Information
Hollund
Legacy Name: Hollund
The
Graveyard DragarthOwner:
SwavhAge: 11 years, 9 months, 3 days
Born: July 23rd, 2012
Adopted: 11 years, 9 months, 3 days ago
Adopted: July 23rd, 2012
Statistics
- Level: 1
- Strength: 10
- Defense: 16
- Speed: 10
- Health: 10
- HP: 10/10
- Intelligence: 1
- Books Read: 1
- Food Eaten: 0
- Job: Unemployed
You trip over a protruding gravestone and fall, scraping your hands.
As you groan and pick yourself up, you notice a worn notebook shoved into the crack of larger tombstone. Curious, you pull it from its hiding place and inspect the cover. It's pretty plain, with only a faded symbol in the bottom right corner.
You flip it over to the back, where you find a small silver inscription of the author's name: Hollund Valentin. Your interest is thoroughly piqued, and so you flip the book back over to the front and open to the first page. Inside the cover, there is a symbol you recognize from the front, and beneath it is what appears to be a date. Most of it is worn away, but you can make out the year: 2012.
Immediately, you are taken back to grade school, where you were taught about the First Apocalypse; the Zombie Apocalypse. Notebooks all around the world had been found and collected some time before your birth, weaving a tragic tale about the fall of humanity. By the time you sat in your grade school classes, most had been destroyed or, more commonly, had fallen victim to centuries of decay. Very few were believed to still exist. You run your fingers along the worn pages of the book.
You've found a bit of history, and you're excited.
So you turn the page and read.
May 31
I watch her from across the room. She's terrified and angry, as she should be. It's in both of our eyes, but she's always been better at expressing things than I. She stops throwing punches at the walls to stare at me with a tear streaked face and for a moment, the terror leaves and only anger is left. She can't believe I'm just sitting there, minding myself. She can't believe I'm not losing my mind. She can't see the fear in my eyes so she takes one, two, three steps toward me and slaps my face- hard- before bursting into horrified tears again. I just remain silent, tucked away in my corner, and I wait.
June 1
This room is small and cramped. We're somewhere far away from town, tucked in bunker. Sometimes, we can hear them stumbling overhead. Sometimes, we are graced with silence. Sometimes I look at our meager rations and wonder how long we can wait them out.
June 3
We've been stuck here a long time. I tell stories, every now and then, to pass the time. Like, "Remember when we were children and we'd walk through the graveyards at night?" and "Remember the forest we used to sneak away to?" She always gets this look, though, when I tell them. Like she wants me to shut up forever. So I've taken to speaking only when she speaks to me. Which is alright because if she let me keep talking I would probably tell her that I love her.
June 7
She wanted to look at my journal, but I told her no.
You laugh at this entry, finding Hollund's bluntness amusing. You wonder for a moment why it was so important for him to keep his feelings secret.
June 9
We're out of rations. She pleads with me stay, or let her go with me, but I refuse to put her in any sort of danger. She fights with me for a long time, until I finally give up and press myself into my corner. "We can't stay here forever." I say out loud. To which she responds, "Fuck off, Hollund."
June 11
I had to knock her out so I could leave. She told me, "Hollund, just stay here. Either way we'll die. And I'd rather die with you than be separated by them." I wasn't going to die out there. I kept telling myself that. I kissed her on the forehead and left a little slip of paper that read, "I love you."
June 16
I'm trapped. They've surrounded me. I'm hidden in the freezer room of a grocery store a few miles from our bunker. Sometimes, I can hear the door handle jingle. But I'm not worried about them getting in- It's the getting out part that makes my heart quake. I pray that she is okay, and then again that I am.
Your heart rate has increased exponentially since you started reading. You're leaned up against the tombstone you found the book in, your head pressed to the cold stone. You can't imagine how frightened Hollund must have been, for his love or for himself, even though the words were written clearly on the pages before you. A million questions race through your head, the most prominent being: "Where exactly did this happen?" and "Will he make it back to her?" You look at the sky; it's gotten much darker than you'd like, but the book beckons you to read on. So you do.
June 17
I can't live much longer without food, and I know that she can't, either. The zombies have cleared out a bit, hopefully for good, so I hope that I can escape with my life. I open the freezer door just a crack and peer out. I don't see any of them, but I also don't see much sustenance, either. Maybe enough to hold her over for a few days. I slip from my hiding place and grab as much as I can. As I sprint away, I realize I've been spotted. And everything is a blur.
June 18
I find a cottage on my way back to her, and thank the gods for good hiding places. There is a small crawlspace, barely large enough for me to squeeze into, in the basement. After a few hours, I'm convinced that they aren't going to find me. I promised her I'd come back.
June 20
I barely made it back to the bunker when they got me. My left shoulder already looks infected and I feel as though I have pneumonia. I made sure to leave the food near the entrance, though. So maybe when she opens the door, she'll be ok.
June 21
I'm sorry.
July 1
Dying is nothing like I suspected. All of my memories came back. Everything is the same, except my body. It decomposes a bit faster, unless I eat human flesh. I learned that in Undead training. It's funny, you know, that they would have something like that. It's like childhood education. It's weird. But I remember her, and that's all that counts. I wonder if she knows I'm dead. I wonder if I should go back to her. I wonder if she's mourned for me.
You gasp. You've never heard of an undead continuing their documentation. Textbooks made it clear that humans were the prominent writers of the time, and suggested that they were the only writers of the time. You smile, despite the fact that your heart feels like it's going to fall out of your chest.
July 5
She stumbled into our camp today. At first, we just stared at her, wondering if she was one of us. It seemed that as soon as I realized it was her, they realized she was human. I fought my brothers for her. I protected her with my second life. When they asked me why, I didn't give them a reason. I just told them that she was important, and to leave her alone. The undead aren't mindless monsters. They listened, but warned that she was the only one they'd let get away.
July 20
She's been here an awful long time, but she doesn't recognize me.
July 21
Why can't she see it in my eyes that I am her Hollund?
July 22
She doesn't want to live with us anymore.
July 23
She killed one of us.
July 24
I love you.I love you. I love you.I love you.
July 25
Her eyes are beautiful when she's terrified
July 26
No
July 27
She saw my journal. She remembered who I was. But she looked at me with such disgust. She pulled a slip of paper from her shirt pocket and tore it up into a million little pieces. I could still see the word "love" in my handwriting, as the pieces drifted away.
You're crying now. Not just because you've stumbled upon a tragic love story from the Apocalypse, but because you could feel Hollund break. He blew away with the shredded love letter. You can't find it in yourself to be angry at his love, either, because you know that if you were in her situation, you would likely do the same. The living weren't meant to love the dead, and that made the words in front of you almost too painful. But you can see that you're nearly finished with the journal, so you read the last few pages.
July 28
Forgive me
July 29
I didn't mean to
July 30
I'm sorry
July 31
I didn't mean to kill her
After the last entry, there are a few pages with illegible writing. Some of them are shredded and stained with blood, which you presume is from that of an unliving. Interestingly, one of the blood stains is in the shape of a heart, but you wonder if maybe that was just coincidence. You close the journal and set it at your feet, wiping tears from your eyes. You think about Hollund and his love for a long time before you grab the journal and put it in your bag. You don't want anyone to find it. You want it to be your story. As you begin toward your home, you hear a shuffling near the tombstone you had just left. Your heart lurches in your chest. You don't want to turn around. So you take a few more steps.
"Where are you going with my story?"
You feel your heart drop.
"I said, where are you going with my story?"
Slowly, you turn around. Sitting atop the tombstone you had just left is a young man. He doesn't look very dead to you. He can't be the Hollund from the story.
"You look just like her, you know." He says.
You're not sure what to do. "Who are you?" you ask.
"Why, isn't it obvious? I'm Hollund."
"If you're Hollund..." You say, your voice shaking. You're suddenly very scared. "Why don't you look dead? Why aren't you dead?"
"You'll recall, from my eleventh entry, that human flesh slows down the decomposition process. I found that, if you eat enough of it, you can essentially return to your normal human form." He smiles. "Say, how do you suppose I've kept up appearances for so long?"
You don't grace him with an answer. Instead, you're running as fast as you can toward anywhere that isn't that graveyard- that tombstone. But he catches up with you, tackling you to the ground. You fight with him for a long time before giving up. Dying is nearly painless.
"It really is a shame that you didn't love me."
As you groan and pick yourself up, you notice a worn notebook shoved into the crack of larger tombstone. Curious, you pull it from its hiding place and inspect the cover. It's pretty plain, with only a faded symbol in the bottom right corner.
You flip it over to the back, where you find a small silver inscription of the author's name: Hollund Valentin. Your interest is thoroughly piqued, and so you flip the book back over to the front and open to the first page. Inside the cover, there is a symbol you recognize from the front, and beneath it is what appears to be a date. Most of it is worn away, but you can make out the year: 2012.
Immediately, you are taken back to grade school, where you were taught about the First Apocalypse; the Zombie Apocalypse. Notebooks all around the world had been found and collected some time before your birth, weaving a tragic tale about the fall of humanity. By the time you sat in your grade school classes, most had been destroyed or, more commonly, had fallen victim to centuries of decay. Very few were believed to still exist. You run your fingers along the worn pages of the book.
You've found a bit of history, and you're excited.
So you turn the page and read.
May 31
I watch her from across the room. She's terrified and angry, as she should be. It's in both of our eyes, but she's always been better at expressing things than I. She stops throwing punches at the walls to stare at me with a tear streaked face and for a moment, the terror leaves and only anger is left. She can't believe I'm just sitting there, minding myself. She can't believe I'm not losing my mind. She can't see the fear in my eyes so she takes one, two, three steps toward me and slaps my face- hard- before bursting into horrified tears again. I just remain silent, tucked away in my corner, and I wait.
June 1
This room is small and cramped. We're somewhere far away from town, tucked in bunker. Sometimes, we can hear them stumbling overhead. Sometimes, we are graced with silence. Sometimes I look at our meager rations and wonder how long we can wait them out.
June 3
We've been stuck here a long time. I tell stories, every now and then, to pass the time. Like, "Remember when we were children and we'd walk through the graveyards at night?" and "Remember the forest we used to sneak away to?" She always gets this look, though, when I tell them. Like she wants me to shut up forever. So I've taken to speaking only when she speaks to me. Which is alright because if she let me keep talking I would probably tell her that I love her.
June 7
She wanted to look at my journal, but I told her no.
You laugh at this entry, finding Hollund's bluntness amusing. You wonder for a moment why it was so important for him to keep his feelings secret.
June 9
We're out of rations. She pleads with me stay, or let her go with me, but I refuse to put her in any sort of danger. She fights with me for a long time, until I finally give up and press myself into my corner. "We can't stay here forever." I say out loud. To which she responds, "Fuck off, Hollund."
June 11
I had to knock her out so I could leave. She told me, "Hollund, just stay here. Either way we'll die. And I'd rather die with you than be separated by them." I wasn't going to die out there. I kept telling myself that. I kissed her on the forehead and left a little slip of paper that read, "I love you."
June 16
I'm trapped. They've surrounded me. I'm hidden in the freezer room of a grocery store a few miles from our bunker. Sometimes, I can hear the door handle jingle. But I'm not worried about them getting in- It's the getting out part that makes my heart quake. I pray that she is okay, and then again that I am.
Your heart rate has increased exponentially since you started reading. You're leaned up against the tombstone you found the book in, your head pressed to the cold stone. You can't imagine how frightened Hollund must have been, for his love or for himself, even though the words were written clearly on the pages before you. A million questions race through your head, the most prominent being: "Where exactly did this happen?" and "Will he make it back to her?" You look at the sky; it's gotten much darker than you'd like, but the book beckons you to read on. So you do.
June 17
I can't live much longer without food, and I know that she can't, either. The zombies have cleared out a bit, hopefully for good, so I hope that I can escape with my life. I open the freezer door just a crack and peer out. I don't see any of them, but I also don't see much sustenance, either. Maybe enough to hold her over for a few days. I slip from my hiding place and grab as much as I can. As I sprint away, I realize I've been spotted. And everything is a blur.
June 18
I find a cottage on my way back to her, and thank the gods for good hiding places. There is a small crawlspace, barely large enough for me to squeeze into, in the basement. After a few hours, I'm convinced that they aren't going to find me. I promised her I'd come back.
June 20
I barely made it back to the bunker when they got me. My left shoulder already looks infected and I feel as though I have pneumonia. I made sure to leave the food near the entrance, though. So maybe when she opens the door, she'll be ok.
June 21
I'm sorry.
July 1
Dying is nothing like I suspected. All of my memories came back. Everything is the same, except my body. It decomposes a bit faster, unless I eat human flesh. I learned that in Undead training. It's funny, you know, that they would have something like that. It's like childhood education. It's weird. But I remember her, and that's all that counts. I wonder if she knows I'm dead. I wonder if I should go back to her. I wonder if she's mourned for me.
You gasp. You've never heard of an undead continuing their documentation. Textbooks made it clear that humans were the prominent writers of the time, and suggested that they were the only writers of the time. You smile, despite the fact that your heart feels like it's going to fall out of your chest.
July 5
She stumbled into our camp today. At first, we just stared at her, wondering if she was one of us. It seemed that as soon as I realized it was her, they realized she was human. I fought my brothers for her. I protected her with my second life. When they asked me why, I didn't give them a reason. I just told them that she was important, and to leave her alone. The undead aren't mindless monsters. They listened, but warned that she was the only one they'd let get away.
July 20
She's been here an awful long time, but she doesn't recognize me.
July 21
Why can't she see it in my eyes that I am her Hollund?
July 22
She doesn't want to live with us anymore.
July 23
She killed one of us.
July 24
I love you.I love you. I love you.I love you.
July 25
Her eyes are beautiful when she's terrified
July 26
No
July 27
She saw my journal. She remembered who I was. But she looked at me with such disgust. She pulled a slip of paper from her shirt pocket and tore it up into a million little pieces. I could still see the word "love" in my handwriting, as the pieces drifted away.
You're crying now. Not just because you've stumbled upon a tragic love story from the Apocalypse, but because you could feel Hollund break. He blew away with the shredded love letter. You can't find it in yourself to be angry at his love, either, because you know that if you were in her situation, you would likely do the same. The living weren't meant to love the dead, and that made the words in front of you almost too painful. But you can see that you're nearly finished with the journal, so you read the last few pages.
July 28
Forgive me
July 29
I didn't mean to
July 30
I'm sorry
July 31
I didn't mean to kill her
After the last entry, there are a few pages with illegible writing. Some of them are shredded and stained with blood, which you presume is from that of an unliving. Interestingly, one of the blood stains is in the shape of a heart, but you wonder if maybe that was just coincidence. You close the journal and set it at your feet, wiping tears from your eyes. You think about Hollund and his love for a long time before you grab the journal and put it in your bag. You don't want anyone to find it. You want it to be your story. As you begin toward your home, you hear a shuffling near the tombstone you had just left. Your heart lurches in your chest. You don't want to turn around. So you take a few more steps.
"Where are you going with my story?"
You feel your heart drop.
"I said, where are you going with my story?"
Slowly, you turn around. Sitting atop the tombstone you had just left is a young man. He doesn't look very dead to you. He can't be the Hollund from the story.
"You look just like her, you know." He says.
You're not sure what to do. "Who are you?" you ask.
"Why, isn't it obvious? I'm Hollund."
"If you're Hollund..." You say, your voice shaking. You're suddenly very scared. "Why don't you look dead? Why aren't you dead?"
"You'll recall, from my eleventh entry, that human flesh slows down the decomposition process. I found that, if you eat enough of it, you can essentially return to your normal human form." He smiles. "Say, how do you suppose I've kept up appearances for so long?"
You don't grace him with an answer. Instead, you're running as fast as you can toward anywhere that isn't that graveyard- that tombstone. But he catches up with you, tackling you to the ground. You fight with him for a long time before giving up. Dying is nearly painless.
"It really is a shame that you didn't love me."