I'm sitting in the club car of a phantom train, playing poker with two ghosts and a Spectre who claims to have been a general for Alexander the Great. He certainly looks the part, with half-rotted bronze armor and helm. There's a red glow coming from his helmet where there ought to be eyes, though, and underneath his black beard I can see bone. Spectres are supposedly what us wraiths turn into when our Shadow takes us over for good. I've also heard that we can be swallowed by Oblivion--nothingness, entropy, whatever you want to call it. I look into those burning red eyes and I'm not sure what I'd prefer.
There's one problem with playing poker with a man who doesn't have eyes any more. It's hard to tell when he's bluffing. The other two wraiths--a skeletal gunslinger and someone charred like Cajun chicken who's wearing a hammer at his belt--don't matter. They've got objects and coins to bet, and lose and even in a place like this, objects can be replaced. There are always more ghosts of objects. But me, I've run out of things to bet. All I've got left is myself, and ghost bodies are a very valuable commodity.
The other two are out. The Spectre is dealing. The ghosts of cards slide to a stop in front of me, here on the ghost of a table in the ghost of a train.
Suddenly, I'm afraid. I wish I could hear her singing one more time.
I turn over the cards....
Unknown "Mistress" Growling - 16 years, 8 months, 23 days ago