007 - Giants by the Sea

Something broke - like the snapping of a dry twig - felt a tremor and yawn, the sensation of taking a deep breath until his belly burst. Magnus opened his eyes and saw his own face, eyes closed - his body strapped to the bench in the Alchemist's laboratory.

Looking down, looking around, every movement slow and dizzying, feeling for his body with hands that were not there, what was there? Dizzy, world spinning and swimming in and out of focus, Magnus floated above his own body. No thought seemed to solidify, no direction he might be able to move or action he might perform, just a state of being, of seeing and hearing everything through a thick gauze.

Time slowed to a crawl, then suddenly accelerated - seconds would hang and feel like hours, then tens of minutes would pass all at once - Magnus swam in and out of focus, the room turned grey and light and as if he were laying on a bed of grass on a summer's day. He saw that from his stomach a thin red thread was suspended in the air, going into his bodies belly below. Magnus tried to touch it - did he even have arms? Were those fingers there before? They were there now, he was able to reach out, to touch lightly on the red thread and feel an electric buzz.

This buzz congealed the room about him, a rush of focus and time flowing like normal. Magnus saw Festus standing over the youth to his left. "Mutations apparent, ligaments and joints. Core is fractured. Hmm. No good. Alright, this one is for the incinerator." Festus walked over to Magnus and held his wrist.

"No pulse." Festus said. "No mutations or aberrations, checking core status." Festus took a silver needle and pushed it into the skin of Magnus' arm. "Core is shattered, irreversible." He shook his head, "what a pity, bury the body." Festus moved on to Rolf. "Pulse . . . strong, core is intact. Evidence of skin mutation and growth evident in ligaments. Some gold colouration in skin, eyes and hair normal." Festus placed a pill in Rolf's mouth and called two assistants over. "Keep him sedated, put him with the other specimens." The alchemist moved on and out of Magnus' view.

Two guards unstrapped Magnus from the bench and put him in a wheelbarrow. They took him out of the farmhouse and down a village path to the very back. In an untended field they emptied him into a large pit, he fell on top of several other bodies. A guard shoveled a quicklime over him and they left. Soon another three bodies were thrown into the pit and the silent guards shoveled quicklime and then dirt until the pit was filled.

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Am I a ghost? Have I become a spirit? Magnus tried to pull away from his body, to exit up through the earth, but every time the red thread would tighten, pull him back. He couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything - everything that was happening seemed as if it were happening to some stranger. There was nothing real or substantial about his death, about his burial, it just felt natural, the way of things - the way it should be. A great acceptance, no anger or pain, just a matter of course.

In the darkness he couldn't even count the minutes, he could touch the red thread and feel his body. The quicklime started to burn his flesh, searing his skin from head to toe, drying it out. Earth had covered his face and gone into his mouth, the dirt and corpses above him pressed him down into the bodies below.

Why am I still here? Is this it? Am I not dead? Then, then shouldn't there be . . . something? Nothing? Questions flickered through his mind, emotionless and cold, Magnus touch the red thread that connected him to his body again and again, feeling only the warm electric buzz. What happens if I pull? He tried to pinch the thread, tried to pull it out. Instead the thread grew taut and his spirit was drawn closer to his body. Magnus pulled again - the thread reeled him in, he was only an inch away from his own dead flesh. What will happen if I pull myself in? Will I come back to life - maybe, maybe I'll die for good. Well, whatever happens it sure will be better than staying here, right? Maybe not. Maybe it is better to stay like this.

Magnus dithered, his ghostly body floating just above his corpse in ground. If there is a chance . . a chance at life, surely that would be better. And maybe the Alchemists can cure me, I can go back to my family. If they see me alive, that would be better. He pulled a last time on the thread and it drew him back into his body, the spirit settled he felt a spark, a fire burning inside that for a moment he felt would burn him to nothing, spirit and all. The flame spluttered and as quickly as it came, went out.

Magnus tried to move, tried to feel his body again - his arms, his hand, to touch his fingers together. He couldn't feel to move, couldn't see in the dark. There was a noise though, a sound, faint - marching? No, softer, more rhythmic, the sound of rain falling on the ground! The earth became mushy and soft, Magnus struggled against the body pressing down on him and pushed up, twisting and digging up through the earth towards the rain.