It was colder than one would expect, given the radiance of the twilight sky. The false twins, Velar and Nox, sat on either side of their brother Auren as if in anticipation of the day's events.
___
He buried the shovel deep into the frozen soil, his arms aching,the stench of sweat and vomit permeating from his shirt. All he needed right now was to lie on the cold floor for a nap, yet he continued.
Each movement shot pain through his muscles like broken glass, his arms going numb as his body threatened, pleaded, and begged him to stop.
As it turned out, physical labor was pretty difficult, who knew? "In hindsight it may have been easier if I hadn't insisted on carrying out this godforsaken ritual on my own".
He slowly shifted his gaze toward the long bundle on the floor. "It's probably stuffy in all that cloth, huh? To be fair, it's not like it matters much anymore, right?"
Sending a soul to Nox wasn't exactly rocket science, whatever that was, but it was quite tedious. Burial or cremation were assurances, one could also let them naturally ascend over time. The issue with that last bit was when they decided to stick around, that would require a chosen. Unfortunately, the poor soul swathed in linen had been found dead for long enough to start attracting things better left unseen. He needed to ascend. Now.
He tossed the shovel aside, lazily turned his gaze to the corpse. Bending his knees, he attempted to pick it up, promptly paying for that mistake with a hard fall onto his tailbone.
Muttering a few curses that would make a sailor blush, he decided to drag the poor bastard instead. The world seemed a bit more silent than usual.
"Bend your knees, square your shoulders, hip and back straight." Muttering the proper steps to support a heavy object, he dragged the corpse inch by inch, then proceeded to unceremoniously kick it into the grave. "Heavy bastard. Would it have hurt to die a bit lighter?"
The earth was colder near the grave than he had first realized.
Taking a small cracked mirror from his back pocket, he held it closer to inspect it.
"Note to self, don't store mirrors in your back pocket. Maybe I should-".
He froze. feeling the air brush past his face, and into the grave, his expression shifted from one of mild annoyance to pure fear. Turning on his heel, and breaking off into a sprint, he let go of the mirror.
Five meters away from the grave, the mirror he left behind stopped falling and instead froze an inch off the ground, its surface shattered all the same. At thirteen meters he stepped in a puddle, behind him the water froze into ice and stayed in mid air. At fifty the leaves falling off the tree behind him wilted and died, yet ceased falling.
He did not witness any of this himself of course, looking back was certain death at best.
He fled towards the outpost, hoping and praying the zone would not extend that far. After running for another three minutes, he looked behind him finally. Nothing dead or wilted.
"Safe for now but, that bastard is definitely coming this way. Should I just leave them to deal with it on their own?" After walking in silence for a moment, he quietly responded to himself, " no, there's no benefit if I get kicked out for not alerting anyone".
___
The world stands frozen,broken and absent as his hand grips softly against the earth. The soil falls as far as his hand will push against it but no more. Slowly, painfully, he pushes his wounded soul out of the grave, crawling against the icy terrain.
The gods may have been watching this place not long ago, but not now. They would not waste their time, not on this. Not on him. Auren's light would never grace his soul again, Nox would not receive him, and Velar's eyes were closed to his suffering.
Slowly crawling his way past dried leaves, dead plants and frozen puddles, he managed to eventually drag himself far out enough that life was once again present. He placed his hand on a patch of fresh grass, and it died at his touch. This didn't truly surprise him, he suspected as much. One did not simply wake up in a grave after all. He had died.
The man came to terms with this quite quickly all things considered, there was no denial as the unholy ground around him was a clear sign of what he was and the fact that he could feel all the life around him was another dead giveaway. The most damning, however, was the emptiness.
That silent pit of pure nothing that existed, suppressed, in most humans was all he felt. All he felt and would ever feel again. Atleast, for long periods anyway. Touching a tree and watching it die, he was finally able to stand, albeit not without strain. Each step was like his bones were shifting in his body, muscles tearing apart at an unnatural rate as they immediately healed. His body was correcting itself, becoming as strong as it was in life.
He wasn't walking aimlessly you see, he could feel them. People. A few dozen maybe? He was quite strong now, his muscles stopped tearing themselves apart it seemed, but his eyes were bleeding and his skin started to peel off in odd places. The rejuvenation seemed to speed up whenever he touched something.
You would think a person in his situation would panic, maybe seek help from anyone he could find. A part of him wanted that, but that part was being held down under the weight of that emptiness. The void inside him needed to be filled and before long, he came upon an opportunity to do just that.
___
A young boy had run back to the gate earlier, bringing with him news so grim it had left every single person with a deep dread running through every inch of their soul. A 'zone' had formed just outside the outpost.
"What jackass was digging a grave that close to us? Better yet, what asshole gave them a corpse that old?" A man about eight feet tall, powerfully built and uncontrolled yellow hair stood atop the wall and looked into the distance where the boy had said the unholy ground would be.
"Kid's Lying you know."
The man looked down at the much shorter but still impressively built young man by his side, with a questioning look.
The youth cleared his throat out of habit and continued.
"No bodies came in today, and no one that young is usually allowed near a corpse, that part is obvious though. The most damning thing is that all the gates have been closed all day. He has our insignia so he's probably from here, but he most definitely snuck out with a corpse we knew nothing about."