Vetala

Vetala is a Revenant spirit said to inhabit the bodies of the dead, most often encountered around cremation grounds and lonely burial trees. In the field one learns to read its presence by subtle shifts: the temperature drops like a door closing on a winter room; the air carries a cold, metallic tang of iron and old ash mixed with damp earth; sound is a hollow, echoing sigh or the faint, misplaced murmur of a voice answering questions you did not speak aloud. It moves like a memory — patient, patient enough to wait years for a chance.