The man who could once have been titled Father Stensur stalked around the room. He moved from one side to the next; checking his notes sprawled across the desk on one side and returning to the body laid out on his dinner table on the other, whilst anxiously looking out the open window hoping the storm didn't strike to early.

"You know you could move the notes and the table closer the window, it would make this a lot less frustrating to wa-wat-wat...."

"Watch. Yes Surrich, I bet it would, but the pacing helps me think which you know."

The well rotten head of Surrich sat on the sill of the windows ledge, the last strands of dark hair sticking to the yellow peeling blisters and specks of scalp still remaining. His one surviving ear hanging on as the flesh went limp and lifeless, his lips peeling back to reveal his yellowing teeth and slowly shrivelling tongue.  Long empty eyes sockets that only held shadows still managing to make him fell watched somehow.

Unable to die but unable to heal, his second attempt at fixing mortality, his second failure. He hadn't been moved for some time, the puddle that gathered around him was a sickly brown colour flecked with yellow and the last drops of blood mixed with flesh that fell. 

They'd be so close as boys, almost brothers, but time rots all; even the most cherished of bonds if neglected long enough.

From a young age he'd be shunned as he broke rules, rules he didn't know existed, when he somehow brought his mother back from the dead. She had just passed and there wasn't a moment he hadn't needed her since.

They'd lived together in a place of healing for the nation, a place dedicated to the god Trik'ar, a place to work, study and administer her blessing, the blessing of knowledge that allowed the worshippers to survive from what should be fatal wounds, recover from diseases that should be terminal.

But bringing someone back from death was to far, how is bringing someone from the brink of death different from bringing someone back from death, how is it anything less than a miracle, he should have revered as a prodigy, yes his mother may have been shambling, screaming and rotting but she was his mother, alive again, begging with her own breath to be killed again.

He'd emerged from his quarters triumphant, expecting to be revered by all, instead he was beaten, exiled and his newly reborn mother burned at the stake as an abomination.

Even Surrich had remained silent as they cast him out. Forced him to find his own way in the world, a young boy with nothing but his mind to protect him, grieving his mother twice over.

So he travelled, far and wide seeking others who had done what he had done, he tracked fairy tales to their origins, pieced together crumbling pages from half burnt books found in the darkest corners of the darkest ruins and he found knowledge. How to put someone's soul back into the their body after death and keep them their. Alive as they were before but now able to heal from any wound, able to live for centuries without a wrinkle, never passing to whatever waited on the other side.

When he finally returned to his once home he had work to undertake but vengeance lusted after him and dominated his mind first, his former brethren cut down and denied their own healing and no intervention from Trik'ar to help them, no one to stop him from committing truly abhorrent acts to those who had wronged him.

Sturrich though, when the dust had settled, the fires burnt out, and the bodies no longer twitching, Sturrich was allowed to live.

In a sense.

Surrich had been the second attempt. He could talk and was somewhat sane, which was an improvement on his mother from all those years ago but he still rotted, would he still be able to speak once his tongue had fallen out and the last piece of skin turned to dust? Surely not.

Stensur had been so sure in his abilities, a foolish amount of self confidence given by his victory over the people who expelled him from his home. He wished he'd kept some alive now, more to experiment on. Instead he'd waited for months for someone to arrive. A wayward traveller seeking the aid from the renown healing monastery.

"You're going to fail, please don't make another like me, she's just a g-g-gi-gir...."

Always trailing off at the last word, like his mind was rotting as well, although it may have been some damage done when he was killed, Stensur had to admit that hitting him with a large stone was hardly the best way to keep him in good shape for the Galvanisation, keeping the body intact but failing the brain, not his best work.

"I'm not going to fail, you were a test, you failed. This one is going to work, she is going to come back like nothing happened"

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"What happens if you succeed? Is she going to stand up and thank you then be on her w-w-wa...."

"Way? She's strapped down and will remain that way. Once I've confirmed the process works, I'll toss you and her on a bonfire as you all did my mother and get to work on myself."

He'd spent along time alone, it did felt good to talk to someone again although all the questions and small put downs were wearing thin. His mind wandered for a moment, imagining pushing the head off the window ledge and allowing it to splat below.

No.

If he could still speak he'd just scream until Stensur came and collected him into some kind of bowl or bucket, it wasn't worth the annoyance.

He turned his back to the head, ignoring his response as he watched the hourglass lying on the shelf above his table trickle to nothing.

It was time.

The woman had been dead for 2 hours now, ample time to shift over to the next life. According to his many, many observations the passing over wasn't nearly as instantaneous as many religions believed.

He planned everything perfectly, timings, apparatus, test subject and now...

The lightning struck.

Impeccable timing.

The room flashed with bright blinding white light.

His vision was burnt but he could hear the body convulsing and slamming onto the table despite the bindings.

Surrich cursed, blinded even without eyes apparently, worth noting.

As his vision came back and the scarring from the light faded he put his hands on the table, nearest his surely perfect creation, staring down into lifeless eyes and the smoke drifted off the corpse.

It would take time to come back. To get the muscles reworking, the brain rethinking.

The smoke was dissipating. 

"Stensu..."

He looked down, a small fire at the subjects waist.

"I see it"

"Stensu..."

He patted his hands onto the growing flames, wincing as he burnt them in the process

"STENSU..."

"Stensur!, Be quiet Surri..."

It was Stensur's turn to trail off, as he turned to lecture the head he could see why he had been so persistent.

Two figures stood on the other side of the room.

One by the door, tall broad shouldered man with no hair, nothing in his eyes as he stared unblinking at Stensur. The other was pawing through his notes, a woman he discovered as she turned towards him. Smaller in height than her companion but just as bald and broad. It could be the light or his now damaged eyes but it seemed their skin were almost grey, like that of a corpse, a stark contrast to fully black simple clothing they wore.

The woman held out papers towards him though obviously not inviting him to take them.

"You have been a very busy man"

"Idle hands are not the tools of the gods"

An old idiom the teachers here had grilled into every child from birth.

She smiled, but there was no humour in her expression, as looked towards her companion

"A building full of corpses, a rotting head that talks and a resurrected woman on his dinner table and he still tries to play devout"

The smile was gone as she turned back and the male made no move to react to her words.

Wait

Resurrected.

He turned, the fire was in full force now, he'd been distracted by the intruders it was consuming her legs and body, but it didn't matter.

Her eyes were wide, she would scream but he'd cut out the tongue. Always to much screaming or talking, this time he'd thought ahead.

IT WORKED

He began again to pat down the flames, feebly though with his already burnt hands.

Not a moment later his arms were pinned to his waist and the soft voice of the female intruder spoke from his side as the male held him tightly.

"This is an abomination, it spits in the face of every facet of this world and the next. You are going to watch as the monstrous thing you made your life's' purpose burns up in front of you. Every note turned to ash. Every trace of you and your foul life cleansed by the fire."

He flailed his body, just as he'd done as a child as they dragged him from the Monastery, doing even less good now as it had done then.

The grey woman walked behind and he heard her pat Surrich's head.

"A poor imitation of immortality, the fire should burn this curse from you."

"Think nothing of me, as long as I get to watch him burn I will gladly spend an eternity as a sentient pile of a-a-as..."

Stensur was crying, not at Surrich's words they meant nothing.

His work was unfinished.

His purpose unfulfilled.

The fire was spreading to the roof and the floor. His room would be gone in minutes and his home not much longer after.  His final experiment still throwing her body around as it burnt around her. The fire seemed to roar when she attempted to scream, it seemed reluctant to spread out from her.

Final odd observations to make as the fire caught his captor who made no motion or sound as it coiled up his body before leaping to Stensur's own leg.

His captor didn't scream, his experiment couldn't scream but Stensur did scream, and his screams filled the room;

Echoing through halls that once had the voices of children running to lessons and healers gathering supplies.

Echoing through the surgeries were patients had once been given hope and a renewed life.

Echoing to the stone archways which had once loomed over a young boy who committed a crime he didn't understand as he left for a path that would ruin so many lives.

Echoing finally out into the wide grass strewn valley and dissipating to silence as the Abbey of Trik'ar burnt itself out.