Five.
The remains lay there, in the box, as Catori rocked slowly against the blood-soaked pavement. Ezhno was crouching next to em, and slowly eir words were coalescing into reason. The shrieks never faded, though Catori's tolerance for them seemed to be increasing with eir proximity to Ezhno's spirit.
An amplifier. That would've explained the strange effects in the ether. Someone who had the blessing, and lent it out without realizing it.
Catori raised eir head slowly, and dragged eir aching bones towards Ezhno's worried, extended arms. A week, at least. The creature dug out a week of his life with its teeth. Not the worst damage Catori'd ever gotten, but not something to be brushed off with a noxious laugh.
“Well?” Ez asked. He adjusted himself to be able to cradle Catori to his chest while staying in the small patch of bright, noon light. It was like a window of sanity in the slaughter-house, and Tori thought ey could even smell the difference in the air. “Catori, stop hyperventilating.”
Catori hadn't realized ey'd been having trouble with it until Ezhno brought it to eir attention, and slowly ey laid eir head back against Ezhno's shoulder. “It was another one of them.”
“Them?”
Taking a few deep gulps of the seedy air, Catori decided that now was as good of a time as any to explain. If Ezhno hadn't ditched em yet, the mugger-turned-bodyguard deserved to know why their destination had changed, to where, and why.
“Almost two months ago, I was giving devotions in a bone yard where I have kin. Something was wrong – there were bones with their spirits attached laying there, and they weren't sleeping. I-- I was the only one around for miles, and I checked on them. They were humans, I swear it to Bali.”
“You've got to be kidding me, humans've been extinct for yea--” Ezhno started to interrupt. But he fell short, his chest puffing slightly, arms twitching, as a thud sounded in one of the distant barrack houses.
Catori ventured on, lowering eir trembling voice as much as possible without exerting too much extra effort.“Something was wrong with them. Their souls were – warped, twisted, engraved in the bones. They tasted like an animal, but they were shaped and screamed like a human. The only thing they said was the name of the pass here. I couldn't help them. I tried for hours, days, and got nothing.”
“So you just dropped everything to come check on some ridiculous theory?” Ezhno paused as another thought clicked, and ey exhaled feces-stained air across Catori's blood-stained brown hair. “Which is why you were going it alone.”
“When I went back to see the bones, they were gone. The Order'd taken them, to investigate.” Ey paused. “I know it's crazy, and if it hadn't happened again, and I hadn't had a vision, I'd still be at home. I'm no good at this stuff.”
“And just now?” Ez prodded. His boot-clad foot kicked at a small shard of wood, and it scattered into the bones. The spirit shrieked, and Catori winced. Ey inhaled and burrowed deeper into Ezhno's scorched, surprisingly soft, leather tunic.
“Sorry,” Ezhno hurried to say. Embarassment hid in his tenor. Or maybe that was nausea. Catori wasn't sure, as ey was experiencing them all, plus an over-whelming urge to curl up and take a nap in Ezhno's arms. To forget it all, forget eir mother prodding em on, forget the bones, the goblins hiding in the walls, eir oaths to Bali, and just be.
But Catori knew better than anyone that mere content existence was something reserved for Bali's realm, and there alone. Those in life would always be fighting a losing battle, and death was their release.
Except for the souls who'd been bound to eternal torture. A fate Tori wouldn't wish on anyone. And whose trail ey was slowly sifting out – even if that meant abandoning everything and everyone ey knew, and having everyone think ey was insane.
If the whole thing weren't so real, ey might even think ey was a bit off.
There was a long pause between them, even though true silence never really fell. Catori alternated between deep and shallow breathing, Ezhno was mindlessly brushing chunks of dead flesh from Catori's bare skin, and the birds and goblins were loudly gorging on dead flesh in the shadows.
Finally, it was Ezhno's tenor that broke the quasi-silence. “C'mon, let's get up. We've got to keep moving.”
Staying firmly glued to the sticky stone floor, Catori shook eir head – a slow, dizzying motion. “I can't leave them like this,”ey repeated. The new discovery hadn't changed eir higher duty, even if it might've changed their short-term path.
Rising to his feet, Ezhno sighed for emphasis, and threw out eir hands. “Staying here is signing your death warrant.”
“I thought you wanted to look for survivors,” Catori answered, instead. “Their family deserves answers, and to know that somebody tried to help them.”
Besides, the very idea of going anywhere made Tori want to curl up and vomit, especially since they'd have to take the bones with them. Ey had to make sure that nothing happened to this set, that the Order didn't make them disappear like all of the others.
Ez was shaking his head, his blonde hair falling messily into his pale eyes. “Look, morals are great for some people, some of the time. But right now I just want to get out of here alive, alright?”
Irrational anger bubbled through Catori and ey struggled to displace it. Ey knew it was just the exhaustion, nausea, pain, confusion that was upsetting em in the long run. After all, Tori couldn't blame Ez for wanting to leave. On some level, Catori wanted to dash away as fast as ey could, too.
But ey wouldn't, ey couldn't, and that was the biggest difference between the two.
“You can go, then. Take whatever payment you need from the inside pocket of my bag.”
Ezhno whirled around, starting anew on a tirade about why exactly staying was fifteen separate levels of crazy. But Catori wasn't listening – ey was already working to get over eir sorrow at losing eir traveling companion, and working through the despair to begin planning the best way to give each body the burial it deserved, and which substitutes Tori could manage for the Time of Death ritual.
In fact, Catori was so preoccupied that ey didn't ever see the blow coming at them. A sudden and sharp burst that sent Catori immediately into fitful dreams.