Information

Sick has a minion!

Terminal the Carrion Mantis

Sick

The

Graveyard Neela
Owner:

silas

Age: 3 years, 8 months, 1 week

Born: August 16th, 2020

Adopted: 1 year, 8 months, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: August 6th, 2022

This pet has been nominated for the Pet Spotlight!

Statistics

Level: 6
Strength: 11
Defense: 11
Speed: 12
Health: 11
HP: 11/11
Intelligence: 19
Books Read: 18
Food Eaten: 0
Job: Graveyard Shift Errand Runner

cw: murder, death

He was sick. It wasn't his fault.

He (nameless, for it had been years and years since he'd heard someone, anyone, say his name) had been sick for a very, very long time. Sick, with a capital S, even. Heard himself referred to as "sick" more often than his own name, which is perhaps why he forgot it in death. And of course it wasn't his fault; one generally does not choose to be more or less born to die. It was a miracle he made it to 27—he did not make it much further than that.

He was not wholly innocent; not even by half.

His sickness was not his fault, but the blood of his family? ...That was on his hands, an eternal smear stained into his soul. But... ah, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's rewind, just a little, shall we?

▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ was born, lived, and died in the span of 27 years on this planet; that would have been the end of it, should have been the end of it. He was buried. They mourned. And, eventually, they moved on. They lived their lives in the same way he would no longer live his. There was no headstone, for his family were poor and rural, and simply could not attain one in their dark holler. Thus, some time later, when he opened his eyes within the box they buried him in, took a deep breath, and shrieked for all that he was worth underneath the earth before ripping his hands to shreds breaking open his casket and scraping clawing scrabbling his way out of his grave—he did not know who he was. No name to guide him, no platitudes to mollify him—merely a deafening silence that bore no answer. Maybe it would have made a difference... but mayhaps not. Because whatever ungodly force sought to and succeeded in bringing ▇▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ back to life, or possessed his corpse, whoever sought to raise the dead had done so, but there was always a price for dark deeds. A price to be paid in blood. He was no longer himself, and god help anyone who got in his way.

He remembered that he liked sweets, that he liked to read books.

He could not remember his own name, but he remembered these little jumbled facts of self. But when everything tastes like dirt on your tongue—the dirt you swallowed breaching your grave and crawling toward freedom—maybe you yearn for what you've lost, trying, perhaps in vain, to reclaim that shred of humanity. It's a cryin' shame that it...
Just. Didn't. Work.

It could be that he had no humanity left to reclaim; or maybe, that the thing inhabiting the shell of his body was in every which way no longer him, but could access vague memories left behind by the flesh. Regardless, he was risen—and that was about to be one small mountainous rural town's problem.

His homecoming was unceremonious.

He came down from the cemetery in the mountains like one sometimes comes down with a terminal disease: suddenly, unfortunately, fatally. His body shambled relentlessly toward his family's house, the one they had lived in for generations, the one they would not be living in for much longer. His father, the first to fall, sighted him first, having been sitting on the porch smoking his pipe. Without a throat, though, there was nothing for him to use to pull from the pipe. His mother, his brothers followed the same fate, felled in their own home, their ends crimson and sanguine. That much blood was not meant to be outside the body, in any case.

His sister was the last.

Huddled in the corner of the attic, sobbing as she stares up at what used to be her older brother with her big green eyes. He hesitated for only a moment—a moment more than the others. But she too fell, in a spray of claret against the wall. And the house too fell silent. But it was not silent for long.

His crimes were discovered quickly.

It was Sunday in the small township—and not showing up for church was almost unheard of. The mob found him sitting on the porch in the very chair his father had occupied. His father's body was slumped to the side of the rocking chair, and if not for all the blood on he and his son, the man may well have been sleeping. But he was not, and the crowd knew this. You would have to be blind not to realize. The blood staining his very soul made it more than obvious.

"Death!" the crowd cried. "Death for him once more!"

He could not be allowed to kill anyone else. The mob, comprising of most of the small hamlet, surrounded the house, and for a minute, all was still. Not even the animals in the woods made a sound.
And then... all hell broke loose.
The thing that was not the son the family had lost–this monstrous, twisted un-son that had brought a night of death to this house–sprung into action, eyes wide and disgusting grin wider on his face. The mob moved as well, enveloping him, beating him with tools and weapons, whatever they had at hand.

...and yet he still moved, no matter how much they mauled him.

No matter what they did, he would not die again.

The mob dragged him back to the cemetery, him trying to kill anyone he could get his hands on, but they did not let him. They trussed him up in rusted barbed wire brought by one of the townsfolk, binding him to the largest tree in the cemetery. It was a white oak, must have been a thousand years old. It had been here long before them, and it would be here long after. A perfect place to confine him, for however long it would take him to, finally, die again.

For a while, he struggled against his bonds, tearing himself to shreds in the process.

It seemed that despite the rusted nature of the metal wire, he could not break it. He fought, and fought, but the cocoon of barbed wire would not give him up. And then...

He started laughing.

He laughed, and laughed, and laughed, cackling until he went hoarse, and then until his voice went entirely. He thought of the taste of chocolate on his tongue, thought of his favorite book.