Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Souls or anything related to it.
Author note: I freaking love Dark Souls, so I decided to make a little retelling of it from the Chosen Undead's perspective. Yeah I know, really original, but I am changing a few things, dialog and such, and a bit of humor into the grim world of Lordren to make it my own^^. Any way, hope you enjoy!
On a mountain surrounded with fog, lay a grand prison of fractured brick and broken stone and rusted iron. It was three stories high and it lies in pieces around its mountaintop. It is called the Northern Undead asylum, and in it lay those cursed with the dreaded dark sign.
Those who bared the dark sign were cursed to be trapped forever in a cycle of death and revival, being unable to ever end their pain untill desperation broke their minds and spirits, turning them into Hollows, creatures even lower than normal undead, completely mindless and driven only by their hunger for souls.
In fear of the threat the undead posed, they were rounded up and placed in prisons called Undead asylums, far away from any city or village they could harm should they turn Hollow, and left there to await the end of the world, the only time where their suffering would truly end.
But the ravages of time and the curse of the undead have taken their toll. The gods of this world have long since abandoned it, or are desperately clinging to what ever is left to be of any use. The heros who have ended the reign of the everlasting dragons, and brought about the age of fire, have all long since died, the age of dark being all that remains.
Many cites have fallen to the scroge of the undead, and as a result many of the asylums have long fallen to disrepair, with only the undead and hollowed prisoners and their demonic wardens still residing within the walls of the prisons.
In the Northern asylum, one such prisoner was laying in his cell, he has long since forgotten how long he has been there, Decades? Centuries?
Yet, it mattered not, for he was still not hollowed, he still retained his sanity, although only a few fragments of his life before the asylum remained along with his name, Drake, he had still not given in to despair.
Drake instead lies in his cell, clad in rusting armor, quietly sitting in a corner with nothing but a withered corpse as a cell mate, his arm placed over a raised knee, and his forehead resting on the arm. And his mind was dominated by one thought;
'I am so damned bored.'
Indeed, this thought that plagued his mind was also the very reason he found himself in the cell to begin with. From what Drake could remember he was a knight in some small no-name country. The army in that country could scarcely be could competent, with or without his contribution, and so joining that army wasn't considered a great honor of any kind.
But still he joined, the only reason he could remember about why being that he was bored to tears with what was his life before, and so he sought something to do, and figured joining an army and swinging a sword around, and occasionally hitting something, was better than sitting and doing nothing.
But as fortune, or lack thereof, would have it, the town were he was stationed was attacked by a group of bandits under the cover of night, and they killed fifty sleeping soldiers before a child woke up and saw a stranger walking about with blood on his leather cloths, after which the bandits fought the remaining soldiers, killed another ten with Drake being among them, and ran off when they saw the town had nothing of value to take.
Drake, always remembered for having bad luck, was the only one out of the 60 dead soldiers that was branded with the dark sign, which was quiet the shock for the funeral home when they tried to cremate him and he leapt out of the oven screaming bloody murder and constantly cursed at passers-by to 'Find a damned bucket!', but that has nothing to do with this story.
And so Drake was brought to the Northern undead asylum, thrown in a dirty cell, and then forgotten about.
Drake had no memories of friends or family, and so he could think of nothing but what little history he had to stave off the boredom. Drake had no intention of going hollow, he may be plain but he is no quitter, but sitting in a cell with nothing but the sounds of the occasional drip of water and large faint foot steps to distract him was starting to wear him down.
He looked at his left hand, seeing the odd red ring on his finger he had on him since before he was put in this cell, and fidgeted with it for a short while before shaking his head and groaning in frustration, "Gods," he said out loud and looking up, as per habit since he was stuck in the asylum, "Please let something happen soon, anything," he continued to beg, since it had become a daily ritual for him out of sheer desperation and boredom, "I don't care what, end of the world, the asylum being invaded by moronic bandits, this whole place bursting in flames for no reason, " he tightened his hands in prayer and closed his eyes, "Anything, just please let something happen in this damn place so I won't be this damned-"
WHAM!
"-bored?"
He opened his eyes and looked down to see that a corpse was laying in the middle of the cell, a new one, and that a key was strapped to its waist.
"The hell did you come from?" He looked at the body for a second before he heard shuffling above him. He looked up to the hole in his cell ceiling, which he cursed for hours on end when ever a storm came by, to see a figure going down on one knee to look back down at him.
Drake and the figure, an elite knight of the kingdom of Astora from the looks of his armor, looked at each other for barely a minute, and then the knight left.
If Drake's eyes weren't shriveled up at the moment he would have blinked in confusion, "What was that about?" He looked back down at the body with the key, and suddenly realized something, "Could that key be...?"
He stared dumbly at the key for a minute, before slowly getting up, his armor rattling as he moved, and walked up to the corpse and toke the key. He looked it over in his hands, and stared at his cell door, a rusty piece of iron that has been the one thing standing between him and freedom.
He walked to the door, and place the key in the lock, and held his breath, 'Here goes nothing...' And he turned it.
Click.
"Can it be?" The door creaked open, and his path to the hall way and out of the asylum was no longer obstructed, Drake had claimed his first victory. "YES!" He resisted the urge to jump in elation and closed his eyes and whispered a silent thanks to the gods for finally changing his luck for once, granted the way it happened was a bit odd, he was not expecting the corpse, but Drake knew not to question blessings.
He looked on at the hall, and grinned, "Time to get out of here." He toke his first step, and just when he was going to make his second...he stopped.
A voice in the back of his head told Drake that if he tried to leave the asylum every step he would take will be one filled with agony, that everywhere he will go he will face nothing but death and things infinitely more horrible, that for every step forward he take, he will be dragged back ten for every tiny mistake he would make.
Drake quickly shook off the thought, after all, anything beats getting bored out of your mind.
And so, he toke his second step, and kept going down the hall...
