The book of the undead was created with pages stolen from both the book of the living and the book of the dead. The curse placed upon Aloch had an ever changing nature and now that he has met Yul, its nature is changing again.

ALOCH

Every day I watch her, she searches for me every day, she goes through the books in the study and walks through my house, she has even been approached by that gate keeper, I am starting to care about what it is that he is not telling me, I have been feeling a torrent welling up inside me ever since I met Yul. sometimes she talks like she knows I am listening, I feel a growing temptation to respond to her every time she speaks, I protect her when she leaves the house and sometimes watch her while she sleeps, tonight she is having trouble sleeping, she says that she sees me in her dreams, that she feels like she’s always known me, she sounds sad when she says “I hope you’re there, I hope you have not left me”, why does she feel these things? Why does she take a place in my thoughts so effortlessly?

I met Aki several nights ago, he asked me if I still intend to ignore the world of the living and the world of the dead, he spoke to me without fear, he knows that I do not desire conflict. Maybe I still really do not want to involve myself with either world but I made it clear to him that the girl is in my world and that I would not hesitate to end anything that tried to harm her. Aki told me that the girl represented a threat to the creatures of the night and that she is even more terrifying that I am, Aki did not speak to me like a foe, he spoke to me like someone that was facing their mortality. And here I was thinking that I was the most frightening thing for these creatures of the night, the dead, this girl terrifies the creatures of the night so they are trying to eliminate her now before she manifests something. Maybe I should stop watching and get closer to her; maybe I could find something about her that even I could fear.

YUL

Being in his home feels strange, there is nothing to compare it to but I keep hoping he hears me when I talk, there is an absence of life that consumes the house from time to time, it reminds me of him, I want to believe that it is him, watching me, protecting me. I do not want the traces of him that I can recognize to disappear, I find myself longing to see him, even hoping that some form of evil would attack me just so he can stand before me again. I am no fool, I know that there is an invisible tether that has brought our worlds together. When he comes near me, all traces of life disappear, like they intentionally isolate him, it feels like I am the only person in the world that is how he makes me feel. When he walks toward me, I am the only person in the world and I am the only person he sees, is it so wrong that I have it now?, the thing that everyone hopes for, to be the only person in someone’s world, i feel it right now, he must be walking toward me right now, I turn around and there he is, cautiously I try not to express much on my face, I walk to him as well, I can sense the hesitation in his step, but I will not give him the chance to disappear, I get closer and hold him, I hold on to him tightly and now it does not matter what I show on my face, I just made it obvious, I do not know what has come over me, he is the only thing I want to know, can he see how desperately I need him to stay? Have you ever felt like your whole life was leading you nowhere? Like the things that were clear to everyone else were only a fraction of what made sense to you, like in a world of everything that is normal, there was never a place for you. Aloch has a quiet presence, he does not need to tell me, I can see it, I can read it, the absence and the presence of him, the kindness behind his still expression, when he arrives, life goes silent, I know who he is, I hear the chaos of the living, I feel life like I am a part of the earth conscious inside every heart beat and every breath, a noise that I have wished to drown out before, I hear it all, I hear everything but him, he erases the sounds of the living and the cries of the dead, it is peaceful but I cannot imagine it in eternal existance, when I close my eyes around him, I feel like I can sense it, his pain, it is not something that I can hear or feel it is like I sense the hallow scars that are scorched in his being by the chaos of life and death. When I open my eyes again, I see him plain faced walking toward me. Aloch has no warmth, he has no heartbeat, he is a physical representation of emptiness. I know that what he feels toward me might just be curiosity but that is okay I will follow him into an endless night, he does not frighten me.

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I have felt like a burden here, thinking about why I am being attacked or followed and why my life is suddenly targeted by creatures from my nightmares. Over the past days I have seen Aloch in my dream, he walks towards me and everything in his wake dies and fades out of existence, I see myself crying and when I look down, there is blood on my hands and symbols on my arms that I can not understand.

GATEKEEPER

That is who he is, it took even me a while to understand the nature of Aloch, to understand that even the curse placed upon him was a misunderstanding of his true nature. He only served his king and did what was asked of him, no one not even his king ever thought of him as a normal human being, he was a weapon aimed at the enemies of the king, his foes saw the dead expression on his face and failed to recognize the pain and loneliness of his existence, his relentlessness on the field of battle just so he could fulfil his duty and find a worthy death, that was his drive and yet even that was denied him, misunderstood from the moment he was born to the moment his life ended and robbed of his right to life and death as a human. Three thousand years later and this woman looks at him in a way that he has never known, a face that he is unfamiliar with, a face of love that he sadly cannot even recognize.

Yul sees it, the kindness and the sadness behind the terror and she accepts them all, she accepts them without even knowing what it means to do so. Aloch is the book of the un-dead, created after the book of the dead was abused, he was created to be the barrier and the end, a sacrifice that would not be missed by anyone, one that was deserving of the pain that accompanies nonexistence. Human will was the only thing that provided balance, the destiny that as forced upon Aloch would only be fulfilled if he wished to fulfil it and for the past three thousand years, he has not had a reason to fulfil that destiny but now I can feel the hesitation in his movements, I can see the way he looks at her, the cursed warrior will find himself surrendering to his destiny if only for her sake.