The Life Thief - Victims 3 & 4

Victims - 3

An origin for The Life Thief goes like this. A spirit wanders the earth looking for its identity. It is said to have had its original body stolen by somebody else who wanted it to continue living on, another Life Thief perhaps. It’s been centuries since it’s seen its body and remembers what it acted like, so it goes from body to body, looking for what is probably a completely decomposed body by now. The bodies it does inhabit experience strange effects, which usually leads to the death of the original owner. The legend of the Life Thief is this though some don’t know the real story because it is lost to time. People swear the people they knew acted differently for some reason and they indeed saw a different person. They saw…The Life Thief.

A small family is moving into a new house. They’re going to move everything on day one since the dad owns a delivery business. He lends a couple large trucks to bring all the furniture and other items from their previous house to the new one. As they move their stuff inside, they hear screaming from across the street. An ambulance comes a few minutes later to and they pick up someone in a body bag. Later in the news, the family hears that someone died by melting. That person’s skin had been sagging recently despite the person being young and died suddenly after three days. This sparks some concern with the family though they think they don’t have anything to worry about since they think the incident is isolated. The two parents enjoy the new spacious backyard while the brother and sister fix up their new rooms. Besides the neighbor’s death, there’s nothing too special happening to this mostly average family.

The family moved during summer vacation, so they can have time together to enjoy the new house and so that the kids have time to adjust to the area before going to school. Today, the family start feeling strange. Something in their skin itches and twitches. It feels like the skin itself is pushing itself away from their bones. They try to look up the reason behind it on their phones, but their phones don’t have a connection to the internet. They then try to go outside, but the doors won’t open nor with the windows open. The windows and doors won’t forcefully open or break no matter how much force they use, so they are trapped inside the house. The family is also unable to use the TV, radio, and other electronics in the house.

This turn in situation has gotten the family extremely worried to the point each of them start acting odd. One would say something weird, then another would say another, and another would say something else. The person who said something strange didn’t remember what they said so they had to put all their memories to put together this sentence.

“One of you has my body. Give it back.”

No one in the family knows what this can possibly mean. Everyone is in the family is an innocent person as far as they know. The father runs a delivery business, as previously mentioned. The mother writes books and the children are just children. No one knows how to get rid of spirits or entities, so they try appealing to it by offering it things they have. The spirit doesn’t respond at all for the rest of the day.

During the next day, the family contemplated taking different kinds of medicines to try to get rid of the feeling in their skin. It’s starting to sag and bubble in a weird way that’s both unnatural and uncomfortable. The spirit possesses each of them again and gets them to say this sentence.

“I don’t know who it is. But someone here definitely has my body! Reveal yourself sorcerer and I will spare your family!”

Not one person in the family has ever shown that they can use any form of magic. This again confuses the family who tell the spirit that they have them confused with different people and beg to be spared. Again, the spirit doesn’t respond for the rest of the day. The family gets desperate and tries all day to break down the windows and doors of the house to no avail. Because of their efforts, their skin continued to melt at a faster rate.

By the next day, their skin began to fall off and erode into a bubbly mess on the floors. Again, they begged the spirit to spare them and this time the spirit joined itself only with the sister. It then got kicked out of her body and joined itself with her brother.

“Occultist!” the possessed boy says, “I finally remember who took my body away from me! Where is it?!”

The sister says, “It’s has been rotting for years now and outlived its use. I’ve gone through dozens of bodies since.”

“You monster!”

An invisible force clashes between the two until it crashes through the ground and the entire family gets is knocked out. When they awaken, their skin and house is back to normal as if nothing happened. They barely remember what happened as well and just go back to living their normal lives on this surprisingly nice day. A young man knocks at the door with presents that have the names of each of the family members.

He says, “This is for you for any of the damages I might’ve caused you. Please accept it.”

The father asks his wife if he should accept the gifts. He turns back to give their response, but the man has disappeared though the gifts are still there. They take in the gifts anyway and find that each gift is tailored to the things they wanted most as if the young man knew their deepest desires. Just like that, the Life Thief is gone from the face of the earth. No human being knows what happened to him or the other Life Thief. As soon as they made themselves known, they vanished without a trace. Such is the way of the Life Thief.

Victims – 4

This is the origin of The Life Thief that some people spread. The Life Thief isn’t a person or a spirit, instead, it’s an idea. Once a person hears or even looks at the words of The Life Thief, they become them. Only the people who’ve seen or heard the words are the ones who know it. Everyone who hasn’t are spared from being taken under the influence of The Life Thief. The legend of The Life Thief is this though some don’t know it because the real story has been lost to time. People swear the person they knew turned into someone different due to an unknown idea. The idea that is…The Life Thief.

It’s the 1800s and two officers are in hot pursuit of a pair of criminals who are said to be in possession of a weapon that could destroy humanity. The officers are instructed to not look in the case once they obtain the weapon. Carriages crash as the chase goes on in an almost intentional matter. The criminals’ carriage eventually crashes, which forces the criminals to escape on foot. As the officers follow suite, people start throwing themselves at the officers and attacking them as if they were possessed. Fortunately, the officers are able to get through without seriously hurting anyone. Continuing the chase, the officers corner the criminals in the alley who pull their last trick. They show the weapon to the officers, which turns out to be the words of The Life Thief. Now that the Life Thief has control of the officers, they force them to take the words to the city square where it infects the rest of the city. The city then became known as Legion where no one who resided in it or entered it left. After a month or so, the town was struck by a force similar to that of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not a trace of the city is left nor a trace of the words that turn people into the Life Thief. It is said that some people will come under the influence of the Life Thief and will be possessed by them and die horribly. Such is the way of The Life Thief.