It is always a sudden, harsh reawakening after some deadly blow or some unforeseen occurrence. The lapse of time, the possibly damaged or even healed changes to your body, and the sensation of being jerked from one existence to the next can be jarring. Christoph’s shoulders fell forward as he expelled dirt and debris from his lungs. It was a soft cough but necessary to clear the passage. Breathing in, so natural for humanity, was difficult for the boy.
His hands lifted to his mouth to muffle the sound, but they also lifted a horrid stench to his nostrils. Once able to breathe, his nose filled with a sour smell that he’d recalled only on the days when a cow or other livestock was found dead in the field after days of neglect. It had only happened once or twice in his life, but the memory was powerful enough to remind him of the bloated carcass and the opened wounds.
It reeked of decay around him. Sniffing at the damp air of his darkened surroundings, he caught a draft from his right. His eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to the sudden spring to consciousness in the dark or the fact that he was standing. That thick air seemed to roll down the path and cover him with saturated death. It made him want to gag, but his lungs and stomach weren’t reacting as his brain told them to.
Cold streams blew down a corridor, yet the boy’s body reacted in no way to the sudden drop in temperature. He barely noticed what should have made him shiver and cross his arms.
However, he did notice, as both hands cupped around one another, that he felt relatively cold. This did jumpstart his brain into asking questions.
How long have I been here? It was about this time that the room’s dimensions and all contained within it began to become less of a black mass and more of shadowed outlines. He couldn’t quite make out the figures or shapes beyond his ten-foot field of vision, but he could discern that he was standing within a chamber of some sorts. There were thick grayish stones laid at his feet. A ceiling of similar rock seemed to be structurally sound over his head. To his right, there was a long hallway, narrower than the chamber he was in, that stretched on into darkness. Though the room was much wider, the hallway still reached twenty or so feet across.
With no torchlight, the slits between the chilled stones were inhabited by shadows like the abyss. Christoph’s head spun trying to imagine just how he’d ended up there.
Is this the afterlife? He reached one hand out and moved the fingers he recalled being limp and numb. The fingers moved, albeit with mentally taxing effort. I… his brain couldn’t grip the possibility. He’d been broken in the field of waving, illuminated grass beside his brother, yet he stood there pondering how it’d come to pass.
Christoph began to walk forward. His legs moved aggressively; like every muscle had to have manual direction from the brain. It was jarring, but Christoph paid little attention to his legs that swung wide with each step.
Moving through the darkness, he found a pillar of black stone lifting from the grayed slabs beneath. It rose up, a smooth, singular piece, and seemingly merged with the ceiling. His left hand ran along the curved form of the pillar, several bubbled shapes stacked atop one another, to find there were grooves in the material. Too dark to read them, he continued moving. His fingers dragged slowly across those symbols until he was out of reach.
“Wha—”
Speaking was difficult. Dryness overtook his throat. A mixture of necessities crossed his mind. If I cough, I feel I’ll tear it open. If I drink, I fear I’d throw it up. He couldn’t decide how exactly his body felt, but he tried to massage his throat with those stiffened fingers while stumbling through the darkness.
There was a length of wall in front of him. It came into view like a ghost of some ancient civilization looming over the haunted lands it once ruled. He leaned himself against it as he walked along; unable to feel the fear that should have welled up in him.
Split doors stood ten to fifteen feet tall in the center of that wall. There were thick iron circles on both doors. He brushed past one with his shoulder and heard a soft clank and the metal contacted the wood. His first instinct was to grab that handle. It wasn’t to run or to hide. He had no sense of danger in this groggy, uncertain state he’d found himself. Only the images of a silenced brother, the feeling of numbness in the grass, and the searing pain that shattered his body continued to play through his mind.
He hadn’t realized how easily the door pushed open once the metal ring was in his hands. There was barely any resistance from such a substantial mass of wood and iron. Darkness flooded his vision as if the entirety of the newly awakened room were a living shadow. His commoner’s mind felt nothing of the energies that awaited him—or the energies that pulsated over his chest.
A soft light of green, dulled by his shirt, dwindled as the seconds passed.
“Hel—” the words began to choke him. A soft cough cleared more of that dusty mucus from his throat. “Hello?” His voice was quiet. Echoing like mimicked cries of fey creatures, his words returned to him from all angles in the room. Just the reflection of his voice revealed the size of this particular chamber.
There was no real answer for him. That which was present in the room couldn’t speak; or rather, couldn’t openly hold a conversation across a room. Many of the inhabitants were silent beings. A few among them, when called upon or held, could reach into the mind of the possessor. Christoph, in the darkness of the chamber, had no idea the dangers he wandered toward.
“I-is anyone t-there?” He held his chest as his legs bent and swung about. He managed to walk into the center of the room where piles, shelves, and all sorts of shapes began to form in different stretches of darkness. “H-hello?”
There was no answer. Objects of all lands and purposes awaited him. He continued to clumsily walk forward until his hands brushed up against one of the shelves. Once his hands touched the aged wood, something spectacular occurred.
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Lights, not fire, but everlasting orbs atop stone pedestals around the room began to glow. Filling the darkness with instant illumination, Christoph lifted his arms to shield himself from the light. They weren’t set to an obscene level of brightness, but it was enough of a shock to a human’s retinas to cause some stress.
As he tried to block out the light until his eyes could adjust, his legs began to wobble. Christoph fell backwards into the shelf he’d first touched. While temporarily blinded, the objects rattling, jostling, or even the one that fell were unknown to him. He just heard assorted items clanking about and stepped to the side in hopes of avoiding further chaos.
That was unavoidable. A small pile of gold and jeweled trinkets were piled up haphazardly. His unsteadied foot hit the pile and slipped out from beneath him. His head hit the ground with a chilling crack, yet he didn’t feel the same pain he had when his chin hit the cart or his body hit the road. Soft stone. Justifiable enough for the ignorant lad.
He should have felt some pain or some considerable discomfort, yet there were only short flickers of sensation from his nerves. Even the chilled floor felt comfortable to him. This oddity in experience kept him from noticing that single object that fell from a golden stand on the shelf. It was a small jewel or polished stone, like a glistening white marble, that slipped into the space between his foot and his poorly fashioned shoe.
One should assume that they’d feel such an item in their shoe. A tiny pebble can create quite a chaotic outburst, but his nerves weren’t processing right and the room had other distractions available. For this boy, that had held a magic flare as if it were the treasure of Heaven, now found himself surrounded by jewelry of various precious metals, gems and jewels of every size and shape, weapons across racks that shined or drew in the light, scrolls piled up alongside books of places he’d never imagined existed, clothing that was imbued with all manners of metals or fabrics in colors he’d imagined artists would envy, and even the piles of oddities that fit none of the previously mentioned items yet would take far too long to explain in one sitting.
His eyes were open wide though the light reflected off of most surfaces. The dull lasting orbs seemed to be enhanced by the gathered metals. Christoph’s jaw fell as the treasury of a king or emperor was laid out before him.
I must be in the capital. His thought began to form as the twinkling objects caused his heart to sink. This must be the treasury or some holding areas before they fill the coffers. He began to shuffle about as if he’d be able to hide in this brightly lit room. Deciding that hiding wasn’t the best possible solution, he chose to hurry toward the door and leave the trinkets, weapons, and all manners of treasures behind. One handful could have fed and improved his village for years to come, but he knew better than to take from his emperor.
As he exited, the lights began to dim. Wood creaked quietly as the considerable door gradually closed—the illumination decreasing at a similar rate. Once shut, he was back in the darkness of an open space where acrid, decayed air clung to every stone. His chest tightened at the stench. It was stronger than before.
There was a reason for that. A shadow moved across the center of the room and carried the awful scent with it. From its very form leaked the putrid sense of death, and its movements fit the smell. It lumbered, snapped, and lunged uneasily across the stone. Exaggerated moans and wheezing inhales sent shivers down Christoph’s spine.
As his eyes corrected themselves to the darkness, he could see a soldier, one of the armored men of his empire, struggle to walk forward. It was difficult to make out the condition or exact shapes, but the armor was enough for Christoph to place him. The sounds and the movements were disorienting. It was as if he had to drag one of his legs behind him because it wasn’t working properly.
“E-e-excuse me?” Christoph’s voice was quiet, yet it carried over the stones in whispered echoes. There was no response. His throat hurt just asking for assistance, but it seemed the soldier was in far worse condition. The horrendous scent of rot on him, and his mindless moans, told the lad he wasn’t going to listen.
What is going on? He watched as the soldier continued through the lifted section in the center of this open room. There were a few stairs that made a rectangular area within the perimeter of the pillars, but the soldier kept moving through it, down the stairs, and toward the hallway that Christoph had regained consciousness in. Where is he going? The soldier finally stopped and took a guard’s position at the entrance to that hallway where the cold drafts carried the wafting decay further into the structure.
“Gruuhhhh!” The soldier shuddered, his voice distorted by the convulsions, as he groaned for no particular reason. Christoph flattened himself against the wall to his right. Edging along the cold stone, his attention locked on the distant shadowy figure, he inched around the corner and toward another grand opening in the corridor.
“Rurghhh!” Christoph spun around the corner to plant himself directly into the chest of a larger man. This man’s form was muscular yet lacked firmness. His face buried into the meat of the man’s pec; filling his nostrils with that odorous secretion only the dead could manage.
“Ugh.” Christoph kicked back a foot or two. Giving himself space, he wiped away the thick coating of what he’d believed to have been sweat from his face. “I’m sorry.” He tried to not be rude, but the liquid had coated his face. All he could smell was the opened bowels of a freshly filled tomb.
Standing before him was a brawny man with very little clothing. The furs and leathers that ran over his body would have been better suited for a humid woods or more temperate region, yet he stood in the chilled air without seeming to mind. Christoph finished dragging his arm over his face when he noticed the wounds across the man.
Christoph lost his balance. Deep gashes and split flesh covered the man. The worst of the damages had been the complete removal of the bottom jaw. A swollen and damaged tongue flopped slightly over the throat.
No blood ran from the wounds. Dark stains covered the man who was drained shortly after his demise. It was after his death that reanimation had raised him from the ground and set him to purpose. Christoph could barely make out his eyes, but they were the glazed orbs of a soulless puppet—strings pulled from behind the screen while the toy danced and moved.
Only this puppet wasn’t dancing. He wasn’t funny or enjoyable. He was horrifying. His eyes didn’t even seem to recognize that Christoph stood in front of him. The part that should have terrified the boy the most was that he was not being targeted or hunted.
He should have been.
His flesh, within the tomb he knew nothing of, should have been torn asunder and his life extinguished for a second time. But here, in this place of death, stood a boy who hadn’t realized the luck of his situation. Good or bad, luck had left him on this path only the dead might walk.