Chapter 10: Harvy the Ghoul

James spent the majority of his afternoon in the lab playing hide and seek with the little Forest Hopper trying to get better control of applying the instantaneous speed produced by the lightning element and also some time jumping up and down from the building testing his weightlessness from his wind element.

After a few hours Skay finally finished whatever mad experiments he’d been busying himself with then came out to find James rapidly sprinting away from another lightning/plasma ball rocketing through the air in the empty field outside the lab.

Little Blue as he was now being affectionately named was all tuckered out again as he crawled up into a little ball for a nap and James was once again rolling around on the ground from the backlash of an arc off the plasma ball. His fluffy grey robes were now scarred with dirt, rips and burnt pieces. James soon managed to stand taking in a deep breath when he saw a pretty severe burn from the lightning arc on his shoulder.

Skay payed no attention to James’ injuries as he pulled him back into the lab to the screen of a computer. James scanned the screen for a short moment and when all he could see was gibberish he puzzled his brow and looked at Skay. “Old Madman what am I looking at?”

Skay had a scary grin split his face as he stared at the computer screen flashing with all sorts of computer code and other nonsense.

“These meditation techniques are just different methods of self-hypnosis. Essentially they all boil down to two things, one of which is to allow yourself to look into your ‘Spirit Realm’ or inner realm which apparently is where you’ll see the Spirit Barrier and also where the majority of your ‘Spirit Energy’ congregates until you mentally call on it. I’m fairly certain now that the Spirit Realm is actually your own subconscious mind. I suspect the Spirit Barrier is actually like a natural self-defence mechanism to the invasion of your spirit energy. What I find most amusing is that your subconscious is actually using your own spirit energy to build its wall. So the more energy you generate the stronger this wall becomes, until eventually you can’t fit anymore spirit energy into your subconscious and it’s all compressed and trapped inside this wall. Once this is done your spirit energy growth stagnates. At this stage you have a chance to break through the Barrier by consolidating a True Spirit.”

Skay then flipped open one of the books on the workbench to reveal what looked like a whole bunch of words all written in a chaotic nonsensical sequence.

“Now I’m still uncertain about the true spirit process but it doesn’t matter yet. What is certain though, is that these meditation techniques don’t just allow you to observe your spirit realm! Their chock full of a whole mishmash of laws pertaining to whatever elemental affinity you practice. By chanting them in your head and slowly trying to comprehend them as you meditate you can increase your understanding of your element.

“That isn’t important to us however because our prior knowledge and methods of learning about the laws of the universe is completely different and reaches down to a quantum level that I doubt anyone on this planet can even conceive the existence of. Although I’m curious how exactly they came up with this bizarre method to pass on information that too is irrelevant for the moment. What is relevant, is that right now this computer is compiling the perfect meditation technique based on all these samples supplied by what’s’iz’name and a whole bunch of compiled knowledge from Earth”

The screen then began flashing madly and he rushed forward to start typing some new gibberish James couldn’t understand and continued talking.

“Now I’ll bet your thinking a whole bunch of things about, why can’t you just use any one of these techniques to enter your psyche and look at your spirit realm? It’s true that you could but you would have forgotten the most important part of the meditation technique. It’s drawing spirit energy into your body from the surroundings. Your no doubt wondering what spirit energy is as well, but you’ll know when I know. Now watch this.”

Skay pulled over two very nice upper-class chairs he assumedly stole from the mansion and sat down. James followed suite and the old madman punched a button and leaned back to also watch the screen as it began flashing random images and colours and started making a bunch of strange and unnatural sounds. James’ pupils slowly dilated like he was on drugs as he stared at the rapidly flashing computer screen. He and Skay both began to drool and froth from the mouth while violently seizing, their glazed eyes unnaturally fixed to the screen.

After a short few minutes the flashing and sounds ended. James rapidly awoke from his daze and wiped the drool dribbling down his chin. Then his face lost all emotion and he looked at the mad Dr. Skay who was completely off in his own little world muttering descriptors like ‘incredible’ and ‘amazing’ with his eyes closed.

Before the chance came to yell accusingly at Skay and start violently rehabilitating the old madman a sudden notion struck him. With a thought and intention to do so, he felt himself having an outer body experience and soon found he was standing in a vast white space that appeared to be infinite. Overhead roiled a gaseous nebula like floating clouds, with great arcs of lightning firing off randomly throughout it.

In the centre of the nebula sat a nucleus of tempestuous blue lightning like snakes all slithering around each other in a great ball. Surrounding this scene was a thick bubble that looked like a great plastic dome. Relative to the size of the dome the nebula and nucleus filled barely a third of the space.

James intuitively knew what all of this was. It was his Spirit Realm, or some subconscious layer of his inner psyche. ‘Strange, I thought my subconscious mind would be filled with all sorts of my sins and desires and prejudices and stuff. ‘ As he flew around inside this strange space he tried to touch the great big bubble that covered over everything.

His ethereal looking hand pushed into the side of the dome causing it to flex out like some stretchy skin layer. The further he pushed, the more it stretched until finally he couldn’t move outwards a inch. Slowly the stretchy barrier’s resistance started to grow as it pushed him back. Realising he wasn’t going to be breaking it anytime soon he decided to go and look at this nebular and nucleolus.

As he passed into the nebula he felt the familiar sensation of wind natured spirit energy flowing around him. With a wave of the hand it all started spinning and eventually a massive twister filled with lighting formed in the centre of his dome. With another swish, the lightning nucleolus exploded into numerous great streaks of lightning violently shooting around within the barrier.

With another thought James returned to the driver’s seat in his body. Dr. Skay sat there looking at him with a massive shit eating grin. “Well? How is it boy?”

James was still a little dissatisfied that the nutjob subjected him to another of his twisted experiments, especially because it was ‘fuckin’ around’ inside his head but he couldn’t deny the results and so just gave a disgruntled. “Harrumph! It was interesting. But how do I meditate and gather energy?”

Dr. Skay’s smile just grew even more evil looking as he moved back towards the computer and started mashing buttons. “Well, you’ll eventually need an appropriate breathing technique. All these breathing techniques are once again designed to operate the best with certain elements but I get the feeling, that like me, you won’t be stopping with one or two elements. So it will take a lot longer to generate an all-purpose breathing technique that grants the best control of all the energies we collect.

“Unfortunately, we may have to forgo more than a set number regardless. Until then we’ll just have to rely on the meditation technique as it is and operate it by focusing on the intention to speed up our energy draw rate. It will be slower, but with your affinity to your elements it should be faster than this Gau Clan’s pathetic little piss-ants without a breathing technique. Which reminds me.”

Skay stood up, opened the door and started yelling loudly. “Harvy! Harvy you fucking disgusting degenerate get in here!” After about ten minutes a very, very slowly moving shadow of a former young man shambled into the lab. The withered, white haired, frail, grey skinned zombie eventually was forced into a seat where its dead eyes stared straight ahead. James quickly got up and backed away. “Oi! Oi! He’s actually dead right?! He’s definitely dead this time. I can actually smell him rotting away just sitting there. What in the fuck is moving his body around?”

Skay started inspecting his mobile corpse. Finally with an “Oh?” while checking his pulse, Skay stepped back then started grabbing a number of glowing substances from nearby. He didn’t even look. Just grabbed a bunch. Tilting the rotting bodies head back he started pouring them in. He even grabbed a few extra not glowing but equally dubious looking substances and threw them in just for good measure.

Once finished, he stepped back and flipped down his 15 lensed glasses which James had started calling his Spider Eyes. Seeing this sort of action, James began to question which he was more of. Mad or Scientist?

Once his Zombie started making choking garbled sounds from it’s throat Skay nodded as if satisfied. Flicked through his lenses a few more times then put them back on his head. “Nah! He’s fine boy. Now hold his body still. I suspect when he observes this meditation hypnosis his body might just overreact and it could ruin him.”

James walked forward and hugged his arms around the stinking corpse in the chair from behind, holding his breath and thinking to himself. ‘Ruin him? He’s already fuckin’ ruined. What’s left inside this rotting husk to ruin you crazy old fuckin’ sicko!”

Although he thought these things, he said nothing, this whole fiasco was already essentially condoned by him when he joined in and turned the poor guys hair white ... an added incentive was, he didn’t want to be the next Harvy mindlessly ambling around the place only moments away from starting Z-day.

Skay realigned the rigid body to be looking at the screen then mashed a button quickly backing away. Following the flashing screen and sounds the corpse just sat there. Then after a minute it began violently shaking about as a rainbow of iridescent foam sprayed from, literally, every orifice.

Once the zombie calmed down, the glowing rainbows stopped flowing and one of the really nice looking chairs was thoroughly ruined James stood up and quickly jumped back observing the decaying corpse.

After a few short moments the empty lifeless eyes finally began to move. Then the rest of Harvy began to move, stretching out as if he’d just woken up from a very long sleep that should most definitely have been an endless sleep. He rubbed his eyes sleepily until Skay appeared in front of him flicking through the lenses of his spider eyes again then poking and prodding.

After flipping out his Black-Pad he pressed a button and began making a voice entry while still diagnosing Harvy who was just sitting, quietly staring back. To James that was very disconcerting considering the Harvy he’d met had always been ... broken.

“Soul Experiment zero zero two, post fluid ingestion of ... some things in the lab ... also post hypno-memory implant. Technique in question is codename Godly Insight. Both the unknown liquid ingestion and memory implant occurred in a death like, catatonic state. Subject’s mental cognition levels have vastly increased from his prior levels. I imagine if I could measure his spirit energy growth rate then it also would be significantly increased. All his vitals are abnormally low and making no signs of recovering to normal human functioning levels but ... appear to now be the normalised state for the subject.

“I suspect his body will most likely remain in this ghoulish form permanently. Make a sub-link to current notes on localised species classified as undead. Subject appears to have somehow regained life signs despite having had his will completely crushed to dust. Results of initial test to discern if the soul effects cultivation ... inconclusive. Make a side note, see Elder Gau about future ... volunteers.”

Skay then pulled Harvy up from his seat then began pushing him outside the lab to the field, meeting no signs of resistance as Harvy willingly shambled along very obediently, both followed out by the now very curious James. The madman then began talking to his pad again as he passed an element stick to Harvy.

“Begin new project file. Codename Ghoul. Link to results of Soul Experiment zero zero two. Firstly, testing recognition. Harvy do you know who I am?”

When asked this question, the constantly observing Harvy dropped to both knees and kowtowed in a very respectful manner. “This puppet of yours could never forget you, my Dark Lord.”

James’ eyes opened wide when he heard this. Very quickly his face become as cold and emotionless as the Ghouls. ‘No fuckin’ way! Don’t tell me that crackpot is actually the fuckin’ devil? Did he fuckin’ send Harvy’s soul to hell and retrieve a demon subordinate or some shit? Just what in the actual fuck is going on?’

Skay showed a strange smile. “I see. How much do you remember? I want a detailed recounting of everything you remember as far back as you can, to the moment you awoke in my lab.”

The ghoul showed no emotions and sat up into a seiza position then explained his life in detail. James found it entirely uninteresting. It was classic story of wimpy kid with a good heart, bullied by everyone, disappointed his family etc. etc. He spent the hour playing with Little Blue until Ghoul reached the part when they were patrolling in the fields and encountered the ripples of James’ Gateway anomaly.

The most interesting part of his story to this point was how he referred to all of his time before meeting Skay as ‘being lost’ or ‘before the Dark Lord reached out to me’ as if implying everything now was different and he served only Skay in his madness with some pious mad zealotry.

When he got to that point he described his time being psychologically tortured by Skay as falling into the true nature of despair, anguish and finally death. In death, he learnt of his purpose in the world. To assist the Dark Lord in whatever he desires. Or some such. James somewhat lost interest when the Ghoul began fanatically worshiping Skay. He just assumed something had gone very wrong with Harvy’s brain and because Skay had been the greatest and most life changing influence to ever happen to him, when he was suddenly resurrected from death certain weird things happened inside his head. James was no quack and made no effort to understand for the moment. He would perhaps look into it later.

His interest wasn’t flagged again until Skay began to continue with his monologue to his pad. “It appears apart from the painting of all his past experiences in the light of recent fanaticism the subject is fully in charge of his faculties with some curious exceptions. Next test is to determine subject’s cultivation. Harvy you should have already been pushing against the Spirit Barrier when our experiment began. What is your cultivation now?”

The Ghoul closed his yellowed dead eyes and then opened them with a strange gleam and even more fanatical look. “Master my barrier is showing signs of cracking, but I haven’t yet condensed my True Spirit.”

“Oh? From the little I understand, to begin breaching the barrier a person must first coalesce their spirit energy into a True Spirit. I was told ‘In order to breach the barrier you must first condense your spirit energy into a formless shadow of your own self.’ To already be breaching it without a True Spirit to break the barrier, hmm ... Is it possible to simply keep filling the insides or your barrier even once it’s full? No that doesn’t sound reasonable, once it’s stretched to its limit you can’t force any more energy into it. Perhaps ... some sort of interference from outside the barrier?”

Skay’s eyes started to gleam as he discovered more and more interesting curiosities. James put Little Blue down and approached. He too was thinking rapidly. “Is it possible his own subconscious mind tried to break it’s own barrier even after it’d built the thing?”

“Mmm, it’s possible. But to what end? It’s trying to prevent the spirit energy from expanding. Why would it purposefully try and release it. In addition the barrier is a creation of it’s own design, it should be able to essentially dissolve the barrier instantly.”

James cupped his chin in his hand. Finally after another moment of thinking he snapped his fingers. With an odd smile. “Old Madman, I reckon that his barriers damaged precisely because it’s controlled by his subconscious. When this poor bastards conscious mind left his body to escape its torture, his subconscious automatically started shutting down along with his body. After 2 day’s of being trapped somewhere between life and death, boom, he’s brought back to life. The damage to his subconscious is clear in that he’s now convinced we’re his Dark Overlords.”