His head hurt. There was something filthy on his face. His head hurt. And parts of him ached from being tossed and rolling on the hard ground.

  Blearily, Loren tried to look around. He knew he'd been dragged—by his legs, ow—inside the house, but it hadn't been that far in. It was surprisingly bright and not dark and gloomy like he'd expected. The air smelled dusty, with a hint of leaves.

  Even through the pain and disorientation, Loren found himself wishing that Harmony was there.

  It was an old habit. They'd grown up together, had practically lived in each other's houses, and had seen more of each other than they had their own parents since their parents all worked. Only the fact that their respective bedrooms hadn't faced each other's—they had in fact been on opposing sides of their respective houses—kept them from basically seeing each other just before they went to bed, and the fact they'd both sometimes slept over just because they felt like it meant it hadn't mattered. Whenever one of them had gotten hurt when they were young—skinned knees, falling off their bikes, that time he'd broken a bone—they'd always turn to the other, because they'd be there.

  He hurt now, and really wished Harmony was around.

  Loren lay still, waiting for the pain from having his head slammed into the window bars subside. Distantly, he could hear the cars passing by on the road and what may have been Norm calling his name, but beyond that the house as completely silent. The floor beneath him was cold and hard, pale marble that implied the makers of this house had been pretty rich, or it had been made back when using marble had been a popular choice.

  There was no cold pressure on him, but he stayed still, trying not to draw attention as he waited for the pain to lessen. He didn't want to risk trying to use Life to get the pain to subside faster. The magic might get the ghost to focus on—

  He felt something hit his arm and he flinched, then flinched again at the spike of headache that gave him, even as he instinctively looked around in a panic, searching for the source of the attack. He knew what had done it, but his fear made him do it anyway.

  To a casual eye, there was nothing to see. The Flame mage was in what might have once been a dining area. There were the remnants of a table that had been flipped over, the thin-looking legs pointing up. Chairs with equally thin legs were scattered all around, some of them with their legs broken. What looked like bowls, plates, wine glasses and other tableware were divided between shelves, display cabinets, and broken all over the floor. For some reason, there was a railing along one side, beyond which was a large space that ended in floor to ceiling windows. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, meaning he probably had mud smeared on his face, although it wasn't enough to really dim the afternoon sunlight coming from outside.

  A curving piece of broken tableware—part of bowl—had been what had struck him, and given how it had fragmented, it was lucky that he hadn't gotten the pointy ends. With how hard it had hit him, he felt it should have shattered on impact. The throw had not been gentle, for either him or the piece of bowl. That implied prolonged isolation such that the ghost hadn't had any reason to learn modulate their strength…

  Loren looked around the room, trying to look for clues as to how long the house had been empty and therefore how long the ghost had been solitary and isolated. Had the violence just been a product of the ghost not used to regulating the physical force they exerted, or—

  "Hey!"

  He heard the voice, surprisingly high like a whiny child, saw the implied shape in the air, made of the patterns of dust and smears of dirt and the stubble of the stucco pattern on the walls before it suddenly firmed, taking on a terrifying visibility he thinks he's only seen Sara do once, and it might have been a trick of the light.

  This wasn't a trick. What looked like an oni had just come out of the air, with bright green skin and a pair of horns and the most morbidly obese torso Loren has ever seen in real life. Coming up as high as his nose, the ghost looked like some caricature of a fat person, wearing a large mumu whose pattern kept changing between eyeblinks. Arms and legs so thick they could be mistaken for being muscular, if it weren't for the way the ghostly flesh flowed and wiggled as the ghost moved. The face… it was almost flat with only the barest hint of a nose, as if someone had flattened a normal face under a press. The eyes were just empty black voids, and the mouth… the mouth was hole big enough to fit a large orange, the teeth massive molars in multiple rows like a shark's.

  A shiver went violent up Loren's back as he took a step away from the apparition, then another as the ghost oni seemed to—no, they literally swelled up, inflating like some kind of puffer fish. "You're the new help! Clean this up!"

  The words left Loren confused, even as the pain in the back of his head finally crossed the threshold from 'piercing' to merely 'agonizing'. "W-what?"

  But the ghost had vanished, even as some of the debris on the floor were flung towards him like they were kicked. He flinched back instinctively, even if they didn't really get close to him. "Clean this up, help!"

  Vanished but not left.

  …

  Fuck this. He was getting out of here!

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  After being pulled through the door of the house, he had been dragged across the floor deeper into the house, and the drag marks were pale on the dust covered floor. Hesitantly, he walked towards the direction of the drag marks. It turned right, and he could see a fallen side table made of heavy wood next to a shattered decorative bowl and what looked like long-rotted remnants of potpourri and painted pine cones—

  Cold pressure wrapped around his arm, and it was yanked back so hard he felt his arm would pop out of his shoulder. He was nearly pulled off his feet as he was forced back, and felt his legs hit something. There was a crack as he fell on his ass, and for a panicked moment he thought it came from him. The pain of something on his calf and a glance down showed that what had broken was one of the table's legs, which was now under his own.

  "Stop slacking off, help! I told you to clean all this up! And you're paying for that table you broke!"

  …

  This ass was murdered, wasn't he?

  Even as his spine crawled, Loren found himself rapidly losing patience with this dead asshole. He gingerly got to his feet, even as he swept his eyes back and forth, looking for the suggestion of a shape in the air. Cautiously, he finally drew Flame from his soul, aligned it with Life, and directed it towards the back of his head. The pain began to slowly ease, which was a relief. It… well, it would only help a little if he had any brain damage, but even the simple medicinal magic would help lower swelling.

  His eyes flicked towards the paler smears on the ground—ugh, his clothes must be filthy now—then looked towards the fallen and broken debris. For a moment, he considered playing along. Considered bending down and picking up the mess, cleaning things up…

  …

  He bent down and picked up the broken table leg. The wood had ripped off the mount it had been secured onto, showing the original, pale material inside. Some kind of soft, light wood, not pine but similar… easy to burn.

  Then he stood up and followed the smear on the ground that he'd been dragged along.

  A feeling of cold pressure against his chest was all the warning he had before a hard shove that felt like someone had punched him with a sack of rice. It knocked him back, but Loren was able to stay on his feet. He gritted his teeth in a snarl. This asshole—!

  Once more, the ghost appeared, the angry sneer on its face a twisted caricature of a real expression. "Lazy help! Get to—!"

  Loren's own anger spiked even as he drew back his fist in the way he had practiced for two weeks, called Flame to his hand and punched. It's a sloppy punch. While it had started to recede, the pain in his head didn't help, and his feet were out of position, but it was a punch. The Flame he sent rushing out of his limb was aligned with Energy. Specifically, kinetic force. The magic slammed into the ghost's annoying face, causing it to snap back at an angle that would have broken the neck of someone alive.

  The ghost actually stumbled back, but whether it was from the impact of the magic or surprise, it was hard to tell. However, it gave Loren enough time to snap a ghostlight Flame from his hand and slap it onto the end of the table leg he was holding. The wooden leg started to burn, even as it cast its light around him.

  What Loren saw next was completely unexpected.

  In the light of the ghostlight Flame, things filled the house. The floors, the walls, the furniture and the roof were covered with the things. Some looked like ethereal, ghostly lotus flowers in full bloom, petals wide open and writhing like fingers. Masses of mouths skittering on multiple hands with elongated fingers both covered all over with wide, staring eyes walked like spiders. Crawling everywhere were what looked balls of teeth, anemones made of curling fangs that seemed to ooze and undulate like roiling, flowing lava.

  The ghost in front of him were covered in the things, some latched onto its skin like ticks, while others seemed to have burrowed into spiritual flesh. The ghost didn't seem to notice their presence, even as its whole body writhed with them. Instead, the ghost turned toward Loren, its face a wrathful mask, its horns somehow tilting down to point forward instead of curling up. With the high-pitched scream of a child having a tantrum, ghost charged at Loren, arms raised up as if it intended to shove him with both hands.

  Loren punched again, pouring even more imbuement into the focused stream of Flame, even as he tried to step to the side and swing the burning torch in his hand. The impact of the Flame actually knocked the ghost back, even as its legs kept running forward, making its torso elongate as the two ends went in opposite directions. The legs seemed to snap back like some old cartoon as the ghost held its hands to its face.

  Even as the ghost screamed, either in pain or surprise, Loren heard a strange sound. It was like plates in a rack knocking against each other, ringing like bells, except duller, more like small rocks banging together…

  He looked down at himself and recoiled. The slug-like teeth balls were crawling over his legs, latching onto his skin, the teeth undulating in waves. What were—

  Realization struck Loren, and he shuddered, even as he called more Flame from his soul and sent it bursting out. Immaterial magic burst from his skin, and the teeth balls were blasted off him, exploding into smears of spiritform that dispersed through the air, leaving a heat haze in their wake.

  Keres. Those had been keres!

  A piece of debris went flying at him.

  Loren dodged, instinctively swinging his torch in a futile effort to bat the piece of broken plate away. Even as he moved, the ghost picked up more and more pieces of debris, throwing them at him while screaming. He moved to avoid them, even as he sent blasts of Flame back, kicking aside debris on the floor. Unfortunately, the ghost was blocking the way out, and kept backing up every time one of Loren's blasts connected.

  "Useless! Worthless! You can't even do a simple thing right! You'll pay for this! This is coming out of your salary!" the ghost was shrieking.

  "You're not my boss and you're not even paying me, asshole!" Loren roared back. He didn't have his bag with him, so no oil, no butane, no—

  Wait.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the plastic-wrapped beeswax candies there. Flame came to his hand, the plastic started to writhe and crinkle as he wrapped and anchored the fire to the beeswax within. Loren flung the candy towards the ghost as a crude fireball. Rather than trying to dodge, the ghost swung its hand as if to sweep the candy away. "You've got candy?-! Gimme the candy! Gimme—!"

  The candy exploded at Loren's command, the Flame consuming all the wax and plastic in an instant and converting it all into imbuement and then kinetic Energy, energy that formed a lance of force pointed straight at the ghost.

  This time the ghost went flying as pieces of tableware on the floor broke from being in the cone of the blast.

  "No," Loren said flatly.

  A scream rose… as did a fallen side table.

  "Oh, shi—"

  That was as far as he managed to get as the ghost threw the side table at him.