Off-Topic: Geist

I was looking at my old blog through the Wayback Machine and found this old post about my other story, Geist. It clearly took a lot of effort to write this all up, so I'm just gonna post it here in case I ever want to flesh that idea out a bit more.

Back in High School, I was growing tired of my characters Hiro & Shiro. To be honest, I never put all that much effort into coming up with a story for them. So I just drew them in the same dumb poses over and over. And I came up with them back in 8th grade! (I’ll post something about them later.) I needed something new. This was before I became obsessed with The Stapler, and it was a much darker story.

I believe it all started with a name. I was thinking of the word “poltergeist” in my Spanish II class. I broke it into two words, and realized the name Guss kinda sounded similar to geist. So I started drawing a poltergeist and came up with a quick background of how this character Guss could transform into one. After he did so, he would adopt the moniker of “Polter-Guss”! Yeah… It’s lame. 

But I was like 15, so it was the coolest thing EVER!

Eventually, after telling my brother about it, he helped me notice that “Geist” is actually a pretty schway name all by itself. I decided to scrap Guss (though I later brought him back as a secondary character.) and focus around a new character. This is his story: (Heads up – most of these pictures have differing looks for Geist. I was trying to come up with a look for him while also drawing scenes in my head.)

Main character, GEIST (College sophomore, age 20) is kind of a loner. After accidently falling asleep in the library, he has a horrible nightmare where a possessed BOOK chases and tries to eat him.. Right before the book catches and devours him, Geist suddenly wakes up and sees the book on his table.

Being a little freaked out, he tries to give the book to the LIBRARIAN to put away, but the librarian claims to have never seen it before. She suggests he just keep it and thrusts it into his arms. As Geist walks away, baffled, the Librarian quietly laughs and you see her eyes. They’re red.

Geist is still a little freaked out by the whole ordeal, so he doesn’t bother looking at the book much. It’s in a foreign language anyway… And there’s no pictures, so what’s the point? But every time he goes to sleep, his dreams consist of the book calling to him. When he wakes up, it’s always right next to him. Eventually he gets fed up, and tries looking up a translation on the internet.

The more he translates, the more interested he becomes. Life after death? Great power? All he has to do is read some passages out loud? Always being greatly afraid of death, he jumps at the chance to try to beat it. As he finishes reading the passages aloud. The book shines so brightly that it causes Geist to pass out. When he wakes up, the book is gone. He wants to search more, but he feels weak/tired, and he’s already late for school.

On the way to school, he has some close brushes with death. A bus almost hits him. A piano almost falls on him. A thunderbolt narrowly misses him. He also seems to be accidently doing all the bad luck actions… Crossing a black cat’s path, walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror, etc. Geist is just too tired to notice or care.

After a long day, he passes out again. It’s then that he dies. Apparently the afternoon snack he ate from a gas station was too far past its expiration date.

Geist awakens in some sort of alternate dimension. He is naught but a soul and totally pissed. So much for eternal life. He wanders around and eventually stumbles into a throne room. The door locks behind him and a shadowy figure appears in the throne.

This shadowy figure is quite enormous, and after a brief conversation, it reveals itself as DEATH. Death explains that – Sure, he can have eternal life… But only if he works for him. Simply do the job of taking expired souls to the afterlife and he can live as long as he sees fit.

Geist is somewhat reluctant, but after Death explains that considering he has just died, his only other option is to move on to the afterlife. And Death states that while he can’t officially say “which way” Geist would be going (Heaven or Hell), he’d suggest Geist doesn’t move on until he has done a few more good deeds. And what better way to earn some good points is there than to help others with their after-death journey? Eventually Geist agrees, none-the-wiser that Death has set this whole scenario up on purpose.

It is then that Geist is given his pendant. The pendant is meant to symbolize the holder’s greatest fear. In this case, it is a skull because Geist’s biggest fear is death. The pendant allows the holder to change form (From human to soul to poltergeist) and is therefore quite important. Though it is stated that the pendant is practically unbreakable, it is also made clear that it would be a very bad thing if one were to break.

Because Geist is quite new to this whole situation, Death feels sorry for him and assigns a mentor to help him get adjusted. Enter GUSS, a somewhat reckless motorcycle enthusiast (take a guess how he died) with a very warm personality. Although Guss is friendly to everyone, he seems to take a particular liking to Geist right away. Over the next week they fast become friends.

I somewhat BS’d my way through that chunk of the set up to be honest. I only have vague ideas in what to do with this series. I don’t know what happened to the pages sadly, but my best friend at the time of me coming up with this idea was really into it and ended up writing 5 or so pages of back story and whatnot. I hope I can find them eventually, as I’m sure the story would be quite different now.

I also have some sort of plot twist where it turns out that the Death that Geist met wasn’t the real Death. It was actually another polter person impersonating him. Death has actually gone missing after a secret plan of sorts fell apart. The impersonator was also in on the plan, but escaped. He then went ahead and Impersonated Death in order to fool everyone into thinking everything was fine. All the while he has been building a group of special individuals to wage war and find/free Death. Geist is just one of the few candidates.