One Month Later...

A comfortable feeling traveled throughout my muscles, It’s been awhile since I felt this relaxed, In fact I think the last time I felt this good was back when I was still able to sleep.

I reach my hands forward and touched a meaty matter, I stretched it open, and like a baby exiting it’s mother's womb, I plopped out of sack like organ I was resting in. Pink liquid dripped from my hair and body. I turned back to see the sack like organ, several red vessels extended from it’s back.

‘These things are a blessing’ I think to myself. I mean really, an undead would be unable to even feel the need for sleep, however this wondrous structures created by the city heart started springing up in any dark place of the city. The womb like sacks are special structures nurtured by blood essence being pumped by the city heart, It’s not only a perfect resting place for the undead, but also has several cool functions such as regrowing lost limbs.

Don’t ask how I learned that, just know I did.

I quickly put on my basic and generic rabid zombie cloths I stored in the nearby trash can, here in the back alley of this mini-mart, one can really enjoy their undead life for a while. Such a shame I can't stay any longer.

I begin walking towards the nearby road, the troublesome debris formed by the apocalypse has all been pushed to the side, A group of five zombies uniformly march throughout the street, their steps are no longer relaxed and clumsy, they now display the newfound strength they acquired along with the intelligence granted to all city dwelling undead.

Not minding them, I begin walking down the poorly illuminated street using the bright moonlight as my guide.

“Grrroood, Evreening” (good evening)

“Good evening sir” I greet back the zombie who’s more or less been successful with his new language skills. Who said the undead had to stay dumb? If all undead were dumb would we be In such a beneficial situation right now?

While grumbling to myself I begin walking into a dark and eerie shop, A small red vessel hangs in front of the door, a small sack like organ produces a faint and appetizing aura.

Old Ghost- “Ah if it isn’t Uriel, Here to take another ‘special’ job again?”

Me- “ Give me a break, My fist was shattered last time I was given one of your ‘special’ jobs, and to top it off I received zero compensation from you”

Old Ghost- “You coulda just taken the position as city lord, or even general, at least then you wouldn’t be a poor fuck like you are now”

Me- “psh, command armies, and lead a city, I'm not that type of person and you know that, I can’t even come up with a basic strategy; I could probably deal with the financial parts of the city but that would just be troublesome and against my nature.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Old Ghost- *Sigh* “well what do you want?”

Me- “give me some fermented blood essence, and a blood fruit”

Old Ghost- “that will be… *counts with fingers* six blood essence coins”

Me- “you rip off, do you think humans grow on trees?, it takes one human to make five blood essence coins, and the city heart taxes two of them!”

Ghost-” The blood fruits still have 60% of their essence remaining,it’ll boost your strength for a while… plus it’ll prevent you from going on a rampage again, whenever you’re in that condition you give off a strange aura that attracts even me.”

Me- “fine, here is your coins, now gimme my stuff”

He walks off to a large red sack that looks like a semi-deflated kidney, when he pushes it a small opening forms and splurts red liquid forth, this special thing is of course another miricle of the city heart.

He hands me a cup of blood in a crystal cup, and a blood red fruit shaped like a lung on a plate.

*Gulp, Gulp*

Me- “Oh the quality went up”

Old Ghost-  “yea we managed to ambush a large group of humans yesterday, it was one of those cleaner squads”

Me- “Ho, has there been any movement nearby, I need to get myself some quick cash, Or won't be able to sleep tonight. Those damn sleeping sacks take charge up a whole essence coin per night”

Old Ghost- “Southeast from here, A wraith spotted a group of cleaners, she managed to kill one of them before having to retreat”

Me- “oh, anything special about the group?”

Old Ghost- “they are armed with spirit rifles and one of them has low level psychokinesis but that shouldn't be too troublesome for you considering you got away from that ice woman with only one lost limb”

Me- “Fuck you clark, I’m never taking one of your missions again!”

I leisurely took of from the small bar and began heading southeast, along the way I talked with some skeletons and zombies with poor language skills, I occasionally met with a ghost or wraith asking for directions”

Arriving at the inner city, a statue piqued my interest. It was a statue of me, a three meter statue made of some sort of fleshy material surrounded by red vessels. Some small thin purple vines at the base of the statue read : Uriel Sparks, City founder Year: 2021. This city heart sure is surprising.

The city heart has a lot of benefits, It’s loud heartbeat attracts other undead, it increases intelligence of the normal undead, It created a lot on new structures and a system of organization. It even created laws such as: No undead is to Kill another Undead in city premises.

It also created a special hierarchy, for example the weaker undead are unable to near the central city or inner city, the stronger and more intelligent an undead is, the closer they are able to near the city heart and the more benefits they are able to receive.

One of those benefits are specialized shops which start appearing in the central city, they sell special undead weapons and other tools, but of course you still need to have the money to purchase them.

The richest people on the city are the zombie generals, arch-liches and some other variant species like me. However unlike me, they are able to easily command units/minions or cause widespread destruction and earn blood essence easily.

Here I am, poor, only being able to hunt small groups once in awhile, whenever I try something big like them I get swarmed by Humans and get severely injured, which has lead me to think I should find some companions.

Not everything is bad for me though, when I kill groups of humans, they usually have some interesting items and have high amounts of blood essence in their bodies, the stronger a human is the better their blood essence.

The group I've heard about probably has a member with psychokinesis , which translates to money!, After I deal with them I’ll try to find a group or a friend to hang out with.

My new life is finally back on track, What could possibly go wrong now?