Dark Offerings
Together we shuffled forward, our tattered clothes clinging to our pale corpses. One of my toes was visible through the destroyed shoes I wore and touched the ground as I walked. Part of the bone was showing below the exposed blueish-purple flesh.
My shoulder was thrust backward and the lower portion of my arm seared with pain as it was ripped from the socket. A black-haired shambler turned to me and hissed as it threw my arm to the ground before moving on. My decaying limb wiggled while the hand opened and closed on its own. I leaned over, grabbed it, and was pushed forward, causing me to nearly lose my footing.
The other undead surrounding me moaned and gurgled as we pressed onward. If they were even half as hungry as I was, they would be ready for the impending fight.
My leg spasmed, and I stumbled. I had to keep up with the cluster, or I would miss my chance to feed.
“Hurry up and kill these. Another group is coming!” someone yelled in the distance.
I bared my teeth in anticipation. Half of my lip was missing, which felt strange, but I'd gotten used to it.
In the shuffle, I had almost forgotten about my missing appendage. I grunted in frustration. In the middle of a hunt like this, it could have been a deadly mistake. Twisting and turning the arm, I pushed it into place. It made a distinct ‘pop’ as it slid home. The skin surrounding the wound mended as if nothing had happened.
While the horde moved, I concentrated, and a chill spread across the area as every shambler surrounding me connected to my mind. I could feel their need to feed. Our movement was slow yet steady. We were one unit.
A panting voice yelled, “You sure we can handle another group?”
“Don't worry, they’re just zombies,” another person responded.
Our connection grew stronger and the air colder as I opened myself up. At first, I only felt their hunger, but now I could control their movements. When I pushed my senses to their limits, my influence spread to all of us—twenty-three total.
Their eyes were mine, and mine were theirs.
I focused on the front of us and could now see the area around me. A large wall of fog was at our backs, and what seemed like miles of knee-high grass spread in all directions.
About thirty feet away, there was a light-haired male dwarf standing next to a human girl. At their feet were the corpses of at least two dozen of our kind. The dwarf wore shoddy-looking leather armor and in his hands was a double-bladed axe. His beard was relatively short.
New, I thought.
His female companion wore a plate helmet, and only her face showed. The rest of her armor matched the helm. It wasn't a custom fit, which meant that she wouldn't put up much of a fight. In her hand, she held a longsword with a pale green glow which was the only real threat.
I didn't have armor. Couldn't wear it if I wanted to but I didn't need it.
“You ready, Frank?” the girl asked.
“Yeah!” he responded.
We stopped and grinned just as they got close enough to attack.
The girl's eyes opened wide. Before she could say anything, we dashed at her and our nails scraped against the metal of her armor as we clawed.
Her sword arced at us, and we ducked.
While connected, my strength and speed were shared. It was like there were two dozen clones of myself.
“Don't let them surround us!” the girl yelled.
We immediately spread out in a grid and then ran past them so that they were in the middle of us.
The girl's head darted back and forth in confusion.
We circled as the two of them watched. Before they understood what was happening, we collapsed in on them. We were so close they could barely move.
My focus was mainly on the girl. We grabbed and pulled at her armor, not giving her enough room to swing at us.
I weaved my way through us and got behind her. Then I balled up my fist and hit her head. It rattled her, and she turned, but by then, I had already faded back into our mass.
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A blood-curdling roar rang out, and I felt pain. The dwarf had gone into a rage. One of our arms was gone, and it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t mine. It was a shambler that had given the dwarf too much freedom.
The arm lay there twitching on the ground as mine had. I spread us out, giving the dwarf a makeshift arena. He lashed out but was too slow to hit any of us.
As if I were liquid, I flowed through us, arms and legs parting as I moved, giving me exactly the amount of space I needed. When I poured into the opening, the dwarf's mouth dropped.
“Hailey, Help!” he yelled.
She was still entwined in our mass. “I can't move!” she screamed.
The dwarf raised his axe, readying it. He looked me in the eyes and said, “It’s just you and me then.”
A shambler grabbed him from behind, ripped off a pauldron, and quickly backed away.
He swung his axe, hitting nothing but air as I stepped back.
When I grinned at him, I saw the panic in his eyes. That was the last thing he did as we closed in on him. Dozens of hands held him in place as I grabbed his throat and ripped it out.
The trapped girl screamed. I wasn't sure if she had seen what we had done or if she was scared. It didn't matter she would die just like he had.
Her breastplate bent and screeched as we pulled it off her body. Our rotting hands plunged into her exposed stomach. We ate her alive, and I could feel myself getting stronger.
Simultaneously we dug into the dwarf, and a loud ringing came from inside my head. My concentration faltered, and I lost control of some of the shamblers. If they ate while I wasn’t commanding them, I wouldn't get their power.
The ringing continued, so I quickly backed out of the group and pinched my pointer finger and thumb together.
A window flashed before my eyes, and the call picked up as I tapped ‘answer.’
The transparent form of my mom Jennifer appeared in front of me. Only the top half of her body was visible. She recoiled at the sight of me.
“Mom, I’m playing a game!” My voice was a raspy mess.
She scowled.
I sighed, used a slider from my menu, and squinted as the world reverted from monochrome to a full spectrum of vibrant colors. The upper portion of my body also reverted to normal.
The shamblers were suddenly gone, and it was just me and two distinct blurs moving toward the vast city in front of me. Get rekt, nerds, I thought as I watched the two people I killed float away.
I panicked when more of the shamblers regained control. My finger hovered over the menu, ready to end the convo.
“What time will you be home?” she asked.
A hand appeared on Jennifer's shoulder, and my other mom Autumn's superior, popped into view.
“Later!” I said with a little too much attitude.
Autumn crossed her arms. “Later, when?”
“I don’t know! I just star”—my influence slipped further—“ted.”
My whole life, I wasn't exactly sure what to call my moms. I'd heard stories of kids making up names for each of them to distinguish one from the other. Being indecisive tended to be one of my greatest weaknesses. At least when it came to real life.
Autumn floated closer to me. “Azerail, be safe.”
“And don’t be too late,” Jennifer said.
“Okay, love-you-bye!” I tapped the floating ‘end’ button.
With a quick flip, I swiped the slider back where it was supposed to be. The world faded to the dull gray and blues of the afterlife. This was my comfort zone.
My attention migrated to my horde, and when I joined them, my sway over them returned. As we ate, my hunger lessened until I was full. When we finished, the only thing left was their bones and anything they might have dropped.
I released the shamblers, and they wandered off. They couldn’t use items, so they ignored them. Though the fight was quick, it wasn’t often that players dropped anything good. However, tonight was different. The glowing sword had dropped. The chance of someone losing their main weapon was pretty rare, so I grabbed it.
It had a diamond-shaped pommel that blended seamlessly into the hilt. The grip was patterned with runes on both sides. Above that was an intricately carved guard that was made to look like a web with multiple people trapped inside. On the back of the web was a spider twice the size of the people. The blade itself was wide but decorationless.
I gripped it and took a quick swing through the air. The color of the glow darkened to almost black, leaving tendrils of dark-green gloom behind.
Before I became too attached, I let it disappear into my inventory. It was a shame that I couldn’t use weapons, but at least I could sell them. The other items would fetch much less but I had plenty of room so I spent the next couple of minutes picking them up.
My arm was a little sore from where the shambler had hurt it. Generally, they didn’t attack me while I trudged alongside them, but they could often be unpredictable unless they were under my sway.
The group I had released was headed across a wide field of grass. At the edge of the grasslands was a writhing mass of fog. It was where we had come from and where I would be safe, so I sprinted in that direction. Getting caught out in the open would surely get me killed.
I slowed to a saunter as I hit the mist and appreciated the grayscale colors of my environment. The sky darkened the further I traveled. Beyond was a massive empty field. Scattered bales of hay were rolled tightly into cylinders so high they looked like sticks protruding from the ground. Only the Hexed could travel in these Fields of Woe.
There were others like myself traversing this usually deserted place.
A ghost swiftly brushed past me ignoring my presence. Three skeletons clad in matching armor marched inward, ever deeper into our territory. Hundreds of shamblers made their way to where the wall of murky haze ended. They traveled alone until they hit the border, gathering in hordes.
The Enlightened called us the Greys. I never understood why they called themselves the Enlightened. There was nothing rational or educated about them endlessly slaughtering my kind. Ending the living’s puny lives was a boon to my brethren.
“One of these days, they will be the ones cowering at the fringes instead of us. I swear it,” I said.
***