The Hunger Games

[Shang Tsung]

In life, the woman had been genuinely attractive.

In death, she was a work of art.

Shang had never bothered to ask her name, even as they’d leisurely strolled across Darkshire exchanging pleasantries about the town and her upbringing. She’d been ‘summoned’ into the Omniverse a few years prior, back when there was some war threatening ‘the Kingdom’ and Darkshire. She’d been sixteen then, and when she came of age, she’d started working as a seamstress to support her family. The whole account read like something out of a Dickens novel.

By the time he’d escorted her through the back alley door of his tavern and up the empty stairwell to his apartment ‘to enjoy some tea,’ Shang could barely hold himself together long enough to close and lock the door. After that, it was just a swift knife to the throat and he was alone with his thoughts.

Now he sat on his bed, his hands and sleeves stained crimson with her blood. The woman’s body was resting in gentle riposte on his sheets. He’d had laid out the sheets before leaving the room, just in case he didn’t come back alone. Now they were home to the broken body of some nameless, working-class woman. Above her twisted form was the true and beautiful prize, her soul. The greenish vapors swirled gently in an almost-sphere a few feet over her chest.

Anyone else probably saw nothing but a cloud of colored smoke.

Shang Tsung saw an entire life. He saw the young woman...Stella, arriving in Darkshire with her family. Her thoughts and panicked emotions about those days radiated outward like a tiny sun, causing the sorcerer to scowl. Even after the war ended, all of her thoughts were about work gossip and trying to find a man to fill what she perceived to be an emptiness in her life. Pathetic. Most of the women he killed were warriors or talented with magic. Less exemplary females were often just like this one--overly obsessed with life’s more trivial aspects.

“Soul is a soul.” With a gesture from Shang, the soul surged at him and vanished through his chest. He felt a mild rush as her thoughts and memories melded into his own. She had no remarkable skills, even related to her job, so that was a mild disappointment. For everything he had formerly been capable of, Shang had never been able to sew or stitch very well.

For the time being, it seemed like that search would continue.

In the meantime, the sorcerer glanced out the window and saw that it was still dark, which meant he still had some time to dispose of his garbage. The last thing he wanted was to spend the morning with a stale corpse.