I awoke to a bright light shining down. Disoriented, I opened my eyes to see something drop next to me. It was a dead body, its skin red and shriveled. A sign of an undead. I looked up to see where it had fallen from. Above me was a man donned in knight’s armor, looking down. We made brief eye contact before he stood up and walked away. I continued gazing at the sky. I never noticed how...beautiful it was. Something as seemingly ordinary as the sky, I felt like it had been ages since I had last seen it. This was when I noticed my surroundings. I was in a dark cobblestone room with a gated door. Dozens of roaches crawled on the floor alongside broken shackles. I don’t remember how I got here;in fact, there’s a lot of things I don’t remember. I tried looking back at the last thing that had happened. It took a moment to gather my thoughts.

The last thing I remember, is being stabbed in the stomach. The pain had been unbearable, but I was in so much shock I couldn’t even scream. I just fell to the ground, my body growing colder each second as it slowly bled out. But if I had died, that means...oh god. I looked down at my hands. They were red and shriveled. It looks like I had become an undead. I sighed. I suppose it was inevitable. Every day people fought for what scarce resources were left. They killed each other, as the plague swept through cities, reanimating the dead. I remember watching cities razed to the ground. The world had gone mad.

Based on my surroundings, my guess is that I was thrown into the North Undead Asylum after becoming an undead. I stood up and walked over the the gate to see if it was unlocked for some reason. It wasn’t. I looked down to see what resources I had. Looking at my cloak, I assume I was a sorcerer before I died. It seems the guards weren’t kind enough to give me my staff as well. I do have a broken sword though, however useful that will be. I also have a parchment with a spell called soul arrow, with thirty uses left. This further proved my theory that I was once a sorcerer. It looks like I should prioritize getting my hands on a staff. The last item I had was a key. I know that it’s called a master key. I tried using it on the cell door, to no avail. Perhaps it will be useful in the future. I walked over to the corpse and inspected its body. There was one item inside its worn down rags: a key. I tried it on the cell door and it opened. I looked back at the corpse. Perhaps he had been a guard of this asylum, until he became the same as the monsters he watched over.

I wonder if anyone mourned his death. I wonder if anyone mourned mine.

I left the cell and entered a long hallway lit by a few torches. Thump. There were more cells similar to mine along the hallway. I started walking forwards. I looked to my right. Inside a cell, there was an undead down on his knees, praying. Pointless. If there is such a thing as a god, they abandoned this world a long time ago. I continued on. Thump. It seems some parts of the hallway are damaged. Perhaps there was a fight. Next to part of a broken wall was an undead that had gotten out of its cell. I was wary at first, but it seems to be another hollow. It stood with its head down, hands covering its face. Thump. It was crying.

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That reminds me of the past, when the plague first hit. There used to be a lot of crying back then. But after a while, we were all too tired to cry. No one knew how you got sick, they only knew when. If you were affected, a black circle would appear somewhere on your skin. We called it the darksign. That meant after you died, you would be reborn as an undead. Undead can’t be killed no matter what. They’ll just come back to life. But rebirth comes with a price. When one first becomes an undead, they’ll still retain their sanity;however, with each death their mind degenerates. They lose their will. They lose their humanity. Until they become a mere shell of what they used to be: a hollow.

Thump. Loud noises coming from my right brought me back to the present. I looked to see what was making those noises. I took a step back in shock. Past a row of bars, there was an enormous room. And in this enormous room, was an enormous demon. It looked like a slug walking on its hind legs, its thick tail whipping behind it. It had bony wings on its back but I couldn’t imagine such a large creature being able to fly. In its hands was a large axe. The room it was in was just as shocking. There were mountains of bones gathered in multiple corners throughout the room. The demon made so much noise as it walked only because it was crushing so many bones beneath its feet. It had probably killed thousands of people in that room. And the only thing separating me from it was a row of thin bars.

I decided it was time to leave this hallway. I quickly moved forwards, passing a hollow that was facing the wall. I reached the end of the hallway, walking up the stairs into another corridor.