Cold. Like the first freeze of the winter, fast and jarring. Something even colder was piercing through him, like an open window siphoning the heat from a room. The bitter chill shrouded his familiar warmth. Then, like a distant whisper, the heat was gone. The cold was gone. Everything was gone. His entire body was rendered entirely numb. He was nowhere. He was nothing.
The nothingness was interrupted by something unbeknownst; it’s very being cold, malicious, and grave. He felt it probing his ethereal surface, inspecting for a spot to attach like a leech looking for blood. Then all of a sudden, it abruptly latched onto him. The being felt the stinging pain of the cold once again, except this time much more intense. Such blistering cold that nearly overwhelmed him. Ripping away at him, like a beast tearing through a fresh kill. He felt the sharp tingle of this newfound pain slowly blanket his entire being. He felt joy from this darkness, a sick, twisted pleasure fueled by his pain.
As the chill injected into his spirit, he found himself coming to understand this darkness. It was starving. It wanted to devour him. And ultimately, he was utterly powerless to cease its unrelenting hunger. The being realized its life could have been over in an instant, but this… thing seemed to relish in his torment.
So for what felt like an eternity, he felt himself being eaten, slowly and painfully. He felt himself fading away. He searched for a solution, an answer to end his agony. But he was alone. He retaliated with what little strength he had remaining, struggling against the overwhelming darkness. The process had begun to halt only for a second before the blistering frost returned, maintaining the same slow, steady pace. He felt amusement from the darkness, feeling a sharp chill in his very being, like the sensation of being stabbed with a dagger. He once more searched for potential salvation, desperation overwhelming him almost as much as the darkness.
Only when he looked inside himself did he see it. A little light - so small, so faint - that he couldn’t see it past his radiance. Only after the darkness leached away at him could he see this light, like a single, lonely star in a darkening sky. With desperation, he pulled at this light, latching on to it like a lifeline. He felt a warmth permeate into him. At a steady pace, this newfound warmth soothed him to the core. However, there was something about this warmth that felt somewhat alien. He couldn’t exactly grasp the meaning, but it reminded him of the comfort of a child being held by its mother.
Protection. Security. Like a king surrounded by his royal guard.
Hope. Just a glimmer of it, but he felt his returning strength swelling within his spirit amongst that hope. And with that hope came determination.
With the strength born from his determination, he began to push against the darkness that smothered him. Using all of his mustered strength, he managed to shove back the darkness. Resonating within the darkness, he felt an aura of shock, as if the darkness had not predicted that he would manage to overcome it. Indignation followed afterward as if the darkness viewed him as insubordinate. Feeling how the darkness viewed him as a slave and a victim, anger boiled within him like an active volcano in the process of erupting. This trespassing darkness had no right to feel as if it deserved to claim him. His anger - like an erupting volcano - was hot and righteous as opposed to the void’s cold and unjust rage. His anger fused with his determination, like an enchantment bestowed onto a sword. Using his weaponized anger, he forcefully pushed against the darkness, praying within his head that his struggles would prove fruitful, to ultimately free him from his shackles of eternal darkness. Unfortunately for him, his final effort to fight back against the darkness completely exhausted him. He could no longer push back, but neither could the darkness trying to seize him for itself.
He suddenly realized why, as it had spread its form too thin as it coiled around the aura of his radiance, like a python constricting its prey.
Both parties were stuck. Neither strong enough to defeat the other nor weak enough to lose ground. A stalemate, which didn’t last long. He felt something. Not the airy, suspended feeling he was feeling before. He felt his weight, the warm air around him, his bones. But that’s all he felt. He couldn’t comprehend why, but he felt like merely a fragment, just one piece of a greater whole. He felt incomplete, like an unfinished painting. The most peculiar feeling was a faint, rhythmic beating emanating from a suspended area within the left part of his chest. His attention shifted as he heard muffled voices within the background. They felt familiar but distant, like an old dream brought back to the mind after a long time.
“This one didn’t work. It seems his soul is still bound to his body. Damn! Waste of a good heart stone!”
“Damn! Do you know how valuable they are now?! Losing even one could mean being sent off to the front lines!”
“I know, I know… so, what are we going to do with these skeletal remains? Should we have it put back where we found it?”
“That suits me just fine. I’ll call an undead servant to put it back in the ruins. We got all the usable bodies anyway.”
While they spoke, the skeleton’s vision darted around the room. It was a small wooden cabin, illuminated by a blazing fireplace. Bookshelves lined the wall across from the heavy wooden table he lay upon. Under him was a sturdy wooden table, its ash-colored wood giving off the same cold aura as the two robed figures. Runes were carved along the table in an oval formation, rendering the spot where his body was empty, except for a single large rune that felt like cold metal against his spine.
After a minute, the skeleton felt himself be draped in cloth and lifted from the ritual table. He remained motionless, continuing to put on the act of being nothing more than a long-dead corpse. The clacking of bones and metal clanging against stone was all he heard as the skeleton carried him away. The rattling chime of bones - presumably skeletal feet colliding with bare stone - soon replaced the background ambiance. He felt as his fleshless body was carefully laid on the ground, continuing to remain still as the cloth unwrapped around him, like a cast being removed from an arm.
He patiently waited for the clacking sound of skeletal feet to dissipate before attempting to stand. He found himself having a good amount of trouble lifting himself up with his weak, ancient bones, which creaked as he moved. He nearly toppled over till he righted himself against a wall. His feet and hands ached as they scrapped against cold, dark stone. His empty sockets wandered around him. A stone brick hallway met his vision. A dark, dense stone made up the bricks, ancient and covered in dust and long unused spider webs. The air was stagnant and heavy, like the weight of the rock above was bearing down on him. Sconces, more rust than metal, lay as debris dotting the floors, ancient burnt-out torches lay cold and unused.
With an effort, the lone skeleton took a tentative step forward. Then another. Slowly he walked deeper, his skeletal hands scraping stone. His legs moved at a slow, measured pace. As he moved on, he began to feel something. This place felt familiar to him. He felt something drawing him deeper. So forward, he walked, slowly, carefully.
The strange beating was all he heard as he scraped himself forward against the stone painfully. Curiosity forced him to look down. In his chest cavity floated a gem. It gave off an ancient feel with scars and scratches along its surface. The gems surface was covered with a strange green miasma that seemed to culminate from all directions onto it, small streams of this peculiar green energy going out to different parts of his body. In the gem, there were two colors. A deep black surrounded its edges, making its way over into the stone, but in the center was a soft blue. Its light reminded him of the strange thing that saved him. The beating seemed to come from a push back and forth from the two forces. Though the second color was slight, it seemed to be able to hold its ground.
His curiosity sated, he walked deeper once more. The corridor he stepped down was straight, with several hallways branching off into different directions. He continued down until he came to an ancient stone door. Carvings depicting something coming out of a stone circle standing upright appeared at the center. He pushed against the door to no avail. In a moment of insight, he pressed his hand against the strange monster. He felt something being drawn from him as a cold shot through his arms and into the door. He looked down at its origin, the strange crystal, and saw no apparent changes.
His focus was drawn back to the door as the sound of stone grating on stone made him look at the door. The door lifted into the doorway and disappeared. Peering inside, the skeleton saw an old room filled with bones, weapons, and armor. The room was large, like a place many would gather to worship. As he looked more carefully, he saw something else. A large stone circle. The same stone circle on the door. His sight quickly darted away from it. It made him feel sick looking at it. To distract his vision, he looked back to the corpse and their arms and armor. They had long since been rendered useless as they rotted, rusted, or turned to dust. The skeletons had a variety of conditions. Some had parts smashed to dust, some looked unharmed, and others had pieces cut off from them. He felt a sickening feeling in his empty stomach cavity. A strange dread spread through his bones. But something called to him. Upon further inspection, he realized one weapon in the room had not rusted away. He slowly walked forward, losing the assistance of the wall as he entered the chamber. His steps were slow, unsteady. Each step was making the horrible feeling worse. As he got closer, his bones shook uncontrollably. The beating in his ear sped up. He was inching forward, his skeletal foot landing in front of the sword. A layer of rust covered the surface of the blade, but unlike the rest, the sword still held its shape. Small patches of metal were devoid of rust, displaying intricate rune-works of undefinable origin and unknowable effect. A skeletal hand slowly reached down to the blade, pausing for only a second before grasping the ancient hilt, the weathered scaly skin rubbing against bone hands. The hilts plain color only hinting at the grand origins of times long gone. When his skeletal hand rested on the sword, he felt the beating slow, and the fear began to fade. The strange sensation in his empty body cavity was disappearing. It was replaced by a new feeling, like seeing an old friend from simpler times. With blade in hand, the skeleton slowly walked towards the entrance of the ruins, a small amount of confidence entering his stride.
