Emotions are a complicated thing. I know how they function and the cause and effects they can have. Yet, I don’t feel them. I can only observe. The souls I consumed help in understanding them but I’m as empty as the void I carry. For something with such a sway in the human psyche, they’re unnervingly easy to distort.

I push and pull.

My home was once magnificent. Now it was nothing but hunks of rubble — thick and plodding blocks tethered by mere gravity. Dust and decay coats every surface and light shuns this place. Only regrets are left here. And wraiths are nothing but regret personified, misplaced souls with regrets so potent they coalesce into a physical form. Sometimes, I’d like to think I can pick out each individual soul and see my creators in them but I know the souls here are too decayed for me to truly know anymore.

Every now and then humans come by, dreaming of treasure. Sometimes their greed is rewarded, sometimes not. None have come close enough to stumble into my orbit but once they do, escaping my pull is impossible.

In the darkness, I hunger.

This soul is familiar to me. The chords, the tone are different but the rhythm is familiar. Were he born in a different time, he would have been at home here. Curious and voracious, a kindred soul.

I pull.