“Nothing on the tox scan?” A man asked outside the hospital room

“Nothing, not even caffeine” a doctor said, “I’m sorry we had to call you away from your other cases, but identification on him revealed…a horrible curse is on him.”

The man looked through the window to see a figure, forced into a magic state of sleep, he flicked a few fingers, magic pulsed as the man on the bed’s form seemed to become double exposed as two strong auras of magic swirled around them, the same magic, but…as if two sources were in his body; one was just a plain human with no magic whatsoever, the other was an extremely, extremely powerful undead source.

“That is very strange” the man said, before flicking a few fingers again, “He’s alive, no?”

“Very” the doctor said with a laugh

“So, why does he detect as both undead and human?” the man asked

“That is why we called you in, sir, we believe there is a powerful curse on him, but he’s a nonmagical human, so…we’re unsure how he found his way into Rook, someone reported a man stumbling around North Cross, they believed he was an addict that had gotten so deep into their drugs that something showed itself to him, but…as I said, tox screen is clean…to be entirely honest, I’ve only ever seen tox-screens so clean from infants, there’s not even a drop of caffeine in him.” The doctor explained

“A curse would do something like this. You mentioned he said something about being like this for quite some time, too?”

“He said he just wanted to be alone…that he’s been like this for over two decades. We had to magically sedate him; something…snapped, he was in the corner of the room, digging his nails into the tile and rocking himself while counting to six, he was able to entirely break off some of his fingernails by the time we were able to get in there…he also has signs of a picking tic, reopened some spots that we’ve healed. Based on our findings, his hands show signs of extensive chemical burns…obsessive cleaning based on our findings, met with the obsession with the number six he’s displayed…we believe he has a form of OCPD…most likely as a result of whatever the curse on him is.”

“…a very intense curse then” the man said before rocking his shoulders back as he righted himself, “But shouldn’t be anything too difficult to break, that is my job after all” he added with a laugh trying to keep the energy light, but as he stepped into the room…the energy was that of a black hole: cold, smothering and dark: the room was extremely cold…as if the entire room was a freezer, like the man’s breath should be fogging, but he couldn’t breathing without coughing intensely as he wafted his hands in front of his face, the intense scent on the air was noxious and choking…the scent of bleach was so heavy on the air, that the man could nearly feel it burning his skin, but so was the scent of burnt sage…so heavy and pungent that it made the man’s eyes water…all with this underlying, overly floral scent of mango that made the mix so disgustingly strong and caustic that the man almost wanted to step out of the room and get something like a gas mask…within, but a few moments, he was having to stifle a gag.

He steeled himself as he flicked a few fingers to get the idea of how powerful the curse was, but the magic that burst across the man in the hospital bed was so…powerful that he was nearly physically rebuffed just seeing it. There was a curse on the man, based on the power of it, it would have had to have been on him for as long as he was alive and it was not an easily removed one; it was made in such a way that it was ingrained and interwoven to the man’s very DNA, removing it would be as damaging as if someone was trying to alter their own DNA. He was as much of the curse as if was of him.

Shapes started showing themselves to the man as he stood there, it at first just looked like the air contorting, as if the cold was so present it was making some sort of cold-mirage or was making the ambient moisture condense, then the shapes took a more distinct form and a distinct colorful glow to them of a pure, blank icy white; they were humanoid, but vaguely in the sense of they had a head and two arms, but no legs, where legs should be instead forming a long coiling tendril that all twisted as they sunk into the asleep man’s chest…they floated around him as if a protective group around him; one had their hands on his head as if cradling him, two had their hands on each of his shoulders in a similar protective, comforting gesture and a few other floated about the room, all in this icy pale silvery-white with heavy cuffs around their necks and or wrists with phantom chains floating off around them, brighter glowing eyes there were the barest hint blue and for some, their legs were this trailing off cloud, others had the same with their arms, one even had that effect replacing their head. Ghosts. Lost ones, not the kind of ghost who find themselves reborn as a ghost in the magical world, but ones who wished to move on, but were unable to do. Ghosts trapped here till they could be released.

“Oh…oh, no” the man muttered as the ghosts floated about the man on the bed, this curse was without doubt, the strongest and worst he had ever seen; he had helped people with curses that caused limbs to rot with ease, or that they could only speak in rhymes or walk backwards or various forms of bad luck…but he had never seen a curse that was so intrinsically ingrained into the vessel. “Maybe I can seal it.” he added as he set his bag on the table, sealing the curse was far from what he’d want to do, but all of his experience was coming up with no idea as to how to help the vessel. As he got a few things out and went to start, there was a screech sound and he spun on his heel as the ghosts snapped their faces towards him, those that had faces at least before the man on the bed’s body lurched upwards as if a cord at his navel pulled his midsection upwards, a miasma of pale, blue-tinted silver covered him before rushing towards the man.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” the manifested voice shouted as the ghosts grabbed the man and physically dragged him out of the room, all, but throwing him into the wall across the wall as he crumpled to the ground. Quickly picking himself up as the newly manifested on slinked back into the man’s body which lowered back to the bed as the ghosts around him returned to their protective state around him.

“You…can’t remove it?” the doctor asked

“T-t-t-the c-curse won’t allow it.” the curse breaker sputtered, a thin cast of frost over his coat, trembling in intense shivers and his entire body slick with a cold sweat that nearly froze against his skin, he was shocked that his teeth weren’t shattering from how they clattered “It is not just a curse, it’s part of his very DNA…removing it would…”

“Kill him” the doctor finished, choosing not to mention the curse breakers freshly formed wrinkles or the streak of white that now shot through his hair, the curse breaker nodded, “What kind of curse is it?”

“He’s a bridge…a medium between our world and the ghosts trapped between the realms. They…need him and him alone to be able to release the trapped and tortured souls.” The curse breaker explained, “He’s going to have a very, very difficult life ahead, but the magical world will be able to help him.”

“What can he do?”

“Nothing really” the curse breaker explained softly rubbing his now slightly gnarled looking hands, “That kind of curse, is not one that can be controlled, contained or released, but only something that the cursed can learn to deal with, use and learn to use it as big of a part of them as their life is.”

“So…what is he then? A nonmagical human? Some sort of weird Seer or something?”

“Nothing like that: he was born a nonmagical human, but…I couldn’t find the source of the curse or anything, it is so deeply ingrained in him that it’s almost source-less…like the inverse of when someone is born without magic in a magic family…it would be difficult, but not impossible for him to be able to use it.”

“So, he’s okay to be in Rook?”

“He…needs someone to oversee him, to help him and teach him about the magic world. There is one ghost on his soul that is the strongest ghost I have ever encountered.”

“Is he in danger?”

“If he keeps rebuffing the ghosts…a fair bit, based on what I could observe; keep him asleep, he seems to be in dire need of it.”

“Thank you at least for trying, I’ll…go do all the paperwork to see who’s willing to be his sponsor.”

“He’ll need someone who has a very, very powerful connection to the afterlife, is someone on the sponsor list is a cleric of some-kind, they’d be a bigger help. Someone who can teach him how to help all of those ghosts pass on. He needs to release the ghosts to be rid of them and only that would do so.”

“Poor kid.” The doctor said, “A bloodline curse…genetic maybe?”

“Not that I could tell…but is as big a part of him as his name or who his family is. There is no him without that curse and there is no curse without him…most blood curses are usually part of the city and raise their kid magically to avoid having to talk about the curse.”

“He’s in for a rough time, no?’

“Extremely.”