Hiroku hit the ground with a thud, his body collapsing into a pool of mush. He lost consciousness instantaneously. Every organ failed at once, and his mind went completely blank.

Total blackness.

Was this what death was like? No, he wasn't dead. Not yet. He was somewhere...in-between?

There was a bright light ahead of him. The afterlife? What did it hold?

He walked forward, his body more like a ghost than a physical thing. And yet he still felt his body, collapsed on the ground, tying him to the earth, preventing him from moving forward.

His memories were there but fading quickly. What was his name? Who were his family? "Hir—" he said, trying to sound out his own name. It was gone, lost in this place between life and death.

This wasn't supposed to be how it worked. Death brought a new beginning? Instead he was...

In an instant, he felt himself pulled. The light ahead of him shrunk smaller and smaller while he himself moved away like a fish being drawn down a sewer drain, unable to resist.

His spirit was flung back across space and time, back to his mortal remains. He saw flashes of souls passing through the void, stars, entire worlds. It was only a passing glimpse in the void beyond.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes—his glowing yellow eyes pulsed, growing brighter and dimmer in regular intervals. There was no breath in his lungs nor beat to his heart. What had happened to him?

His body — how did it work? Lifting up his arms he pushed on the ground below and sat up. His face was covered in fresh blood. There were holes sticking out of his chest and ribs and back. Strangely, no blood poured out. Had it all drained away? How was he even moving?

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

There was a long tubular needle stuck out of his right shoulder. He pulled it free. Some sort of syringe? What had it contained?

Standing up, he tried to remember his name. Who he was? There was something metal in his pocket— it was sharp but didn't pain him. Pulling out his hand, he examined the trinket. He found he was attracted to the shine.

He tilted his head and read the inscription. Somehow, he still remembered how to read— he even remembered words. Just not anything about who he actually was.

"Jack," he said, sounding out the word engraved on the medal. The sound didn't come from his mouth like clear speech so much as a gurgle. Not having air in his lungs made speaking difficult. That would be his name now. He liked the sound of it — "Jack."

There were dozens of others just like him — men who should be dead but weren't. There had been a battle here. Fires raged in a city torn apart. The sidewalk was littered with bodies of men. They seemed to belong to different races, different continents perhaps. Their clothes were different but they all seemed to move in unison, driven by a common purpose.

They had all been "dead" men just like him. Somehow, they all walked, just like him.

But Jack felt in his gut, if he had a gut, that hadn't died. Not truly. He had simply been somewhere in-between. Why his body worked, he had no idea.

Not all of the corpses walked. Some lay dormat, truly dead, on the ground below. When Jack stared at the fallen, the unmoving corpses gave rise to something deep within him.

It wasn't vengeance nor thrill nor any noble sort of virtue. No, this was different — it was a hunger, a thirst, a craving stronger than any emotion he'd ever felt. He needed to quell this hunger.

His body needed food, yearned to feast upon raw flesh. He sensed that eating would allow him to grow stronger. Far stronger than he'd ever been.

Eat, a voice said in his head. Feed me.

Jack stumbled forward, limping as he walked. His arms outstretched, he fell to the ground and crawled. There was a body of a fallen sailor.

As he approached the corpse, the Crave too hold. It was time to feast.

[http://www.atticusandrews.com/wp-content/uploads/DALL·E-2023-01-23-21.29.10-ninja-zombie-digital-art.png]