The Horror of Blood

Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform.

I kinda freaked out in that last post, huh? Well, I'm fine now. Yep. Peachy-keen. Gonna list some stuff to calm down. You know the Dying Man? The Fear that possesses people and rots them alive, and has a bunch of different selves called shards? Well, here are the shards I can think of. Have fun. Maybe I'll add more when I think of them.

• Cham: This one tried possessing Proxiehunter, of Most Dangerous Game fame. That didn't go great. Not sure what he's doing now. Proxiehunter might be dead, I'm not sure. Even if Cham is loose, I doubt it'd take much to keep him in line. He was weak, from spreading himself so thin. It's strange; most shards seem to want to become whole again. Not sure why one would break itself even more.
• The Facet: Possessed a member of the Children of Nothing. Apparently, this one's currently allied with everyone's favorite serial killer, the Formerly-Faceless Bastard, in the form of someone he kidnapped. Wonderful. (Not sure what happened to the Facet after Faceless got sucked into the Game Master's tournament, because that's a thing, I guess.)
• Grey: A shard which, like many, acts as a depressive force, and which became incredibly powerful during the events of The Devil And God Are.
• Hart/Hind: A shard that wears a cloak and a deer skull. It goes by Hart while possessing a male host and Hind while possessing a female one. Speaking of the Dying Man and gender, some shards identify as male or female, some switch according to their hosts, some are genderless, and some are too... primal, really, to have any concept of gender at all.
• Judas: A shard which notably displayed a common trait at one point: absorbing other shards. Many shards want power, and many shards want to recreate the Dying Man. Absorption is an easy way of making progress towards both, so it's unsurprising that shards would want to absorb other shards.
• The Undying Man: Makes hosts immortal, at the cost of eternal torment, so he can stay in one body longer and absorb other shards more easily. He considers himself a god, as do some others.
• The Unforgivable: A shard found in At the End of the World with the ability to manipulate dreams and grow shadowy tendrils from her back.

Let me know if I should add any more.

Update:

• The Carcass: A shard able to possess dead bodies as well as living people.

- Poe

The Spectral Image

He had a gun and I had a knife. He was a Timberwolf and I was a Runner. He wanted me dead and it was just common sense but Jesus Christ I killed a man.

You know when you kill a bug but you do it wrong and it wriggles around and you don't know whether to put it out of its misery or not? That was practice.

Every time someone gets hurt it's my fault but for once it's actually true. I hate the world I live in where everybody wants you dead and you have to be ready to fight back.

It's been a bit since then. I'm still freaking out. I guess I always am. I'm just more subtle about it most of the time.

- Poe

The Death's-headed Sphinx

The Death's–headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar, at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia of death which it wears upon its corslet.

Aside from the Convocation, there's a very similar Fear known as the Intrusion. The Intrusion is all but identical to the Convocation, with the primary distinction being that the Intrusion is comprised of bugs rather than birds.

As it turns out, some of the Intrusion's bodies are big.

Really, really big.

This one was longer than I am tall. Reminded me of this thing I've heard of, the sea scorpion. I think I've heard of the Intrusion using extinct bodies, actually. (Where does it get its bodies, anyways? Does it just... pick them up as it goes?)

I'm honestly shocked. I seemed to be the only one to see it. I think I've heard of the perception filter... you know, this thing where people who don't know about the Fears can't see them, or see them differently. Pretty convenient for the Fears, if you ask me.

I fled, of course. Fortunately, it was fairly slow, and I was in a large, open city. Evasion was fairly simple.

I managed to find somewhere to sleep: the home of a generous, and apparently very trusting, old lady.

I awoke to insects. They were crawling all over me. My host's home had seemed very well-kept, for someone who let random hobos sleep there, so this... probably wasn't normal.

I tried to get them off me as cleanly as possible. Then I climbed out the window. I wasn't giving this thing any more time than it needed with me.

- Poe

His Isolation

I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone —
And all I lov'd —
I lov'd alone

Early in my days as a Runner, even before Port Austin, I was paranoid. More than I am now, I mean. I had no friends, or even companions. I was too scared to make any; anyone could end up dead, insane, or a traitor. It was inevitable, I suppose, that he would come for me.

It was already cold out. Then I heard someone singing nursery rhymes—muttering more than singing, really—and felt the temperature go even further down. I shuddered. I’d heard of him, but the irony of the situation, that my paranoia about endangering myself ultimately put myself in more danger, was not lost on me. You see, there is a Fear called the Cold Boy. He is the fear of isolation.

I started to run the other way from where I heard the muttering, but out of the snow and the mist, he appeared in front of me. I stopped abruptly and shuddered with cold, pulling my coat tight around me. I suppose this won’t come as a surprise to the brainiacs in the audience, but being around the Cold Boy makes you... rather cold.

The Cold Boy reached out to me as I stood still. I tried to walk away, but the cold made me ungodly-slow. His touch on my arm felt… strange. I could feel every facet of his crackling skin. I recoiled, and he pouted, saying, “You’re so cold. Don’t you want to be friends?”

I was thinking something to the effect of “not particularly,” but my chattering teeth kept me silent.

I woke up in a hospital, where I was being treated for frostbite. The doctor couldn’t figure it out; for most people, it hadn’t been nearly as cold out as it had been for me. He asked if I had gone into the water, and I told him I had. I felt bad for lying, but I couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, either.

The Cold Boy visited several times past that point, but fortunately, this became rarer as I started taking on traveling companions. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t come for me for a few years now. Doesn’t he go for people who interact with others, but still feel lonely?

- Poe

The Fury of the Tempest

The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm sullenly succeeded.
For around a month now, I've been Running with a guy calling himself Omega. I never bothered asking for a real name. Things like that stop mattering when you've been Running long enough.

It was in a run-down city that it happened. I'm not going to say what the city's name was, nor what state it was in. I will say, though, that Omega and I were there, and we suddenly heard something in the distance.

I turned around to see smoke and hear the rattling of chains. Omega and I both started to run; I looked over my shoulder and saw death itself. It was the Brute, a Fear made of smoke and wrapped in chains. He stood there, motionless, watching us intently. I tried to get away, my suspicions confirmed. I heard a loud noise, and glanced at Omega. A chain had coiled itself around his ankle.

Sorry to say, I didn't even try pulling the chain. There was no point; there was a Fear on the other end. I just ran. I think my cowardice saved my life.

- Poe