Do Not Resurrect

Bonus Story!

Photo by Jennifer Chen on Unsplash

---

Author’s Note

I found this old writing of mine on my hard drive. Decided to spruce it up a bit and post it. I’m not sure what I had planned with it, but it has sparked my imagination. I think I’ll try to continue this soon. Interesting how you can forget about things you’ve created.

This is a bonus story for the week. I think I can expand it. When I do, I’ll re-release it with audio.

---

Do Not Resurrect

Thick smoke hung in the library’s rafters, and Arlette could see words in it. She ripped the dedication page from a book, pressed the page against Gregory’s back, and hastily copied the smoky words down.

The words dissipated, and the smoke collected into the shape of a man. Arlette waved the paper at the spirit,

“I can’t read this.”

The smoke spirit pointed at Gregory, elongated its flowing finger, entered his nostrils, and filled his lungs. He gasped, choked, then doubled over, retching hard. His eyes rolled back and turned ash-gray,

“Japanese?”

Arlette ran down the aisles to the section containing tomes of Japanese Yokai. The spirit spewed smoke out of the butler’s commandeered body and poured into the aisles, puppeteering Gregory’s silhouette in the haze. She skimmed with her trained eyes; college finals and her frequent search for monster manuals and magical tomes had their benefits.

The butler yelled again in the distance.

“Enenra,”

her finger rested on a short description underneath a wood print rendition of a spirit emerging from a campfire.

“Smoke Yokai spawn from fire and are tethered to it.”

The spirit filled most of the aisle and grasped at Arlette as she looked up from the book. She stumbled, then sprinted. Smoke swelled, then flooded through the two adjacent aisles and closed in to meet her as she ran through the only clear aisle. She slammed into the restroom door, which was slightly ajar, sending herself tumbling into the restroom.

The smoke stopped flowing out of the restroom, and the spirit took form over her. Its massive form hunched under the ceiling with outstretched arms reaching for her. She spat like her cousins with dip tobacco. The sharp, squirt gun-like stream hit the incense holder.

Tsss

The incense stick went out. The smoke spirit froze, then dissipated, leaving only smoke.

Gregory opened all of the library's windows, coughing and hacking, as Arlette sat with a Japanese to English dictionary, translating the words she had copied from the smoke.

“Do Not Attempt Resuscitation?” Arlette raised her eyebrow.

Gregory scoffed,

“I should have tattooed that on my first body.”

---

---

---

---