ndrome
The Killers that Walked with Black Palms to the Ground
prefix n suffix drome
'adawwah raq-qqaysiyya
number
13,600
derelict
melancholic
alignment
☳
height
5 ft, 7 in
length
13 ft
weight
15 lbs
size variance
24%
I.Q.
198,198
core temp.
33°F
stability
60%
longevity
2,000-3,100 years
near
mute
misocene
quality
impure
physical appearance
The ndrome /ˈndɹəʊm/ .. ... ... ... made of black rags, and nothing else. Though it has no flesh or organs ... the inner folds of its body are frigid, and hardened by this cold. ... ... it smells like something that spent ... . a long time soaked in ... a foul, brackish fluid repulsive to ... . but which has significantly faded in .. the intensity of this odor.
.. .. . ... it cannot speak.
environment and generation
.. . ... . night skies, flat-sided buildings and wide street with little activity, narrow gaps between larger structures, and𐊜 ...
𐊜 "They'd been dumping the bodies for a while now. They came to fill the pit, but if you stood behind that chain-link fence and looked down, you could see them, and that was all. They looked like normal people. None of them had been stripped... even the ones in nice clothes.
It used to walk by there every night... it stopped, and it looked down onto the whole mess. From the rooftop looking down, I could have imagined its little black fingers resting in the chain-link gaps. Do you want to be one of them? Is that what you're so jealous of?" Javan, Laleh. Untitled, 89
behaviour and effects
The stranger, regardless of circumstance, remains ... ... .. ... in its motions.Ⱳ
Ⱳ "Its legs look a lot like ours when it moves." †Zamani, Azita
.. it likes these war-torn areas, and in the aftershocks, seems to survey the land, moving around perimeters.
interactions with sensitives
The ndrome follows sensitives.𐐍 It is not able to walk faster than the pace of whoever it encounters ... .. . ... ... matching their speed completely, and thus following indefinitely at a distance that .. . does not grow longer. Those who run from it, it runs to follow in turn. Those who tiptoe slowly find it moving at a similar pace behind them. ... .. ... . .. .. but for it to take chase in this way, .. ... it tears itself apart on obstacles in its path ... .. when shadowing a runner.
𐐍 "Especially at night it appears." †Zamani, Azita
When a sensitive decides to move closer to the ndrome, they experience a diminishing of all other senses,𐊧 save for the ndrome itself.⼏
... .. . but, it will not enter certain buildings. At these, it ... . . ... . . . . can only stand at the open door ... .. ... ... ... ... ... .... .. . ... .. shaking, and quivering.
𐊧 "Like driving on a night without a moon... the headlights show you only what is right in front of you. And it becomes all that you see, and all that you hear... its silence complete. I almost lost my way to turn around." †Assar, Reiza
⼏ "And that way, there was nothing else. I turned around – I had to, to show myself – and the buildings were there all along. Maybe no colors at that hour, but – the flat panels on the sides of the warehouses." †Kazemi, Hossain
.. ... ... ... . ... . . ... . . . . Without .. .. ... . however, the .. ... ... ... . ... . . ... . . . . remains ... ... ... .. unexpressed.𐊓
𐊓 "We needed to communicate with one another; we had no choice but to use them as messengers. It might have been the only way to reach her... and so I took the last working pen I had, and by the light of .. ... I started writing a letter.
'I wrote these words at first on cotton; they came out too cruel and rotten... ' And so on, and so on, and I knew that they would remember this bond we'd shared, and that would be enough."
Khakpour, Lobat. The Fountain of Qurratu l-'Ayn, 60
aging and death
It collapses to a heap when it dies .. .. . and rots the way a sloughed-off skin ... .. might.
䷐
"It followed me and I almost didn't see it, because of how dark everything had become around me. When I shone my light on it, I expected it to make a kind of scuttling sound; the way that some insects scurry into deeper shadows when made nude by brightness.
I approached it and touched it and it shook only a bit – holding itself back, holding itself on for me. Nestled within the folds of this one I found a note... it was a letter; a poem, in fact. It was so old that the edges crumbled up into big flakes. I read it, and the last line instructed me to "leave this place and try to follow roads into the hearth and hollow." Well, I was already on my way in that regard... so I put it in my pocket, and I no longer felt like I was leaving what I knew behind, but rather, going someplace new... "