The void was a comfortable sort of grey, a featureless expanse that served as the canvas for Leo's private cinema. Tonight's feature was an old favorite, a balm for a soul that had grown weary beyond measure.
On a metaphysical screen that was both a hundred feet wide and small enough to fit inside his non-existent skull, the rolling green hills of the Shire unfolded in impossible, vibrant color.
Look at that green, Leo thought, his consciousness soaking in the sight. Not the grey-green of moss on a damp prison wall, or the sickly green of spoiled meat. Just… green. The color of life.
On the screen, Gandalf's firework dragon soared over the heads of cheering, dancing hobbits. Children with rosy cheeks and ridiculously hairy feet laughed with a joyful abandon that felt more alien to Leo than any goblin or orc.
He had access to the entirety of Earth's creative output, a library of Alexandria that encompassed every film, every book, every song, every video game. It was both his greatest treasure and his most exquisite torture.
He'd been a writer, once. Leo Vance. An English major with a half-finished fantasy novel, a deep love for the classics, and a tragically misplaced faith in the structural integrity of library shelving.
One moment he was reaching for a rare edition of Don Quixote, the next he was on the receiving end of a literary avalanche.
His punishment for some cosmic clerical error was a soul stamped for the wrong afterlife, a form misfiled in triplicate was this: to become the disembodied warden of the Grand Archive, a system bound to reintroduce the concept of "Entertainment Value" to a world that had surgically removed it from its own soul.
That world was Aethel. With a mental flick, Leo minimized the movie and opened a window into reality.
The view was, as always, crushingly bleak. He was focused on the capital city of Greyhaven, a place that lived up to its name with a dedication that was almost impressive.
The sky was the color of dirty dishwater. The buildings were brutalist blocks of unadorned stone, designed for maximum efficiency and minimum joy.
The people, clad in drab, functional tunics, moved through the streets with a joyless, shuffling walk, their faces etched with a kind of perpetual, low-grade misery.
There were no theaters here.
No concert halls.
No bookshops, save for those that sold technical manuals and the dreary, state-sanctioned histories of the Synod, the ruling religious body that preached a gospel of suffering and toil.
Art was a sin.
Laughter was a frivolity.
Stories were lies that distracted from one's duty to work, obey, and die.
His mission, his curse, was to change that.
He had to find a "User," a native of this cultural wasteland, and guide them to create a masterpiece.
A story so powerful, so resonant, that it would crack the grey facade of Aethel and let the light in.
His progress was measured by a "Cultural Resonance" meter, a stark percentage displayed in the corner of his consciousness. If he could get it to 100%, he would be granted a new life.
A body.
A second chance.
After two hundred years, the meter stood at a proud, unwavering 0.1%.
Two centuries of abject failure, he mused, the bitterness a familiar tang. I'm a ghost haunting a library, trying to sell Shakespeare to people who think a well-written tax ledger is the pinnacle of literary achievement.
He brought the movie back up, the sound of hobbit laughter a brief respite.
He needed this.
It was a coping mechanism.
A way to remind himself that color and joy had once existed, and could exist again. But the universe, it seemed, had other plans for his evening's entertainment.
A notification, stark and clinical, sliced through the cheerful music of the party.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
USER BIOMETRICS: CRITICAL
VITAL SIGNS: CEASING
Leo didn't so much as flinch.
The hobbits on the screen froze.
The fireworks fizzled into nothingness.
The comfortable grey of the void suddenly felt cold, sterile. He sighed, a soundless exhalation of pure, unadulterated weariness. "Not again."
The grey void shimmered, the memory of the last few hours playing back with perfect, painful fidelity.
His fifth user, Alistair.
A scholar from the capital's academy, a man whose arrogance was matched only by his ignorance.
When Leo had first connected with him, Alistair had been fascinated, but not in the way Leo had hoped. He didn't see a partner; he saw a specimen. A mental parasite to be dissected.
"A disembodied consciousness whispering tales of other worlds?" Alistair had mused, pacing his study, a room cluttered with alchemical equipment and dusty, unread tomes. "Fascinating. A psychic symbiote, or perhaps a cognitive infection. I must isolate the source."
"It's not an infection, you moron," Leo had transmitted, his tone pleading. "It's a gift! I'm offering you the greatest stories ever told! We could create something beautiful!"
To prove his point, Leo had projected a scene from a movie directly into Alistair's mind—the climactic creation scene from James Whale's Frankenstein.
The crackle of electricity, the manic gleam in Colin Clive's eyes, the slow, twitching movement of the monster's hand.
"Behold!" Leo had narrated dramatically. "The folly of unchecked ambition! A cautionary tale about the dangers of playing God!"
Alistair had been unimpressed. "Crude. The principles of galvanism are well-documented, if impractical. Your 'story' is merely a fanciful interpretation of established science. Now, be silent, phantom. I need to concentrate."
For weeks, Alistair had ignored the vast library at his disposal, instead focusing on brewing a concoction designed to "purify" his mind and "expel the foreign entity."
It was a bubbling, foul-smelling brew of rare herbs, powdered minerals, and what Leo was fairly certain was a pint of troll's blood, a substance known for its extreme volatility.
"Alistair, for the love of all that is holy, do not drink that," Leo had begged, his virtual voice cracking with desperation.
"The molecular structure is unstable! It's not a cure, it's a bomb! Let me just show you the first episode of Breaking Bad, you'll see what happens when you mix volatile chemicals without proper knowledge!"
Alistair had just smirked, raising the flask. "My intellect is my shield, spirit. Your pathetic fictions cannot sway me. This will sever our connection and I will be the man who tamed the ghost in the mind."
He'd uncorked the flask and downed the potion in one gulp. The result was… instantaneous.
And messy.
Leo had been treated to a front-row, high-definition, surround-sound experience of a human head achieving a state of sudden, violent, and very thorough disassembly.
The scholar's final, surprised expression was seared into Leo's memory.
The playback ended. The void was silent again.
[SYSTEM LOG]
USER 005: ALISTAIR
CONNECTION DURATION: 28 DAYS, 4 HOURS, 12 MINUTES
CAUSE OF TERMINATION: CEREBRAL EXPLOSION VIA INGESTION OF UNSTABLE ALCHEMICAL COMPOUND
CULTURAL RESONANCE CHANGE: 0.0%
A new record for longevity, at least, Leo thought, the gallows humor doing little to numb the psychic ache. And he still achieved absolutely nothing.
This was his trauma.
This was his PTSD.
It wasn't just the failure; it was the sheer, mind-numbing stupidity of it all. It manifested as glitches in his system.
Sometimes, the cheerful face of a hobbit would flicker, replaced for a split second by Alistair's exploding head.
The triumphant score of Star Wars would be interrupted by the wet, gurgling scream of the Gung-Ho Knight who had tried to fight a badger. It was a constant, looping horror show of his own making.
He pulled up the files on the others, a grim litany of failure.
User 001: Lord Valerius. Executed for treason after performing a one-man version of Hamlet that the King found a little too pointed.
User 002: Sir Reginald. Died of a badger-induced infection after a misguided attempt to live out Beowulf.
User 003: Silas the Merchant. Ended up in a dark alley after trying to use The Godfather as a business negotiation tactic.
User 004: Sister Maria. Burned as a heretic for preaching a far-too-interesting version of Paradise Lost.
And now, Alistair the Scholar. Dead by self-inflicted cranial combustion.
Five users.
Five genres.
Tragedy, Epic, Crime, Religious Fiction, and now, arguably, a particularly gruesome form of slapstick comedy.
All had ended in disaster.
He was a walking, talking, storytelling angel of death.
He closed the files, the weight of two centuries pressing down on him. He was tired.
So incredibly tired.
The comfortable grey of the void felt like a tomb. He had all the stories in the universe at his fingertips, but he was utterly, hopelessly alone.
Five down, he thought, as the last embers of his will to continue flickered and died. How many more ways are there to die?