The memory quickly fades and new facts register to me. The cloaked humans the end of the battle were not mages, they were priest. It makes sense to send the clergy to fight the undead. I will be able to save the bear now, or at the very least I can attempt to heal it.  I am not sure why I care for it, maybe that is  just using an excuse for me to use the bear as an experiment. Realizing that I was lying on the ground, I quickly get back up. The bear is still there without paying any attention to me.

The bear flinches as I rest my hands on its thick brown fur. I can almost feel the bear’s uncertainty, or maybe it is just my own. The bear could still attack if it feels threatened.

I am not a religious person. Well that is not true; I am a very religious person, if being religious means believing in some supreme entity, then yes, I am probably more religious than most. Well, I cannot say any prayer to Nehron, since I cannot say anything to begin with.

However, I do not need to say any prayers. I have a theory, based off the memory; the chant simply allows one to see the glow of someone's energy, and for priests to manipulate their own. The proper term for the energy around someone is well, or reservoir. Priests are able to engage this reservoir manipulation mode by praying to their god. I am not sure how everyone else does it, however, I do not need to pray.  I am constantly in this mode of being able to see the reservoirs of others. Is this another ability of being a skeleton, or is it simply me?

I will think more about what this means later; this bear is currently dying and I cannot heal dead things. Even if I fail, I still get something out of this.

Something stood out, I could feel the bear's reservoir. It did not feel cold or warm, but it was a sensation of energy. I begin to make the threads, starting up by using some energy from my well.  I form the first bone thread. The term “thread” is not sufficient to describe what it takes to even form one; a single thread could be made up of many sub threads. A lot of questions are raised in my head, as one of the long sub threads has the same formation as DNA.

I start the work on the second thread, the one for repair. It has a few sub threads which are similar to those of the bone thread, but a few of the sub threads in the repair thread are more complicated and longer.

This entire process feels very similar to programing, almost equivalent to creating a piece of software. It becomes marginally easier to think of it like that..

I join the bone thread to the repair thread. After that, I begin to work on the stop thread. The stop thread is basically a limiter for how fast, or slow, a spell is. It also stops the threads at the same time if two threads in a spell are of different sizes, which means it is almost indispensable when weaving with more than one thread. I do not want the bear to die before the spell is complete, so I increased the speed of the healing process. The stop thread is simple to make, but it took the longest time create. Both the repair and bone threads does not even come close to the stop thread in length, even when combined. I imagine the repair and bone thread wrapping together, then visualizing the entire spell covering around the bear's leg. I then begin to work on the stitch thread that would hold the weaving in place. The stitch thread made it possible for me to use the bear's energy instead of my own. The way it works is by  transferring the weaving across to the bear, so it is as if the bear is casting the spell. I cast the spell, and and watch as it stitches onto the bear.

I take several steps backwards, almost touching the cold rocky wall. The spell begin to methodically repair the broken bone of the bear after I release the weaving. The bear give off a roar, no doubt it hurts to feel your bones repair themselves in a matter of seconds. Healing as though someone pressed fast forward on a remote control, the deep cuts around the bear's legs begins to slowly close.

I am not sure why I expected an instant regeneration. You usually see things like this in games, it feels less scary as well. I now understand that the spell only speeds up the natural healing process,  I was oddly okay with that; finally something scientific in this world I could explain.

Of course this was not over. I repeat the process, weaving only threads of repair this time with stop threads to wrap it. Then I imagine the spell wrapping around the bear's neck, and added in the stitch thread so it once again attatched to the bear's resiviour. That took some work. All the major injuries are gone now.

I feel really tired, but I cannot not rest yet. I grind my teeth more as I look at the entrance of the cave.

Night, sweet night! I wonder how much time I spent healing. It could not be so long, probably it was the memory of the priest that took up a lot of time. Experiencing the memory felt like I was dreaming. Dreams often seem short, but last for hours. The memory was of the priest named  Cormac Albus during his teenage years. I hope this is not a recurring problem. I do not want to suddenly black out from a memory.

Time to go kill something! I walk back to the exit of the cave, leaving the the bear alone. It must be sleeping, because its eyes are closed. The blue light around it  has grown a bit brighter as well. It certainly is a lot of fun to cast a spell.

The outside feels so good! I raise my hands in the air, enjoying the feeling of the forest and the rays of moonlight, pouring down between the forest leaves. I still cannot see the sky. I am curious whether all of the clouds in the sky are the same reddish purple color as the ones from the battlefield.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I move down the small hill, which led away from the the cave entrance, and just below a river flows. I quickly head towards the river. I kneel down at the riverbed, and washed the bear blood on my hands off. I tried to scrape the dried blood off my bones, and then fully submerging myself into the river to help with the effort. While I managed to get most of it off, there are still patches of stained blood on my hands.

I get up in frustration, why did I even care!? I am a skeleton! I grind my teeth in frustration. I stood up in the water, finding the river only reached my waist, but then something interesting happened.

The river is lit by enough rays of light that I can see my own reflection on the water surface. I turn my skull from left to right in order to better inspect myself.  I even touch my reflection in the water, only to feel silly afterwards, as I chuckle in my mind. I look so unreal with my eyes glowing blue. To be more specific; something inside my skull glows blue. Was that me? Or maybe that is where my consciousness is?

I feel so very frail now. I will have to be more careful with my body.

I walk towards the other side of the riverbank. I can see the fish in the clear waters, since the darkness in the forest does little to disrupt my sight. The fish also have a blue glow around them, similar to the bear, which made them easy to follow. I consider to hunt the fish down and consume their souls, but I cast the idea off because it is too weird. I would rather avoid that title of “great consumer of fish souls”. Which begs the question of animal memories. I shiver at the thought of what fish memories would be like, or other animals in general. Maybe I should have killed the bear for the sake of experimenting. No, it trusted me enough to not to kill it. I may one day become a murdering skeleton, but I will not start killing those who trust me.

Layers of falling, dried, leaves crunch as I walk. I even try to walk as lightly as I possibly can, but that offers little success. Two wild boars have already run away because I stepped on leaves. I want to curse so badly; damn these wild pigs and their extraordinary good hearing.

After another hour of searching, I was about to give up. I am worried I will forget which direction I came from. I turn back, stepping on a branch by mistake, I notice a twitch and stop in my tracks. I want to smile.

Lying curled up in a bed of dried grass, is a deer. It is a much smaller specimen, compared to what I saw earlier today, but it is still a soul, and I cannot be picky at this point.

Carefully, I move forward, avoiding the many objects on the forest floor that would make a noise. The deer grew closer and closer when a leaf broke beneath my foot. For a second I almost jumped forward to strangle the poor thing, but its ears only twitched. Just as I was about to grab it, a loud screaming sound echoed throughout the forest.

I look around to find the source of the sound. You would be amazed at how far a skeleton like myself can turn his neck, and how swiftly. I see nothing; just trees and large mosquito-like insects. I rapidly turn around to grab the deer, but it was already dashing away, causing me to grab empty air. I watch with a sense of lost hope as the deer leaps away, jumps over a large log, and vanishes into the night. I stare at where it vanished for a few seconds, as a growing anger boils inside of me.

The screaming continued and I made to follow it. Walking briskly, I do not care what happens around me. I cannot be bothered by the wild pigs, running away from noise of my footsteps. Even the strange little creatures, which scattered, and climbed up to trees to escape my path, were of little interest.

“HEEEEEELP! Someone! Help me, bandits! I’m being chased! Hello, who's there, thank heavens. F- shit! What! Lavita help me! No! Don't! Don touch me, Ouc! Fuck! Sto-”

Sweet sweet soul, God that felt good, feels like sex! At least I broke her neck, it was quick and her soul was delicious.  Damn I did not know what I was missing. I felt so bad all day long without knowing?  Did this mean that I would feel worse as time passes, unless I consume souls?  

I hear the sound of a branch break behind my back. I spin around, to find a man behind me. I can see the shock in his eyes from seeing a moving skeleton. It does not last long however; he is obviously used to the horrors of the forest, and his recovery is swift. He is already swinging a curved blade towards me.

I raise my left hand in reflex. I watched in stunned surprise as the blade sliced through the first bone in arm. I feel no pain, but I did feel my first taste of fear.  My anger then surges.  With my right hand I grab the man by his throat, squeezing it as hard as I can while lifting him up from the ground.

I then slam him down on the ground, hoping it is enough to kill him. The man lost his sword when he hit the ground. His hands claws at my arm,  trying  to move or push me away, but I keep steady. I feel him weaken, seeing his light go dim, and tears cover his face. He slumps back as the glow around him vanishes. I feel nothing but joy as I absorb his soul.

Thank you to Jason Master for proofreading this chapter.

Don't forget to comment, and rate this chapter if you like it, or let me know what you didn't like about it. I'll try my best to reply to all comments.

-Lulu