Dead thing sits on the floor, watching. Doesn’t move an inch. Its skull is a crushed mess and one of its eyes popped as it died, a mass of slime dripping down from its ruined cheek onto one of its perfectly formed and perfectly unblemished breasts. Death’s eager embrace didn’t care at all for its body; the trap’s jaws only took its too-curious head.
The history of Empire—there is only ever one, and only one who did not grow in the shadow cast by its death would claim not to know it—is fraught with danger. Even the most theoretical study of its contours risks stumbling upon an old taboo, a deadly truth wrapped in undying chains by ghoul-kings who feared the touch of sunlight upon their sins.
It is well known, to those of a certain disposition, that the ruins of the old watchtowers are attended still by the ghosts of the soldiers who gave their lives to the belief that a piece of land—a pile of rock—would protect their fellows from some distant enemy, uncaring of the internal foes that starved their supply lines and drained their spirits.
“Dedicate your death to me,” the necromancer whispers. “Be mine to move and use, now and forever.” She pauses to listen for an answer. Corpses don’t speak, of course, but she hears their answer in the slow flux of fungal rot and the chewing maggots, and so her army grows. Thick, slimy marrow drips down from spongy calcium. The corpse is long past needing it, and the dirt is always hungry, and so it must be purged of life’s unnecessary remains. ...
Originally posted to Twitter on August 8, 2022. With the click of a button the room fills with the mournful sounds of a funerary dirge, a piano’s mournful notes weaving through droning prayers and grief-filled tears. The music drips down the cold stone walls and across the marble slab— “Ugh, it’s so cold in here …” The body on the slab shifts just enough to stare at its companion. She’s shivering in a lacy black dress and mourning veil, nipples hard and skin goosebumped. ...
“Hey, do you have anything for stomach aches?” Doll, sitting behind the counter, doesn’t glance up from her sketchbook. She’s been doodling in it for hours, painting with the blood that still hasn’t stopped dripping from her gums. She’s having fun! “Try aisle 3. Uh, the one with the big light-up skull. Don’t listen to it, it’s lying.” The ostensible customer graces her with a mumbled thanks as they turn and walk away. There’s something wrong with the rhythm of their steps, a squishy irregularity. Doll ignores it. ...