Discovering I was currently inside a sword was admittedly not as bad of an experience as I would have initially thought. Having already spent my time freaking out over not having a body at all, suddenly being inside a sword was at least a step closer in the right direction.

Taking another glance around didn’t really give me any context for why I was there, or who I was for the matter. Looking at the skeletal remains of the dark hooded individuals around me, my first thought’s were that maybe I had been summoned in some kind of cultish suicide ritual.

Although why anyone would perform such a ritual was beyond me. Clearly no one was alive to even see if the ritual worked, not that I really knew what they were trying to achieve.

Pondering this didn’t really get me anywhere. It wasn’t like any of their skeletal remains was suddenly going to reanimate and provide me with some answers. I decided that my first action was going to be moving.

This plan had a rather glaring flaw however.

Being a sword meant that I lacked the necessary limbs to really propel myself anywhere. However I wasn’t out of options yet. Just as I had felt a cord guiding me to the sword that I was now inhabiting, I could now feel a similar cord reaching out to the skeleton that I was currently stabbed into on the ground. The cord seemed to be connected through the sword itself, and seeing as I hadn’t sensed any other cords to any of the other nearby skeletons I imagined I needed physical contact to feel the connection of a cord.

A sword lacked the needed limbs for movement, but surely a skeleton could do better in that department.

I focused on the cord leading to the skeleton and pushed myself forwards. My consciousness rushed into it much more quickly than it had when I possessed the sword. I began to feel my being spread out into the skeleton below me and fit into place. Suddenly, as I felt myself leave the sword I had been previously possessing, my vision was swept back into the original void that I had found myself.

Well shit, did I do something wrong?

I could tell that I had succeeded in moving into the skeleton, my awareness was currently encased in what I somehow knew was the skeletal body that had been lying on the ground. However the vision that had been granted to me while inhabiting the sword was for some reason taken away.

I could still feel the cord leading me back to the sword, I pushed myself back through into the sword and my vision returned to me.

Interesting, is there something unique about this sword that allows me to see? It made an amount of sense why I couldn't see while possessing the skeleton, it lacked any eyes of its own that I could see through. But if that’s true then I shouldn't be able to see out of the sword either.

The red gem embedded in the middle of the sword struck me as being the most suspicious part of the blade, however I didn’t know if that was what really granted me vision in the sword or how it would even do that in the first place. The main issue that I was grappling with was the fact that in the sword I could see but not move, and while the skeleton had limbs, I couldn’t see in it.

I pondered for a sec, wondering if I could hop into the skeletal body, move it, and then hop back into the sword to see where I had moved it to. I decided that would be too in-efficient. While inhabiting the skeleton, I could sense the frame of it lying on the ground, but I couldn’t feel anything else outside of the skeleton. Just as it lacked eyes to see through, it also lacked the necessary skin and nerves to feel through.

This is going to be a bit tricky.

I decided to implement a more experimental plan.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I was going to send part of myself into the skeleton and keep part of myself in the sword. I hoped this would allow me to still see through the sword, while hopefully allowing me to control the skeletal body the sword was stabbed into.

I pushed myself through the cord connecting the sword to the skeleton, and as soon as I began feeling myself enter the corpse, I pushed against it as well.

At this point, I was balancing my consciousness along the whole of the cord and it was causing no small amount of mental strain for me. It felt like my mind was being torn in two and my consciousness grew muddled. My vision flashed in and out as I tried to find a good balance in the middle.

The pain was intense, but maybe because I spent so long in the void lacking sensation all together, the pain was also fantastic. I’m not saying that I would have preferred pain to be the first sensation that I would come across in this life of mine, but I was starting to relish it to a certain degree.

I’m not becoming a masochist am I?

Thanks to this, I was able to keep up my struggle to balance myself on the cord and slowly, the pain seemed to lessen. While I didn’t really have muscles of my own, whatever force seemed to allow me to possess forms through these cords seemed to grow stronger as I struggled to possess two forms at once.

Finally, after quite a bit of struggle, I had succeeded in keeping my consciousness attached to both the sword and the skeleton. I still could see through the sword, allowing me to maintain my vision, but I could also feel myself spread out through the skeleton. I had to continually remind myself that I was both inhabiting the sword and the skeleton, if I started to focus on one over the other, I could start to feel my consciousness beginning to slide in that direction.

Now came the hard part.

I hadn’t yet actually tried “moving” the skeleton. The lack of physical sensation through the skeleton meant that even if I fully inhabited it, I couldn't confirm if I was moving or not. The only way this could work is by “seeing” through the sword to look at the skeleton as I moved it.

Taking hold of my consciousness inside of the skeleton, I attempted to take hold and move its right arm. With no small degree of effort, I watched the limb lift up off the ground. It was as if my consciousness had been converted into a million hands grabbing at the bones of the arm and were physically lifting the arm up. It was definitely not how movement normally worked, and I imagined that part of the issue was due to the lack of muscles normally used to pull and push on the body.

Gradually, I pulled the rest of the skeleton up, first raising it up by its torso, then pulling its legs inwards to begin to stand up. Looking at myself through the sword, it was evident that I was not moving naturally. The entire skeleton seemed like it was being puppeted by invisible strings. Taking in the whole body for the first time I could see that patches of dried chunks of former flesh could still be found clinging here and there. The whole thing was quite ghoulish. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was the one inside of the skeleton I would probably be deeply horrified by how it looked.

It was honestly a miracle I didn’t fall apart immediately, the complex strain of maintaining a dual consciousness in both body and sword was hard enough, but I was also attempting to move the skeletal body with just pure willpower. I began to make my way slowly around the room, partially to practice controlling my body, but also to see what else is in the room.

The rest, of what I was assuming was a whole bunch of dead cultists, that were surrounding me didn’t seem to have anything on them. Whatever clothes they had been wearing that could have helped to identify them had long rotted away, leaving all but individual daggers embedded out of each of them. Looking closely, I saw that the blades embedded into the corpses around me were slightly different from the blade that I was possessing. The one’s embedded in the corpses around me were much shorter and didn’t seem to have the strange red gem that was placed in the pommel of my own blade.

Had I possessed the blade of the lead cultist maybe? It didn’t really help to answer any more of my questions as I still lacked the needed context to make sense of this world I found myself in.

Surprisingly, despite the apparent degradation of the center of the room, I found the chests and wardrobes surrounding me to be in shockingly good condition. Opening a few chests revealed that they were chock full of precious silvers and strange scrolls. I labored with my stiff skeleton fingers to unravel a scroll without damaging it, but found whatever language that filled the scroll was one I couldn't seem to read.

Clearly these cultists had made an effort to stockpile on valuables before they attempted whatever ritual had left them all significantly less alive. Although how they planned to enjoy said valuables after stabbing themselves still seemed a mystery. Had their deaths not been intended?

Lacking a way to read the scrolls, and not having an immediate use for the valuable silvers in the room, I finally decided to make my way out of the room.

The only apparent exit was a large wooden door that was located in one of the far corners of the room. At first I was worried that there would be some kind of weird locking mechanism that I would need to fiddle with, my fine motor controls were quite lacking. Fortunately, the door pushed open with the lightest of touches, the hinges squeaking quite furiously at my departure.

Staring into the following corridor, I was once again reminded that I was underground as the roots that had been peeking through the ceiling were now readily apparent on the walls of the hallway. They seemed to be glowing a dull brown that provided the area with a dim amount of light, a kind of natural bioluminescence. Whatever purposeful stonework the original room I found myself contained in seemed to break apart into what looked like a natural cave system.

I didn’t know what I would find in the rest of this strange area, but I knew that just waiting wasn't going to get me any of the answers I needed.

With no small amount of trepidation, I took a step forward and left the room that I had woken up in.