The skeletons locked the door behind them and walked into the next cell. With almost robotic precision, they opened the mouth of the male corpse and tipped a fresh vial of molten liquid down his throat. Once he was coughing up the black lake water, they locked the door behind them and went up the stairs, neither reacting to anything Logan said or did to get their attention.

It was like he didn’t exist, frustrating him to no end. He wanted some kind of explanation of what the hell was going on. At the same time, he could imagine why they had been revived and locked up. They were most likely going to be starved to death and made into more skeleton soldiers.

He tried to think of a way out, but nothing came to mind. There was no fighting against those unholy monstrosities unless they had a fatal weakness. They could haul a fully-grown adult for untold distances and likely without rest. That meant they were just as strong, if not stronger than most people, only they didn’t tire out and had none of those pesky vulnerabilities like blood or internal organs.

Before going back to analysing the painting, Logan checked on Amelia in silence. She was fast asleep on the ground, her breathing soft and her face back to its usual colour. There was no doubt that she was alive. Bruised and pale after the lethal fall, but alive.

Logan felt incredibly glad that he hadn’t been the cause of her untimely death. Amelia and her friend were alive for now, but he had no idea if they would be brain-dead or would even live to see the end of the day, their futures uncertain. That worry soon faded away as he realised that it may not matter, their lives now in the hands of some unfathomable entity that could revive the dead and control the undead.

With nothing to do, Logan’s mind went back to the painting. Could it have any relation to molten liquids that could revive the dead? The answer was likely a no, but without evidence, he could only continue studying the image in his mind. He spent about an hour on the Goddess before he heard something, only this time it wasn’t another skeleton walking down the stairs.

It was the corpse in the other cell.

Amelia groaned as she woke up. It took her a few seconds to get into a seated position against a treasure chest, wincing a few times due to the various bruises marring her flesh.

She hadn’t noticed Logan due to the cells being quite dark. That gave her a few seconds to orient herself and check out the terrible bruises on her skin before he stepped out of the shadows.

“Hey,” Logan said, his voice gentle. “How are you feeling?”

Her head snapped up in shock, but she quickly calmed down as a glint of recognition appeared in her eyes. Logan didn’t really know what to say. He could tell that she didn’t have any kind of traumatic brain injury, her behaviour more than normal. It was almost like she had woken up from a nap rather than be revived from the dead.

Ultimately, he decided to keep it simple and ask if she was okay.

“I’m bruised and exhausted, so pretty bad to be honest,” She said, standing up and walking over to the bars. Standing in the light and talking was better since the torches weren’t very bright. “Did anyone else survive the fall?”

“One other guy,” Logan said, considering the best way to describe him. “I think he was from your group. Short, brown hair and a full sleeve tattoo on his left arm?”

“Tom made it? He always was pretty tough so that makes sense.”

She smiled a bit, but the realisation that all of her other friends were dead was not a gentle one.

“Do you know where we are?” She said, eventually coming back to reality.

The hope in her eyes made Logan’s heart ache.

“Some kind of underground fortress or castle,” He replied, “but that’s all I’ve really found out.”

“Do you know a way to escape? Do you have a plan?”

Logan hesitated for a moment before he shook his head. He had tried to break the crystal picture frame, smash the lock on the bars, and even cast a spell using the painting in his mind. Nothing had worked, leaving them trapped until an opportunity came around, if it ever did.

“Stupid question,” Amelia muttered. “You would be on the other side of the bars if you had a way out.”

She slowly sat down and leaned against the bars in defeat, her eyes pointed at the ground.

“Hold on, no need to give up so fast,” Logan said, causing her to look up with hope. “I found this painting earlier of a woman sitting in a field of flowers. It was so incredible that I became entranced, and that’s not an exaggeration. I literally entered into a trance. I probably wouldn’t have stopped had you not arrived, forcing me to put it down. Little did I know that the painting would be gone when I grabbed it again.”

Amelia frowned. “You mean that someone took it?”

“No, it literally disappeared,” Logan said, grabbing the empty picture frame. Amelia’s eyes widened as she saw that it was completely blank. Unlike the others scattered around his cell, there was nothing but a transparent sheet of crystal in its place. “The picture was on this frame when I put it down, but when the skeletons deposited your corpse into the cell, I closed my eyes and found a perfect replica in my mind. Only it wasn’t a replica, it was the actual-. Are you okay? You look even paler than before?”

“What do you mean skeletons?” She replied, her voice shaking. “And why did you say ‘my corpse’?”

Logan hadn’t even thought about it, but she obviously hadn’t seen her own corpse and neither did the skeletons stick around long enough for her to wake up.

He paused. “This may be difficult to understand, but you died from that fall.”

“But- But I’m… What?”

“When the painting appeared in my mind,” Logan said, his voice as gentle as he could make it, “I heard weird noises coming from the stairs. Seconds later, a skeleton in leather armour walked down with you on its back. When it placed you on the ground, your lips were blue and you weren’t breathing. An hour after that, another skeleton appeared and brought Tom with it, the both of them working together to make you and your friend drink a potion of molten fire. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it evaporated most of the water in your lungs and somehow brought you back to life.”

Amelia blinked, her mouth hanging open in shock. She didn’t reply for so long that Logan eventually cleared his throat.

“So, do you feel weird? Any gaps in your memory or anything like that? No desire to eat brains?”

“No,” She said, not even smiling at his attempt to lighten the mood. “I feel completely fine. That’s part of why I’m struggling to process what you said. I can get over being resuscitated. My main hang-up is over the skeletons. It’s just so…”

“Ridiculous, I know. If I hadn’t seen them myself, and if we hadn’t fallen so far into that abyss, I probably wouldn’t believe me either. If it helps, I’m in a position similar to yours. I’m pretty messed up from the fall even though I didn’t die from it.”

Amelia looked him up and down. “You look fine to me.”

“Really? I’m covered in-,” Logan choked, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

He was completely uninjured. There wasn’t a single yellow or purple bruise on his body, and even the ripped-up skin on his feet was also healed. He thought he might’ve imagined his injuries at first, but there was no hair on his toes.

Amelia dragged over a full-height mirror in her cell so that he could look at his complete reflection. That allowed him to confirm that he was completely uninjured. Something had healed him, but what could it be, and how had he not noticed it before? Was it the painting? No, if it was, he would’ve felt some kind of tingling when he used it. Instead, his body must’ve silently repaired itself the entire time he had been awake.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Why do you look so surprised?” Amelia asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be? I was black and blue earlier today, and now I’m completely healed.”

“Well, If Tom and I didn’t survive the fall, why do you think you miraculously lived? If you ask me, that revival potion also has a passive healing effect. The only reason you didn’t know that you died is because you were the first to be dragged in, meaning no one saw you come back to life.”

Logan felt the world spin around him. He had died? The thought had come up as a possibility, but his mind had skimmed over it as an impossibility. After all, being dead for more than a few minutes should result in severe brain damage.

But that was with modern medicine, not magical alchemical medicine. Logan thought back over the last day and tried to remember the empty chunk in his memories. All he found was a void of nothingness where he simply didn’t exist anymore. He had been dead without even realising it, his last memory being the moment before he slammed into the water.

A chill washed over him.

“Anyway,” Logan said, shaking his head to try and forget, “my earlier point was that if I had a magical painting in my cell, maybe you have some kind of treasure as well. Perhaps this is some kind of test set up by the master of the skeletons to find worthy servants or something?”

Amelia raised an eyebrow. “That’s certainly a theory.”

“I’m just coming up with ideas here. I’ll look through my scrolls, and you will start digging through those treasure chests. Don’t be quick, either. It took me a lot of effort to have that painting tattooed onto my brain.”

Amelia nodded and got to work, leaving him to read over the other scrolls to see if anything clicked. They chatted from time to time, sometimes asking each other their opinion on what they should try next or even just giving some whispered encouragement when it became too much.

After an hour or so with neither of them finding anything, Amelia’s hiking friend woke up. She explained everything to Tom as best she could. Logan stepped in a few times due to being able to actually see the guy in the opposite cell.

Tom was a bit panicked at first, which wasn’t too surprising when one spoke about magical paintings and undead jailers. It took a while to get him up to speed, but he soon calmed down when they told him to search for some kind of unique item.

For some reason, giving Tom a trace of hope was enough to keep him going. Even when his initial searches came up with nothing, he still moved with focus and unwavering determination. It was enlightening to witness such a tremendous shift in a person’s mental state.

Then again, a trace of hope was just that. A tiny strand that one had to grasp hold of to keep themselves sane in even the most trying of times. The only problem was that it had to be nurtured before it was snuffed out.

As the minutes of unsuccessful searching turned to hours, Tom and Amelia became increasingly stressed. It started with them trying to come up with ideas on how to find the treasure, if there even was one. Then, it quickly devolved into panicked discussions about what held them here and why it wanted them. Logan didn’t want them to be upset so he tried his best to keep them happy, not that there was a lot he could do in their current situation.

When there was a lull in the conversation, metallic footsteps began to echo up the staircase. Everyone froze. Tom pocketed the gold coin he was studying, Amelia rolled up the scroll she was reading and tossed it to the side, and Logan opened his eyes as he paused his visualisations of the painting.

“I wonder what it’s here for,” Logan said, his whispers loud enough for the other two to hear.

“What do you mean?” Tom said, pressing his face against the bars. “Do you think it’s coming for us?”

“I have no idea.”

“Surely it isn’t bringing another person up?”

They all looked at each other. Whatever rules the revival potions worked under, it likely became exponentially more expensive and difficult to revive an older corpse. Or perhaps it wasn’t, an idea forming in Logan’s mind. Before he could ask the others about his theory, the knight appeared again with a woman on its back.

“Mel!”

“Melissa’s here?” Tom said, unable to see yet due to being further away. “Do you think she can be saved?”

After Tom spoke, everyone watched silently as the skeleton brought the girl into the cell beside Logan. He couldn’t see what was happening, but Amelia explained that it was standing beside her corpse and not moving.

“This is freaking me out, dude.”

“Why is it just standing there?”

“It’s waiting for its friend,” Logan said, sitting down and closing his eyes.

The faster he could decipher the painting, the better.

An hour later, the leather skeleton arrived with a man on its back. His name was James, and he was actually getting married to Melissa at the end of the year. At least they planned on getting married before they fell into the cavern.

“What are they doing?” Tom said, his knuckles going white as he gripped the bars. “Is that the potion you were talking about?”

No one replied. The scene spoke for itself, the skeletons working together to force the molten liquid down Melissa’s throat. She began to cough up water and steam before falling asleep, her cheeks rosy and her breathing calm.

The same happened to James a few moments later.

“This is…” Tom muttered, his hands going slack on the bars. “I feel like I’m in a dream.”

“Are they really alive?” Amelia said, glancing at Logan for an answer.

He just shrugged. “Are you?”

Logan went back to meditating while Amelia and Tom whispered about the implications of the revival potion. He spent a few minutes examining the whole piece before focusing on the meteor shower, the secrets much more profound than the flower field or the Goddess.

There was much more to learn from the meteor shower, but it seemed impossible for now. The entire shower was too much to comprehend, forcing him to focus on a single meteor. Despite narrowing his focus down, it was still too much, the secrets within completely baffling him. The problem was that he didn’t even know where to start.

Logan had a much easier time with the imagery of the Goddess and the field, but he had no idea what that meant. Were those areas supposed to be more accessible, or did he simply have a greater affinity for them? Without any guidance, he was left to try everything until something eventually worked.

Before Melissa and James woke up, Logan tried to crack a single meteor before he gave up and went back to the Goddess, which appeared to be the easiest section to comprehend. Not that he knew what he was learning, either, but when you got locked up in prison by undead monsters and had a painting appear in your mind, you tried anything and everything to get out.

Eventually, Melissa and James woke up. Logan stayed out of their interactions for the most part. Everyone was scared and in need of comfort, and he was nothing more than an acquaintance to these people; an outsider. There was no need to stress them out even more. Besides giving them hope by sharing what he was doing with the painting, he kept to himself.

Things began to calm down again when everyone returned to searching their own cells. Amelia and Tom were becoming slow and methodical in their approach, spending an hour or more on anything that appeared strange. James and Melissa, on the other hand, were glancing at one thing before moving on to the next since they still hadn’t checked everything out yet.

Over the next few hours, Amelia and Tom both fell asleep. Logan followed them soon after. He simply curled up in a ball while studying the painting. At some point, he fell asleep under the gentle and mysterious light exuded by the painting.