An inexplicable wave of nausea overcame Aurelius. This time it was worse than all the other times that came before. It seemed like the disease consuming his body was only mounting, rapidly getting fatal. He had been bedridden since the age of 12, and at 18, he had a twice-daily routine of regurgitating anything that entered his stomach. He surreptitiously cursed the incompetence of his doctors, who were unable to pin down his mysterious disease. Aurelius felt nothing but petty disgust towards those who turned a blind eye to his and his family's suffering.
Their financial situation originally wasn't the best, and it only degenerated when he became a convalescent six years ago. Though he was aware that he was most likely a hypocrite, someone who, if perfectly healthy, would also opt not to use his money on suffering families he didn't even know.
"Auri... are you okay?" The girl next to him mumbled, still half-asleep. This was his younger sister, only two years his junior but as responsible as a full-grown adult. Aurelius reached out and grasped her hand.
"I'm okay, Amy." He tried to sound confident, but his voice started to quiver and trail off at the end.
Thankfully, it appeared as if she was dozing off, tired from an exasperating day at school. Aurelius wasn't confident he would last much longer; he was beginning to feel weaker by the day and felt certain he was near death's door. In a way, it was a comforting thing to him, the idea that his parents would no longer have to pay for his exorbitant medical bills. He could feel a tear escape the corner of his left eye. Then his right. Then the downpour started, something that was becoming a regular occurrence for him lately. He held inane spite for people who were allowed to live and have fun in ways that he would never experience. And this translated into a feeling of helplessness that forced him into despair.
He knew he wasn't a brave person, someone who could face the prospect of dying with a smile on his face. Nor was he a good person, someone who could inhibit their jealousy at the sight of average students living their day-to-day lives. He was nothing but an unfortunate person placed in unfortunate circumstances. In fact, he did wholeheartedly appreciate the few people in his life who stayed by his side, including his family.
With a creak, the door to his hospital unit slowly opened. The nurse that regularly took care of him gave a friendly smile and lifted a finger to her mouth, indicating that she noticed Amy sleeping.
"How are you today, Aurelius?" she asked. Aurelius put on a weary smile.
"Perfectly fine, as usual," he replied. Her smile waned.
"I hope you understand that you don't have to put on an act in front of me." She put a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that suggested she didn't want to get too close but still wanted to show she cared. "God is watching over you and will continue to do so always," she said.
Aurelius looked over and mustered a thumbs up, or at least something resembling the motion. When she first started taking care of him, he had thought of her as a religious nut. But over time, he realized that it was probably a bit wrong of him to judge people on their beliefs when he himself did not know why he didn't believe in God. Was it because he refused to believe that a benevolent deity would curse him with his current predicament? Or was it just an intellectual lack of curiosity that stopped him from looking further into religions?
"Thank you, Rebecca," Aurelius said, stopping himself from venturing too far into that train of thought. He hadn't truly focused on school since he first became plagued by this illness and did not wish to think too hard on things he didn't understand.
Suddenly, a stabbing pain crawled through his body, ending at his heart. He tried to let out a scream, but a loud ringing started to buzz in his ears, muting everything else in the world. He could see Rebecca making waving motions, but everything in his vision blurred into a vignette, with black spots creating a crude border around everything he could once see clearly. A burning sensation flickered throughout his heart, making him pray for the pain to subside. It felt like his chest was bursting apart like an inferno was attempting to escape from the confines of his small rib cage. And then, he could feel it. He was dying.
After just mere moments, everything ended. Blackness surrounded Aurelius, but he did not feel overwhelmed. An irrational sense of peace swam through his body, reminiscent of fish in a pond. Where was he? He looked down but did not see a torso. There was just nothing.
Then, light came. A bright, blinding light shone through the darkness and pierced Aurelius with wave after wave of warmth. From the direction of this light, a voice with a full, sonorous timbre could be heard along with an angelic, higher-pitched tune. The tune began to warp itself into intelligible words, ringing directly in Aurelius's mind.
"A blessing shall be given," the angelic voice chirped.
"Regression," the deeper voice boomed.
"Very well," said the angelic voice, almost singing instead of speaking. With a swish, a feeling of nausea, not unlike the illness that once afflicted him, overtook Aurelius's senses. He could feel himself being pulled down into a cavernous pit, his soul being dragged downwards as if it was his first time being affected by gravity. Something akin to a whooshing sound could be heard, almost like a superhero speedster was running loops around him.
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Plop. A cold sensation could be felt on top of Aurelius's head. He woke, looking around to make sure he was no longer in a weird state of purgatory. Plop. He looked up to see a stalactite, the source of the water dripping down on his head. It seemed like he was reborn in a cave. But why was he able to retain his memories of his past life? And what was this regression thing that the weird, possibly divine entities were talking about? Humans err, but do gods? Aurelius could not fathom why he was allowed to keep the memories of his past life.
He looked down and screamed, but nothing was heard. He couldn't see any flesh on his chest or legs while he was thoroughly searching his body, giving rise to a feeling of panic. He picked himself up, his bony body clacking against the hard cave floor. Was he reborn as a skeleton? How was it even humanly possible for him to function in this state? He possessed neither eyes nor a nervous system, so it was a mystery how he could see or feel.
Click-clack, click-clack. He could hear a sound that sounded ominously like how he did when he got up, except it wasn't originating from his body this time. A skeleton came into view, walking towards him and stopping a short distance away. Aurelius could see that this skeleton was different from him, boasting leather armor covering most of its torso.
"What are you doing just standing here?" the leather-bound skeleton said, or at least transmitted. Its voice surprised Aurelius, who noticed that its method of communication was something more like telepathy than anything truly audible. It had a shrill sound to its voice. Aurelius didn't know how to speak using this mysterious telepathic power, so he gestured with his limbs. Though he wasn't exactly sure what he was aiming to say in the first place, so it ended up appearing like the wild gesticulation of a madman.
"Ah," the skeleton groaned. "It seems you haven't yet learned how to speak." It smacked its face with the palm of its metacarpal bones. "Just... wait for the master to help you out. You at least know how to follow directions, right?" Aurelius nodded his cranium vigorously. He had decided to dub the shrill-voiced skeleton in front of him Edward.
Edward promptly pointed at a tunnel to its left, indicating that the so-called master was residing there. Aurelius bowed to his new acquaintance in hopes that it would understand this action, then started briskly walking through the designated tunnel.
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After what could've been minutes or hours, he began to smell a fragrant scent coming from the end of the tunnel. He quickened his pace into something resembling a sprint, with the rattling of his bones acting as a grating noise for his non-existent ears. Finally exiting the lengthy tunnel, he saw a gaudy purple bed that could fit maybe four or five of himself, even if he had his original body. Laying on top of this cushy bed was a woman clad in magenta and pink, the two colors intertwining in a mess of fabric.
She opened her eyes when Aurelius entered and gazed at him so intently that it seemed like she was peering into his soul. He shuddered. Is it possible that she knew he didn't belong in this world?
"So?" she asked. "What do you need?" She looked away, seemingly losing interest entirely. He heaved a sigh of relief. It appeared like she didn't suspect him of being anybody out of the norm. Tap, tap. He poked his jawbone to get her attention and pointed at his mouth. She rolled her eyes.
"You lower-order imbeciles will be the death of me," she groaned. She used one finger to beckon him forward, finding it was easier to imbue skeletons with the vocal telepathy skill using physical contact. Once Aurelius was close enough, she reached out and chanted a string of unintelligible incantations. Her hot-pink nail lightly tapped him, and he felt a surge of magical energy travel throughout his bony body. A burning sensation traveled up his throat, feeling like a mild version of acid reflux. Then, he spoke.
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"Kurr... yuu," he growled, a raspy edge tinting his voice. Though he was "speaking," he could tell that this was an inaudible sound that only he and the presumed sorceress next to him could hear.
"This is known as vocal telepathy," the sorceress proclaimed. "It can only be used with others of your own species, excepting your master." At this, she pointed at herself. "It will take some time to get used to, and note that it only functions when directing your 'voice' at those in close proximity to you."
A silence passed. Noticing that he was still there, she frowned and shooed Aurelius away with her hand, clearly already tired of him. He scurried away to the tunnel where he came from, curious as to the size of this new place. Though he was a skeleton in this new world and probably couldn't enjoy the many things that humans might be able to indulge in, he still was quite pleased that he could freely explore and wasn't fettered by his former life's illness.
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After thoroughly searching the tunnels, he realized that his new home was much smaller than he expected. Traversing through the most extensive tunnel led him to the sorceress, while the three smaller tunnels in the cave led him to a dead-end, a large gathering area of skeletons, and the exit to the cave, which was blocked off by a purple mist that shocked to the touch. The other skeletons amounted to a paltry eight, with only Edward wearing armor. They glanced at Aurelius while he walked by but didn't seem to pay him any mind. It seemed like new skeletons entering the cave was a fairly routine occurrence in this place.
While still getting used to his new vocal telepathy skill, he began feeling a bit drowsy. Do skeletons need to sleep? This was a novel thing that surprised him, even after all the insane events that preceded this. He noticed several skeletal bodies dropping limply on the ground, and he realized that skeletons like himself had regular sleeping cycles. He lay in a corner, and the darkness quickly overcame him.
He awoke to the sound of the rattling of bones. In particular, his bones. He looked through his eye sockets to see Edward shaking him awake.
"Time for an introduction," Edward said, its voice still awfully shrill in Aurelius's mind. "I saw you exploring the cave yesterday, but I can tell you don't have a grasp of everything yet."
"You... right...," Aurelius tried to reply coherently, but it ended up sounding muted and weak. Edward grimaced.
"Seems like I ended up with an untalented one this time. Were you born yesterday or what?"
"Amnesia...." Aurelius prayed that this excuse would work. He knew nothing of the intricacies of this world and did not know how to approach the fact that he lacked a great deal of knowledge. Edward seemed incredulous, but it ended up nodding its head anyway.
"You should know this already, but I guess it's time for me to give you a reminder," Edward turned its head and beckoned Aurelius to follow it. "Skeletons reproduce asexually, essentially splitting apart once they reach a certain age. Contrary to what the pesky elves believe, we aren't actually made using the bones of fallen humans." It waved its skeletal arms around. "But then begs the question, how did us skeletons originally come to be? Honestly, I could care less about these things, and I'll leave these questions to smarter minds like liches."
It slapped a skeleton dozing off on the top of the cranium. It then turned around to look back at Aurelius. "Does that help with your amnesia at all?"
"Yes... thank you...." Aurelius was completely enthralled with this new and interesting world. Was science still relevant in a magical world like this? Would he someday be able to use magic as well? Could he become a lich?
"Oh, but don't get the wrong idea," Edward said as if reading his thoughts. "Skeletons and liches are completely different species, and it's quite impossible for one to become the other. We might look similar, but liches do come from the skeletal remains of fallen creatures, retaining their memories and a subset of the skills they had when they were still living."
Edward then shifted the conversation to the terrain of the cave, showing him around and telling him what the purpose of each tunnel was for. The presumed dead-end that he saw beforehand was actually for the purpose of mining mana stones to help their master recuperate. Aurelius assumed the master in question was the sorceress, though she didn't look too ill the last time he saw her. During this time, he asked Edward whether it had a name, or at least, a name not secretly given to it by Aurelius himself. This just bewildered Edward, as if it was the oddest thing in the world that a name would be given to a skeleton. As a follow-up question, he asked it if the sorceress had a name, and the bemused skeleton said they referred to her as just 'master.'
"Oi, it's time for the master's weekly schooling," a skeleton with a gaunt bone structure said. It had a nasal sort of voice that sort of irked Aurelius. It reminded him of an old elementary school friend named Thomas who had a similar level of nasalness to his voice, so he decided to dub this new skeleton with the same name.
"Are we learning about goblins this time?" Edward asked while smacking Thomas upside the head. It seemed like it had a habit of doing that.
"Ye, we're learning about those nasty little shites this time," Thomas replied. At first, it appeared odd to Aurelius why Thomas had something of an accent while Edward didn't, but he realized that it made sense if he considered that these skeletons wandered in here the same way they assumed he did. The eight skeletons here probably came from different areas.
"Shut up and pay attention," the sorceress entered the gathering area and clapped her hands twice. "I'm only going to say this once, and this is for your own good." She started giving a thoroughly fascinating lecture about goblin species while simultaneously holding up a crude painting of a goblin with some sort of levitation magic. Goblins apparently belonged to a family of creatures known as goblinoids, with their larger cousins being known as hobgoblins.
"Goblins," she droned, "will always be physically stronger than skeletons. This is why the primary strategy for you weaklings is to gang up on a single goblin and beat them to death." She promptly finished her lecture there and went back to her room, as if she was being far too underpaid for her job and wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.
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After a long and strenuous day of self-imposed speech therapy, Aurelius plopped down into a lotus position and fell into a deep sleep.
He awoke to the feeling of someone shaking him awake. Did Edward want to give him another tour? He looked up and saw that it was indeed Edward, but it was shouting something in his ear. Invasion? Humans? He jumped up and saw Thomas's cranium being impaled at the end of a spear. Aurelius came to a realization. In a fantasy world like this, it was only natural for humans to be opposed to the existence of skeletons.
"Hahaha! What are these fuckers getting in our way for?" one of the humans shouted. He licked his lips. "There must be something nice if someone bothered to place all these skeletons here." Aurelius could see the cracked and no longer animate skull of Thomas. A rage was burning inside him, but Edward placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll distract them," Edward said. "Go check on the master, please." Aurelius nodded; he could tell that the skeletons cared for the sorceress.
In the chaos of the slaughter, he slipped past the humans and ran to the sorceress's chambers. Click-clack, click-clack. The rhythmic rattling of his bones pounded in his head as he sprinted. Finally, he reached the gaudy bed and the ornate, purple room.
The infernal screaming caused him to jump back. The sorceress was tied up, with cuts all over her body. Every time a new cut was formed, she struggled against her shackles and cried out in unholy pain. Aurelius could see a damp layer of tears obstructing her face. The calm sorceress was no more. Though new scars appeared, bursting a dam of blood each time, Aurelius did not see anyone with an obvious bladed weapon. A small man appeared in view as if right on cue, holding a staff twice his size.
"You will tell me where the main headquarters of the Black Crow is located," he proclaimed. "Either that, or you die." He chopped off the sorceress's left hand, and she begged him for mercy, haunting the room with a sound of wailing. Aurelius could only watch, stunned at this horrific event.
"Please, just kill me," she sputtered.
"Oh, don't worry," the small man smiled. "That'll come as well." He continued cutting with his invisible blade, slowly bringing the sorceress's suffering to a zenith. After several minutes, her body no longer had the strength to maintain itself, her intestines spilling out of her body and her face thoroughly scarred and deformed. Aurelius attempted to hide in a minute concave that jutted into the tunnel walls, shaking in fear. He had only one thought in his mind. He did not want to die. It was a normal instinct for any living creature to have, and it impelled him to seek cover. But even then, he already had a sense of the futility of such an act.
"Do we have a skeleton watching us?" the small man said in a drawn-out, singsongy voice. Aurelius felt a hidden force pull him towards the man. The man frowned. "A level 1 entity, always to be used as a stepping stone for the rest of their miserable existence. How unfortunate."
"Wait," Aurelius tried to speak using vocal telepathy, but he forgot that he wasn't able to communicate with other species. Dismayed, he hung his head down.
"Oh? Are you trying to speak to me?" the man put his fist to his chin as if in deep contemplation. "I could transfer her ownership of you to myself, allowing me to understand what you're trying to say, but I don't really feel like it." He grinned and shrugged. "Guess you're dying."
Aurelius attempted to propel himself away from the man, but it was like he was trapped in an invisible cage. With a whoosh, his head separated from his body, then all was black. Aurelius died for the second time.
"Return," an angelic voice twittered.
Aurelius gasped, coughing and inhaling gulps of air into his skeletal rib cage. He looked down at his hands. How was he still alive? He knew that the small man had killed him for sure, and he felt visceral pain at the time of death.
"What are you doing just sitting here?" a shrill voice could be heard from his left. It was a leather-bound skeleton. Aurelius looked up at him, still not fully aware of his surroundings. Didn't this happen before? Was this time travel? He suddenly recalled what the sonorous voice had said when he died the first time.
"Regression," it had thundered.
He pushed past Edward and ran into the largest tunnel he saw.
"Hey!" it protested. Once he reached the end, he saw the sorceress. Her eyes widened in surprise for only a moment before returning to her usual nonchalant attitude.
"So?" she asked. "What do you need?" Aurelius remembered something that the small man mentioned. This would prove whether or not he was really traveling through time or just having wild delusions.
"Black Crow," he said. Before he could get further, a purple mist swam into his vision and a searing, stinging pain traveled through whatever non-existent brain he had. He screamed. Then, blackness. Once again.
"Return."
"What are you doing just sitting here?" a skeleton asked.
"Damn it all," Aurelius muttered, still feeling remnants of the pain the sorceress inflicted on him.