Trail of Shadows — The Buzzing

Do you know the story of Maro Uno? He killed prolifically. He was captured for a minor crime. He died, unknown, in prison. A giant corporation squeezed his meat into a cyborg. Something of the serial killer haunted its organs, and the cyborg went on a homicidal rampage. The corporation shut it down. And that is where the story of Maro Uno should have ended. But it didn’t, did it, sweetling?

To the ancient Egyptian mind, a human being consisted of nine parts. The Khat, the physical body. The Ka, soul of sustenance, the body’s spiritual double that resided inside of it. The Sheut or Khaibit, the shadow. The Ba, soul of mobility, the wandering soul that dwells in the heart. The Ab, the heart itself, seat of reason. The Sahu, the spirit-body, entering the afterlife when all is ready. The Khu, the spirit-soul, the immortal part, sustaining the Sahu as the Ka sustains the Khat. The Ren, the true name. The Sekhem, the incorporeal personification of the life force of humans.

Jungian psychology also breaks the singular Self down into a pantheon of archetypes. The Father, the Child, the Devil, the Wise Old Woman, the Shadow, and others, all living in one skull. A multiplicity-in-one. We understand this.

Normally, most of these parts remain with the body in the tomb. The Ka and Ba wander off, and need offerings of food and obeisance to sustain them, until they return to the body and the soul travels to the underworld. But what if it all went wrong? What if the corpse was dissected just right? What if it’s heart was profaned, living on in a metal body? What if the soul was just wicked enough to sustain its shadow?

Now imagine an unhinged surgeon noticed this. Dr. Elswick combined what he knew of surgery, Egyptian spiritualism, and Jungian archetypes, and made something new. He took what was left of Maro Uno’s body and gave it a shrine. He fed the Shadow. He helped it grow and refine its feeding. The starving Ka, you see, needs more than food. It requires the nutrient offerings of praise. Fear is a form of awe, and awe is involuntary praise. The Ka-Shuet, the Shadow, would find all of the sustenance it needed in nightmares.

But how can this be? How does a simple surgeon stumble upon the esoteric? How does he learn to dissect the soul? Well, sweetling, there are archetypes and patterns in the universe so well worn they call out with strange gravities. There are rituals that want to be performed, and they will find human hands to do it.