[ oh, NOW you're interested? smh, shoulda just given you the dang accident memshare, but fine.
Vlad loves to talk about himself, so he sees no reason not to tell the whole sordid tale to someone who five minutes ago hated his guts and threatened to kill him for nudity. ]
Ah, well. As you can imagine, it was a long time ago--we were still in college. Jack and I were roommates and...friends, at the time, and Maddie an incredibly brilliant, resplendent woman in my engineering class, all brought together by our scientific interests in the paranormal. We were working together on creating a portal to the Ghost Zone, a parallel dimension where ghosts are formed and live, but Jack, the clumsy oaf, miscalculated and prematurely activated it while I was doing my due diligence checking the wiring.
The portal blew up in my face, literally. It pumped me full of unstable ecto-energy that left me deeply, terminally ill. I was carted off to a hospital to be poked and prodded at like a lab experiment for years before they wrote me off and condemned me to death. Meanwhile, Jack took the opportunity to sweep my dearest Maddie off her feet once I was conveniently no longer in the picture, and left me to die alone! Not one visit, not one phone call. He stole Maddie from me, and once he had what he wanted, he tossed me aside like trash!
[ He's gotten quite worked up by this point in the story, so he pauses, takes a breath, and straightens out his posture into something more neutral. ]
...Obviously, I got better eventually, once my powers manifested and the illness passed, but those were years of my life lost that I can never get back. Killing him and taking Maddie back is almost a kindness, after how he's wronged me.
Yes, well, if you had been paying attention, you'd have heard me say we were both half-ghost hybrids. Both the boy and myself, you see--his father's stupidity put his own son at the same deadly risk that I myself had been so many years ago.
And so you're... what, half-dead? [Ectoplasm is not a thing where she's from, it's the sort of thing spiritists claim is real during their seances. She's used to things being very cut and dry, very simple. She's not some kind of research nerd, but it's like....
Vlad will get a flash of memory, not much, just the idea of film reels. Nothing detailed, just blurred images flickering in the curling strips of film. The film itself is more the focus of the memory, and you reach out a gloved hand, catch the strip of film at the end of it, see The End and cut there with your curved training scythe.]
That is what humans commonly refer to as "my life flashing before my eyes" as they die.
Grim Reapers, like my~self~ review a human's cinematic record of memories to check for any irregularities, then sever the soul from both the record and the body. That's how humans die, where I'm from.
Considering I am a ghost, I'd say it very much is, but very well.
How does one become a Grim Reaper, then? Is it something you were just tasked with being when you were born? Are you even alive in the conventional sense yourself?
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And he wasn't my original target anyway. He still isn't, really, he's just become part of the bigger picture.
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Vlad loves to talk about himself, so he sees no reason not to tell the whole sordid tale to someone who five minutes ago hated his guts and threatened to kill him for nudity. ]
Ah, well. As you can imagine, it was a long time ago--we were still in college. Jack and I were roommates and...friends, at the time, and Maddie an incredibly brilliant, resplendent woman in my engineering class, all brought together by our scientific interests in the paranormal. We were working together on creating a portal to the Ghost Zone, a parallel dimension where ghosts are formed and live, but Jack, the clumsy oaf, miscalculated and prematurely activated it while I was doing my due diligence checking the wiring.
The portal blew up in my face, literally. It pumped me full of unstable ecto-energy that left me deeply, terminally ill. I was carted off to a hospital to be poked and prodded at like a lab experiment for years before they wrote me off and condemned me to death. Meanwhile, Jack took the opportunity to sweep my dearest Maddie off her feet once I was conveniently no longer in the picture, and left me to die alone! Not one visit, not one phone call. He stole Maddie from me, and once he had what he wanted, he tossed me aside like trash!
[ He's gotten quite worked up by this point in the story, so he pauses, takes a breath, and straightens out his posture into something more neutral. ]
...Obviously, I got better eventually, once my powers manifested and the illness passed, but those were years of my life lost that I can never get back. Killing him and taking Maddie back is almost a kindness, after how he's wronged me.
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Exactly. So you see, now, why my plans are so imperative.
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[moving on from that]
What are you, anyway?
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...or any animal's death, really.
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Vlad will get a flash of memory, not much, just the idea of film reels. Nothing detailed, just blurred images flickering in the curling strips of film. The film itself is more the focus of the memory, and you reach out a gloved hand, catch the strip of film at the end of it, see The End and cut there with your curved training scythe.]
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He does process it a few moments later, though. ]
That was...those film reels, those were people's lives ending, weren't they? Is that how death works where you come from?
[ He sounds equal parts curious and incredulous. ]
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Grim Reapers, like my~self~ review a human's cinematic record of memories to check for any irregularities, then sever the soul from both the record and the body. That's how humans die, where I'm from.
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But really, we've got nothing like your sort of ghosts back home. You're lucky I'm not one of the research department guys.
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How does one become a Grim Reaper, then? Is it something you were just tasked with being when you were born? Are you even alive in the conventional sense yourself?
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Not that it matters much here anyway, seeing as we've all been stripped of our powers and are dead now anyway.
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[ IS THERE A BASTARD DEMON AROUND HE SOMEHOW MISSED? ]
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How are you so certain of their identity?
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