Ghost Market

Kabaneri rounded a corner of the hospital she was in, into Ghost City. This wasn't right, where was she? One moment she was home, one moment she was here. Wherever 'Here' was. She turned around slowly, standing in the middle of the street, taking in her surroundings. She looked incredibly out of place with a few pieces of medical equipment still hooked up to her, and her simple grey t-shirt and shorts.

She quickly located a place where less people were, a nearby alleyway. Kabaneri just stood there, still not fully comprehending where she was. When was the last time she got to see so many people? When was the last time she saw another person's face not through a sheet of glass, but directly? Hell, when was the last time she was able to come outside? Harshly coughing a few times, she sat down, overwhelmed by the new situation she had been thrown into.

It was a nice evening—cool air, and a bright full moon. After testing the medicine on himself, he found himself with an excess of yang qi, and went for an evening stroll to cool off.

His sect sat atop a mountain—a rather remote one—which is why it was so surprising to him that, after blinking, he found himself in the middle of a crowded street in what looked to be a capital city.

Except walking corpses weren’t generally found in the capital.

Now he wondered if the poison he took earlier was causing hallucinatory visions, and he rounded a corner to catch his breath.

He brushed long brown locks out of his face, and he leaned against a wall, taking in deep breaths. After a few moments, he placed two fingers on his wrist to take his pulse—only to find that, save for the excess of yang qi, the poison was detoxified. Nothing accounted for hallucinations, so was this real?

No, how could it be real. He saw a few walking corpses earlier. As he looked around, he saw something that, in his opinion, was even odder—a girl, some sort of fairy, with things attached to her that he couldn’t recognize. She was sitting and coughing. Though perhaps walking corpses coughed. Was she a corpse?

Sometimes, if you asked dream characters if they were real, they’d answer. So, this man—dressed in white hanfu right out of a historical drama—turned to ask the sick girl a question.

“Is this a dream?”

She laughed at the question, sighing afterwards. "I wish. Although if this was a dream I wouldn't be dying, correct? What is this place? This isn't Shiraziberg"

Kabaneri took a few seconds to inspect him. Definitely not Shiraziberg then, based on the person in front of her. That means she didn't need this medical equipment, all it did was relay data to the medical technicians that attended to her. She began by carefully tearing off the apnea monitor, pulling out the breathing tubes and taking off the strap that attached the controller to her body. Next came the neurological monitoring device, this was simpler to take off, just take off the electrode pads. She tossed the machines behind her, breathing heavily. Her nose began bleeding, she used her hand to block the bleeding.

At the question he pointed to the streets, “Considering I walked past a few reanimated corpses, I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“That said, I’ve never heard of that place, and this isn’t where I’m from, so I assume it’s somewhere else entirely,” he explained. “It looked like the Lantern Festival, or maybe the Mid-Autumn Festival, but the date is wrong for either.”

When she tore off her equipment, he asked, “What are those?”

As her nose bled, he moved over to quickly give her a handkerchief from his robes, before pulling out a small green ceramic bottle. “I don’t know what you’re afflicted with, but one of these pills should help mask the symptoms for a few hours.” If she opened it, the pills looked more like small balls of chocolate, and the taste wouldn’t be too far off from it.

Kabaneri pushed away his hand, not accepting both his handkerchief and medicine. "See these?" She pointed at one of the originium crystal growths on her arm, tapping it to show him that it was solid. "I'm afflicted with stage III Oripathy. I'm pretty much guaranteed to be dead, especially if I don't make it home soon. The stuff I tore off was a part of keeping me alive, but are currently useless due to the fact that I'm not home."

She slowly removed pressure on her nose, the bleeding having slowed down at this point. "Most medication and healing techniques tend to accelerate Oripathy, I'm not too eager to die in a painful and horrifying way quickly."

Though neither of them knew it, if Kabaneri died, she likely wouldn’t notice due to the overwhelmingly dense yin qi and the fact this was, quite literally, the realm of the dead. Even in death, she probably wouldn’t notice a significant improvement in her ‘health’, so what was the difference?

Either way, Bai Yue listened attentively to her explanation, his brows furrowed with concern.

“Fair enough. I’ve never seen your condition before,” he responded, stopping himself from being blunt. The crystals were certainly solid, and it seemed more like a curse than a typical illness. Like a cold poison, but worse. “I can try to help you return home—I would also like to go home, I was in the process of treating a patient. Maybe someone, somewhere, knows something.”

Kabaneri sighed. "Would it be better for me to die here than to die at home? Probably here. Should I even go home?". She stared at the floor, deep in her own thoughts. Who would miss her if she died? She's got no other family. Probably her friend? Nah. Her friend was only there because they had no other choice. Better die here then.

She just sat there, still looking at the ground, sighing.

Her response was reasonable—he had seen all manner of folk taking their dying breath, and not all wanted to be home. Many had good reasons, too. He didn’t want to pry, so he would simply empathize.

“Well, if you want to stay here, we might as well make the best of it. Do you like candied hawthorns? I saw some earlier,” he noted.

Kabaneri looked up at him, tilting her head, confused. "Haw... thorns? What are those? Some kind of fruit?" she asked him, switching topics quickly. "More importantly, where should we go to find someone to bring us back to our homes?"

“It’s a fruit. It’s a bit sweet, and it’s crisp,” he explained.

At the question he pondered, “Likely someone who knows how we arrived here to begin with. It’s probably some sort of formation, though it would have to be very powerful. Only some kind of immortal could pull off something of this scale.”

Though he wasn’t strong enough to be able to immediately identify an immortal, he thought. Not unless they were very blatant about it.

Kabaneri just stared at him. "Immortals? People like that exist here?". She shook her head, sighing. "Never mind that, where could we find one of these immortals?"

She stood up, brushing off her legs. "I can't eat most foods, medical reasons.". Tapping her jaw, she looked out of the alleyway, into the busy street outside.

“An immortal would have to exist here,” he explained. “No mortal could possibly pull this off. It’s too… large of a scale.”

At her question, however, he shook his head, “Aside from asking people on the street? I don’t know. That might be a good start—do you want me to look while you stay here?”

The explanation made sense. He often had his patients eat bland food because they couldn’t and shouldn’t eat anything else. His lack of knowledge of her condition was unfortunate, but there was nothing to be done about it.

As she stood, he furrowed his brows, “We can go together if you prefer. I don’t think this is the kind of formation that would purposefully have you lose your way, but… I also don’t know that for certain.”

"Let's go together please, please don't leave me here. I want to at least look around a new place before I can't." She pleaded with him, looking back at him. It would be bad news for her, and those around her if she died here she thought, at least according to what she had heard about those with her condition dying. She stretched her arms, and then her legs, physically preparing her in case she had to walk a long distance. She had been confined to a hospital before getting transported here after all.

“Do you need help walking?” he asked. Though he didn’t know her exact circumstances, he could tell she lacked muscle tone from being immobilized. He offered an arm for her if she chose to use it.

He would then walk back towards the main stretch slowly. It was there that the large amount of undead could be seen walking about—many of them looked significantly worse off than Kabaneri, if only because their skin was rotting off into chunks.

Save for the walking corpses, there were also non-human entities—all sorts of animals and mythological creatures, some benign, some known to be hostile, however for the most part they kept to themselves as they went along their business.

She shook her head at his question, but still held onto his arm. "Please speed up, I'm not that frail. I can still run and walk.". Strangely, she seemed not too bothered by the undead walking around, presumably used to the sight. She just chose not to stare, and keep looking around.

Walking along, she gazed at the other non-human creatures they passed, curious on what they were, how they had got here, and if there was anyone like here to be found here.

Her words surprised him, but it wasn’t completely unheard of. Some were born with an exceptional constitution, whereas others cultivated it.

Though he picked up the pace, his goal was to find someone who looked friendly—or friendlier—and ask how to return.

The most amicable-looking stall owner was a merman who sat in a rather ornate wheelchair. From appearances, he sold medicine—many of them were remedies Bai Yue was familiar with, however a few others were otherworldly.

He approached him cautiously, but the merman simply smiled.

“How can I help you?” the merman asked, gesturing for them to come closer.

Bai Yue offered a clasped-handed bow, before speaking, “Excuse me, sir, but we’re not from here. We were wondering if there was any way to return whence we came.”

A wan smile crossed the merman’s lips, before he shook his head, “Not easily. The main gate opens roughly every full moon for about the length of two incense sticks. By now, it would be closed.”

Upon hearing what the vendor had said, Kabaneri sighed. Guess she was to die here. If so, better go out on her own terms. She mumbled out something in Russian, sighing again and then asking the vendor "Where can I find knives sold? Cooking knives, swords, anything kind of bladed weapon."

She could push herself for a short time, hopefully enough time to do what she was planning. Going out in battle had been a standard for those in her town, she planned to follow in tradition. Or if that couldn't be done, finish off herself.