and its eyes glowed brighter than the others.
[WARNING: HIGH-CORRUPTION ENTITY DETECTED]
[CORRUPTION LEVEL: 67%]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: MODERATE]
[CAUTION ADVISED]
The thing's head snapped toward Eli, and it smiled.
Not a human smile.
Then it moved, fast. Not shuffling. Not stumbling.
It sprinted down the hallway with the kind of speed that shouldn't be possible for a corpse.
"Oh FUCK—"
Eli threw himself sideways.
The thing blew past him, its claws raked across the wall and leaving deep goggles in the wall.
His eyes widened. 'When did it get claws?'
The creature twisted its body around, and lunged again at him.
Eli reached out with his will, and tried to grasp the soul inside it, frantically.
But his mental grip slipped.
The soul within was slippery. But that wasn't all. It was fighting back.
The creatures slammed to him, and they hit the ground hard.
His head hit the floor tile, making the stars burst across his vision.
Its cold hands now wrapped around his throat.
The face only inches away from Eli's face was completely wrong. Its skin pulled too tight over the skull, its jaw distended, and black smoke leaked from its eyes.
He couldn't breathe, his vision darkened at the edges.
Desperate, he reached again, deeper this time. Pushed past its resistance, and… he caught it.
The creature screamed in a sound like metal tearing, like glass shattering, like something fundamentally breaking.
Eli pulled harder.
The soul came free in chunks. It was fractured, corrupted, and leaking black smoke.
It rushed into Eli, and he felt pain that he coudn't describe.
Jason Reeves. 29. Overdose. Alone.
The corruption bled through the soul, of pure rage, despair, and hunger.
Eli screamed in pain.
[CORRUPTED SOUL CONSUMED]
[+150 EXP]
[WARNING: CORRUPTED SOULS INFLICT MENTAL STRAIN]
[HUMANITY INDEX: 87%]
This corrupted soul cost him three percent.
Eli lay on the floor, gasping, and staring at the ceiling.
His hands were shaking again, but this time not from fear. It was from rage.
Anger that belonged to Jason Reeves.
Eli stood slowly despite the shakings.
He felt his body was stronger and faster. The ache in his head from hitting the floor was already vanished.
'The corrupted one made me stronger than consuming a normal soul…' he realized, walking deeper into the morgue level, processing souls as he went.
By the time he had cleared the main hallway, his count was twenty.
[SOUL PROCESSED: 20]
[HUMANITY INDEX: 76%]
[EXP: 1150/2000 TO RANK E]
Twenty four percent gone, and he could feel the difference now.
All the colors looked duller, and every sounds he heard felt distant. His thoughts moved faster but… he felt colder, detached from the world he was walking now.