The Curious Case of Everett Murphy
Phasmophage and Sorcerer
By all accounts Everett Murphy was born into a normal family in a normal town, destined for a perfectly normal life. His mother Eva was a dentist, and his father Gerald was a high school math teacher. Most people assumed he’d follow in their footsteps, perhaps taking over his mother’s practice or sharing his father’s taste for education. Given how bookish he was, the idea of him being a librarian was also brought up.
None of those appealed to him. Well, the librarian thing did for a bit, but not for long.
Everett wanted something more.
Everett wanted magic.
Even as a child he’d had an obsession with ghosts, monsters, and magic. He played at being a sorcerer, pretending to hold rituals in which he summoned all manner of creatures. Waving a makeshift wand, Everett envisioned it blooming into light, or flames, or a rainbow of colors. He saw himself flying, changing into animals, or causing forests to spring from the earth with just a wave of his hand.
His fondest wish was that one day his fantasies would become reality. All he had to do was draw back whatever invisible curtain he knew the magical world was hiding behind, and he could become what he was really meant to be.
Gerald didn’t like it. His son should have been interested in dinosaurs, robots and astronauts, not magic and ghosts. Or superheroes. Superheroes would be fine too, but not this.
“It’s normal,” his mother said. “When I was his age I loved fairies and witches. I wanted to be a fairy princess up until I was ten.”
“No it’s not,” he groused. “None of the other children want to play with him. It’s strange.”
As the years went by, Gerald grew more and more ashamed of his son. Everett’s strange fixation persisted into his teenage years and beyond. Fantasies about magic were tolerable in children, but downright embarrassing in adults. It was time for him to leave his silly ideas behind for good.
“It’s about time our son grew up,” he complained to his wife. “All he does is read about wizards and ghosts and all these things that aren’t real. I’m tired of everyone seeing me as the father of the weird kid who thinks he can do magic.”
“Leave him be,” Eva soothed. “It’s harmless. Besides, college will set him straight.”
“It had better.”
Except college did not ‘set him straight’. He had little interest in any of the courses offered save for the ones on myths and folklore. After a year and a half he’d dropped out, and his furious father washed his hands of him. Eva, not wanting to see her family torn apart, tried to reason with her son in hopes of setting him back on track.
“Maybe your father’s right, Everett. It’s time to put this little wizard hobby of yours behind you. I know you enjoy it, but — ”
“ — It’s not a hobby, Mom. This is what I want to be,” Everett interrupted. “There’s more to the world than what we can see, and I know it.”
“And what if there isn’t? What if you’re just wasting your time?” Eva shook her head. “You know, you were always creative. Maybe you should start writing books about these things. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“…I’ve got to go.”
He walked out the door, ignoring his mother’s pleas. What his father thought didn’t really matter to him. Nothing he did was ever good enough for the man, so he’d stopped caring long ago. His mother on the other hand, had always seemed to understand and encourage him, and now she had turned her back on him too.
Neither of them understood. Neither of them had ever understood.
He was going to prove to them that he wasn’t just wasting his time on flights of fancy, no matter what it took.
For the next seven years Everett spent much of his time and money chasing his dreams of magic. His job at a local bookstore was less something he wanted to do, and more a way to fund his endless search for the supernatural. He hoarded books and supposedly cursed or enchanted objects, and met with people whose interests were similar to his in the hopes they’d know something new.
Most of the leads he found were either dead ends or things he already knew. If he was meeting another person, he usually ended up educating them on occult matters and not the other way around. The cursed doll that the owner swore moved on its own didn’t do anything special once Everett had it. He set up a camera to keep an eye on it at all hours, only for it to stay right where he left it.
He ended up burying the thing out in the woods, figuring that was the better course of action than giving it to someone just in case. And hey, if it reappeared all of a sudden, he’d know he was wrong.
The only thing of value he got his hands on was a worn old tome called Of Ghosts and Bindings. The book talked about magic being a rare gift that precious few were born with. Most weren’t, but that did not mean they could not possess it. It just came down to how willing they were to cheat.
Usually that meant making a pact with one otherworldly creature or another, which didn’t really appeal to him. He’d rather not be on some demon or fae’s leash, borrowing their power only for as long as they allowed it. Also he knew enough about both to know that any such deal would come with a myriad of clauses and catches in the creature’s favor.
Of Ghosts and Bindings proposed a different method, one that still drew power from an outside source but gave them no leverage in the deal. It involved using ghosts as fuel, consuming them bit by bit with each spell cast until there was nothing left.
Everett read the passage two or three times just to be sure of it, and there was no misinterpreting things: ‘The spirit, being fuel for your magic, will burn as firewood does with each invocation until it is no more.’
Death was one thing. Nonexistence was another. Was he really willing to take souls, use them up until there was nothing left and erase everything that person was? He spent hours pacing, rereading the book again, and mulling over whether he was willing to sacrifice someone else’s existence for his own gain.
In the end his own desires won out. What did these people mean to him? Besides, they were dead already; it wasn’t like anyone would notice they were gone. Better they were consumed than tying his own soul to a demon for eternity.
Summoning a ghost turned out to be simple. Following the diagrams in the book, he drew a circle and carefully replicated all the elaborate swirls and strange little sigils. Into the center went an offering of honey, wine, and flowers. He lit the white candles — the book stressed that they had to be white, though it didn’t explain why — and began to chant. He beckoned to any wandering spirits that might be nearby, promising them comfort and respite from their earthbound existence if only until sunrise.
It might have taken fifteen minutes, it might have taken an hour or more. Everett wasn’t really sure but eventually he heard a soft rustling, felt a slight drop in temperature as a wispy, pale shape appeared. She drifted towards him, towards the center of the circle and the offerings inside.
The moment she entered it, the bindings worked into the circle’s swirling designs took hold and locked her in place. The ghost was frozen, helpless to do anything more than watch as his chant changed, slowly drawing her into himself.
A flurry of sounds and images raced through his mind and flashed before his eyes. ‘Happy Birthday’ echoed through his mind over and over again, the chorus of voices changing every so often. The sights and sounds of school, summers spent camping with friends, days at the beach and one spectacular vacation to Italy. The loss of her grandmother when she was twelve, and her dog when she was sixteen.
All of it washed over him like a tsunami. Names, faces, places, people, sights, sounds, smells, tastes. Her favorite song. Her first kiss. The first time she slept with her boyfriend. Her rage when she’d found out that he’d been cheating. The tedium of an office job she hated, or the comfort of home after a long day’s work.
Finally, the car accident that had cut her life short at thirty-nine.
Everett’s eyes rolled back and he slumped to the floor overwhelmed as the last of the ghost was absorbed.
When he came to he was sprawled out on the floor, the candles burned to nearly nothing. Everything that had flooded into him before was still there, but now it was muted, a quiet hum in the back of his head, the source of the power that now coursed through his body.
Trembling with excitement, he flipped through one of the many spellbooks he’d hoarded over the years and spoke a simple spell, one to conjure a light in his hand.
It was a small thing, an orb of dancing, shimmering lights that sprung into being at his fingertips, but it was still a spell. Everett stared rapt, marveling at the orb. He created it. He called it into being.
He had magic. At long last, he had magic. Tears of joy welled up in his eyes.
Finally, he had become what he was always meant to be.
The next few months of his life could only be described as a bender, glutting himself on souls with wild abandon. The more he consumed, the more he craved. The rush of power he felt, the blur of images and emotions as the soul’s life flashed before his eyes, their fear as they fought in vain against being pulled into him, he reveled in every second of it.
Didn’t hurt that the more of them he ate, the stronger he grew. At first his power was limited to a few small things, causing the lights to flicker or maybe getting a few small objects to float. Plates, books, maybe a vase. As he consumed more of them he was able to put curses on people or command pale blue flames that burned cold. He could fly, become invisible, read thoughts, weave all sorts of illusions and call up storms.
His favorite trick was raising the dead. Whether as an easy way of harvesting the souls he needed to sustain his powers or create a retinue of skeletons to attend to his every need, necromancy became his go-to form of magic.
The eerie glow to his eyes and discoloration of his skin, a sickly purple-grey reminiscent of livor mortis, came last. By then Everett wasn’t sure if he was even a living man anymore. Mirrors cracked and windows frosted over when he drew near, plants withered and electronics went haywire. He couldn’t show up right in any pictures no matter how you took them, always blurry and distorted. Smeared, for lack of a better word.
If he were injured, no blood came out. Instead there was only a wisp of greyish-blue fog.
Around the same time all of this happened, food lost its taste. Even if it was something he used to enjoy, like a fresh slice of pizza hot off the tin, it was like cardboard for him. It didn’t matter, because he didn’t need food to sustain himself anymore. The ghosts gave him everything he needed.
Children screamed, cats hissed and dogs barked when he was around, not that it bothered him any. All their fear was was a testament to his ever-growing power.
He eventually decided to put on the appearance of a normal man and not a glowy-eyed, possibly undead horror. Not because he was self-conscious, no. He was proud of his changed form, viewing it as proof of how he’d become so much more than what he once was. On the other hand blending in had its benefits, and so he masked himself.
Those that knew called him the Phasmophage, the Ghost-Eater. They spoke of how he was more a mass of souls contained in a fleshy vessel, and of the nightmarish spells he was able to wield thanks to that.
Some sought to learn from him, but Everett refused to teach. The last thing he wanted was anyone else leeching off his source of power. Whatever information he gave was watered-down or outright false, ensuring that no one else could accomplish the same thing as him.
Eventually he disappeared from public view, tired of the constant pestering of would-be acolytes and of humans in general. He had no need for friendship, for romance, for anything other than their souls as a source of power.
There were always whispers, rumors that he’d been spotted hanging around a graveyard, lurking in a forest, or even occasionally seen on a city street, but as far as anyone knew Everett Murphy had vanished without a trace, never to be seen again.
Years later, Eva lay on her deathbed. She’d had a long life, if a lonely one. Gerald had been taken from her decades earlier; somehow a car came loose from atop the trailer carrying it and rolled backward, falling directly onto his car and crushing him. An act of God they said. Could have happened to anyone.
She’d tried to contact Everett to tell him his father had died, and hopefully make amends with her estranged son. All of her calls had gone unanswered, message after message pleading with him to call her back ignored.
Finally she’d given up. Wherever Everett was he didn’t want anything to do with her.
She thought about him often, Was he happy? Healthy? Had he met someone to share his life with? Did he have children of his own, grandchildren she didn’t know and would never meet?
None of that mattered now. He probably didn’t know she was dying, nor would he care. Maybe someday she’d have the chance to reunite with him in the hereafter and make things right, but until then all she had was regret.
The door creaked open, and into the room came a tall, lanky young man with orange-red hair, the very image of Gerald when she’d first married him. Except it wasn’t the ghost of her late husband come to escort her to the hereafter; the way he carried himself was completely different.
Her son.
But that couldn’t be. Everett would be older, much older than this man looked. He’d be in his sixties, not the twenty-something that stood before her. She was just about to ask the strange man who he was and what he was doing in her room when he spoke.
“Hi Mom,” Everett said. “Sorry I didn’t come sooner. Ready to go?”
Eva, still trying to process just what was going on, shook her head. “Go? Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer. All he did was reach out towards her face. In that moment the façade of humanity melted away, letting Eva see the corpselike monster her son had become. The old woman tried desperately to fend him off, clawing at his hands with what little strength she still had, but it was no use.
As his mother’s life drained away, Everett smiled to himself.
The souls of random people had given him immense power. Consuming the soul of someone he loved? That would make him greater still.
Horrifying story, gorgeously told.
Such a cool premise! And very well executed🖤