[T: 24 Hours]
The Obsidian Skeleton continues to roam throughout the abandoned stone structure hunting down with prejudice every yellow creature it can find, leaving vast swaths of corpses in its wake. The rate at which the Obsidian Skeleton finds these creatures continues to quicken, sometimes entire groups of them attempting to ambush him. Now in every new wing of the structures the Obsidian Skeleton explores, there are halls containing several, to which the Obsidian Skeleton promptly pummels to death.
[T: 1 Day 2 Hours]
The creaking of a wheelbarrow sounds across the halls. As the wheel of the wheelbarrow runs over each crevice of the floor built out of stone blocks, a low thump sounds. The hall is littered with yellow, broken corpses, some corpses still somewhat fresh and leaking blood.
The driver of the wheelbarrow, a “normal” skeleton, observes the hall and its former residents, now dead on the floors, betraying no thoughts on its emotionless skull head. The rattling of bones is heard as several other “normal” skeletons march up behind it. The team of skeletons gets to work, as they work together to lift up the five hundred pound creature. They struggle to lift it and as they carry it to the wheelbarrow they dump the corpse into it, surrendering their prize to the wooden container. They load up a single corpse and the skeleton driving the wheelbarrow turns it around and leaves back the way it came, the team of skeletons rattling behind it as they follow.
Soon after, another team of skeletons with another wheelbarrow clatters along repeating the exact same process as the team before them. They are only able to load up a single giant corpse into the wheelbarrow, before they leave with their loot, leaving the other corpses behind, presumably for another skeleton team to continue after them.
[T: 1 Day 4 Hours]
The process continues as the Obsidian Skeleton continues to clean up the halls of life. Unbeknownst to it, it is being followed by a train of skeletons, only appearing to haul the corpses onto its carts, ferrying them away as quickly as they came, emptying the halls of bodies, the same way that the Obsidian Skeleton had emptied the very same bodies of life. Like vultures, they hurry with their work, it becoming obvious that they do not want to be discovered by the predator they are filching carrion flesh from.
An armored being oversees the train of skeletons. A heavily armored humanoid wearing full plate armor, with a great shield and a heavy longsword. Its barbute style helm prevents the face from being seen as the lack of light does not allow vision to penetrate through the darkness where the barbute helm’s opening is.
[T: 1 Day 6 Hours]
The Obsidian Skeleton reaches the end of a wing, meeting a dead end. It halts in its tracks, standing there, staring at the wall at the end of the hall, observing it from left and right. Behind it on the other side of the hall are several doorways, one of them with the corpse of a yellow creature sticking halfway out of the room, with visible bruises scattered across its head, one of its eyes no longer there, replaced by a red mess, the other eye staring blankly into nothingness. The Obsidian Skeleton, seeing it pointless to continue down a dead end, turns to go back the way it came, its feet heavily clattering against the stone floor.
As it walks past the dead creature with its missing eye, it passes all the doorways of the hall and turns the corner. And as it turns the corner it runs straight into a team of skeletons, one driver and three naked skeletons. They halt immediately, oddly seeming to be surprised and at a loss, as they stare up at the Obsidian Skeleton, who is nearly a quarter of their own sizes larger.
For a moment, naked skeletons and black metal construct imitating that of a skeleton stare at one another. The Obsidian Skeleton raises its gaze, momentarily looking past the team of skeletons, at another team of skeletons working to carry a corpse to its wheelbarrow. The Obsidian Skeleton watches as the team successfully loads the body into the cart and carries it away to an unknown destination. As the cart disappears around the corner another empty cart appears and immediately starts to work on the nearest corpse, straining with all four skeletons, driver included, in order to carry and dump it into the cart. The Obsidian Skeleton returns its gaze unto the skeleton team in front of it, frozen stiff.
A fist flies, and nearly half of the head of the nearest skeleton explodes and shatters, pieces of it raining as the force of the attack punches through the head with ease, as if it was simply a thin plaster hit with a hammer, instead of an actual skull made of bones. The rest of the skeleton team take a step back, only barely able to take the step before the Obsidian Skeleton destroys them, its closed fist bludgeoning them to pieces.
The second skeleton team, too, shares the same fate as only one of them barely registers a presence nearby, turning its neck, straining to see the source, only for the last thing for it to see being the black knuckles of a skeletal fist rocketing towards its face. The Obsidian Skeleton dispatches the rest of the second team so fast that the three skeletons only notice that their fourth member is no longer supporting the weight of the corpse before they drop dead, the corpse they were carrying falling with them.
The Obsidian Skeleton examines the remains of its handiwork, now adding to the mess eight bodies of shattered bones. It takes a moment to study the wheelbarrow, an old, wooden thing, larger than average; looking back at the skeletal bodies, as if to confirm and acknowledge that, yes, indeed, the dead were walking, and they had the intelligence and motor functions required to handle labor requiring thought.
The Obsidian Skeleton leaves the hall, turning the same corner that it had seen the previous skeleton team round, just in time for it to see that same skeleton team rounding another corner, disappearing with the cart carrying its heavy load. The Obsidian Skeleton starts to follow in the direction of the disappeared skeleton team, its feet making low clunking and clanging noises as it moves.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
[T: 1 Day 10 Hours]
The Obsidian Skeleton continues to stalk teams of skeletons who are busy carting away corpses from unknown locations to unknown destinations, now that the Obsidian Skeleton is no longer hunting the yellow creatures. And since the Obsidian Skeleton is no longer killing and creating corpses, the skeleton teams are no longer interested in following it. Instead the skeleton teams actively avoid the Obsidian Skeleton, hurriedly retreating with the wheelbarrow making fast doo-doo-doo sounds as the wheel of the cart runs over the stone crevices, every time they detect the Obsidian Skeleton as it tries to stealthily observe them. As skeleton teams flee, the Obsidian Skeleton allows them, seeming to be more interested in finding out where they come from rather than outright destroying them, as it is more than capable of obliterating any who might try to fight it.
[ T: 1 Day 16 Hours]
After many hours of following many skeleton teams, each of them managing to flee before the Obsidian Skeleton can fully take advantage of tracking them, yet the Obsidian Skeleton still manages to come closer and closer to the center of what seems to be a hive of activity. The Obsidian Skeleton sees far less numbers of yellow creatures and more and more of naked skeletons, great teams of them now dragging bodies of yellow creatures, which it appears that they themselves had fought and killed, as some among the groups of skeletons are injured; featuring fractured ribs, cracked skulls and missing teeth. Trains of them form dragging with them a large quantity of bodies, and behind them are remnants fighting with broken bones littered around and pools of spilled blood drying up.
Finally, the Obsidian Skeleton is rewarded for its efforts of giving up small insignificant numbers of skeletons with the goal of, or the hope of, finding the nest of these unnatural beings. It starts the feast, pulverizing as many as it can, as if it is in a candy store, binge eating, its knuckles being the teeth and the skeletons the hard candy.
The area into which the Obsidian Skeleton has followed the normal skeletons is so ripe with activity, of both naked skeletons and yellow creatures fighting each other, that the Obsidian Skeleton no longer has to restrain itself, or wait and pursue new prey, as another victim seems to just walk around the corner at every turn. The Obsidian Skeleton continues to hammer and smash at its victims, either scattering their bones across the floor, or bludgeoning them till they are no longer responsive to its strikes.
[T: 1 Day 10 Hours]
The crowd murmurs to one another, the noise of it like the low growl of an engine, the noise going louder as more people join in, becoming almost a roar.
“Did he say we just found water?”
“It’s eight miles away? That’s kind of far. We have to walk?”
“Eight miles is what you’re worried about? What about the forest? They said they don’t know if it's safe or not.”
“That doesn’t matter. We’ll all die anyway if we don’t drink…”
“Hey… what did the radio say? Sorry I was too far away to hear…”
“They said…”
Word spreads quickly around the glade as those who were within hearing distance excitedly inform their neighbors of their potential life saving fortune.
The Master Sergeant pushes through the crowd, making his way to the Sergeant, “Sergeant, you’re with 1rst Sergeant La Fonte’s squad tomorrow. Corporal… Corporal McBerry… where are you?!”
“Here… Sergeant…”, the Corporal pushes past people, the people attempting to move out of the way. He hurries and halts in front of the Master Sergeant.
“Corporal, you're going to be with me tomorrow.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“I want the both of you to choose members for our squads tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to choose them yourself?”
“No, you can do that. I don’t know any of them. You two have been here since the beginning. I was off in a land far far away, finding water.” The Sergeant and Corporal show no response to the Master Sergeants comedy. “Well what are you waiting for? Sooner you build our squads the sooner you have bed time. Go!” The Sergeant and Corporal radio the rest of the troops that they have been relieved of their duties of being a walking speakerphone and to gather at the location where the Sergeant and Corporal is.
The soldier who had previously been surrounded by the gangs gives a sigh of relief as he walks off, with the two gangs eyeing each other.
Both gangs are not impressed by the discovery of water. “Fuck man, I gotta walk eight miles? Fuck that shit.”
“I know right? That’s some bullshit. Military better go and bring US the water, instead of making us go to the water.”
“Ain’t that right?”
The gangs bicker amongst themselves, although they purposely don’t interact with the other gang, only amongst members of the same gang they belong to.
One of the members of the black gang, the man early on who had been observing Red, criticizes his brothers, his words cutting harshly, “But we still need that water, dumbasses. What? You gonna drink your piss? Fuck off, man. We don’t even have bottles to piss into.”
His gang who had been quite boisterous in their false bravado of stupid machismo quibble back at him in weak retorts.
“Hey man… we were just sayin’ …”
“Yeah, you know man…”
“We weren’t sayin’ it like that…”
“We know that we need water…”
The black gangster glares at members of his gang, who shrivel back, no one making eye contact with him.
The Hispanics observe the black gang, silently glancing amongst themselves, before they retreat back to where they had resided, whispering in low voices amongst themselves.
Gold walks up, next to Red. They both look on as the crowd of hundreds interact with each other on a mass scale for the first time. Gold tilts his neck towards Red and while still observing the crowds he asks, “Disappointed?”
Red looks on, shakes his head, a face empty of expression and replies,“No… why would I be?”, in an energy-less elongated sentence. He turns towards Gold, leans on his leg, turns his face fully to him, “ We’re getting what we wanted. And on a larger scale than that… and faster than what we had planned for.” Red turns his gaze back to the crowds and scans it. “We only acted because we could see what was going to happen… and that it would happen if we did not act. I’m glad that things turned out this way, even without us acting. There’s still hope for us yet.”
Gold sighs, “Yeah. Yup. I can see that.” Both men continue looking into the crowds, relieved and mentally exhausted for some reason, a catharsis sweeping over them, as the thought occurs that maybe they aren’t in such a critical danger. Maybe they don’t need to try so hard. Maybe they don’t need to do anything.