Title: Seething Remembrance
Author: Runess Flect
Date Completed: October 19, 2007
Universe: Heroes Of Might And Magic (IV?)
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For the past few weeks, Joseph had been waking up shivering and covered in sweat, suffering from the aftereffects of his dreams. He was never able to recall his nightmares either, only had the faintest recollection of haunting cries and the heavy, suffocating scent of rotting flesh. When the hellish visions persisted, he came to the conclusion that he was either cursed or possessed by a demon and told his wife that he needed to visit a priest to cleanse himself. The nearest sanctuary was a few days away, and he would probably have to stay there for at least two weeks to be completely purged of evil spirits. He was worried that his wife would not get by without him, as they were relatively poor, but she assured him that she would fare just fine, that she was ask the neighbors for help, and that she would help keep their small patch of land alive while he was gone. He believed her and was relieved, but on the day of his departure, just as he was exiting the door, he became worried again and asked if she would truly be alright.
"Of course dear," was her reply, accompanied by a tender kiss on his rough, dirty cheek, and he embraced her in return.
"I'll be back soon," were his parting words before he started his pilgrimage.
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When he finally arrived at the sanctuary, he was haggard and worn from three straight days of traveling and from lack of rest, both of which resulted from his fear of returning late to his wife. The priests were kind and gentle, bathing him and presenting him with clean clothes and warm food before dealing with his problem. A cursory look over followed by a more thorough examination, the final conclusion was yes, he was being tormented by a supernatural force, but whether it was caused by demons, ghosts, or some other power was unknown. They tried blessing him with holy water and prayers, tried adorning him with amulets and charms to accompany his slumber, but all to no avail. After the third week, a powerful monk who was passing by was able to find the source of his nightmares—a necromancer's familiar that helped choose which town to destroy next by nestling within the mind of an arbitrary local resident. Joseph realized with horror what that meant and tried to return home immediately, but the monk advised that eradicating the demon may prevent the destruction of his town. With agonizing anxiety and deep longing for his wife, Joseph allowed himself to be exorcised by the monk, and by the end of the fourth week, Joseph woke without trembling or intense fear. The next day, the monk announced that the purification process was finished and gave Joseph a ring of protection as a parting gift and a final measure of safety. After thanking the priests and the monk profusely for aiding him without asking for any sort of compensation, Joseph rushed home, but despite his best efforts, it took a week this time to make the trip back, the rainy weather delaying his course.
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After five weeks of worry and heartache, Joseph finally cast his weary eyes on his town and his wife, and was soaked in relief when he found that both were just as he had left them, though his wife seemed a bit thinner and greyer since he had left. Hit with another wave of concern after seeing the extra creases line his wife's face, he asked if she was fine while he was gone.
"Of course dear, but I missed you," was her reply, accompanied by a smile and tired eyes, and he embraced her tightly in return, tenderly kissing her dirty, rough cheeks. As he breathed into her hair, he picked up the faint traces of an odd smell, similar to the one that haunted him in his dreams, but when he breathed in again, the smell was gone, so he brushed it off as a figment of his imagination.
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A week of peaceful and ordinary days followed, and then terror and Death struck the village. One by one, the villagers were consumed by a flesh-eating disease, and the stench of decomposing bodies permeated the town. Wretched, awful screams of the sufferers tore through the night, foreshadowing the fates of what was to come for those still healthy. Terrified, Joseph recognized the smell from his dreams, suddenly understood what it meant. Helpless, he watched as his friends and neighbors collapsed around him, losing their noses and flesh and sanity. Weeping, he held his wife as she decayed in his arms, and he screamed at God and at Death for leaving him as the sole survivor of his town.
With eyes parched and heart broken, Joseph buried his neighbors, one by one, into the soil of his now empty and silent town. He became immune to the smell, which seemed to disappear after the prolonged exposure. He ate less and less, eventually losing his strength and will to bury all of them, too many there were and too close to his heart, and descended slowly (or was it quickly, he couldn't tell) into the paths of hell, talking freely with his dead friends and dead wife, until he came to resemble them—grey skinned and gaunt faced, and the smell was part of him instead of sticking to him—except that he was still breathing. Then came the time when he paused too long between breaths and had forgotten how to breathe altogether, and while he tried to remember how to during the abnormally long stretch of time without breath, he felt a stinging bite in his finger, making him gasp and making him breathe again. With the intake of air, he also took in memories and feelings which were somehow forgotten along the way. He remembered pain, he remembered happiness, learned to eat again, learned to sleep again, and after he rediscovered life itself, he rediscovered death as well and came to accept that everyone he had known was dead. However, the rotted and atrophied bodies around him seemed to rebuild themselves into whole persons again, with new skin and muscle protecting previously exposed bones, as if mocking his realization, or maybe he just had never really accepted their deaths and was projecting his denial to the environment around him to such an extent that he was hallucinating. But then the sad, abandoned crops became turgid and strong again and the putrid smell that hung over the town like a death cloud faded as well, and he let himself hope that his wife and friends were returning to him. With crazed joy and crazed eyes, he looked at the people around him and tried talking with them, and though they didn't respond verbally, he swore he saw an arm or nose twitch in response, and with each passing day he grew more excited as more and more flesh regenerated.
However, the pink, soft skin turned grey and hard and soon the stench returned, though less debilitating than before. But even as the bodies decomposed once more, they still seemed to be alive, and Joseph still saw the eyes of his dead wife flicker when he spoke to her. Soon after, he saw skeletal beings, of whose bones were completely clean of skin and muscle, rise from the patches of dirt where he buried half the town, tattered clothes still clinging desperately to their forms as a pathetic reminder of who they once were. One by one, the skeletons rose and left the town, and soon after, the decaying zombies, the ones he neglected to bury, followed. When his wife suddenly got up to join the unholy procession, Joseph panicked and went after her when she refused to listen to his cries.
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After a number of hours, his wife and the others reached their destination and stopped, and there, Joseph met the source and cause of his town's death. It was a man, enshrined in a dark aura and encased in black armor instead of having flesh and blood. From upon a fiery black horse on a tall grassless hill, he spoke out, yet did not speak, to the restless multitude that had gathered there. The words were soundless, but reverberated within the body and mind, causing a sort of trance-like state for all those within the area. With every cursed word, with every tremble of his body, Joseph experienced a death within his body while also becoming aware of a new presence within his mind, an invisible connection between him and every member of the undead horde, and he slowly felt his consciousness meld into the whole. His mind had almost completely slipped away when something cut into his finger, jolting him into alertness, and though his body deteriorated, he was able to shield parts of his mind against the onslaught of the necromancer's poisonous speech. He was in agony, mentally and physically, for he kept the part of his mind that allowed him to feel pain, and so suffered from his mortified body, but a single, driving emotion held him steadfast and kept him from surrendering. It was not love, no, he had lost all vestiges of that, with it being thoroughly eradicated from him with the passing of the first words of the necromancer.
No, to remember the loss of his life, he directed all his feeling to an all consuming hate. Hatred focused his mind, bestowed him a purpose, and assigned him an identity. He would not forget who he was or what he lost, so long as that burning repugnance was present, and the constant pain in his now rancid flesh would make sure it was.
The necromancer finished his spell with a final chant and burst of silent words, and his undead awakened with a frenzied cry for their new master and god. The air broke with unholy screams and voiceless screeches, but Joseph remained silent, remembering.
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A/N: Very loosely based in the Heroes Universe. (I'm most familiar with IV, though I have played up to the middle of the Necromancer's arc in V). Sorry if there are grammatical errors and the like. I happened to write this up at like 3am. And the Ring of Protection probably doesn't inflict damage on a hero just before he's about to die :P
Hnn... If I ever get around to it, I might actually make a story, with this chapter introducing Death's encroachment upon Order lands and the Flambert chapter (in Drabbles of Strength and Sorcery) introducing the Order faction in general. Or I might make separate stories, one being Nature-centric, another Order, etc, and make a final piece tying in all the plots for a final showdown battle of sorts, kinda like the actual game. Or I might not do any of it. Reviews are great tools of bribery :