L.T. File: 072: Pøùl'fo- Empty Man
Suffocation, losing yourself, your mind, ceasing to be. When the Empty man gets you, all of these things will happen to you. But not immediately. The Empty Man's origins are unknown, but what is known is that he is ancient, and has seen the rise and fall of empires. He is living flesh that needs a host of muscle, sinew and bone. He sloughs off the remains of a prior host, leaving the liquefied goop, his living skin engulfing his next unsuspecting prey. His skin wears you, like a glove wearing a hand, the tendrils of his flesh burrowing into yours, immediately beginning the process of digesting your body while you're trapped inside, but unable to control your own body.
You maintain all senses except for touch, but he shares your senses with you. Within hours, he has access to your mind's innermost thoughts. He knows what you know, and he becomes you. He infiltrates your life and you soon realize that he is good at being you. You see no hint of concern or confusion in your friends' eyes, no forced quality in the laughs they elicit at jokes you would have told.
Your loved ones praise him, your lovers love him, even your children call him father. With all the memories of his past, he often does a better job at living your life than you ever did. If the only physical sensation you felt wasn't being dissolved, slowly in digestive enzymes, it might even feel like a wonder. But it is certainly a nightmare. Sometimes, you can heear his thoughts, the voices of his hundreds and thousands of victims. Eventually, your skin melts away, and your muscles follow. this often takes almost a year, but he waits to dissolve your organs, and your bones. He's still using those.
First your less necessary organs, at least for him: spleen, thyroid, gallbladder, pancreas, then the thymus and intestines, your first lung, kidneys, then liver, then stomach. He leaves the heart, lungs and brain for last, when he begins searching for his next victim. If it takes him time to find them he get's rid of your heart first, and you become acutely aware of the lack of beating, like seeing your nose your brain ignored the sound, but now that it's gone, it becomes deafeningly silent. All the time your nerves scream their pain at you. Next he dissolves the second lung. He stops breathing. He never needed to. He only did it to keep other people from guessing. It feels like you're suffocating, but never pass out, constantly without air, and never getting used to it. At the very end, he dissolves your brain, slowly, saving the pain center for last, making you acutely aware of your loss of knowledge, but never memory. Not because he hasn'e dissolved your memory, you realize, but because he dissolves that a long time ago, into him, into his living flesh. Your brain is fully dissolved, but you realize that you are trapped in this suit of living flesh with zounds of others. too many to count, memories eaten and kept withing a codex of flesh. Then he sloughs off your bones and onto another host, and you feel everything again, and the chorus of screams now meets your intangible ears.
Summary
I. Hunter’s Account — Operative Elderberry-Silath
Filed under: High-Priority Immortal Anomalies
Status: Uncontained; active across five continents
Field Report 44 — Elderberry- Silath
(Recovered from wax-ink scroll; edges burned with corrosive enzymatic residue)
I have begun to hate the smell of soap.
It is always the first clue he has left another body. Every host scrubs themselves raw in the nights before he sloughs them off—some unconscious memory of being clean, of not carrying around the slurry of the last person. By the time I arrive—three hours too late, or thirteen minutes too late, or a breath too late—the room stinks of lavender and boiled fat. I saw him today. Almost had him.
The host this time was a dockworker in Zeyev’s Landing in Borvannia. Tall, half-shaved head, scars from rope work. He was standing on the pier when I approached—just a silhouette watching the tide. I felt my knives warm in their sheaths, the runes on them resonating with the presence of something not meant to exist. I thought: finally. After sixty-seven near captures. After three decades of false trails, discarded husks, and families torn apart by the thing wearing their loved ones like holiday masks.
He turned his head. The worker’s eyes were wrong—too quiet, too empty, as if the soul had already fled and the flesh hadn’t caught up to the idea. I closed the distance. He smiled with someone else’s mouth. “Operative Elderberry,” he said with a voice that should not have known my name. “You’re early.”
I struck. Blade met bone as the skin jumped up and onto a man running to catch his boatHe let the host fall away from him like an over-worn coat. The skin peeled off and hit the other man in a sound I will hear in my dreams: a wet, slapping sigh. Beneath was the glistening mass of him, the hungry membrane, the tendrils searching for something new to wear.
I lunged with flame salts. They landed—hissed—burned holes through him. He shrieked in a hundred voices and then jumped on the departing ship, barely catching the trailing rope. I tried to follow, but the jump was too far. He saluted me, crying for a medic for his burns as he clambered up the rope, looking back to grin at me as the ship sailed away.
The dockworker’s bones were left behind they clattered with to the ground, followed by the heart and a single lung. He was close this time to picking a new host. I failed again. Every time I get close, he abandons a host early. Every time he senses me, he accelerates the process, discarding the body before the victim’s nerves are fully eaten—but still killing them more surely than a blade. My hunt makes him shed more often.
I know it. I know what this chase is costing the world. But I also know what is at stake if he is allowed once more to hide completely. Tomorrow I’ll set out again. since that is the soonest a new ship is willing to leave port. If I have to follow the stink of soap across every corner of Zevemlya and beyond, I will. He will not escape forever. I will pin him to the earth. Even if I have to do it with my own skin sloughing from my bones.
-Director's note: Attempts to aid or recall Elderberry have met with failure. He still sends missives, but has become obsessed with the hunt ever since the Empty man devoured his father. I will send Oakroot to find him. Help him if possible, bring him back for therapy if not. They are friends, and I trust Oakroot-Diassi to be able to subdue Elderberry if it comes to that.- Director Sashine- Onyx Wind
II. Survivor Account — Medical & Psychological Intake
Name: Syla Rhande, age 34
Status: SURVIVED PARTIAL HOSTING (4 days)
Interviewer: Aulvi Medic Hashéel-Mír
Condition upon recovery: third-degree flesh dissolution over 97% of body; sensory hallucinations; severe dissociation
Transcript Excerpt — Day 7 of Stabilization, aulvi magic has returned patient's flesh, but patient still recoils to touch.
Hashéel-Mír:
Syla, can you tell me the moment you realized something was wrong?
Syla:
Wrong? When the skin-suit swallowed me whole! But then my fingers wouldn’t stop moving. They bent… backward. Not broken. Just… guided. Like the muscles weren’t mine anymore. I could feel them, just not control them. It was like being tied to a marionette you used to be.
And he was using me. Testing the fit.
Hashéel-Mír:
How much of your body had been compromised?
Syla:
Layers. All of my skin, or just about. It started with the skin between my shoulder blades. I felt a tugging—like someone smoothing out a sheet. Then burning. He was dissolving me from the outside in, but slow, slow enough that I stayed conscious. He didn’t want me. didnt want a woman. He said it.
He said, “You fit like a glove missing a fifth finger. Women sicken me.The men in this place have too many eyes on them., though, so I'll wear your meat mannequin until I can find a suitable choice.” He wanted someone else. Someone who could vanish without questions. A man.
He wore me for four days. Burned through my back, my sides. Every second I felt myself dripping down inside my own muscles. When he looked in mirrors, I felt his disgust at my form—him imagining other shapes, other faces.
When he found the man he wanted—a courier—he smiled with my mouth. Told me I should be proud. That most people never get to meet him alive.
Hashéel-Mír:
How did he leave?
Syla:
Like stepping out of wet clothes. He peeled me off myself. My skin—what was left—slid off with him. I felt cold air on raw muscle. I remember thinking: I don’t want to be touched again. Ever.
The courier’s scream… I still hear it. He was already inside him by the time I finished falling. He bent down at me and thanked me for the ride before tipping his hat and walking off, whistling.
Hashéel-Mír:
You were found six minutes later.
Syla:
Yes. If you had arrived seven minutes later, I would have been dead. If you had arrived six minutes earlier… he would have taken you instead. Every moment that thing is alive, somebody else is dying in their own skin.
-Doctor's note recommends psychological assistance after physical recuperation. -Hasheel-Aloe
III: Therapeutic Continuation File
Patient: Seyla Rhande
Therapist: Operative Mistletoe, Psychosocial Division (Aulvi Cognitive-Restorative Unit)
Case Designation: PTD-EM/45 (Post-Tactile Dissolution — Empty Man–Associated Trauma)
Session Number: 7
Transcript Portion — “Reintroducing Touch” Module
Mistletoe:
Before we begin, I want to remind you: nothing in this room will touch you without your explicit permission. Not me. Not the restorative fields. Not the memory-threading tools.
You control the pace. Understood?
Seyla:
(quiet)
Yes. I… want to try today. But if I say stop, you stop.
Mistletoe:
Of course. There is no goal that outranks your safety. Seyla, before we approach contact, tell me what your body feels like right now.
Seyla:
Tight. Like my skin is… too new. Not all of it is mine. Most of it is grown from the Aulvi graft spells. I keep thinking his touch is still in it somewhere. Like he’ll push through from underneath. Only this patch, is my original skin. (she points to a patch on her elbow that is slightly different color from the rest of her skin.)
Mistletoe:
That’s a common imprint reaction. Your nerves were overexcited—overwritten—by another being for days. They’re still learning your signals again. But your skin is yours. All of it. Not a single cell of him remains. It's just new skin, soon it will match that patch there.
Seyla:
I want to believe that.
Mistletoe:
Good. Let’s build belief through sensation, not hope. May I place my hand near yours? Not touching—just near.
Seyla:
…Yes. Near is fine.
(Therapist placed a hand two inches from Seyla’s on the table.)
Mistletoe:
Tell me what you feel.
Seyla:
Heat. And the sound—my heartbeat suddenly loud. Is that normal?
Mistletoe:
Very. Your body associates proximity with danger. We’re teaching it new associations. You’re doing well. Would you like to choose who initiates contact? Me or you?
Seyla:
If I touch you… I think that’s safer. I get to pull away if something feels wrong.
Mistletoe:
A wise choice.
Whenever you’re ready, place two fingers on the back of my hand.
(A long silence—twenty-two seconds recorded. then she gently placed two fingers gingerly against the back of therapist's hand)
Seyla:
It’s… different from how it was. His skin was— (stops, breath trembles)—not skin. Not really. It moved around me like it was thinking. Yours doesn’t move. It’s still. You’re still. I can feel that.
Mistletoe:
Good. Focus on the stillness if the memories try to intrude. You are touching a living person. Not a parasite. Not a copy.
Seyla:
I want to keep my hand there.
Is that okay?
Mistletoe:
More than okay. It’s healing.
Memory Reprocessing Phase (Fragmented Thought Reconstruction)
Mistletoe:
Seyla, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes. Describe the moment he left your body—but only as an observer, not as the person who lived it. Imagine watching from a safe distance.
Seyla:
Okay… (A whimper) I see myself on the ground. He’s stepping out of me like discarded clothing. But I— I’m not that body anymore. I’m watching from above. I see the raw muscle, the blood, but I don’t feel it.
My first instinct is to run down and help myself. To gather myself up. But then I see it— I see that the person on the ground didn’t fail. She survived. She held on. Long enough for help to come.
I… I think I’m proud of her.
Mistletoe:
(opening eyes slowly)
That’s an important realization.
Can you tell me the first moment you felt proud of yourself since the incident?
Seyla:
Right now. Holding your hand.
Controlled Contact Milestone
Mistletoe:
We’re ready for the next step, if you consent.
I will place my hand lightly over yours. No pressure, no restraint. Just presence.
Seyla:
(whispers)
Yes. I want to try.
(Mistletoe covers her hand, barely touching, no weight.)
Seyla:
… It feels odd, but… safe. It feels warm in a way that doesn’t scare me.
Mistletoe:
That’s because you’re touching life—not consumption. Connection, not invasion. And your body remembers the difference.
Seyla:
Will I always be afraid?
Mistletoe:
No. but there will be fear, every living thing has it to some degree, that's healthy. You will always remember, but fear fades as memory becomes a story you own—not a story that owns you. And this—your willingness to feel touch again—
This is how you reclaim your skin.
- Therapist's note: Continued therapy recommended. Seyla was lucky to have had Hashéel-Mír so close when the event occured. She has agreed to stay in Gënlèul, and has been given temporary housing in the human section of town, as the aulvi section would involve more touching than she is comfortable with. She has shown remarkable progress, truly wonderful resolve. After this session, she gave me a hug. She told me she was going to go on a date with a woman later, and maybe touch her hand. She explained that she didn't know if she could ever get close enough to a man again after knowing that the Empty Man preferred male hosts. I told her that was fine, but if she wanted to work on that in the future, that I would help her. She thanked me and scheduled the next appointment. - Mistletoe.
III. A Note Left by The Empty Man
Recovered on the body of a sloughed host; written cuts across the bones. The sentence-by sentence format is due to each sentence being found on different bones.
To the Tranquil Shadows— In particular to Elderberry-Silath, my ever-faithful shadow:
You chase me with such devotion.
You cling to me more tightly than my hosts do.
And look what your obsession has wrought.
Before you, I wore a body for years—sometimes decades.
Everyone I consumed lived full, rich lives inside me before the end.
They had time to adjust. To soften. To sing with the others.
But now?
Your pursuit has made me nervous.
It has made me careless.
It has made me hungry.
I slough off a body every month.
Sometimes every week.
Sometimes twice a day to avoid you.
Do you understand the mathematics of your failure?
Every time you draw near, I shed someone early.
Every time your scent reaches me, I must take a new host.
Every time you almost catch me, someone dies screaming who might have lived quietly for years inside my flesh.
You have killed more people than I have—
or rather, you have made me kill them faster.
And still you follow.
Still you breathe down the necks of the living, looking for me.
Still you sharpen those little knives that cut nothing but the bodies I leave behind.
Elderberry:
I’m beginning to think you want to be inside me. You want to join the chorus. You want to finally stop being alone. Come closer next time. Come just a little closer. I will make room for you. I will wear you so well. And your friends—your precious Tranquil Shadows—will never know the difference.
- The last bit was all carved into the skull curving in a spiral from the top of the skull's dome. -Ṣhèen Vahlirë- Watershed, Linguistics Division
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