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• The House of Voivode •
part two: of life, death, and undeath
by Neishai
Physical death though recent, was complete, the darkness within her mind, her psyche, thick and viscous as the hardening fluids within her body. As they settled and the corpse began to harden, a writhing monster settling in for the night within the depths of a swamp, something began to stir. A voice spoke, and something outside began to quicken.
She became aware.
She felt a need suddenly to come back to herself. She needed to move, to see, to live! To breathe! Her body convulsed, buzzing with electrical currents for the first time in days. She felt the sensation of sight return to her eyes, and had the impression of green flames, or electricity and an aura about her. She seemed engulfed in it. I'm on fire! her mind screamed.
She tried to scream, then realized she could not scream. Her mouth went wide in a grimace to match her terrified and rolling eyes, but no sound issued forth from her still-paralyzed throat. I can't scream! I can't speak! What's wrong with me?
She continued to flail, frantic and helpless, as if the victim of a grand mal seizure. Before her eyes her slender, bare arms flopped back and forth senselessly. It was then that she realized that they were not only senseless, but skinless as well. The flames seemed to have burned her flesh away! I'm a skeleton! I'm dead! I'm dead! Over and over she screamed, terror-stricken and uncomprehending, except that she must somehow be in Hell. But how? Her terror seemed to take on a whole new meaning then, as shadows seemed to hover around her, and she could hear the voices from before. They seemed to be telling her something…
• • •
"Voivode, she's only a zombie, it'll never work."
The vampire frowned at his companion and shook his head. "I have to try. I didn't make it in time to save them… for that I may never forgive myself. But I think there's still time, so there's still a chance."
Kamali shook his head and sighed. An optimistic vampire? Who'd have thought? And why try so hard to revive this one corpse? For this he had no answer, because he really wasn't sure what Voivode was talking about. Perhaps it was a test for Lord Voivode's budding necromantic abilities, perhaps. Finally he shrugged and simply watched. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. It's going to be a struggle to prove she's actually alive under all that."
"Aware, yes…" Voivode's eyes lost their focus as he concentrated on the young woman's animated corpse. A dark mist seemed to float around her and the vampire, a soft green glow winking faintly between them and flaring most brightly around his eyes, mouth, and hands, and over her head and heart.
"Voivode, you should terminate it if the zombie isn't whole. It wouldn't be fair…" The vampire's brow creased faintly, barely a response, but the young tarati knew he had been heard.
• • •
Alive? I'm alive! I am! I… Her frantic thoughts trailed off into confusion and a cold ball of fear. Was she alive? Was this some kind of test? She realized, somehow, that if she were at all untruthful or unworthy, she would surely die. More accurately, she would cease to be. She would return to that cold, thick, black, senselessness! Terror-stricken, again she tried to scream. I am alive!
Her words still would not come, in fact she still felt cold - both from numbness and terror. She could not feel a thing, and she could not breathe, to her knowledge. But her movements had finally gotten her some control over her body. And with this tiny bit of control, she felt empowered, just a little. She brought herself to her knees, glancing around with tunnel-vision and grabbing the first thing she could find within reach, a glass of water on the nightstand beside her bed. She had no time to ponder where she was as she grasped desperately at the vessel and shoved it between her lips. Maybe, just maybe, the drinking the water would force her to breathe. Or at the very least, inhaling the water would force her to choke, thereby forcing her to breathe! It was not a coherent thought that spurred her action, but rather an instinct.
Mouthful upon mouthful found its way down her both parched and chilly-numb throat, spraying forth at intervals when interrupted by deep-chested hacking. Dark fluids stained the sheets and floor as her lungs purged themselves of dead cells, blood, and mucous, yet still she could not breathe on her own. Frustrated to the point of scum-clotted tears, she knocked the glass over in her clumsiness as she grabbed for something else.
It was a portable clock radio. Stabbing at the buttons frantically with her ruined fingers, she tried to turn it on and increase the volume, anything to alert someone of her presence. All she managed to do before rolling her eyes and head in her growing sense of panic was change the alarm's time.
Gurgling softly, she sighted a bedpost and grabbed it, jerking back with all her might, using the momentum to push back forward against a wall with a loud clanging sound. It took several tries before she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye and two forms came running down stone stairs. When she made eye contact with one pale, curly-haired man, suddenly a wash of calmness seemed to flood over her - like sheet or blanket, a warm wave of water, an embrace, something - that awakened some of her senses instantly. She realized she could suddenly hear what he spoke and she could not hear with her ruined ears before. Her sight suddenly cleared with vibrant color and crisp lines as if she had finally found a lost pair of prescription lenses.
She heard a gasp - was it her own? Was it the mouse-boy's? He certainly had big ears. Maybe they all gasped. He looked shocked. The other man, the curly-haired man, his eyes were alive with shock, awe, and rounded with a wonderful smile. And she…well, this was just one more odd occurrence. One accompanying many before it.
The young woman sat bolt upright on the mattress, a swirl of sheets and blankets surrounding her legs, which formed a "W" shape around her body. "You!" She pointed at the pair as if recognizing them. She certainly did … somehow. She had no idea how. Her eyes flared wide as she recalled her so-called mission. She must prove, somehow, that she was alive. So far she had failed. She could not breathe, she could not turn on that damned alarm clock. She frowned and looked around the room.
"That! Those are stairs!" She pointed at the staircase they had descended from.
Kamali glanced at Voivode, an eyebrow raised. The vampire watched his creation closely.
With a soft grunting noise, she looked around the room again, at the walls. "Stones…the floor…and that stupid clock…" She looked down at the glass of water and saw the mess she had made in her flailing about the bed. "The mess…I'm sorry…" Tears filled her eyes and her hands began to shake, most noticeable as she brought one to her forehead as if to cradle it beneath the fringe of her dirty-blonde hair.
Voivode noticed deep indents in her fingers where they must have smashed into the wall along with the bedposts earlier, the sound that had alerted Kamali and himself that his creation had finally awakened. There were small indents in the stone where the metal had scraped against it, dark smears of blood. He swept up close to the young woman, hands firm against her shoulders like anchors. "Do you know who you are?"
She stared into his eyes, shock numbing her mind. "I…I'm alive?" She asked insistently.
He frowned slightly, not sure what she was getting at. "Who are you? Do you remember?"
She stopped to think, frowning. Like trying to stir with a metal spoon a slowly melting milkshake, she tried to access her congealed memory. "Sand…my dig. I have to get back to the dig, there's a deadline. The weather's going to change any day now. Paul's going to wring my neck if we've missed it." She jumped as if to run off to do just that then paused and frowned again. Her brow furrowed more deeply, eyes squinting with a dark emotion. "Paul…" tears filled her eyes and she collapsed to her knees, "…dead, he's dead … we're dead. We're all dead. Dead!" She bucked in Voivode's arms, this time screaming for the first time with a full set of lungs to back her. The cold, black feeling in her chest had nothing to do with numbness or the same kind of terror. It was a strange, horrific, grief-filled fear that those who know the realms of chronic depression, loss, and terminal illness might know. The state of conscious death. "Oh my God, dead, oh, ohm'God we're dead, we're dead! I'm in Hell, aren't I? I'm really dead!"
"Stop!" Voivode shook her with just enough force to startle her. Then once again they stared into one another's eyes. "Sandra, listen to me, you are not in Hell. You are alive again. Do you understand? You are alive."
She blinked once or twice in surprise and nodded. "Okay," she murmured. Her voice was liquid and deep with decay, but healing. Somehow it was healing. "Okay. I'm alive."
"Do you feel it? Do you feel more alive?"
"I…" She frowned and looked downward, eyes crossing to and fro as she concentrated. As a matter of fact, there was a tingling, that electrifying sensation associated with movement, returned sensation, or scrubbed skin. She looked up and smiled. "Yeah…I feel…better."
Voivode nodded. "Good."
Sandra returned the nod, still smiling and wondering briefly how this man knew her name. Had she uttered it aloud in her ramblings? Had they met before? As she looked at him, she took notice finally of his strange eye-color, how they seemed to hold windows to the night sky… so beautiful… captivating… She could just gaze into them and drift away…
"What's happening?" Kamali frowned and leaned forward slightly, taking a step forward. He had seen Sandra slump to the side and slightly backward. Her head lolled as if unconscious though her eyes remained open and unfocused.
"I…am not sure." The vampire frowned as he held Sandra in his arms. He had watched as her consciousness slipped away with the roll of her eyes. One moment she was staring at him in wonder, the next… "It was as if something sucked her mind away." He paused for the span of a heartbeat. "No pun…" The weariness was soft but clear in his voice.
Kamali came forward and crouched beside Voivode, resting a hand gently on the vampire's back, hoping the gesture might comfort him just a little. Concern shadowed his face as he glanced first at the vampire then studied the girl. "Perhaps it was just not to be…"
Voivode shut his eyes, patience beginning to run thin. "Meant-to-be's" were not in his vocabulary, at least in this case. "I need to know why," he said softly. "Otherwise, there was no point in beginning my studies in the first place."
"I know."
"I need to think on this." Voivode lowered his head slightly, closing his eyes. He listened for Kamali's retreating footsteps across the room before he began to concentrate, relaxing, and as he did so, opening his focus upon the bond he had forged between himself and Sandra's corpse. He had to find out what had gone wrong!
• • •
More coming, yep yep...
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The Ring of Fire, the inhabitants residing therein and its adoptable dragon and flitter images © Silver Midnight.
Clan Taratus and its members and familiars are solely mine. Their unauthorized use risks my wrath.
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