Title: In Pace Requiescat
Character(s): Grave Keeper, Nostro's undead
Summary: Desecration has its penalties. That's something a grave keeper should have understood.
Edit: A/N: In Pace Requiescat (in pah-kay reh-kwi-skaht) means "rest in peace," the extra syllable in in pace sounded creepier than in peace (at least to me), and I may not have used it right (want to take Latin, haven't), so I might change it... but maybe not.
In pace…
A crunch on the ground—the sharp echo of dead twigs snapping. Dusty white phalanges curled unsurely as a child uncertain of how to walk. Upwards, past the knobby knees and slender femurs, hunching shoulders jerk with every sluggish step. Moans erupt from almost-gone throats and torn strips of flesh flutter like ribbons—green, maroon, rotting…
Why couldn't you leave us alone?
A grimy pipe falls from slackened lips, the clatter softened by sacred earth. Pale eyes are widened, reflecting cadaverous hands all reaching for him leisurely, carefully. Not quite empty sockets regard their quarry with eerie glowing colors. He steps backwards, that prey, and his old back stiffens at the brush of skeleton fingers. Ghostlike, deceptively tender touches prod him questioningly, seeking a response.
In pace…
Ankles click at painful angles unfelt by their puppeteers. The dead flesh twists but clings ever faithfully to its old body. They shuffle closer, encircling their offender with deliberate slowness intrinsic of the undead. He isn't armed as he should be. He isn't courteous as he should be. He isn't quite as afraid as he should be. Another moan and the dead draw nearer. He has nowhere left to run.
Why must we suffer after life?
Materialism, avarice—some distant, forgotten part of their collapsing corpses wonders why they must continue to endure the sin of greed even after their lives are done and paid, and the hoarse velvet voice of a long dead knight reminds them that it shouldn't be so. So they advance, singularly focused on delivering retribution, and their objective twists his spine and cranes his neck in desperate search of a lifeline, a chance.
In pace…
There is none.
Why couldn't you leave us…?
Sharp, unforgiving fingers latch onto his back, tearing easily through his burlap shirt, and for the first time in years those bony digits meets the warm red fluid that is blood. His screams echo throughout the graveyard. No one listens. His body becomes a cataract of spurting crimson. No one cares. He screams until his throat is raw and then they take him, pulling him under and devouring him on the way down.
…IN PACE!
And there's nothing left but a skeleton, lying there, dusty white phalanges curling unsurely for the last time.