The Vetalam.

The Vetalam is also called the Baital in the north, but as I am south Indian, and eat thayir saadam and (don't) chant the Sandhyavandhanam, I quite prefer Vetalam. I was tucked in the roots of a rain tree when I knew he/she/it was there. I went cold. All things are full of Vetalam now. Drawing my breath in to warm my stale white face, I begged mercy. But would it be merciful of him to stay, or go? It was night.
'Wipe the vomit off. Wake up or throw up, you'll have to answer me.' I thanked him for invading just my ear, he would have been the last thing I saw if he had shown himself. 'Yes, what are the rules?'
'A story I'll tell, you'll end it. A story I'll tell, and you'll define it. A story I'll tell, and you'll escape me or die.' If you fail at any question, your brain will become sludge.
Picking my ugly, brain ridden face up to the coiled boughs, I answered them.
'Two prisoners, locked for the two crimes, one lesser, one greater, face the executioner. They haven't signed their artwork, a murder, preceded by a kidnapping, but the police have caught them. They need a confession without proof. They go about it with the prisoner's dilemma.'
'Tell one to testify against the other, tell the other to testify against the one.'
'Yes. But they keep their honour, but do not gain their freedom. How'. I closed my eyes, and wished everyone well, and heard the frogs and cicadas. When I opened them, the moon was blanketed in a rainbow, the tropical corona. It's fresh coldness froze the sludge for a moment. I knew.
'They both accept the lesser crime, exonerating the other. They cancel each other out, but keep their honour, and lose their freedom. The opposite of the Dilemma.'
'Good.' The world was mine!
'Next' and it was lost.
'A temple on a hill, to which devotees flocked with humility and greed, is invaded by a ghost. It kills everyone, except for babies and animals. Even the priest's incantations and the devotees' entreaties make it only stronger. What was the ghost's power?'
'I........cannot know...its a ghost! A reason for a scream?'
'A trick for an imp' I cradled myself in the raintree's boughs, sprayed with water and leaves. As good a spot to die as any other. I felt my nerves tingle with death.But the legend of the Vetalam struck me. Vikramaditya could not speak, for then the Vetalam would flee.........
'The ghost gets its flesh and life from men's voices, and what better place than a temple for that!'
'I will grant it. I wanted men's lies.' 'Oh....the story's fresh now, that makes it memorable.'
My third, because I wish to eat your mind.
'A boy was suddenly assaulted by the Vetalam who asked him two riddles, that he managed to answer. The third task was to ask a riddle the Vetalam could not answer. What did the boy ask?'
Well, I thought, the boy would just ask the Vetalam for mercy? But he already had. Then what? A riddle that a riddle itself could not answer. What could it be? I knew it, and rubbed my hair against the trunk, in exhaustion.
'Vetalam, I am lying now. True or False?'
With that, the Vetalam left me. He has rid me of all hope, and all words, like blood back into a wound. I wish him back, though he is half Muse and half Skull.