Up on the hill, a rabble of old men, women, and unmentionable. Native and foreigner both - to the eye of this occupying army, however, they are one and the same - of various professions that have been rendered useless by the toll of this new method of war, of greater levitation and continental fireball.
Some have been vagrant from the start, some so poor that they might as well be, and some are just broken remnants of youth that had volunteered to march with their current, also foreign to them, the administration just to deter a worse devil on the horizon. If there are any freed slaves among these people, no one would be able to know. They all make what the common soldier would call the labor corps, or in more vulgar terms, the long coat.
For such is the state of the All-War that they would run out of both graves and the gravediggers. Once the consumption of life reaches a certain point, it becomes a wave that washed over all, regardless of what or who it might be. These so-called long coats, named for their adoption of the gravedigger attire: a thick blanket of wool that reaches all the way down to their ankle, impregnated with an impermeable layer of rubber to prevent the soaking of these salt-ridden mud land and the disease typically associated with the grave, have joined the labor corps only for one reason alone - guarantee work for a pittance of a pay, but a pay nonetheless that they could not find in their ravaged countryside nor through their depressed economy. They would labor under these agreements and came to be known for their most important duties of all: the burying of the dead.
A sudden prickle runs up your arm and itches all the way down to your neck. This coat is the same coat you were wearing on the day of your first death. Smothering under a heap of corpses on that ox-carriage. The shaps of kin around you are unrecognizable. Had it not been for the rags of their uniform, the hint of their coat’s sleeves, the shape of the fabric… you would not have been able to know these were kin at all. Air stuck on the periphery of your throat. A rising cough, yet you cannot move your chest. In fact, you could move nothing at all. You were drowning on dry land, by the same air that gave you life. You were drowning in total silence. You were drowning because the very flesh that gives you life has trapped your lungs like a prison. You were drowning…
…the labor corps were there because the soldier could not have handled it anymore. It was a new type of war, one that could only happen in an enlightened age. Bodies were sprung across the sky. Some fly away like kites flew by through the clouds, still stuck there, some say, never to touch the ground again. Some dance to death, their muscles spasm like flowing silk, before finally grinding into some mockery of shape and size as their body crumbles and crumbles further into ash. Some died in all but spirit, and shall no longer be with us in this reality in mind nor breath, for their abuses have transcended mere afterlife and begun to undeath.
Up on the hill, among that rabble of old men, women and unmentionable, standing among them, eating among them, breathing among them, working among them… is a creature. It once thought of itself as a kin. It has reasons to suggest that it no longer is. It would have once been referred here, by these thoughts, as a young man. This will no longer be the case, even if it will be talked to, greeted, and thought of as one, it will no longer be able to see itself as any sort of kin anymore.
Just a male-something flesh heap that holds some utterly deranged thoughts. It was so unlucky that it still got a head. And the head remembered. Remembered what it was, what it was before the moment it had “given up”. It remembers the number. CGS-16247. It remembers the dream. Proxima, then Centauri. And finally, it remembers…
Numbness. And yet, so sore. Your muscle feels like some sort of vines or snake, that is choking your bones. The motion until now has all been… automatic, in a way. Up, then down. The shovel head is all bent from the rocky dirt. Your back groans with each cycle, each scoop of dirt. Your legs felt like stone. Your palms, bruised by the sand you rubbed on them to give you a firmer grip. This is an amazing feeling. You felt nice. Detached. You are one bona fide digging machine. And the digging machine can only dig. It doesn't think or be affected by thinking itself. It is immune from morality, regret, and feeling. It doesn’t have a shape beyond its tools. Just a pair of legs, arms, and a good spine.
The creature assumes the shape of a bespectacled laborer in a faded long coat, impotently pushing itself to complete the quartermaster’s work quota for the day with its meager strength. Its face is indescribable - truly. Whenever it would look at a mirror, only the glint of light would have let it know where its circular, terrible, judgemental pair of eyes were. Everything else is merely a smudge, the hint of a face, like abstract art, available for everyone to see and remember but the creature itself. Its arms are lanky, soft, and weak. Its shoulder is crumpled and tiny. Its hands are the shape of a handicapped spider, a big one. It was so short of stature that its coat would drool all over the mud. It is the coat that the creature has died in. It could not tolerate living without that scent of it anymore…
That sweet, sweet odor, one that is both salty and sour. You could recall your first time seeing death… somewhere far away. So, so far away. The funeral of your father was pristine and regal, the sort only a wealthy matriarch can afford. That ox-carriage you died in has the smell of shit, piss, vomit, and more shit and piss and vomit. It is only the smell of blood that one can ignore. But not the rest. And more distinct, still, is the sweetness of something else, oozing out of their body. Out of you.
The creature stumbles mid-way through heaving his shovel off the ground. It falls. Thud. Thud. Thud. Yet the only thing that registers is how far the amber sky looks from the creature’s vantage point, hair soaked in sludge.
Rock and dirt taste so salty when they touch your mouth, with a tinge of sourness, and so cold when they touch your skin. Your muscles have given up, and within the dead angle between the shape of your skull and the end of your spine a coolness creeps up on you, washing all over your shoulder blade…
The creatures realized all of it… had just been its daydream yet again. And so these words will be forgotten. So be it.
.
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“Huh?”
..
“What-”
…
“H-Hey, I’M FINE, DAMN IT!” I jerked my body away from the tightening grip around my body, and the smell of disinfectant immediately flooded my nose. Contorted and exerted to their limit, my limbs once again fell inert from the sudden movement, but I was made aware of the many, many leather straps and chains hooking up my body to the steel frame of the bed that is currently housing it.
Wordlessly, I stare in disbelief at the hazy surrounding, waiting for everything to make sense, for the blurriness to focus. A figure stood over me, dressed in white stained with red.
“Did I… am I being operated on, still? Did th-the Board get what they wanted with the psych-evaluation? Will my pay be… deducted?”
“That is…”
The figure scooped down onto my eye level, before holding my head down and inspecting my eyes.
“There was no operation. You are just suffering from the recovery period of Shivering. You do not earn a wage anyhow. The quartermaster was annoyed by the ruckus you caused, but I already have some words with her.”
Her word stunted me. Whiplash, as I realized where I am. As I recognize her uniform.
“Right. Right. I am sick. We are in the third year of the All-War. Beltic front. Digging… digging for knowledge that would be destroyed under the enemy's hand.”
The woman nodded, her hand moving to somewhere I can’t see behind my head. I could hear the clanking of equipment and the clinking of medical bottles. Her brows look old. The furrows between them seem to imply some ceaseless patience and an undisturbed focus. Somehow that makes me feel calmer.
“That right, recollect yourself. Focus on what you can remember, no matter how mundane.”
“I- I was… they strapped me to a bed. They wanted to take my dream away. I was living in it. I was happy there. It was fake, but it made me happy… and now I am here. This is fake, isn’t it? I am dreaming. This is fake, yet it is so terrible. Am I dreaming? Are we there? Have we arrived to-... to-”
I murmured something, something that even I don’t recognize the sound of before it died inside my throat. Before it could fully materialize into words.
The doctor merely nodded. I gain the faint awareness that dwelling further into my cryptic dreams is probably the opposite of what she is asking me to do, but she merely brushes the issue aside. “You are in shock. I will inject you with some painkillers, and you can take a rest.”
“I don’t - it would be… will it make me fall asleep again?”
“Yes,” she answered, flatly.
“Then don’t.”
“Are you sure?” She asked, her tone making it clear that this will be a decision that I will most likely regret.
“Yes. I just need to- to collect myself. Categorizing the differences. Separate them. What is true and what is not. I can handle myself, doc. Just get me out of these bindings.”
She pauses but eventually gives in. A few moments later and I am free. Brushing against the red marks left by the leather latches, I sit uncomfortably near the falling sensation between the bed frame and the ground below, even though my feet touch the cold floor just fine.
“It will take a while for you to regain your sense of balance.” the doctor said, before moving to find her notebook. Of course, that can only mean one thing:
“Going to study me for your research, doc?”
“Well, if you won’t sleep, then it is the only productive thing I can do. Surviving through the Shiver is one thing, but a unicorn case of relapsing, especially one that has such irregular symptoms such as yours… the records might prove valuable.”
“Don’t you have any other patients to take care of?”
“It’s already the third quarter of dusk”, she said, checking the mercury-sundial on her table. “I’ve already done most of my work for the day. We will have lunch after it is done.”
I clicked my tongue, trying my best to form a smile - it is very painful to do so.
“You are a cruel one, doc. The lieutenant is going to have my head for this. A private diner with you?”
“The medical camp is not private. And I’d appreciate you not making jokes about me and my colleague in that manner.”
“Stone-cold. I like it.”
“You regain composure very fast for someone who just, from what I know, exhibits the behavior of a nervous breakdown just a minute ago. Did you fake all that to get some free time from work, or is this just deflection?”
I stared back at her blankly. She looks unimpressed, as always.
“I was just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Since it is still technically my work hours, I am ethically obliged by my oath to be a bitch to you about it.”
“Alright, sure” I steady myself, and relaxed as much as I could.
“Where should we even begin?”
“Let's start with what you suggested. Your memory problem and that problem you mentioned, of being able to differentiate between what is real and what is not?”
“That… going to be a long one, doc. I don’t see how it might even be of medical value?”
“I am not purely interested in your case from a medical standpoint alone, but of its implication for many of animancy’s core concepts as well.”
“Some hidden depth you got there, doc.”
“Stop flattering me and get on with it.”
“Alright, alright.” I fold my fingers into each other and lean forward to look at her, before choosing my words carefully.
“Doc, I will have to confess. I think I have lost touch with the most basic concept of this reality.”
Swallowing that sinking feeling down my throat, I continue.
“And... I still can’t recall who or what I am.”