The rumor had been circulating for days. A vengeful spirit haunted the eastern docks of Lotogear City.
Jack, still adjusting to his existence as Faceless Jack, decided to investigate. He had explored the city for more than a month. Never once had he encountered another ghost. If the rumor was true, he would finally meet one.
He phased through the grimy brick walls of a warehouse overlooking the docks. The stench of brine and coal smoke was thick in the air.
The docks were eerily quiet. The usual cacophony of stevedores and machinery was replaced by an unsettling stillness. Then he saw her.
The 'Drenched Woman', as the whispers called her, was a horrifying sight. Water streamed perpetually from her spectral form. It left puddles that smelled of rot and the deep, dark sea.
Her eyes were wide and vacant. They were as if fixed on some unseen horror. She drifted along the edge of the pier. Her movements were jerky and unnatural.
Jack approached, carefully. "Hey, Sister!" He greeted. His voice was a disembodied whisper. A product of his [Banshee's Requiem].
The Drenched Woman didn't react.
"I'm Jack." Jack used his [Nightmare Shapeshift] to visualize his floating faceless boy form. "I heard you've been having… some issues around here."
The Drenched Woman still didn't react. She didn't even look at him. She continued her silent patrol. Her dripping form was a stark silhouette against the flickering gaslights.
Frustration began to bubble within Jack. "Look, I get it. You're pissed. Something bad happened, right? But you can't just go around hurting people."
Still no reaction.
He paused, trying a different approach. "Tell me what happened. Maybe I can help."
Still nothing. The Drenched Woman remained locked in her own private hell, oblivious to his presence.
He tried again. He used [Banshee's Requiem] to create a low, mournful wail, hoping to trigger some kind of response. The sound echoed across the docks. It caused a flock of gulls to take flight in panicked squawks. The Drenched Woman didn't even flinch.
"Damn it," Jack muttered.
He was used to dealing with the guilty. Dealing with people who deserved a taste of their own medicine. But this… this was just a broken soul. It was trapped in a cycle of rage and pain. And he couldn't reach her.
He spent the next few nights observing her, a silent spectator to her grim routine.
Every night, she would manifest with the setting sun, her spectral presence growing stronger as darkness consumed the city. And every night, she would claim a victim.
He watched in helpless fury as she targeted a dockworker heading home to his family, a young apprentice eager to prove himself, even a drunkard stumbling home from the tavern.
It didn't matter who they were, as long as they were men. She would ensnare them with cursed illusions – visions of the sea, of drowning, of her own watery grave.
And then, she used some power he couldn't quite define. She suffocated them with seawater blanket conjured from thin air.
He tried to intervene. He used [Poltergeist's Telekinesis] to disrupt her attacks, to push her victims out of her reach. But she was too strong. Her rage was a palpable force that brushed aside his efforts like a summer breeze.
Jack was starting to feel out of his depth. He could punish the wicked. But he was lost when faced with something like this. A ghost driven purely by pain and incapable of reason.
He needed to understand her. He needed to find the source of her rage, if he had any hope of stopping her.
He started digging. He used his ghostly ability to slip through the veils of the city's memory. He haunted the records offices, the police archives, the back pages of old newspapers.
He searched for anything, anything at all, that could shed light on the Drenched Woman's past.
It took a couple of days. But eventually, he found it. A faded police report, buried in the archives. It detailed the death of a young woman named Clarisse Willow, just two months prior.
Clarisse had been a seamstress. She worked long hours in one of the city's many textile factories. The report mentioned a "tragic accident".
Clarisse had been found drowned near the docks. The investigation was closed quickly. It was deemed an accidental death.
But Jack saw through the lies. He saw the unspoken details. He saw the subtle clues that pointed to a far more sinister truth. He haunted the memories of the docks, piecing together the events of that night. And he succeeded.
Clarisse had a boyfriend, a charismatic rogue named Morden Kane. But he hadn't truly loved Clarisse. He had used her. He had lured her to the docks with promises of a romantic evening.
He then ambushed her with his friends. They had raped her, brutalized her, and finally, thrown her alive into the sea to drown.
Rage, cold and visceral, clenched in Jack's chest. He felt a kinship with the Drenched Woman. He felt a shared understanding of injustice and the burning desire for revenge.
But then, the records revealed something else.
Morden Kane was dead. So were his friends. Each had died in a bizarre, seemingly unexplainable accident.
Morden had drowned in his own bathtub, despite being a strong swimmer. One friend had choked on seawater on the road, far from any ocean. Another had been found dead in his room, his lungs filled with brine.
The Drenched Woman had already exacted her revenge. She had hunted down her killers. She had delivered them to the same fate they had inflicted upon her.
So why was she still here? Why was she still killing?
The realization hit Jack like a physical blow. Revenge wasn't enough.
For Clarisse, it wasn't about justice. It was about hate. It was about unleashing her pain onto the world. Indiscriminately. Endlessly.
She was no longer a vengeful ghost. She had become an evil spirit. She had become a monster, fueled by her trauma.
She was now incapable of distinguishing between the guilty and the innocent. And Jack, the self-proclaimed harbinger of vengeance, was faced with a terrifying truth.
Sometimes, even vengeance could corrupt.
He now faced a far more difficult task than simply punishing the wicked. He had to somehow find a way to break through to Clarisse. He had to find a way to stop her.
But how could he reason with a ghost consumed by such all-encompassing hate? He had no idea. But it was clear. He had no other choice but to face her.