Rain pattered softly against the skull of the skeleton as his eye-flames slowly flickered to life. They were tiny, looking almost like beady eyes you would see in the dark. The tiny flames sputtered like candle flames struggling against the wind as the rain fell against them, evaporating upon contact.
The skeleton blinked—the flames flickering for a moment as he did so—as he tried to remember what happened. For the most part, everything had been as he remembered it. He remembered waking up in the church and running from the guy with the flaming sword. He also remembered jumping into the river and how he punched the old man and ran after waking up. Yet it was as he began to run down the street that everything just went…blank.
What had happened?
The skeleton tried to look around but found that he couldn't. No matter how hard he tried, his skull would not move, and now that he noticed, neither did his other limbs. What the hell is going on? He thought as he continued to try and move but to no avail. His limbs simply wouldn't respond but why?
He strained his neck, willing it to bend, the bones creaking under the pressure. For a moment, nothing happened, and then suddenly, something snapped. A sharp, cracking sound echoed through his skull, and he felt his head move slightly, the stiffness in his neck giving way just enough to allow him a narrow range of motion. His skull tilted downward, his gaze slowly traveling toward his left arm—or where it should have been.
The only thing he saw was a broken stump of bone where his arm had once been. The jagged end protruded from his shoulder, the bone darkened and crumbling as if it had been left to rot for centuries. The surrounding bone was cracked and discolored, with pieces flaking off like dead bark from an old tree. The sight left him shocked, and that shock only grew as he looked down at where his legs should have been—which they weren't.
Just like his arm, the lower half of his body was completely missing. From the waist down, there was nothing but jagged bone and exposed vertebrae, all of it in the same state of advanced decay as his arm. The spine ended abruptly just below his ribcage, the bones splintered and weathered, trailing off into the empty air where his pelvis should have been.
A sickening realization washed over him as it finally sank in—he lacked all of his limbs. He was, at that moment, nothing more than a torso and a head. He should have been panicking, screaming, giving some kind of emotion to what he was currently looking at yet just like his memories, there was nothing.
If he had to describe it, it felt as though he were looking at something very mundane. Think cracking your favorite flower pot or perhaps a flower you liked wilted and died, that feeling of “Oh well” is what he felt as he looked upon himself. He honestly felt more weirded out by his reaction rather than his condition. As he wondered what was going on, he heard something nearby fall.
It sounded heavy, like a bunch of rocks or something falling. He strained his neck as far as he could, feeling more bones snapping in the process until he could finally look around somewhat. For the first time since regaining consciousness, he realized just how large the area he was in actually was. The confined space he had imagined—the narrow, rain-slicked street—was nothing like the reality around him.
From his new perspective, it became clear that he was lying in what more or less amounted to a pit. The walls rose steeply around him, jagged and uneven, as if the ground had been violently torn open to create this space. The stone was dark and slick with moisture, streaked with the remnants of soot and ash. Streams of water poured in from above, cascading down the rough walls in rivulets that gathered in pools around him. With the water came garbage and debris—rotting food, broken pieces of wood, tattered scraps of cloth—all of it tumbling down from the world above like unwanted refuse.
Yet most of all were the corpses lying around him.
They were scattered haphazardly, their twisted forms lying half-submerged in the muck. Some were partially decomposed, their flesh peeling away to reveal pearly white bone, while others appeared almost freshly dead, their lifeless eyes staring blankly into the void. The bodies ranged in size and shape—men, women, even children—all of them victims of whatever catastrophe had befallen this place.
The sight was grotesque, horrifying even, yet the skeleton was more focused on the sounds of stuff falling since it sounded even closer now. The noise that had first drawn his attention was growing louder, closer, it sounded almost like…footsteps? As the thought crossed his mind, something suddenly hurtled through the air in front of him.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
A body—bloated and grotesque—soared through the air, the dead weight of a particularly fat-looking man. The lifeless form spun briefly before crashing into the jagged wall of the pit. The impact was brutal, the body splattering against the stone with a sickening thud. Flesh and blood burst from the corpse on impact, staining the wall with dark, sticky patches that began to slowly trickle down toward the water below.
The skeleton’s eye flames flared briefly, more in confusion than in horror as he wondered what was going on behind him. As he looked up, he saw more bodies being hurled through the air, their trajectories wild and careless.
Some of the bodies were decayed, little more than skeletons with bits of rotting flesh clinging to the bones. Others were disturbingly fresh, their skin still taut, their eyes wide open in death. But whatever it was that was throwing them did not care. One by one, they smashed against the stone walls of the pit, each impact accompanied by the sickening sound of splintering bones and splattering flesh.
As he watched another corpse being thrown something began to block his vision, a shadow creeping into his line of sight. He strained his neck even further, the bones creaking ominously, as he tried to see what was happening. More cracks and snaps echoed through his form as he forced his head upward, his eye flames flickering weakly in the dim light.
As his gaze tilted up, he saw the source of the shadow—an umbrella, its dark canopy unfurling above him, shielding him from the rain. The umbrella itself was simple, made of what he assumed was wood and leather. While the umbrella itself was confusing, the person holding confused him even more. Holding it was a woman, looking down at him with a curious expression.
She was strikingly beautiful, with hair as red as fire cascading down her shoulders in soft waves. Her eyes were a bright, piercing green that felt like they were boring into him. But what confused the skeleton most was her clothing—a maid uniform, immaculate, pristine and utterly out of place in this nightmarish-looking scene. The black and white of her dress were crisp and clean, untouched by the decay and filth that surrounded them, as if she had stepped out of another world entirely.
As if sensing his gaze, the woman looked down at him, her green eyes locking onto the faint flicker of his eye flames. Her expression didn’t change—she remained calm, almost serene as if she had seen far worse than the pit of corpses she now stood above. Without breaking eye contact, she turned her head slightly and spoke to someone he couldn’t see.
"Sarrith ka no'ven thaln, iressa voulan thar'im."
Before the skeleton could process what was happening, something cold and strong clamped down on his skull. He felt an immense pressure as whatever it was gripped his head tightly, the sensation overwhelming in its suddenness. His eye flames flickered wildly, the tiny points of light dancing erratically as the world around him began to fade.
The last thing he saw was the woman’s calm, green eyes watching him, the umbrella still poised above, shielding him from the rain as whatever it was that grabbed him began to drag him away through the corpses and trash of the pit.
***
Sir Friedrich of Canterheit stood upon a hill situated outside of Strompool as he surveyed the once-prosperous city. From this vantage point, the city was little more than a broken, smoldering ruin. Occasional fires could be seen roaring in some places while in others, rain poured endlessly even though the snow gathered in clumps around him.
Above it all, the storm loomed—a monstrous, unnatural presence that churned in the sky like a living thing. The clouds were thick and dark, swirling with an intensity that defied reason. Flashes of various colored lightning split the sky, casting brief, eerie illuminations over the cityscape, only to plunge it back into a deeper darkness. The storm crackled with raw, untamed energy, the air thick with the scent of ozone and the distant rumble of thunder that never seemed to end.
The storm was unlike anything Sir Friedrich had ever seen in all his years of service. He had faced many magical creatures and even a few sorcerers. Yet, even with his long record, he had never faced anything quite like this. The storm roiling in front of him baffled him and he wasn't the only one.
Even the mages and scholars sent by the Tsarinna to contain the disaster had been shocked to see it. To them, a magical storm the likes of which sat above the city had only been recorded a few times in history, the last time being the great war some 300 years prior. They speculated that something containing a large amount of mana had to have been destroyed for such a storm to have been created since the region was lacking in it but Friedrich knew better.
He knew deep down that the skeleton that had evaded him on the river Oka was responsible for this disaster, now dubbed by the survivors as “the Ruin of Strompool”. Even though he hoped that the river would have claimed it, he knew it wouldn't be long before it resurfaced. He had been on his way to a nearby monastery from which the order operated from when he had heard the news about Strompool. He did not hesitate to join a relief force heading towards the city but not before leaving a note for the monks to send to the grandmaster informing him of what happened.
As he watched from his vantage point, a bolt of green lightning suddenly arced through the sky, striking a building in the distance. The explosion of light and energy illuminated the ruins for a brief moment, and when the brilliance faded, Friedrich could see a tree had erupted from the heart of the building, its branches stretching toward the heavens even as the wind stripped it bare.
He sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of his thoughts, and turned away from the desolate scene in front of him. The storm was a blight on the land, a wound that festered and spread, and the longer it raged, the more damage it would do to the surrounding area. As he made his way down the hill, the wind whipped at his cloak, carrying with it the distant rumble of thunder and the crackle of raw magic in the air. The camp was just ahead, with clusters of tents and hastily erected fortifications where the relief force was gathering, preparing for the push into the city. In total, over 3000 men had been sent to relieve the city and reestablish control but as long as the storm raged, such an endeavor was impossible.
As he neared the camp, he gave a final look at the city. “Soon,” he thought as he passed by the guards who stood at attention, “Soon I will hunt you down, you spawn of the night”.