As I lie under the soil of the cursed burial ground, I wonder whether I made a bad bargain. Dread sorcerer Lord Mortis demanded that the people of our town give up Jaime to him. To do who knows what to him. Jaime is my one true love. I wouldn't let anything happen to him. But there are cowards in our town of Willowmere who would give him up, for Mortis has threatened to unleash an army of undead horrors on Willowmere if his demands are not met. Mortis can only be killed with a silver dagger through the heart. And only one of the undead can break into his lair and get to him, so I just had to bury myself here and become one. I think of Jaime and how I'm doing it for him. I think of his soft brown eyes, his strong jaw with just a hint of shadow, his wavy brown hair I can run my fingers through, his freckled nose and cheeks...

I feel a surge of cold energy and kick and claw at the soil. What's left of me as I bust out of the earth, clutching my silver dagger? A bare skeleton, that's what. But I can still move and see. It's the magic of the burial ground.

The tower of Mortis looms against the sunset, its shape like a clawed hand reaching at the sky. The door is shaped like a mouth. I batter on with my skeletal hands until it splinters. It doesn't hurt me a bit. Through the broken door is an emaciated guy with dark, hollow eyes, wearing a servant uniform. In a cold, hissing voice, he says: "Really, do you have to make such a dramatic entry? Could you not have pulled the bell cord like everybody else? Wait, what are you? I smell necromantic magic!"

"Tell your master I've come to kill him!" My jaws clack together and my voice sounds hollow and echoey.

He advances towards me with his decaying hands outstretched. He hisses as he touches the bones of my arm. His touch has no effect. I plunge my dagger into his heart. He falls to the floor and smoke rises from his rotten flesh. His mouth opens to release a deafening howl that echoes around the hallway. Finally his lies still and I retrieve my dagger.

I am in a beautiful marble floored hallway with portraits of evil looking men on all the walls. A spiral staircase leads upwards, so I scuttle up the stairs. Suddenly a voice calls out of nowhere: "Oh foolish intruder. Why do you consider it a remote possibility that you can defeat me, the almighty Lord Mortis. I am following your every move, but you do not know where I am! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

But I can tell where the voice is coming from. Can the undead sense one another more easily? I feel drawn to the fourth floor where there is an ebony door. I open the door and enter a room adored with macabre objects and paintings. Two black candles are burning on either side of a mirror on the far wall in which I can see myself - I am a skeleton, but strangely I still have my blue eyes and my red hair, although my hair is full of soil. There are other ways I don't look like a typical skeleton - my chest is encased with bone and so is my spine. My face is devoid of flesh, but it looks rounder than I thought a skull would look.

The air starts to shimmer and now I see another skeleton, this one in black robes with a golden crown on its skull and fire burning in its eye sockets. Lord Mortis!

He hisses at me. "My illusions are ineffective against the greater undead! But you are out of your depth here, for I am the stronger."

Mortis points his skeletal finger and blasts me with a bolt of lightening. My bones are blown apart, but then they move of their own volition and knit back together. I advance on him. He curses and unleashes a fireball at me which knocks off my skull. But my skull rises into the air and reattaches itself to my spine.

"This is for Jaime!" I tell him, and plunge the the dagger through his robed chest. Screeching horribly, he crumbles to dust, leaving just a crown and an empty cloak.

00O00

I set alight to the infernal tower as I leave, making sure that no evil entity can use it again. I take the crown of Lord Mortis with me and soon arrive back in Willowmere. The mayor greets me like a heroine as I chuck the crown of Mortis at his feet.

"Excellent work, Seren! You may have changed, but I'd recognise your long red hair anywhere."

There are people who stare in horror and point, but I don't care. I'm just glad when I'm back in Jaime's arms. The Mayor has told him all about what I've been through. Tears shimmer in his brown eyes as he cups my face with his hands (or rather puts his hands on either side of my skull).

"Seren, I'm so sorry you had to do this for me."

"That's OK, it's better than anything happening to you. Now we can get married."

But for the first time, I'm having niggling doubts. Will people accept us? What sort of life will we have?