Profile: Howling Silence (The Ghost Tree)

First Section1

1. Howling Silence
2. Swallows-the-Lost
3. Irrelevant/not applicable.
4. Neuter. When not consciously mimicking a male or female, its manifestations are thoroughly androgynous.2

5. Yin spirit of death and predators; specifically, a spiritual manifestation of predatory animals, and, more symbolically, of predation itself and purification through consumption.3

6. Its true form is nonmaterial; therefore, what it looks like depends more on the viewer than on the viewee. It looks like whatever the viewer associates with death, what predatory animal they tend to think of first or fear most, what symbolizes devouring destruction to their mind... a blend of all the above, often ephemeral and ever-shifting. The only consistent features are an emaciated but bone-strong shape; three ever-coiling tails (at least one of which always has a scorpion-esque stinger); wings either draconian and corpse-shroud tattered or birdlike but constructed entirely of knife-blades and strange invisible "struts" instead of the arm portions; and empty eye-sockets with tiny, candle-like plasma-specks floating inside, seemingly far away yet all too close, looking right into you. 4

When it creates a physical body to manifest into, or deliberately melds its form into a specific seeming, it is indistinguishable from a real, normal example of that species except to those with the ability to perceive spiritual energy/activity/awareness (gnosis.) To those beings, its white-and-crimson energy swirls and boils through-around the created shape, and its empty candle-flame eyes are visible. 5

7. It began, sometime somewhere, as a burst of raw Yin energy released from the death of some great, hungry beast. As the beast's own spirit departed, the trailing edge of its sentience brushed against the insentient motes left behind by its death, sending them swirling and bumping into each other. Much like a planet forms from stardust, a new soul coalesced from those tiny bits of ephemera. Tiny, weak, and single-minded at first, the new death-spirit flitted with desperation from dying being to dying being, absorbing the energies of their physical demise. 6

It rapidly discovered that not just any death would do. It found itself drawn to truly nasty beings, sentiences who had bathed themselves in corruption or were just plain born from it, who shed foulness everywhere they went. It was satisfying to feed upon their demise; feeding upon pure things simply didn't compare.7

Eventually, it became large enough to be born into a body of its own. Countless lives passed, all of them in the shape of some predatory animal -- including many human lives. Its preference for predatory living, and for preying on the corrupt, was only strengthened by these trips into the physical world.8

Fast forward to the "modern day" from a human perspective. It has been quite some time since the entity now known as Howling Silence Swallows-the-Lost has inhabited a body. It has grown too large for normal bodies, too saturated with Yin and death to be truly "alive" anymore. Also, in a true body it feels restrained, incomplete, for having to force itself to be just one thing at a time. Also, other beings of its own kind always sense its difference, and kill or drive it away, or lock it in "asylums". There isn't much left it can learn from this form of existence. So it has left the cycle of physical birth and death, wandering instead through the immaterial Yin-places into which it was first born, returning only as a hungry ghost to feed.9

For it has its duty, and its hunger, still. And it has discovered that the great steel termite-mounds the human-things call "cities" are chock-full of suitable prey...10

8. Not applicable. It's not that Howl *can't* love so much that such a thing is simply foreign to its purpose. It is a sentient concept more than anything else. It is perfectly capable of recognizing ethics, being merciful, and such, when the whim strikes it; but it is also capable of being cruel, sadistic, and vicious. It is a capricious thing whose sense of empathy, awareness, and understanding are just as often used to hunt and kill as they are to bond and connect. The only being it could truly love and bond with is another Yin predator-spirit like itself. Any other being would probably be horrified and/or repelled by the empathic bond with such a thing. 11

9. It enjoys being what it is and doing what it does -- the stalk, the chase, the kill. It likes being powerful enough to make a real difference in the world, being able to challenge the sentient incarnations of Corruption on their own turf and not only win, but be assured that something pure may be able to return from the remains. 12

It also enjoys learning, absorbing information. It likes to study the living, especially as, being an entity of Death, it's forgotten a whole lot about living creatures as time's gone on. It remembers how to take their shape, and a few of its older lives; it remembers the pure instinct, but not the details of day-to-day life, nor what all humans, especially, are actually capable of.13

10: Howl is never mindlessly destructive, and it's usually pretty picky about targeting only the corrupt. It is, essentially, one of the universe's antibodies, circulating around and destroying viruses, cancers, and other unwanted stuff.14

11. And just like the human immune system, it can be capricious and unpredictable. Particularly when it's been especially good at its job and corrupt things are becoming scarce in its territory. It still needs to feed, and, really, anything that's spiritually prey will feed him. It doesn't *have* to be corrupt... that's just the ideal. So every now and then, a human who's unlucky enough to be, say, a rabbit or stag spiritually will end up its dinner. And, of course, once he moves into the city proper, he discovers plenty of "people" walking the streets who are empty inside -- or worse, filled to the brim with wrongness. 15

H16

12. Howl isn't a particularly ambitious being. It desires to stay free to do what it does and be what it is, and, if possible, to learn, grow, and evolve as an entity. 17

13. For millenia, Howl's territory included only the wilderness areas outside Paradise City; in particular, three mountains in the Vovin range were its undisputed stomping grounds. Around the beginning of the 21st century, however, the Yomi-riddled rakshasa who controlled the spiritual side of the city itself decided it didn't like having a predator so close to its land and tried to eliminate Howl. It ended up devoured itself, and now Howl has absorbed the city into its own territory. Now it is purging its new lands of every one of the demon's followers, patsies, and spiritual victims... including several who are still physically alive. 18

Needless to say, the police are not pleased when a new serial killer seems to appear out of nowhere, just when they're having a lot of trouble with the Rainy Day Slasher (AKA, Acetyl.) It's especially obnoxious that, unlike the Slasher, this new murderer never leaves any direct physical evidence of his presence behind...19

14. As noted above, Howling Silence is a living idea, a sentient concept. Or, rather, a sentience compounded of and based upon several related ideas and emotions, which is slowly growing into a more complete being. It acts as an antibody for the universe, clearing out toxins, invaders, and the like. 20

Second Section21

Wheeling out of its arboreal lair, the hungry one stretches its Self, coalescing from ephemeral plasmic shadow-stuff into coherent form. Creating a body takes time, effort, and energy; merging with the new body, its first sensation is of gnawing hunger.22

The snap of membranous wings against cold night air echoes in the hungry one's long pointed ears. Thin limbs folded tight against its emaciated, serpentine body, it circles high above, describing intricate loops and spirals in its loving dance with the wind. Even as it plays, however, it scans the earth, senses blazing across the land in search of prey.23

Suddenly it stops dead, backwinging to hover in stillness. An angry hiss whistles between needle teeth. It smells, not food, but rot -- not clean, proper decay, but the rot of true corruption, That-Which-Should-Not-Be. Another spirit of much darker nature has been here recently, its nauseating spoor contaminating the purity of the wind. 24

Angry, hungry, Howling Silence follows. 25

It takes him some time to locate the source of the foul excrescence in the air, but his Sense-of-the-Prey never fails him. Soon enough, he finds himself looking down upon a grotesque scene. Corpse-shroud wings fanning the air in silence, the hungry ghost manifest peers down, assessing the enemy's strength.26

There were three of them in all. The bodies they wore had once been human, but the true spirits are all driven out or devoured by the invading wrongness. The flesh of the stolen bodies has become twisted, malformed, hideously warped to resemble the maleficent being hidden inside it. 27

Before the hideous mockeries have a chance to notice his presence, the hunter throws himself at them. Spiralling downward, ballistic bloodlust, he bullets at his quarry.28

The Lost Ones feel the shift in the wind all too late. One is quick on the draw, bringing the hunting rifle to his shoulder. Before he can get off a shot, the true hunter is upon him. Even as two sets of tiger's talons sink into the rifleman's putrescent flesh, Howl's tails lash out. The stinger impales one as he tries to flee; the coiling prehensile tail lashes around the third, lifting him off the ground, squeezing, squeezing.29

Soon enough, all three lie in scattered pieces on the ground, and Howling Silence takes to the wind again, sated.30

Third Section31

http://storywrite.com/story/17820632

Also, additionally, you might want to look at "Slaughter in the Bone Forest" if you've never read it before and you want a story that has him in a more obviously central role. 33

http://storywrite.com/story/162848