64 years have passed since the day Callum died. Although he had been keeping up with his training as much as he could, the isolation of being trapped inside a regenerating cadaver was slowly getting to him.

Over the years, Callum’s body had been covered by vegetation. One in particular was a willow tree that had grown next to him. It was one saving grace that he was thankful for in the past six decades.

The tree had shielded him from the elements, most importantly, it stopped the crows from eating him yearly. However, even with all the protection it provided, nothing could beat the agonizing torment of being trapped inside his own corpse with nothing but imagination.

He had been watching the same shows, reading the same books, playing the same board games, and seeing the same scenery for the past six decades. Yet, he still kept his sanity with him.

The only thing that has been keeping him together is the hope that one day, he will rise from the dead and roam the world he finds himself in. However, the more time passed, the more his hope died bit by bit.

Callum’s mindscape even reflects this. Some of the colors around him were starting to fade, and his clones were beginning to dwindle as the weeks passed by. His usual jolly demeanor when he accomplishes something in his training is beginning to fade away, and no amount of entertainment could raise his spirits anymore.

Although his monochromatic sphere of perception has grown bigger, now reaching a mile radius centered around his corpse, having seen most of the animals around him has started to dull.

Yes, he had discovered other mystical beings in this world like treants and one-horned squirrels, but that was years ago. It’s like seeing snow for the first time, but after a while, it starts to become a part of your life that you take for granted.

Sometimes, something exciting would happen, like a predator stalking its prey like in one of those nature documentaries or the migration of grass-covered deer near his vicinity. There’s also that one time during his first five years as a corpse when the crows tried to take away his body after finding out his regenerative capabilities, but it looked like roots had started to bind him to the ground.

‘Good. You fuckers don’t deserve my hot bod!’

Yet, even with all these wonders and profanities spewed against his lifelong corvid enemies, he couldn’t find himself to enjoy it to the fullest. Even the mating season of the whole forest has become a yearly inconvenience, what with critters taking chunks of meat out of him to sustain themselves.

He could imagine himself walking the earth as he continued to watch, but it was only that—imagination. Speaking of, his training has started to stagnate. No amount of effort could bring him to the next level. He had done most of the goals he had set out for himself after all. Yet one was still out of reach, bringing himself back to life.

However, no amount of magical or imagination training could bring him back to the realm of the living. Callum had tried as much as he could, from shouting chants, to imagining his large pool of mana to resurrect him, yet nothing helped. And so, time marches on without any hope of reviving.

***

Multiple summers have been spent staring at the huge ocean of mana he’d created, and multiple winters have also been spent staring at his imagined fireplace until the call for spring comes again. Colors that were once there before have gone, and his mind has completely become unfeeling.

No amount of healing could help Callum. He knows this for a fact. Although his soul took benefits from his once-a-year regeneration, his photographic memory could not please him anymore.

Callum found out years ago that Plato’s idea of the soul is not far off from his predicament, and he also found out that his soul, like any living thing, has its needs. One of which is pleasure, something that has been missing in his life for the past 9 decades.

Though he tried recreating the real world, nothing beats the fact that the only thing he feels is the pain of decomposition. He could try to imagine sensations while in his mindscape, but it always felt lackluster, even with all the training he’d done. He even tried sleeping with a clone of himself to try and feel anything, yet nothing came out of that.

Without pleasure, he couldn’t feed his appetite, and when he couldn’t feed his appetite, his spirit started to waver. Which is why, his emotions have taken the brunt of it. A side effect is his deliberate use of the third person to refer to himself. At first, it was to entertain Callum, narrating his life inside the world he’d created. However, as the years passed by, his sense of self began to disappear.

It really was an insidious killer. He didn’t even notice his emotions had started to dull until it was too late. He thought his isolation from the real world was the culprit, that he was slowly losing his sanity because of his predicament, but it was only one small factor. If he could split himself in proportion to Plato’s idea of the soul, he would be ten percent spirit, twenty-five percent appetite, and sixty-five percent logic.

He deduced that his logic was winning out because it was trying to keep his sanity intact. Not only that, but Callum could say that he had been using the logical part of himself a lot to find a solution to his predicament.

He had been searching for a way to bring himself back to life, sometimes shouting at the top of his lungs as if it would’ve done something different. Calum even prayed for lightning to strike him every time his body regenerated, his idea coined from Dr. Frankenstein’s method of raising an abomination, in this case, himself. Yet every time, his prayers went unanswered. And with each passing year, his anger against the world grew.

***

This was his 98th year as a corpse, and he was determined to bring himself back to life even if it meant breaking his soul apart. Before, he had been subconsciously holding himself back, afraid of a much worse fate than what he had been going through for multiple decades. He was scared of breaking himself apart for a chance at life, yet now, he was tired of it.

His sanity was hanging by a thread. Logic dictates that this was the only way to gain a chance to live again. Who cares if he loses himself? He has been trapped inside his own body for almost a century. That was a full lifetime wasted as an unmoving carcass.

He had tried begging for any God to end his suffering for the past couple of years, and yet no one answered him. It was as if the world had truly turned its back on him. The only thing keeping him from fully breaking was his determination and will. And Callum decided that this was the year that he would be alive once again.

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Callum felt the telltale signs of regeneration began its process. The deep fire of his soul started to seep into both his mind and body, the pain a familiar embrace that didn't even register in Callum’s mind.

Then, he went to work.

Callum willed his enormous amount of mana to surge in his mindscape. The ocean of shining blue energy roiled, bubbling up until it exploded into power. For the first time in his corpse life, Callum lets himself loose.

His world shook, his soul working overtime from regenerating his corpse and keeping itself from breaking at the same time. Yet Callum pushed even further. He drove his determination to its limits, his will only set on one thing and one thing only, to live.

The tremendous amount of energy inside his mindscape began to turn into a storm. His world was bathed in blue light as mana saturated his whole being. And the pain it brought was immense.

Callum was literally tearing himself apart for a chance to live again. He doesn’t even know if what he’s doing will work, but he is set on reviving himself even if it means losing all of his memories. There were only two outcomes that would come from his actions, either he would be alive, or he’d truly be dead.

Callum didn’t care if his soul shattered itself, he had been in torment for most of his life now, and he’d be damned if he let himself endure another century of this bullshit.

Outside, a corpse regenerated itself once again. However, unlike the years before, it was exploding with power. Birds flew in a hurry and animals ran, their fight-or-flight instincts triggered by an immense dread that gripped the whole forest.

Those close to the corpse died from its presence alone, their body decomposing at remarkable speeds and producing black smoke. The vegetation around the carcass turned dry, and the tree that had protected it quickly rotted away.

After a few minutes, the body finished regenerating. Everything grew still, the devastated surroundings that the body found itself in were filled with dark smoke, slowly rising from the death the corpse had created.

Another minute passed with nothing happening, the black fog lazily moving through the air around the body. As if mocking Callum, his corpse began to rot away too, his efforts in vain as he failed to bring himself back to life once again. And that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Callum screamed, furious that his plan of reviving or dying didn’t work. He was only left with a few dead trees and animals, his body was still left with no heartbeat and it was quickly rotting away. Callum had tried and tried and tried to revive himself. He had tried and tried to use his mana to kickstart his heart. He had tried to call for any God to come to save him from his torment, yet nothing changed for the past nine decades.

Callum’s frustration reached new peaks, his mindscape cracking at the seams as he started to lose it. He could feel his soul cry at its predicament, he could feel himself wail at the unfairness of it all.

‘Why?! I’ve done everything I could think of! I’ve done everything right! Is this my punishment from the Gods?! Is this the punishment that the world has set out for me?! If so, then it’s not worth living for! If so, then I…’

Callum’s chromatic soul began to change as his mindscape started to crumble. What once was an idyllic world became a picture of death as Callum let his sanity evaporate.

‘Then I will destroy it all!’

As if the world recognized his will, everything clicked into place. The once-still clouds of black smoke surrounding his body exploded and commenced their march into the forest, its death spreading across the clearing and into the far reaches of the woodland.

Callum’s body began to change amid the chaos. What was once rotten healed in moments. His form turned pale until his skin had become white snow.

The miasma that has been growing since his change suddenly stopped. Then, as if called to its master, it quickly returned to his corpse.

There it found refuge, under the embrace of its undead king. Power surged through Callum while he still screamed inside his mind. As the last drop of miasma entered his body, the world grew quiet once more.

His mindscape crumbled into darkness, the blue sea of mana fell into the abyss, and his consciousness drifted in an endless sea of black…

Then, Callum opened his eyes

He stirred awake, lying on dead grass and staring at the sunset sky. Only the sound of wind could be heard in his vicinity, any living thing turned sustenance for his revival.

At first, he was still. It felt like he had awoken from a long nightmare of torment and pain. Yet the memories did not lie. Callum lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sudden stimuli. He had been dead for almost a century after all. Colors that have long faded are coming back with force in his eyes.

His vision adjusted and he saw his hand had become pallid. He could see dark veins running underneath his skin, yet his mind was occupied by something else.

With a sudden movement, Callum sat up straight. He examined his arms and legs; his clothes long gone from decomposition. He moved his appendages, shaking them to make sure he was in control of it. He touched them, felt them to see if what he was seeing was real.

“I’m alive.” Callum rasped, surprising himself at how deep his voice was.

He was in total disbelief in the briefest of moments, then suddenly, he stood up, took the deepest breath that he could muster, and screamed.

“I’M FUCKING ALIVE!”

Callum couldn’t help but cackle at his situation. Tears streamed down his face as he continued to celebrate his long-anticipated revival. He whooped, yelled, screamed profanities to the sky, and jumped in joy.

98 years. Nine decades and eight long years of torment and pain spent as a corpse. Any man would have been broken from the pain alone, yet Callum persevered. He was elated, overjoyed that he was finally alive. He didn’t even notice the barren wasteland that he had created while he laughed maniacally.

“I’ve been dead for 98 fucking years! Now look at me! If any God is watching me now, look at me! I’m fucking alive!”

His emotions that had long been lost came back with his revival. He could feel everything once again. His joy, sorrows, anger, and trepidation, everything is back and he embraced it.

Callum went on for almost an hour just laughing, crying, and screaming, uncaring that he was currently in his birthday suit. He couldn’t care less, he was alive. He could move, speak, and see. What more could he ask for?

He rolled around on the ground, enjoying the feeling of dry grass scraping against his skin. He took long deep breaths to enjoy that satisfying feeling of filling his lungs with oxygen. He could smell the pungent air, making him gag multiple times, yet it didn’t stop him from taking gulps of it until he was satisfied.

Callum truly enjoyed it, he enjoyed life like never before. After it had been taken away from him for a lifespan, Callum appreciated it more than ever. He even took some dead grass and put it in his mouth just to see if he could taste it. It tasted like shit, which made him dry heave, but it was worth it.

He was alive, and he was grateful for it.

The sky had started to darken when Callum finally calmed, night coming in with its usual chill. If it were anyone else, they would’ve been shivering from the cold. Yet for Callum, it was like a summer breeze.

He’d felt worse, and no amount of ice could ever make him cold anymore. Hence why he laid back down to where it all began.

It has been a long time since he’d taken a nap. Though he’d emulated the act of sleeping in his imaginary world, it still didn’t beat the real thing. And so, Callum closed his eyes, his arms placed at the back of his head to act as pillows.

Then he slept, and dreamt for the first time since the day he was last alive.