Sand in Your Scales(Yaksha/Saisei)

Sunbathing worked better when you cast a shadow. Yaksha had realized this the hard way, when he had spent a good four or five hours just lying on the banks of a Haitian beach. He resembled a rock more than anything else, half of him buried into the dirt, the other half sticking straight up. He could hear vaguely around him, but most of it was muffled; as always, he was placated by the simple presence of conversation, the mere knowledge that there were others nearby who weren't wasting all of their free time on violence and slaughter.

Granted, they wasted it on things that were arguably just as bad; he couldn't begin to fathom why so many of them came here carrying laptops or phones or other ridiculously advanced pieces of technology he still couldn't quite dissect. He only knew that something down in him felt a sense of deep-seated loathing when he watched these people, trying so desperately to distract themselves from the world around them. It always left him feeling like he had to say something, do something; it made him want to reach out and start bashing skulls, to begin ripping souls free from their bonds, and gnashing his teeth. He knew it would achieve nothing. After this long, Yaksha knew with hideous intimacy how little his feeding frenzies really changed. But some voice deep back in his head told him that this world needed someone who could really remind them what was important.

But why should that be him? Just because he was old? Humans had grown quite old as well; he had begun to realize that the more he looked around, the more generations he could see walking alongside one another. Even great grandparents looked hale and hearty, ready to go for another few decades. And overpopulation? With space travel, could humans ever overpopulate? Unlikely. No, Yaksha was just as obsolete as always; he had changed his voice, changed his name, changed his form, but none of that changed what he was.

Yaksha was one of the angry dead. Getting angrier every moment. Because of the damned sounds of all of those game consoles nearby, because of the fact that he had somehow managed to nestle himself into this bank of sand for five hours without anyone even coming close enough to kick him, or touch him. Because he was feeling the hunger, that neverending throbbing ache, flare up again.

And most of all, because he knew he was never going to get that golden brown shade ladies always seemed to love. But he was a ghost, and he could afford to be patient. If he spent a few years trying to do the impossible, what did he lose out on? A few years passed like hours, when you were his age.