1.
Lightning lashed across a midnight sky that was bloated and heavy looking, weighed down by oil-black clouds that threatened to burst at any moment. There was a storm on the horizon, creeping ever closer, slowly closing in on Coast City and its surrounding suburbs.
It was almost too perfect a scene, the solitary figure - little more than a shadow given form - considered as it stalked through the small, almost forgotten cemetery on the outskirts of the city. How many horror stories had there been which had started just like this? A dark and stormy night, a lone figure threading its way between the tombstones with diabolical intent… it was indeed almost too perfect.
But then, why shouldn't it be? After all, that was exactly what this was; a horror story. The oldest story of them all, one of blood and vengeance; thick and red and hot to the taste.
Wind whipped between the graves, pushed ahead of the on-coming storm like a banshee, screaming death to all that heard its cries. It was his presence here that was drawing this storm, the dark specter was sure of it; his very presence was a corruption of nature, even in a world where the very essence of nature was corruption itself. With every step he took, the earth blackened and burned beneath his feet; he was an undead thing, and he brought living death with him wherever he went.
And he had a very specific destination in mind.
The gravestone was a simple thing, cheap and unremarkable; a paupers grave, hidden away in a forgotten corner. Overhead, lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the name engraved onto the headstone.
Not that the figure needed the light by which to read; even before he had become what he was now, his eyesight had been very, very sharp. And besides, he knew exactly who was buried here. The headstone read 'Jordan Harrolds', but that had been only one of the many names that its occupant had gone by.
"As unloved in death as you were in life, eh 'old friend'?" the figure said as he examined the grave. His voice was heavy and rasping, like someone speaking with a mouth full of dirt. "But I suppose that's to be expected… you died as you lived, weak and conflicted."
The figure knelt down before the grave, placing a hand on the ground; feeling the soil, caressing it as if it were a lover's flesh. In response to the touch there came a scratching noise, soft at first, but growing steadily louder - scritch, scritch, scriiithhh - from deep under the earth.
"But you weren't always weak, were you? What happened to the younger Jordan Harrolds, the man I first met all those years ago?" the figure asked; there was almost a sense of longing to his voice, of fond remembrance of things past. "You were hungry then, driven by anger against a world that you felt owed you so much, yet had given you so little."
As he spoke, the scratching grew louder and louder, taking on a different sound; now it was a banging – boom, boom, boooom - as of fists hammering to be free.
"So I give you the same gift that was given to me – the gift of living death," the figure said, standing up once more and spreading his arms wide. "I give you a second chance!" Thunder crashed around him, mixing with the rising sound of beating fists - boom, boom, boooom – to reach a mad crescendo. Suddenly, a hand smashed up through the earth before him, the ring it bore burning with an unearthly, blue-black fire.
"I give you back your hunger!"