The world felt wrong.

Gufran stood in the ruins of what had once been a village. The wind carried the scent of ash, blood, and rot, whispering through empty streets, over shattered doors, through homes that would never again hold warmth.

Unbreathing.

Unblinking.

Still.

The cold should have bitten into his skin. He should have shivered, his breath rising in the crisp morning air.

But his chest did not rise.

His pulse did not beat.

The hunger, however, was alive.

It gnawed at him, deep and primal, spreading through his limbs like a sickness. A constant, insatiable void.

But it was not the same as the hunger he had seen in the others.

The other undead twitched, wandered, moaned-a senseless, restless hunger.

His hunger was calm.

It did not command him to lurch forward, to mindlessly rip and feast.

It whispered.

Urged.

Something within him knew what it wanted.

And that something was waiting.

His gaze drifted downward.

A body lay at his feet, blood pooling beneath it, seeping into the dirt. The warmth was fading, but not gone.

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His hands twitched.

The hunger pulsed.

Something inside him whispered.

Take it before it's wasted.

He crouched slowly, his fingers brushing over the corpse's chest. His hand hovered there, just above the heart, his nails stained red.

And then.

Memories.

Not his. Not fully.

But flickers. Echoes.

A name.

A home.

A past that had just been severed.

It was still inside.

The warmth. The life. The magic.

This was not just flesh.

It was power.

His fingers clenched.

The hunger twisted.

He dug in.

Tore through muscle, through ribs, until his hand wrapped around the still-warm heart.

The magic within it shivered-trying to leave, trying to fade, trying to return to the earth.

But he would not let it.

His grip tightened.

And he ate.

---

A wildfire exploded through his body.

His back arched, his limbs locked as something ancient and raw surged through him.

His mind fractured.

Flashes.

A hand in his own.

A voice, distant, laughing.

He shouted!

You have to live, Run, Run, Run!

He reached for it, desperate.

He tried to see her.

But her face was blurred.

The memory was not whole.

The world inside his mind shattered like glass.

And then he was back.

Kneeling over the corpse.

The taste of blood and magic thick on his tongue.

The warmth was gone.

The power was his.

And the hunger, though still present, had shifted.

It was no longer just hunger for food.

It was hunger for understanding.

For answers.

For vengeance.

Because someone had been taken from him.

Someone he had loved.

And he could not remember her.

Only that she was gone.

And he knew who had done it. The living.

A deep, hollow ache settled into his chest.

Not grief. Not rage.

Something worse.

Something colder.

A single thought rose in his mind.

The world is wrong.

The world needs to change.

---

He lifted his gaze, the last traces of memory slipping away like smoke.

And he was not alone.

The undead stood around him.

Dozens.

Some freshly turned, their flesh still soft and red. Others ancient and rotting, barely held together by decay.

But they were not wandering.

They were watching.

Still.

Waiting.

Zombies did not wait.

Zombies did not listen.

And yet.

He lifted his hand like a Monarch.

And they dropped to their knees.

His fingers twitched.

They twitched.

His thoughts flickered.

They moved.

Slow, uncoordinated. Not puppets, not completely, but tied to him.

Like shadows.

Like something unfinished.

This was not natural.

This was not human.

And neither was he.

---

The March Begins

Dawn clawed at the sky, pale and cold.

He stared at the sky.

His mind was still his own. His thoughts still clear.

But the world that had once belonged to him, the world of the living.

It did not feel like his world anymore.

And so, he would build a new one.

Not as a plague.

Not as a mindless swarm.

But as something different.

Something better.

His gaze turned toward the horizon.

The humans who had escaped would return.

They would bring their weapons. Their fire. Their priests, their soldiers.

They would come to kill him.

To burn him.

To erase him.

But they did not yet understand.

This was no longer their world.

Not anymore.

Gufran turned his back on the ruins, stepping forward, slow but certain.

And they followed.

A new order.

A kingdom for him.

And though he did not yet know its name.

He knew it had already begun.