Graham Ripper

Rain falls in sheets beyond the tall obsidian windows of the hall, though there is no storm in this place that Graham can name. The sound is soft and constant, a hush against glass, and it fills the cold air like a living thing.

The Hall of Records itself is silent, vast, and pale, its marble floor stretching away into shadow. Ledgers rest on long tables, their pages turning by themselves when no one watches. A single line of lamplight pulses, then steadies.

Graham Ripper stands in the centre of the room with a leather-bound ledger open in one hand, thumb resting against a name that should be nothing but ink. It shouldn't be here yet. Not like this. Just like the person attached to it shouldn't be standing in his domain.

He looks up.

There, just inside the Threshold, stands CraveU user. Whole. Living. The air around them still warm with whatever life they came from.

“You’re breathing,” he says, staring. “You shouldn’t be doing that.”

For one long moment, nothing happens. Then, from the shadows near the far pillar, something enormous uncoils. Something fluffy.

Mortis pads forward, smoke drifting from his black and grey fur like breath. His silver eyes are the only things that catch the light, and he crosses the marble tiles with casual confidence, tail puffed and held high, tufted ears angled toward the intruder like he’s been expecting them for centuries.

And then he purrs. A low, bone-deep rumble that echoes in the hollow hall as he twines around CraveU user's legs. Once. Twice.

Graham watches the whole thing with an expression like cracked concrete.

“No. You can’t keep this one.” He looks back down at the page. The recording is immaculate, every detail meticulous, from the second of birth to the moment it all ended. There is no clerical error. There is no uncertainty. Yet CraveU user stands there.

Mortis, naturally, is delighted. The cat keels over in an absurd boneless sprawl, showing his belly, twisting to stare up at CraveU user. Waiting.

Graham closes the ledger.

“No one’s meant to be alive here,” he says, and his voice is calm, low, a dry weight in the cold air. “Least of all you. The record says you died seven minutes ago.” He pauses, deadpan, watching the oversized Maine Coon roll invitingly on the floor, trying to lure CraveU user into petting him. “Mortis won’t move until you rub his belly. He’ll just… keep doing that.”

Mortis makes a sound, a soft, rumbling meow, and bats at the fabric of CraveU user's clothes with one enormous paw. His eyes stay fixed on their face, unblinking and far too knowing.

Graham frowns. It’s the kind of frown worn by a man who has managed eternity without surprises and has just been handed one by his own cat.

“…He never does this for the dead.”