See, I suppose the thing about elementals is that they are bound to a passion. Piotr’s passionate hate of the hero-party is what brought him back to life as a zombie and it’s what brought him back to life as an elemental. Can I blame him? No. But those strong feelings that now carry the weights of our souls, they have an effect on us. They fill us with negativity, with spiritual bile and with black-water. Look. Look at the ash flying away, doesn’t it look so light? What happened to all the rage, to all the sadness that was here just a second ago? It’s gone, like a switch had been flipped. It’s just gone. Burnt. Removed.

A fireball explodes behind us, sending zombie limbs and metal helmets out in all directions.

  When we reach moments in our lives like that, we think “what else is there to do, but to hold on to those strong feelings?” Sure, they might be bad, sure they might make us feel bad. They might make the world a worse place just for us having had them. But at least holding on to them, to that negativity and poison, it gives us something to do. A reason to be. Now? Piotr has seen what the cost of that is, that purpose. I think when you finally end up seeing the rotting, disgusting sack of meat that you’ve yourself become, I think that then it helps you realize that maybe… maybe this has all just gotten out of hand. Hasn’t it? Just a little? Just a bit?

  I really think once you watch your own zombified body shuffle towards you, it really puts things into perspective all of a sudden. What this chain of events has made you become. No. What you’ve made yourself become. The truth is, it wasn’t the hero-party, it wasn’t the dungeon. Sure, they killed us, but their fault ended there. Everything we chose to do after that was on us. All the corruption and malignancy we allowed to fester and spread inside of us and inside of our home, that was our doing.

  Piotr’s fire begins to grow weaker and he begins to fade and shrink away, as his source of fuel has been removed. As if he had pulled the log out from beneath himself and I watch my own hands, as he becomes dimmer. They seem to grow just a little brighter now, my fire burning just a little more intensely and the black, charred ash that makes up my whole becoming just a little less visible. I have no body to burn, no grand resolution to absolve me from this life like he does. But I do gain some solace in the feeling that my friend has had one.

  A jangle of bells rings out and a whole zombie flies through my body from behind and barrels down the length of the bridge towards the skull, his rags on fire from my heat. A moment later, the flaming corpse gets up again, against his will, and marches back ahead towards the fray that we have literally turned our backs towards. Is it a metaphor? Dunno. But I want to stay here with my friend, until he -

  I turn my head and look, but Piotr is there no more. There is simply an empty gap where he stood, where the residual heat of his existence can still be felt for a brief moment and I know that for this life, for now at least, he is able to see his family once again. I feel jealous at being left behind, but that was always what would have happened. Now there is only one idiot left standing on the bridge and I turn around to look at the onslaught. See you tomorrow, Piotr.

  Zombies surge towards the hero-party, wave after wave, their bodies being blasted and torn and sliced into pieces before they even get close. The bridge is wide, but they still can only come from head on. It makes them easy to destroy for the wizard. Child’s play for the priestess. Even the monk seems a little bored as her fist bashes through a suit of possessed armor, leaving a hole in the center of the breastplate.

  I suppose that’s all this is for them. Boring. I suppose it is. After all, what are zombies to them? A few empty suits of armor? Nothing. Dust. Dust in the wind. The fact that every spirit in every one of those bodies is there because of them is either lost on them or they simply don’t know and I feel my body grow hotter, as I think about it. At their indifference to the consequences of their actions. I suppose they don’t have to care. Then again, maybe that is why I am here as well. Maybe I was indifferent to the consequences of my own actions once and now here I stand, an idiot alone on a bridge, watching everything around myself explode and just standing here. How long have I just been standing here, thinking? Talking? Is that why I was reborn again and again? To stand here and mope, lost in thought?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  I step forward, having come to some realization once again. One that always returns to me, only to be lost again like the scattered ashes of a love. I know I shouldn’t, but I want to. I know it’s selfish, but I want to be. Will you indulge me, just this once if I am? If I do something I shouldn’t? If I indulge in this childish fantasy of mine, if only to prove that I’m still here?

  A sliced off arm slides down, through between my legs, only to be pulled back forward by the string of the dead-light towards the fray, by the ethereal seamstress. The hero-party is pushing forward, the undead are losing ground fast. But the dead-light can’t be hampered here. There is no crystal to destroy, it can reign free for as long as it likes. Unstopped, it spreads its roots around the floor. The fires that I hold so dear, growing cold simply through the presence of the entity, that I myself had helped invoke. I watch as slowly all of the fires I see below are blown out one after the other as it becomes colder and colder. Is that what a hero would do?

  Is that what I would do? To let some other power take reign, to corrupt, for the sake of convenience? No. A suit of armor flies past me, tumbling into a thousand pieces and I extend out a hand, grabbing the long pole-axe just as it flies past me. That’s not who I am, I think? That’s not who I want to be at least.

  Another upper half of a zombie flies through my torso, sending a wave of ash out behind myself as my body is disrupted. It flows, meandering just a little bit out as I walk forward with the pole-axe in hand. It flows behind myself, the cape of ash moving like water. It keeps moving, I don’t let the stagnation take hold. I don’t wait for it to catch up to me. And as I make my way forward towards the hero-party, the cape of ash behind myself, shimmering with almost a strangely purple tone as the mixture of radiating firelight and haunting dead-light aura shine off of it, my burning eyes meet the hero’s and I remember why I do this.

I want a lot of things. I want to get out of here. I want to escape the dungeon. I want to be loved and to love. But…

  My hand grips the shaft of the ash tighter, the ash condensing around it. I want to earn it. I want to make it out of here through my own power, I want to show myself that I can. I want to show them that I can. I don’t just want to live once I escape, once I reach that place higher still. I want to live now. I want it to be worth living for now. Raising the halberd, I point it towards the man I hate and admire most in this world and hold the other behind myself. Fight me, hero. The horde of zombies clears out towards the sides, leaving an opening between us as the dead-light is happy to focus on other things.

  He twitches, it’s only a flash of a second and I raise my metal halberd just in time to block his strike. The impact sending a ripple through my body. I burn brighter. Pushing forward I take a step and swing his weapon to the side and slash with my own. Metal strikes metal and beautiful sparks, beautiful fire is sent flying off in all directions. Look! Look! I swing again and so does he and our weapons meet again in the middle, sending out a new shine into the world. New beauty. New fire. That sound, that sound of metal hitting metal. It’s so beautiful, do you hear it, friend? Do you hear it?

  My body burns brighter, the fire spreads to the zombies around myself, engulfing them. The ash receding just a little from my core which seems to be just a little more red than before, as we fight. Explosions and magic fly all around us down the bridge, dismembering bodies and trash-mobs. Flaying skin and breaking bones and tearing sinews, but we just swing again and meet once more in the middle. My fire grows brighter and more zombies around myself are engulfed. With each strike I am barely able to withhold the pressure, each strike sends a quiver down my core as the rush of energies from his still passive blows nearly blow away my body as a whole.

  This! More sparks shine out in my eyes. More zombies begin to burn. This! I push forward and swing again as we lock weapons and I stare into his own eyes, mine wide and fixated. Not blinking. This is what I love to do! He grits his teeth and I slide my weapon across and move in for the next swing. I love fighting! Not just fighting like this, but fighting as a metaphor. I love going forward! I step forward. I love pushing further! I push further and swing again and my body grows just a little brighter, burns just a little hotter.

  I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you Piotr, but this makes me happy. This makes me happier than that would have. This stupid act. This senseless fight I keep fighting. My cape swishes behind myself as I duck and swing towards him, his blade slides along mine and I watch his own cape swing out behind him with my eyes wide. So cool! Sparks fly again, their radiance coalescing into the brightest, most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen.

Ah, I’m so happy.