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Olavo Remiges-Barrosa had spent the night polishing his sword, thinking about the future, and occasionally glancing at the corpse seated across the room.

He had examined the corpse thoroughly after bringing it home. It was just as he remembered it. His eyes were deep brown, almost black -- as they had been in life. They stared back with a listless intensity that Olavo found disconcerting. He had not been terribly familiar with his own face in life, and he was not used to the way it looked in death. Perfect, preserved death. The corpse looked just as he had the morning of his death fifteen years ago, before the massacre. Before he had Returned as a spirit.

The sounds of the waking city filtered through the walls of his home, a sliver of sunlight pierced through the eastern window. Olavo sheathed his sword and set it aside. It was time to start his routine.

Dressing is easy for the incorporeal. The hard part is maintaining the illusion of life. Olavo opted against his armor today and instead shaped simple homespun garments out of his ectoplasm. He concentrated and made his body solid. No walking through walls, not where the living reside.

"I am going out," he said to his body. "Pelus said that he would be baking a new type of sweet bun today. Perhaps we should go together, see if we can smell it?"

His body said nothing in return.

"No, not today," Olavo murmured, mostly to himself. "Perhaps tomorrow."

His body had slumped in its chair. Olavo hefted it up so that it would sit better, turned its head toward the window. It comforted him to be near his body, like having a friendly dog sleeping at his feet. "You will be safe while I am gone," Olavo said. "I will lock the door.