Under a bloodstained sky

Jonathan tried to get up. The world seemed to be actively resisting his efforts. The rain, falling relentlessly, pushed him back to the ground. The damp earth made it difficult for him to hold on, to support himself.

But he made it.

Like one more of the dead, he managed to get up as they did.

Under his command.

The dead came in different types. There were those who were nothing but bones, white as the scythe of death. Those who had only been partially eaten by worms and, worse yet, time, were still recognizable.

There were also those who had died very recently and almost, almost, seemed to be alive.

The cemetery had been filling up with holes from which the dead rose, obeying his orders. There was one hole per dead person who had risen. But each grave didn't have a hole.

In other words, he had breathed new life into several dozen soldiers, but not all of them.

He wondered why.

And a quick answer came. What should have dawned on him from the start. His ability, powerful as it was, had limits.

Just as the acid giant had remained blind, he couldn't make a pile of dust rise up. Just as there were those who had died recently and showed little sign of decay, there were those at the opposite extreme. The dead who had disappeared leaving nothing but dust in the wind.

Jonathan brought a hand to the wound on his neck, again. He felt something wet sliding down between his fingers. He could feel it. But he thought it was the rain. He thought the bleeding had stopped, or at least slowed considerably. I shouldn't be regenerating so fast. Maybe it was his imagination. Or an upside to his new state, rather, new Class. Whatever it was, it was a miracle that he was still clinging to consciousness. That at least was a fact.

"Stop!"

Oh. They were already here.

"Captain, are those...? What the hell!"

"Stay calm. They must be copies or something. There's no way he can raise the dead."

"And one way or another, we have to stop him."

Jonathan turned around to face the city guard. Too many guards. He had no hope of getting out of this alive with only the help of a half"dead snake and himself, who was also half"dead.

Fortunately, they weren't alone anymore.

But he didn't want to kill innocent people who were just doing their job. Jonathan was no hero, but he didn't want to die a monster either.... However, he realized there was nothing he could do.

Literally.

Maybe he was healing, but he couldn't talk yet.

He tried. And all that came out of his throat were guttural sounds, like he was choking, or like he was trying to spit out something stuck in there, sounds like the ones that came from the dead who still had a throat as they crawled towards him.

"Those noises are inhuman."

One of the guards took a step forward, despite the obvious fear on his face, even through his helmet. He had a large mace in his hands.

How many blows with that could Jonathan withstand?

Better not to get hit even once, and then he wouldn't have to ask himself those questions. Jonathan smiled as if mocking himself. Easier said than done, of course.

Jonathan was not a monster. He never had been, but... They left him no choice. Nor Leonard. Nor the Count.

——

He watched the flames rise without emotion. So many corpses fed those flames that it almost seemed insulting to weep, for each and every one of them was unrecognizable, not a shadow of their former selves, not even a shadow.

Oh yes, yes a shadow, swaying, dancing, in the heart of the flames.

A shadow.

Maybe he was a shadow too. All he knew was that his wife and daughter were feeding those flames as well.

Jonathan felt detached from his body. It felt like his soul was burning in that hellfire.

The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils. Indistinct. Anonymous.

The flames were actually a relief. It hid thousands of unimaginable violations to the bodies of people who had been, without exception, family to someone. Had they ever really been family?

At that moment, he had felt Leonard's hand on his shoulder.

He had heard: captain.

Captain.

Is that what he was, just that? The captain?

——"

Nor the Count. Nor, far further back, countless formless formless factors that had been decided before he was born. He really had been left with no choice from the beginning of his life.

Fine then. I will take the reins of destiny into my own hands.

Jonathan extended an arm. Pointing.

Attack. Attack, dammit, destroy all my enemies!

——

Why didn't he kill me? It was all he could think about. As much as there were bigger questions, that was human. Jonathan had been badly wounded by the guy who had saved his life at the last moment, and the snake hadn't seemed to be in much better shape.

But still, that thing would have been able to swallow him whole in one bite. He'd had the perfect opportunity to finish it off.

However, he had let it pass him by.

Instead, the snake was crossing the city at breakneck speed, headed for who knows where.

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Leonard stood up, not without effort, leaning on the sword he stuck into the ground.

He had been close. Too close.

Why didn't he kill me?

And what had Jonathan been talking about while he was strangling him? It hadn't been a hallucination due to the loss of oxygen. Awakening from a dream? That he wouldn't betray him again?

Leonard didn't know how Jonathan had survived, but had he simply lost his mind or was there something else behind those words?

Why didn't he kill me?

——

The horde of the dead rushed at the guards.

The guards backed away, but not to run, they stood their ground. Though not without fear or some reluctance. The only advantages of his small army other than, of course, numbers.

The city guards were heavily armed and well armored.

While most of his soldiers had only their bare hands. Most of them didn't even have teeth, they were just bones. Yes... For this to go well, he had, whether he wanted to or not, to kill innocent people.

Just getting soldiers out of graveyards wouldn't get him very far.

He had a lot of doubts, but he could get lost in his thoughts when he got out of this one.

——

One of his soldiers was smashed with a large war hammer. The poor bastard's bones were scattered all over the graveyard. It had already become clear to him that he couldn't regenerate his soldiers, only revive them, if he had anything left to revive.

He tried anyway.

He tried to get the bones back in place, tried to get him back on his feet.

He felt as if his right hand had been stabbed, the hand where that engraving had appeared. And for a moment, for what he interpreted as a sign of effort, he allowed himself to believe it was working.

It wasn't. It stayed as it was and where it was; that is, all over the place.

Maybe things would change when he leveled up Wake. If he could.

The guards, as expected, were handling the army of the dead well. But they weren't the only thing they had to worry about.

The snake climbed a mausoleum and jumped.

Each and every one of them avoided being crushed to death, but they came close. And then it went on the attack. It wouldn't take long for them to incapacitate it. But it was something.

One of the dead kept fighting, even without legs. It sank its teeth into a guard's leg, from behind, a weak spot in any armor.

The guard raised his sword above his head, gritting his teeth.

But, in mid-swing, he froze. A comrade rescued him before it went any further, cutting off the dead man's head. Had he simply lost his nerve when confronted with something out of the ordinary, or had he frozen because he recognized him?

If so, I'm sorry. But what choice do I have? If I surrender, you will kill me.

Down went the first of the guards. Jonathan had been waiting for this. He approached the dying man, running, but not to revive him once he exhaled his last breath. All he needed, all he had wanted, was his weapon.

He tried to defend it, but all it took was a kick in the mouth to make him drop it.

And then Jonathan put him out of his misery.

If he had to kill, if he had to soil his hands with the blood of innocents, at least they shouldn't suffer too much in the process. But his comrades didn't see this as a mercy.

"You bastard!"

He was that and more. That and more, but...

Jonathan gritted his teeth. He turned around, swinging the sword. The blade slid cleanly into the visor into an eye, quite possibly reaching the brain, he didn't know, he just knew he heard the crunch, the scream of agony and the blood beginning to flow.

He pushed the sword deeper and the noises, except for the blood, soon ceased.

If only he could say that this was the first innocent person he had killed with his own hands. That line of thought made the flames of that day come alive again before his eyes. But no, that wasn't true, and maybe in a way it would have been comforting if it had somehow been his fault. If he could have done something to prevent it.

It had simply happened.

He withdrew the sword. The corpse fell along with his shining armor.

He felt weak. At the same time, waking up all the dead in the graveyard had put him on a high. Pain was but a shadow behind that rush.

It was one of the reasons he was still standing, no doubt.

But by no means the most important. Because now he was sure he was healing, even if not too quickly. Apparently someone who had already died once didn't die so easily.

Good. Good.

He joined the fight alongside his undead soldiers.

He soon lost the serpent. Too wounded, cut into too many pieces. It wouldn't be possible to bring it back. It didn't matter. His victory was inevitable.

Every enemy that fell would join his forces.

Two had already done so. They rose up behind him. Renewed life, renewed purpose. They had tried to evade reality. Explain his ability as making copies, or something like that.

Now they had no choice but to accept that he could raise the dead.

"Gods!"

"What a monster. He has to die."

"Yes. For everyone's sake, he has to die here."

Jonathan took another step forward.

His two new soldiers were ahead of him, running towards their comrades. He was completely unable to recognize them, it seemed. He had nothing but Jonathan's orders, his will.

This was the first time he had seen the effect of his power on recently deceased human beings. In other words, what he had planned to do with Leonard. This confirmed it wouldn't have worked anyway.

Everything ended fast. Reinforcements might arrive soon, but at least this was over. From the graveyard he had few soldiers left, even after reviving those he could again.

It didn't matter.

There was only one guard left alive. The rest of his comrades loomed around him. Jonathan's sword grazed his neck. Well, he had stolen it, but from now on it would be his until he found something better. He would love to have been able to get his sword back. It had all happened too fast, in the confusion he hadn't even thought about it.

"Please. I don't want to die."

Of course not.

Nobody wanted to die.

Jonathan lowered his sword. He had regained the ability to speak in the midst of battle. Only they hadn't listened to him. As expected.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I never wanted this. Run."

The guard stood up on shaky legs. He turned and ran. He didn't try to catch him by surprise in a last suicide attack. He chose his life, like any sane human being. But the world was mad. It had been a simple matter of luck that he had been the last one left. Letting this man go wouldn’t change anything. He was just one survivor. They would keep coming for him anyway.

Jonathan took a deep breath. His chest was heaving, and not just from exertion.

The guard disappeared from his sight. How many people with wives and children had he killed? Jonathan said it as if that alone gave value to their lives, but it was just that thinking about those things exposed his hypocrisy more clearly. So many people would suffer as he had on his path to revenge. And this was only the beginning.

I am not a human being, he told himself. I am a ghost.

Jonathan put a hand to his neck, massaging where he had been stabbed. There wasn't even a scar left.

"Let's go," he ordered his army.

And they marched on.

——

Jonathan staggered into the tunnel, his boots sloshing in the water. He struggled to stand, so he leaned against the wall with one arm. Of course, at all times he was being followed by those creatures, as closely as his shadow.

After the battle was over and the adrenaline had left him, it had been hard to escape.

But he had made it. For the moment.

He heard nothing dangerous, footsteps nearby, voices rising with direct orders referring to him. He had to regain his strength fast and....

Leonard. He wanted to kill him, whether he brought him back to life afterwards or not. Nothing had changed. He was aware that if he let him escape the city it was quite possible he would never see him again.

But Jonathan had to have priorities. This wasn't a selfish mission, for his own sake.

He was fighting for his wife and daughter, so he had to focus. He had an army. The next step had to be to expand it, but it was so natural it wasn't even worth mentioning, not a goal, but something that would happen along the road anyway.

Splash. Splash.

Not from his men. They had stopped when he did.

A frog leaping in the water. He pounced on it, catching it. He needed to heal. Eating was a good way to speed up the process, and he couldn't just walk into a restaurant and sit at the table like everyone else. Not in this town.

This is almost real food. I shouldn't hesitate. I had to really start from scratch. My current situation is not zero.

He snapped the frog's neck. If he had to eat that thing raw, at least it shouldn't be alive.

He sunk his teeth into it.

Thinking about his next move.

Thinking about this city, he should take this city, yes, killing anyone who got in his way and bringing them back. He couldn't take down someone like the Count without getting his hands dirty. This city would be a good starting point. As a base. To establish his power. And from then on he would keep growing, he could feel the toad's flesh between his teeth, he could feel the warm blood, crunch, crunch, crunch, was that the toad or his own teeth, he would do it, he would do it, he would succeed, he would succeed, ah the toad was disgusting, he had eaten worse, he had even had to eat from the garbage, but for some reason it made him want to vomit, its taste, its texture, it made him want to vomit....

But anything was better than what had briefly crossed his mind.

All the Classes had an affinity for something. The water on the island, whether it had transformed him or not, wasn't the affinity of the Undead. He had checked, drinking some as soon as he had time. It hadn't helped.

So...

What about the human flesh of his own resurrected soldiers?

Anything was better than that.

Under a bloodstained sky: FIN