The sound of a horn echoed through that empty snowy land and into V's ears like the death knell of his own funeral. The massive doors before V groaned open, revealing nothing no fortress, no land only an endless void of swirling darkness. The air that rushed out carried the stench of decay and something else, a strange scent that was foreign to V.
V struggled to his feet. Exhaustion had him good. Snow clung to his clothes as he brushed himself off. The fortress walls stretched high on either side of the entrance, disappearing into the gray sky above.
"What the hell is that?" V pointed at the darkness beyond the threshold, turning to the man. The middle-aged man stepped closer to the entrance. He seemed completely unbothered by the supernatural sight. Why would he be? The middle-aged man must be living here. Thinking of that, V stared into that darkness.
"The path to my lord's domain. Did you think it would be a simple walk through corridors?"
V's eyes widened for a second, but he regained his calm the next second. As V moved closer, forced by the man's presence behind him, he could see more clearly into the void now. It wasn't just darkness that was there. A valley stretched endlessly downward, filled with thick fog like living smoke. But the most catchy thing there was this two thick steel cables that emerged from the immeasurable distance, cutting through the fog as they stretched across the chasm.
"Those cables..." Without knowing it, he had said it out loud.
"Transportation," the man said simply and added, "Look closer."
V squinted into the murky distance. Something was moving along those cables, growing larger as it approached them. The fog parted around it like curtains, revealing a metal container roughly the size of a small room, suspended beneath the cables by a series of pulleys and gears.
The container slowed as it reached the platform just inside the entrance. It was made of black iron, covered in rust stains that looked suspiciously like dried blood. Small windows dotted its sides, but they were too grimy to see through. The whole thing swayed slightly as it came to a stop, creaking ominously. V took a step back.
"Get in," the man said looking at V who was stepping back then he moved and pulling open the heavy door one the side of the container.
V peered inside. The interior was cramped and dimly lit by a single flickering lantern. Wooden benches lined the walls, worn smooth by countless passengers. The floor was stained with God knows what.
"You've got to be kidding me," V muttered to himself.
"Now, boy. Unless you prefer to jump into that abyss and save us all some time."
V climbed into the container as the man followed immediately after, settling onto the bench across from him with that same infuriating calm. As soon as the door slammed shut, the container lurched forward, beginning its journey back into the fog.
Through the grimy windows, V watched the fortress walls slide past now he could see more details
"How long has this place existed?" V asked, more to break the oppressive silence than out of genuine curiosity.
"Longer than your bloodline. The White Ghost is also known as one of the ancient creatures of this land."
The container swayed as it moved deeper into the fog. V had just started to think about the White Ghost, what kind of creature it must be to be alive for this long, but one thought disturbed V more than the others.
"All this for blood that might not even be mine," V said bitterly. "What if I'm just ordinary? What if your lord's has gone mad ?"
The man's eyes glinted in the lantern light as he leaned forward.
"Then you'll die quickly instead of slowly. Consider it a mercy."
V leaned back against the cold metal wall, feeling the vibrations of the machinery above. He was thinking of ways to flee from here, but each one was more hopeless than the last. He had no weapons, no allies, no powers just him and his shitty luck.
"Tell me about this White Ghost," V said, surging with defiance. "If I'm going to die anyway, at least let me know what's going to kill me."
The middle-aged man stared at V for a long breath and sighed heavily, leaning back.
"People say it was once human, they say. A king or a sorcerer, depending on which story you believe. But it hungered for immortality, made a bargain with something I don't know what it was. That turned that human into this mythical creature." The man shrugged V stared out at the swirling fog.
"So I'm not just dying I'm dying to feed the hungry stomach of a mythical creature."
"You're dying because you were unlucky enough to be born"
Fuck you ! " V thought bitterly as the container shuddered suddenly, and V felt his stomach drop as they descended more rapidly. Through the fog, he could make out the bottom of the chasm approaching a vast courtyard paved with black stone, surrounded by towering spires that twisted up like the bones of some colossal skeleton.
"Almost there," the man said, checking something on his wrist.
"Remember what I told you don't resist unless you want to suffer more than necessary. Just accept your fate without any resistance."
V clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.
"Cheeky bastard, telling me to die when he serves a monster to keep his skin safe "
V thought, gritting his teeth as the container came to a jarring stop, and the door swung open with a rusty screech. Cold air rushed in.
"Whoa, cold!" V jerked back, rubbing his arms.
"Where the hell did that come from?" The middle-aged man turned to V and gave him a look.
"Let's head in," the man said with that same creepy smile on his face. "We are already too late."
After getting outside of that rusted container, V stood on the precipice of a vast chasm, looking down with no particular expression on his face.
"What do I do now? If this goes on, I am going to die for sure."
After a second, the middle aged man got outside of that container. Turning to V, he said to follow him. Saying that, he began his walk. V followed him without question. At some point during their walk, they had little quarrels from time to time.
After a while, the fortress swallowed them whole.
With the first step inside, V started to appreciate it for its beauty and creepiness. Its interior was cold, quiet, and far too vast for how empty it felt. The walls were made of dark stone, polished smooth like glass. Faint reflections flickered across them. Torchlight? No. There were no flames. Just strange bulbs hanging overhead, gleaming faintly with greenish light. The air inside was warm but thick and dry.
The middle-aged man walked ahead of V, silently, as if he'd already said too much. V didn't ask anything either. He didn't have the energy to argue, and even if he did... what would be the point?
The hallway forked, twisted, descended. It felt like they were walking through a buried city, not a fortress. They passed rooms filled with strange machines. Glass tanks. Tubes filled with cloudy liquid. V caught a glimpse of something floating in one of them pale limbs, too long for any human and he Instantly looked away.
Finally, they stopped before a massive door, much smaller than the one at the gate but still tall enough to swallow several men whole. Unlike the rest of the fortress, this one wasn't made of stone. It was metal. Thick and dented.
V and the middle-aged man stood in front of that door for quite a while like idiotic kids waiting for candy. After a while of standing, the middle-aged man didn't knock. He just placed his palm on a panel beside it, and suddenly the door hissed and groaned open.
V turned his head and stared at him with a little pity in his eyes.
"Old man must be suffering from Alzheimer's," V thought, standing there, peeking into the room.
Inside was vast just like the rest of the fortress. There was no furniture, not even guards. Just a single throne or chair, V couldn't quite tell set into the far end, bathed in dull, sickly purple light. A dozen thin black pipes ran from the back of it into the walls no, not the walls. Into the figure sitting in the chair.
When V was done admiring the empty room, his gaze stayed at one spot for too long on the figure sitting in the chair.
The White Ghost. Now V didn't need anyone to tell him that this was the White Ghost. He just knew it was him. But what surprised him most was that he didn't look like a ghost he looked more like something that had died years ago but just forgot to rot away.
The old man sitting on that chair had the same skin as V pale like snow, stretched so tight across his skull that every bone showed like it was trying to tear free from its skin. Slowly, V turned his gaze to look at his eyes.
"Ohhh..."
His eyes were open, but there was no light in them dark purple pairs of eyes. He wasn't even blinking, even when his long white hair was entering his eyes, as thin and lifeless as cobwebs. Those same black pipes were grafted directly into his flesh, like leeches feeding on a corpse.
And yet he was breathing.
The White Ghost turned his head slowly to the door. His neck cracked with the motion. And his gaze slowly settled on V, and a smile what we call a smile of death settled on his face.
" Holy shit! Now we are talking about creepy stuff " V thought.
"So..." each word fell after a long pause.
"This is the boy?" the old man rasped, his voice dry like sandpaper against bone. "The blood that calls across the chasm."
"That old man has gone mad... I am telling you, old man, that guy is sick in the head, " V whispered to the middle-aged man, but he gave him a stare that was telling V if he talked nonsense one more time, his sword would find V's throat.
Turning his head back to the White Ghost, he said nothing and just simply bowed and stepped back, letting the room fall into silence again. But V had to do something. Looking at the middle-aged man, he hit his back really hard from his perspective and smiled.
The middle-aged man stared at him in confusion for a long breath but said nothing.
The White Ghost didn't smile this time. His lips were too thin for that just stretched into a dry curve, like a wound starting to scab over. But before he could say anything, a group of nine people in all black not even an inch of skin was visible jumped before the White Ghost.
The middle-aged man's eyes widened as he blurred for a second, and next he was holding a severed hand that was dripping blood on the black floor.
"Who are you?!"