Pain fires through my bones, my joints, my skin. Beyond the agony is a strange sense of mass and weight from having a body. How can it be so thick and heavy? Was being human always like this? Was there always this excruciating torment of every fiber and molecule fighting not to collapse in on itself?

I take my first breath and pray to be dead again. 

The feathery bellows of my lungs croak as they expand with the fetid air of decay. It immediately comes back out as a ragged cough. My body doubles over and my forehead slams against something hard. Causing more pain. More gagging coughs. When the fit is under control, I reach out and feel a smooth satin in front of me covering solid wood with very slight padding in between. This doesn't make any sense. I was just standing on the hill next to the grave.

The horror of my situation dawns on me. I'm lying on my back inside of a coffin.

I'm going to kill that stupid angel.

My fists slam against the lid, and I scream. I keep hammering at my prison and yelling until my throat is raw and my knuckles ache. But I don't stop feverishly trying to get out. By the time the casket is opened, my fingernails have shredded the fabric and tatters are in my face and mouth.

"I told you, you weren't going to like having a body."

I want to tell her to fuck straight off, but I'm gulping chilled air and clambering onto the hard dirt. Rolling onto my back, millions of stars stare down at me like crystal eyes through the cold, clear sky. The ground is freezing beneath me. All the trees are skeletal and bare. The graveyard has a November look I never noticed before. Or maybe, I just never remembered things like seasons. I turn my head and my cheek rests on frost coated grass. A never ending plain extends beyond the hill where I lie. It's filled with more black trees, their branches twisted up like the legs of dead spider. Under them are tombstones. So many tombstones. So many dead.

"Look at you," the angel says in her voice that sounds like sand grating across stone. "Wild eyed and frantic. Not fun is it?"

"Bitch." It's little more than a wheeze, but I spoke. And I'm thankful for the improvement. I start to climb to my feet but get tangled up in my skirt.

Skirt?

Actually, it's more of a dress, black velvet with an arabesque pattern and sleeves made out of thin black lace. A red stone on a chain hangs between my breasts, the sight of which stalls my brain. They're modest maybe a B cup or smaller, if the bra I have on is padded. It would be easy to check, but it doesn't feel right to grope myself in front of the angel. I raise my small, pale hands. The nails are shellacked in a dark purple and the fingers are covered in white metal rings with talismans of skulls, snakes, a pentagrams appearing often in the mix.

"What the fuck? You put me in the body of some goth girl."

I pull myself up using the coffin for support. Standing is a lot more complicated than I remember, and the dirt gives way under my right foot forcing me to stumble back, dancing to keep upright and out of the open grave beside me. How did the angel dig me up without a shovel, I wonder?

I glance at the tombstone. It belongs to Sabina Birkic who died when she was nineteen and was a loving daughter.

"Is that a problem?" The angel doesn't seem to concerned.

"Yes. I was a man before." There's an unfamiliar certainty to this. Using a brain again is making things clearer. What I know has a solidity to it.

The angel says, "All things being equal, one bag of meat is as good as another. And this one is better than most. It isn't old and decrepit or too damaged from her death."

I'm about to object when she continues, "And before you ask, we aren't going to romp through the yard digging up bodies until we find one you like. Either take that one or go back to being a spirit and complete your time. Quietly."

"Well, I guess the important thing is that I'm alive."

"That's not exactly accurate. Reanimated would be a better word."

"You mean I'm a walking corpse?" Considering all the bizarre afterlife shit going on, I surprise myself how much this disturbs me.

"I wish. But you're just standing around making conversation. Wasn't the whole point of this was so you would leave?" She says tapping her foot impatiently.

Can't argue with that, but...somehow leaving this place seems strange. Why did I want to go? Right. Home. I reach out with my new mind, and the details of home are still not there, but I feel the fire and determination stronger than before. I hold onto that strength.

"Right." I planned it to sound resolute, but its undercut by how high and soft this voice is.

My legs lurch forward, the knees hardly bending. She called me reanimated and now that I'm moving I can't deny it. I walk with the grace of Frankenstein's monster after a night of heavy drinking. Stupid angel.

Dead or not, the body has senses. The smell of earth and dried leaves fills my nose. The listless wind caresses my face and pulls at my long, dark hair. I can hear my own labored breaths. But I soon realize, breathing isn't necessary. If I stop, there's no panic or distress. Except, for the distress of being a creature that doesn't need oxygen. At least the struggle of movement and all the new sensations is providing a distraction from the whole mixed-up gender thing. A time will come when I'll have to deal with that, but for now I'm moving forward toward my goal and that is all that matters.

I look back. The angel is watching me go. Why do I wish she was coming with me? I guess she's the closest thing to a friend I have or can remember.

How pathetic.

I reach the gate and this time, my touch don't slip off of the wrought-iron bars. My brittle, slender fingers grab hold of one. Its colder than the surrounding air, and patches of rust scrape my tender skin. It moves reluctantly with a tortured groan. I need to lean my weight against it, but manage to crack it wide enough to get through. 

Heat washes over me. Cloying, thick heat that's like a punch after the graveyard's winter. The mist rolling over the ground condenses on my dead flesh leaving it damp and clammy.

The weather isn't the only difference. Instead of bare trees, kudzu vines creep along the ground and what appears to be Spanish moss hangs off the houses up ahead. The ground is flat and covered in broken seashells. The crunch of them under my glossy leather shoes is the only noise. The sky is dark with far fewer stars, but a bloated, overripe moon hangs over the horizon.

At first, I took the houses for mansions with their stately columns and ornate carvings around their stone roofs, but they're smaller than normal houses. Not much bigger than a garden sheds, really. And packed in close together. 

It comes to me: they're not houses at all. They're tombs.

I'm in surrounded by them when white faces begin to appear from behind the pillars. Candle wax white with bright red eyes. 

I stop. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I start doing the math on how many steps I've taken and how long it will take me to get back to the graveyard.

One of the figures breaks from its hiding place and blocks the way back. It's male but not a man. Not exactly. Men don't normally have snouts and yellow wolf teeth. Or glowing crimson eyes for that matter. But I know it's male because its stark naked, and although its skin is a uniform alabaster like unblemished marble, a canine dick stands out--and up--bright pink.

Two more of the creatures step out and hem me in from the other direction. Their bare feet make no noise on the sharp shells. Pendulous milky-white breasts hang free on their chests and narrow slits at the groin are the only part of them that is a natural color.

The male licks its lips.

One of the others says through a short snout, "Oh, it's been so long since a strange came around."

Its friend says, "I wonder if it will provide as much sport as the last?"

DemonRose

Hey! Hey! A little note on the setting: the first graveyard is inspired by the old churchyards found in New England and the one with the tombs, I took from the cemeteries in New Orleans with their above ground burials. But in case you're beginning to sense a theme, Sabina will not be limited to graveyards. I have a much wider and stranger world planned.