Jaundiced adj. 1: affected with or as if with a disease characterized by yellow pigmentation of the skin, 2: exhibiting or influenced by envy, distaste, or hostility
The first thing Yorick noticed was the mist, thick and low and wet in his dry mouth. It clung to his lungs strangely as it filled his chest. It was as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
He reached up with a heavy hand, reaching over the dirt ledge and grabbing an exposed root. He closed his fingers around it, joints protesting. The roots seemed to grasp back, but he must have imagined it. He pulled.
Yorick clambered out of the hole, his entire body cursing and groaning in protest. Somehow, he managed to pull himself out and stand.
He did not recognize this place. The mist was lighter above the ground, though the sky was a solid span of grey cloud. The twisting trees' spare leaves were a dull green, and the many rocks jutted out of the dark ground at harsh angles. The air barely moved, swirling just enough to create currents in the mist. The air was silent besides the occasional rustle of the leaves and a murmur so low he could not be sure he wasn't imagining it.
The hole Yorick had crawled out of had apparently been meant as a grave. The grave keeper would have thought he merited one done at least slightly better.
His shovel stood at the hole's head. He walked to it stiffly and pulled it from the ground. Its weight was the first familiar thing about this place.
This was not the family tomb; that he knew for sure. And he had died, hadn't he? A look at his hands told him that too was true. No one in life could achieve quite this level of greyish green.
There was nothing else for him here. Shouldering his spade, he wandered off in the direction of the whispers.
How long he followed the breathy murmurs he could not say, the sky barely lightening or darkening as he trudged through the mist. But his legs did not tire, so he simply continued walking.
He had nowhere else to go.
A light through the fog caught his attention and he lumbered towards it.
The lantern hung from a crooked pole thrust into the ground. The telltale scrape of a shovel rang through the chill air as he approached, punctuating the whispers.
Yorick could see the life rolling off the man like rain into an open grave. Something within him twinged, perhaps the heart which, like his lunges, had forgotten its purpose. He could feel the blood sitting dusty in his veins, though that may have been just as imagined as the hushed voices emanating from the ground.
"Hello there, stranger." Yorick spoke neutrally, but his voice rumbled low and menacing.
If the man was surprised by Yorick's state of undeath, he gave no sign. Instead he leaned on his own shovel, peering off at Yorick with appraising eyes.
"And hello to you, new shade." He tipped his wide-brimmed hat, which served more to further hide his eyes than to give any semblance of normality, "Don't see many of your kind in this corner of the Shadow Isles."
The Shadow Isles? Yorick had heard of the place. Every gravedigger had. Of course, like all the others, he had thought it little more than a bedtime story.
Rather than think too much on that, he looked down at the disturbed ground at the man's feet. This, at least, he recognized immediately, though the echoing hisses were new.
"And what are you doing here, human? I was under the impression the living stayed clear of this place."
"Maybe I like a bit of danger." The man's teeth glinted in the lantern light. "Nothing wrong with a little adventure, eh?"
Something whispered beneath the churned ground. Yorick leaned down to listen.
"Are you all right there, friend?" The man called, voice distant.
Yorick put a finger to his lips, gesturing for him to be quiet, though the whispers seemed to bypass his ears entirely to murmur at the back of his mind. Still, they became unquestionably louder as he leaned closer to the earth.
His companion was quiet, but only for a moment. "You know, shade, that's a nice shovel you have there. Do you mind if I take a look?"
Yorick nodded absently, listening intently as he tried to decipher the voices' words.
Something hard smashed into the back of Yorick's head, stunning him. A second knocked him off balance, slicing into his clammy skin and leaving a chunk of it flapping as he stumbled back.
He staggered around, arms raised, to face his attacker.
"Couldn't just leave it alone, could you shade?" The man snarled between strikes. Yorick's heavy shovel swung through the mist, sending it off in spiraling currents. "Well, there's room in that grave for two, even if neither of you will be in there long."
The whispers escalated, hissing around him. Yorick could hardly hear his attacker over them, charging the air around them.
The blows kept falling, pressing him back. They did not hurt, Yorick realized, though they tore through his skin and cracked him bones. So he reached out, and the haft of his shovel fell into his outstretched hand.
The whispers stopped, and a massive beast rose from the ground beneath him.
It may have been human, once, though its flesh and bones seemed proportioned just close enough to wonder, but at the same time completely inhuman. Its arms were too long by far, and any human jaw would have to be dislocated many times over to fit that many teeth. Elbow and spine bones jutted sharply, stretching the skin painful taught. Its eyes, though, burned with what could only be a human desire for vengeance.
The living man backed away, horrified, as the ghoul advanced on him. Backing him into a rocky outcropping where there was no hope of escape, it loomed over him with its emaciated body.
But it did not strike. Instead, it looked back at Yorick through the wispy mist, questioning with unvoiced whispers.
Yorick turned his shovel in his hand, considering. He had used it to bury so many in life, and it had remained unfulfilled.
He supposed he could just keep burying in death. He could think of no other way to fill his time.
He nodded.
Yorick buried the man in a grave not far from his ghoul's, the thing watching over him the whole time. It was a better grave than the cad deserved, but Yorick could not bear to drop the Mori family standard even in death. He shared more with his clients now than he had in life. Why shouldn't his work reflect that?