Rigor Mortis

Chapter One: Stillborn

When I was a mere boy, I learned that I was different than others. How exactly, I could not tell you, though it was showed to me again and again through the actions of those who lived with me in my family's home in Vassurbunde. The slight recoil from my mother when I touched her hand, the faintly nervous glances from the servants and tutors, and always the air from my father, as though God had slighted him in some way. Without knowing it, I became acutely aware of the movements and gestures from those around me. The slightest gesture would offend my delicate nerves and I was wont to retreat quickly from any situation that might prove emotionally hostile. Needless to say, this provoked even more the unfathomable sentiments from the others. It was a horrible but unspoken cycle.

What my family's name is, or rather was, I shall not say due to some lingering ties I still have to their memory and I think it would be the saintly thing to not mention my heritage. Be assured that we were wealthy beyond measure and we suffered from no dearth of any creature comfort. I had my own rooms, horses, wardrobe and entourage of servants. I was dressed in the best of garments and ate the best our peons offered to my father. Though I had plenty of toys, distractions and other amusements I could usually be found poring over the many books my father had in his library. I was content to spend a gloriously sunny day tucked in a window seat reading an immesurably ancient tome. Soon, I became erudite on many scholarly matters and thus became insufferable to my instructors. It seemed education had settled on me like dust rather than through any actual lessons. Eventually I was left completely to my own devices. What little was expected of me didn't disturb me in the slightest.

Still, despite all the strangeness surrounding me, I was a happy little boy. I reveled in the prose of fantastical Lord Elward and the witty language of the Gypsy philosopher Matando. I wrote my stories and crude cycles in an attempt to ape my favorite writers. Above all, I delved into the writings of the Masters, the ancient vampires whose works and deeds and customs were so curious and mystical and romantic to us whose flesh was determined to return to the soil. I became quite the scholar on the subject, though I had never seen one of the beings of which I dreamed fantastically. My parents were concerned, of course, that their only son was seemingly obsessed with such a macabre subject, but, as with all things, they let it be. And so I dreamt of the ancient lineage of Cerafor, Drakoni and Audron. At night, I walked with them in twilit aeries in ancient and unknown mountains; I visited the magnificent Pillars, which were said to protect our land from evil ones.

My days were spent peacefully, though not without its awkward or nervous moments. Underlying it all was that subcurrent of anxiety that threatened to consume me if I became any more aware of it. Visitors to the house were seldom and brief when they did come calling around. Even then, I was ushered into my room until they were gone. At this, I never questioned. Often I didn't even have to be told to go. The mere sound of the bell would send me dashing to my chambers.

I wonder how many knew I even existed...?

This continued for years and years, until I was fifteen. I was oblivious to the world outside, and was content to let it be so, but then a singular event was set in motion that put an end to everything I ever knew. My mother's mother, my grandmother Helmina, was coming to visit. I never had heard about her until it was brought up one night at supper. My father announced the event and I was told to be polite and out of the way until she was satisfied enough to leave. I, of course, was oddly disturbed by the fact that my mother had a mother and agreed compliantly. She arrived the next day.

To say that she was old was an understatement. She looked like the gods had decided not to wait and went and pickled her in advance. Her white hair was in an impossibly tight bun on her head and her eyes, though clouded with cataracts, seemed to see right into the middle of your skull. Her dress was dour and black and her boots clicked on the hard marble floors like she was a beast with hooves. She cast criticism wherever and to whomever she visited and she was the one who demonstrated all the many uses of curse words I didn't even know about. I was told in advance not to say anything rude because she was senile and couldn't be held accountable for any of it. She fascinated me endlessly. I was finally allowed to speak with her after three days of quiet, restrained mealtimes with her and my family, in which she stared at me vacantly but not without a certain repulsion.

"Hello, Grandmother," I said to her, nervously, as she sat before the fire in the reclining room.

She merely stared at me with the same unconcealed distaste and only in the disapproving stare of my father did I master the urge to run away.

"It's good to see that you are well!" I said, this time a little more loudly, in case she had not heard me.

"Who are you, boy?"she asked. I merely stood, flabbergasted at the sudden question but then I remembered about the senility so I smiled indulgently and replied.

"I'm Mortanius, Grandmother!"

She mumbled to herself for a bit and my father made some excuse to leave the room. I wished he had not left. She frightened me but I was determined to do this. Finally, I could not take the awkward mumbling and at the risk of being rude, I asked her to speak more clearly.

"Mortanius...? Yes, that was the name I asked Isabella not to choose. What a dreary, overbearing sort of a name. I suggested William, but she wouldn't have it. Hardheaded child...not really a surprise when she gave birth to it. Stillborn it was..."

"Grandmother, what are you talking about?" I asked frantically. Her odd talk was bizarre and my nerves were about to get the best of me.

"She was devastated, of course. I told her that God had a plan for everyone, and let go the ones that weren't a part of it. She was so angry...tried to refuse me entrance into the funeral. But Mother knows best, doesn't she? We all sat there, crying and sobbing and making a big scene over the pale little worm thing that had come out of her. When the good priest said the final rites, the pallbearers took up the tiny coffin but then we heard a noise like that which would come out of hell...the unholy wailing and screeching that came from the casket! They were so scared that they dropped it! Isabella ran to it and ripped it open, exclaiming that her baby wasn't dead! But he had come out that way! For three days he had lain like a dead thing while we sent for the priest for the funeral but Father Patsy was away in Ziegsturl that day..."

She rambled on for a bit, while I stood there, frozen in place by her gruesome story. Of course it wasn't true...but it was eerie none the less. I desperately tried to think of an excuse to get away when she suddenly grabbed my wrist with cold bony talons.

"Mortanius, you say? So your heart beats now, eh?" she said, and then suddenly began to scream. "What manner of devilry brought you back from death? Cursed child! Deny the conqueror worm? Get away, you foul thing! Get away! Get away!"

I tried to calm her but it was in vain. She let out a long screech when I touched her shoulder and she fell out of the chair in which she had been sitting. I went to help her up, though bewildered as I was, but her breathing grew raspy and phlegmy. Her white eyes bugged out sightlessly and her mouth hung open like a wet chasm of pink. Finally, she let out a ragged wheeze and slumped to the floor.

The sound of the door banging behind me startled me out of my shock. My father rushed into the room and knelt by her side, felt her wrist and glared at me.

"What have you done?" he demanded.

"What?"

I was then struck for the first time in my life. He repeated the question and I did my best to explain. He merely grew more enraged and sent me to my room, where I remained, shocked and trembling until the day of the funeral for Grandmother Helmina.