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Your body hurts all the time. I didn’t realize that until I was living in it. Well, not living. Haunting? Look, I never claimed to understand necromancy.
Did you know that I could still feel everything, when you locked me away? I don’t think you knew. Because, despite everything, I don’t think you would do that to me. I sacrificed myself for you and you refused to let it actually mean anything, but God forbid I feel a bit of pain.
God is part of the reason you’re hurting so much, so I’m not feeling especially charitable towards him.
Every day here you bleed. It’s a good thing you can necromantically stitch your body back together, but that doesn’t mean the injuries don’t hurt. A sword through your shoulder— just a bit of training! Bone shards slicing into your skin. The Saint of Duty nearly killing you in the bath; you can’t even get a moment of rest…
Hypervigilance takes its toll. I can feel the heaviness in your body, the way small things ache. Any sense of safety is bought with your own blood and bone, drawn from your body to form wards. I know you’re used to growing your bones through the skin and breaking them off to use, but the first time I felt you doing that, I wanted to throw up. Except I couldn’t, because I have no body; I’m trapped in a hidden corner of your mind.
I’ve taken beatings, I’ve been impaled, but this is worse. The agony as you unwind your own body to protect yourself. The exhaustion as you lie on the floor, bleeding out. The knowledge that no one is coming to save you, no one has your back. The ever-present nausea, fatigue, untangling the web of malice and insincerity in everything everyone says.
I never realized before this— that pinched face you make all the time? I thought it was just annoyance, you looking at me like I was something disgusting you stepped in. It was pain. You make that face because you’re in pain all the time. When we were growing up, you made it look effortless to control skeletons and bone shards and the corpses of your parents. I didn’t see how much it was costing you.
And let’s be clear, you didn’t want me to see. You didn’t want the pity of some orphan nobody. So instead you took out your pain on me.
I’m still feeling your pain. Except, this time, I chose it.
I didn’t intend on this whole situation where I’m stuck in your head and you go about your life ignorant of my presence. But since my consciousness still exists, I allow myself to hope that maybe one day I’ll talk to you again. Maybe I’ll tell you these things.
Maybe I’ll have a body of my own again, and I can hold yours and ease some of the pain.