Well this was unexpected.

So there I was, creeping up on this thing, then the next thing I know I’m falling apart at the seams.

And I was right next to it as well.

I guess you could say I just went to pieces over it.

Now I am here, unable to keep myself up, laying in a scattered pile in front of what could very well have been my ticket to power.

Once again compulsion, you’ve proven yourself unreliable and useless.

Feeling the thing look over me (pretty obvious considering it’s a mass of pinkish brown covering my snitch sense- no compulsion until someone else says it I’m not going to say the right word), I switch my eye’s position to get a better look.

Half expecting a foot to crush my skull a little more than it already is, I continue staring. And to my surprise the creature freaks out. It jumps up, scattering a bunch of items, including the bottle of glowing blue liquid.

That’s spilled. And is dribbling towards me.

Well, if this stuff is zombicide then I’m well and truly boned.

And since I can’t assemble myself I can’t do anything but watch as it dribbles out of the bottle and the puddle expands towards me. Nothing to do now except wait for my impending un-death.

It’s almost here now.

The suspense is killing me.

Oh. it’s here! It’s spilling against me! Ooooowwwwww!

…

Wait, this doesn’t hurt. Strange. You woulda’ thought it’d be ripping my energy apart.

But instead I feel my strength coming back. I can clench in my bones! Praise the devil!

Everything is regrouping much faster than normal, and if I’m not mistaken, every crack and indent is filled with the blue light from the liquid. And closing together.

Sour. It’s like I’ve been rejuvenated and then some. But as repaired as I am, I’m still incomplete.

No new bones that I can see, just whole bones from what used to be a bunch of splinters and shards. I think some of the burns on my ribcage have been touched up too.

Now there’s a new development. I feel like I could keep going forever and not have to worry about disintegrating by my own overexertion. And I feel a little stronger. My crawling abilities shall be legendary!

Speaking of crawling, that thing that dropped all the stuff around is on its knees against the tunnel wall. Pathetic really. Reminds me of a great little undead I know of.

So I start crawling over to this thing to thank it for the pick me up, but then I remember a crucial flaw in my plan.

I can’t speak.

No jaw, no tongue, no lips and no vocal cords. It’s a little known fact that these are essential for one to make sounds.

While pondering this my three fingered hand lands on a piece of something fleshy and triangular. I turn it over, observing the curvature and the blunt point at the tip. Some kind of ear.

Well an ear is no use to me, I throw it up to get rid of it, only to have it land on my skull.

I try to brush it off but it refuses to budge. I recognise the faint blue glow. Great, I have an ear of an as yet unidentified creature magically glued to my head. Now what am I supposed to do? I look redicu-

“p-pl-please, don’t hurt me, M-Mr skeleton”

…

Well that’s definitely never happened before. I could swear I heard something just now. And it seems like whatever said it is still whimpering like a lost little puppy. I hate puppies. With their life and their having it.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Anyway, enough about hating life. I look around to see if there could be any source of the voice I just heard, my eye settling on the shivering creature in front of me.

***

The girl quivers behind her oversized cloak, terrified of the pile of bones that literally just jumped up and reassembled itself. This must be a really strong undead. Lich fledgling at the very least.

She backs against the nearest wall, watching it creep closer. Her fear gripping her, pulling her stomach down with every inch it got closer.

The skeletal being found a bat ear, dismissing it and tossing it away. Immediately having it fall back upon its head and magical energy fusing it to its bony skull.

The girl would have been amused and had to stifle a giggle if she wasn’t frozen to the spot.

It kept walking closer, she managed to squeeze some words out past the wall of fear blocking her voice.

“p-pl-please, don’t hurt me, M-Mr skeleton”

The skeleton stopped for a moment, looking confused and pondering this new information. It got of this fairly quick however, and kept on coming.

***

I get close enough to almost touch it, then realise a conundrum. What now?

I can’t kill it, I don’t have anything to do that with. And it has more life than me, but it accidentally gave that strange blue stuff that helped me out.

What do I do? Compulsion is nagging me to finish it, but I resolved to ignore this long before now. And it is at this moment I notice its eyes leaking.

Is it dying? Is this normal for fleshy creatures to leak? And this much too?

Deciding to not kill this thing just to annoy compulsion, I tap it. It turns slowly to face me, eyes contracted in fear, its shoulders bouncing as it takes sharp breathes in through its nose. Is that what you’d call sniffing?

Haha, fleshy things are gross.

Curious about the leak it’s experiencing, I point at the liquid running down its face, then turn my palm upwards. I’m fairly sure that’s the universal sign for; hey, what’s up with that?

“h-huh?”

It looks shocked. Or maybe confused. It could be hungry, I heard that was a thing.

“You w-want to know w-what’s wrong?”

Not quite what I was wanting but close enough. I nod slowly.

Seeming to calm down a little, this creature draws its head out of the big brown mass that it has covering it. And begins to tell me everything.

From the beginning.

Of her life.

When she was born.

Great, this may take a while.

***

Fear still gripping her gut, she stared at the half formed skeleton. Amazed that it hadn’t attacked, confused that it had asked her (although very crudely) what was troubling her, and a little grateful that she could let out her feelings and pain to something.

So she began her story right from her childhood.

“My sister told me that I was born a week too early, and was amazed that I was still alive the next morning. It was a small place to be born into, but the air was clean on the land I lived on.”

Coming out of her shell ever so slightly, she continued to talk, telling a skeleton her entire life story.

“My parents died before I could remember them, so it has just been me and my sister trying to farm on a little stretch of land outside of a big town. I was always too small and weak to help, but big sis has always been really strong and got picked on, boys saying she used to be a horse”.

On and on she continued explaining how her sister was always the best and she was just too weak to do anything but stand by and admire her.

“Ever since she turned sixteen she’s been avoiding trips into town, saying that I need taking care of and that’s more important. So I decided that I needed to learn how to take care of myself. I started taking on little jobs around our crops. Spreading manure and water, making bowls of stew for big sis while she worked”

And eventually she got round to the present. She explained how the chosen saint was looking for helpers to collect and carry the usable parts of monsters found in the dungeons. The saint accepted her immediately, saying she needed to be able to keep up.

But, she had struggled from the very beginning, barely working fast enough to make her effort worth the wait they had to endure every time they stopped. Which was frequent considering her weak build.

“But then they heard you running down and ran, yelling for me to pick up my things and get going.”

“They… they were gone before I even knew what had happened”

***

Okay, not going to lie, I stopped listening about halfway through.

Not on purpose! I’m not rude. It’s just that my newly acquired ear is just some newly acquired dandruff right now.

While she was explaining how her sister was a horse, it started to melt. Right over my empty eye socket too.

Then it dissolved and turned to dust. So I just kind of improvised and tried to read the things lips.

Well, I say thing, I think it’s a human, and I think the human is a she.

But enough with the useless information, from the broken pieces of conversation I gathered that she laced stew with manure. And something about a saint? Probably unimportant to someone like me.

She looks up from her lengthy speech and nods her head and says something to accompany it.

“An… you”

What did she say? We may never know, but I am choosing to take it as a compliment.

I turn away to way up my options.

On one hand she’s really weak, but on the other… well… what do you say if you don’t have another hand for it to be on?

Anyway, the other fact is she’s still that bit stronger than me. And as such could help me survive until I get enough bones to be a complete skeleton. And I’m not forgetting the fact I could attach an organic piece onto me. So maybe I could get a meat shield too?

Well, no use waiting for the dead to rise. Better see if this human wants to be my wall of meat and flesh.

I use my universal language of partially formed hands and converse my intentions. I point to her, then to myself, then up. This translates roughly to;

We should group up and get out of here

So that’s that and we’ll probably get out in a few months.

I start to stand up, forgetting the fatal flaw in that plan. I don’t have any feet

…

…

FEET!!!