“Wake up, Gussy Gus.”

The voice was low and lilting; it was feminine and seeped in mirth and half-stifled laughter. It was as if the words were spoken during the discovery of some great delight, like a greeting between two friends long parted. I had the sense, however, that this amusement was born of malice rather than joy.

I tried to look around to find the speaker, but I couldn’t move. I was surrounded by something heavy that pressed down on me from every side. The weight shifted as I tried to move, causing the pressure to bear down on me all the harder. As my body struggled, my mind reeled at the smell of rot and chalk that permeated my tomb. My eyes saw only black.

I was not truly blind, however. I could sense a thick cloud of energy, made of a combination of eldritch and the strange death-flavored energy. It had sunk into everything around me. It hung over the battlefield like a cloud of malaise, seeking to drown everything beneath it.

At the center of that cloud was a beacon of energy too radiant to look at directly. It was as beautiful and intense as the sun, but consumed life rather than sustained it. I could feel small, pulsing channels connecting it to every creature in the area, alive or dead.

I was no exception.

I pulled back, using my senses to map the contours of the objects closest to me. I seemed to have been buried beneath a large pile of rubble. It was made of small, brittle objects that had broken into irregularly sized pebbles and long, jagged shards. I searched for Head Girl and her squad beneath the rubble, but they couldn’t be found.

“Fisher!” I yelled more than once, but no response came. It seemed I was still alone in my own head.

“I know you can hear me, you fucking bird!” The only answer was silence, and an increase in the weight that bore down on me.

The weight and darkness began to erode my will. Flashing system updates failed to illuminate the darkness, instead warning me that my health was critical and that the drain on my stamina had increased in speed. I battled an urge to give in, to just fall asleep and never awake. What was left to save? There was nothing that could be done, best to sleep…

No, not yet.

I pushed aside my loneliness and despair and did what I do best – I lashed out blindly and violently at everything I could touch.

My right arm narrowed and elongated into a whip ending in five razor sharp claws. I thrashed and spun, using the weaponized arm to crush the rubble into fine powder. As I created more room for the limb to maneuver I slowly inched it toward the surface.

At the same time, I created a skintight barrier around myself and slowly began pushing it outwards. The weight was intense, and it took all my focus, but the pressure on my body slowly lessened as the shield expanded. This gave me room to move and allowed me to strike with more leverage as I tried to dig myself upwards toward the unknown sky. Perhaps, I would have been better off hiding in my tomb.

Eventually, my clawed hand broke through to the surface and I saw light. It split and scattered as it reflected off dust, breaking through the dark with visible lines of alternating greys and red.

I worked to widen the tunnel, and several small objects rolled towards me, creating clinking echoes. As one came to rest beside my face I recognized it, and with that realization so to did I understand the nature of my surroundings.

I reached over and picked up the small, chipped knuckle bone. I held it in front of my face, before focusing on the dome of white and yellow that hung above me. It was bone; all of it a mountain of skeletal remains. Most were broken and crushed, but under the pale red illumination they became recognizable. Half-intact skulls were wedged between cracked ribs and shattered femurs. The ridges of a severed spine could be seen under the crushed remains of an ulna and other bones too small and damaged to identify.

To be surrounded by that much death made we wonder in awe at the power of whatever had caused it. It reminded me of the fragility of my own life. Rather than be horrified, however, I mostly just felt unclean.

I had an urgent desire to be free of it, and to scrub away the rot and death. Despite each bone being fleshless and dry, I felt as if I were covered in a layer of slimy filth. I retched silently, but the action only served to remind me of how long it had been since I had eaten.

I stuck out with strength born from blind panic. I continued my efforts until the tunnel was just barely wide enough for me to slide through, each inch slowly and painfully gained. My barrier kept my passage open until I broke through the surface, after which the tunnel collapsed inward while expelling a cloud of white dust.

I breathed in large ragged gulps. The air was sweet as it filled my lungs, and cool as it gently brushed my face. I closed my eyes, allowing myself a brief moment of bliss before standing to survey my surroundings.

I stood on a small mound amid a field littered with desiccated corpses, and sun-bleached bone. What had felt like a mountain as I clawed and scraped my way free, was no more than a half-dozen yards tall (5.5 meters). Dozens of similarly sized piles were visible, and many more existed beyond the thick fog that limited my range of sight.

Above me, a glowing orb of red and black dominated the sky. It formed connections to everything within sight, slowly draining the living and empowering the dead. I could see this connection as forking channels, like black lightning frozen in time.

I was being drained as well, which just meant I needed to find something to kill. Re-kill? Hopefully, the Herald of War feat wouldn’t make a distinction between killing and re-killing. It was quite considerate of the budding death goddess to provide me with handy arrows pointing towards everything in my immediate area, alive or dead.

I leaped from the mound of bones, sliding down an incline while leaving a trail of crushed ivory behind me. There was no solid ground to land on, just a thin layer of remains to crush under my boot. I ran across this field of white, aiming in the direction a particularly dense group of the undead. I was unsure, but there seemed to be a small group of the living in the area as well.

As I ran forward, the large sphere only grew larger. I seemed to be aiming for a point directly below its center. The field of bones grew thicker, no longer could small glimpses of brown earth and blackened grass be seen between cracks and gaps.

The air was full of mist, gentling the deathly imagery though obscuration. To uncareful eyes, I might have been running through snow-capped hills. It even crunched under my feet, much like the snow I remembered from an almost forgotten Christmas in Vermont.

Once I passed directly under the sphere I noticed a change. The bones were vibrating and slowly sliding across the ground, and a deep rumbling could be heard within each mound. Some of the piles seemed to be growing upwards as if fed from some underground source.

“That’s it,” I yelled. “There is no way I need to be here.”

I came to a stop, realizing for the first time that I was charging into a graveyard that was likely to be my own. My entire body shook. Even my eyes began to water, but I sighed and continued forward. I wouldn’t call it bravery, just a stubborn refusal to change course – I was Ahab chasing my whale. I was determined to find some meaning, save some corner of a world that had been changed irreparably.

My pace became slow and stuttered.

I was capable of incredible speeds, but the bones made for unsure footing and I was constantly making turns to avoid the mounds that seemed to be growing larger and more frequent the further I ran. Within a few minutes, however, I rounded a hill and came face to face with an army of bone golems.

They were a wave that had surrounded a small island. I could see the top of a Peacekeeper transport. Golems constantly crashed into its sides, their smashed bodies adding to the growing pile that threatened to consume the vehicle.

Head Girl had somehow found her way here and was fighting alongside two of her squad. The rest were missing, or worse. An unmoving form lay at her feet, a blue-scaled face atop a mass of black armor.

“Catayla,” I yelled.

“Head … I mean, fuck. Hey you!” I stammered over what to call Head Girl but decided the best course of action was to get her attention the old-fashioned way. Violence, lots of it.

I launched myself forward, my whip-like arm carving through reanimated bone with ease. As I moved forward, the crowd filled in behind me – striking at my unguarded back. Sharp jaws made from shattered ribs latched onto my left knee and dragged me to the ground.

I once more felt entombed, but I was saved as a large blast of fire and concussive force struck both me and my attackers. Bone crumbled, but I was left mostly untouched – other than a twinge in my left knee and a burning pain that ran up my spine and down my left arm.

The pain should have been crippling, but I was no longer soft enough to let it stop me. When this whole thing was over I’d sleep for a few days — make that a few weeks.

Rather than continue to fight my way through the horde of reanimated bone, I gathered as much energy as I could stand into the muscles and ligaments in my legs. They shortened and bunched as the power slowly grew, and then I leaped.

I whooped in joy as I soared above the battle, but I was not aiming forward. Instead I launched myself upwards, to get as much height as possible. I was nearly fifty feet (15 meters) above the ground, when I felt my momentum slow. Right at the moment where I hung in balance at the top of my jump, that moment of almost complete weightlessness, I reached out.

My right hand shot downward, trailing behind it a long cord of sinewy, black flesh. Two wings grew out from my back, reaching their maximum length at the same moment my clawed and twisted hand buried itself in the steel hull of the massive Peacekeeper vehicle.

I glided above the dead, my arm slowly reeling me in towards the befuddled Peacekeepers. Head Girl stared up at me, mouth agape, but was not taken by surprise when a skeletal hand grasped her ankle. Without even looking, she struck downwards with the butt of her rifle. Bone shattered and exploded into fine dust.

I was within a few yards of the transport when I released my artificial wings, they bubbled and turned into ash and large, twisting funnels of mist. My feet hit steel with a thud, as my hand came free of the tank – leaving behind a large bloom of twisted steel in the hull of the vehicle.

I began to lash out in all directions, firing arcane bolts from my human arm while the other cut through bone, like a razor-lined whip through warm butter. The Peacekeepers had already gotten over their shock and continued to shoot into the encroaching horde with heavy machine gun fire punctuated by concussive grenades.

I fought, for minutes or hours I don’t know. It all blurred together, until a lull in the attack allowed me to catch my breath. The bone golems where no longer attacking, instead turning to look up at the sky.

Rather than turn to look, I immediately took advantage of the situation and picked up Catayla’s limp form. I flung her over my shoulder, and was surprised at her weight. Even with my strength enhanced by eldritch power, she would slow me down.

“We need to get out of here,” I yelled.

Head Girl looked at me, but only shook her head and extended a clawed finger, pointing behind me.

The second transport, still intact, was charging through the horde of bone. It was far away, but moving quickly - launching into the air as it crested mounds of bone. A powerful headlight stabbed through the mist like a blade, and rapid muzzle flashes erupted as undead bone fell broken to the ground.

“Oh, thank God.” I allowed myself to relax slightly, as my fatigue final caught up with my adrenaline-fueled strength. “We’re saved.”

I heard a sharp exhale, and a slow wheezing gasp. I turned back towards Head Girl, but she was slumped over. Blood poured from her mouth, and a large golden spear pinned her to the roof of the transport.

The other two soldiers were firing their rifles upward but were quickly cut down as well; a beautifully crafted golden spear through each of their spines.

“No...” I meant to yell, but the word fell from mouth in a barely audible whimper. One more thing I tried to save, destroyed in front of me.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” I directed my rage towards the heavens.

Above me hovered a great bird, with two pairs of wings. The wings on the left mere molted, with bits of bone sticking through rotting flesh. The wings on the right were black, like raven wings as large as a tractor trailer. They beat slowly, creating a powerful squall that pushed down on me. The groan of bending metal cried out from beneath my feet.

“Ah, Gus,” the creature said in a feminine, familiar voice. “Don’t you have anything to say to an old friend?”

I looked up in shock. What I had thought was a bird, was not. It was dwarfed by the incredible size its two sets of mighty wings, but at the center I clearly saw the body of a female human. I focused on her face and found a visage hideously deformed.

The left half of the creature’s face was twisted, burnt flesh that barely clung to exposed bone. The eye was a swirling vortex of misty black with a burning red ember at its center. But the other half…

Red lips surrounded by pristine porcelain-smooth skin, supple and flawless. A mane of untangled hair spilled out behind her, like a golden halo. She smiled, a vindictive grin, as realization dawned on my face.

“Liv…”

“I am not Liv, not anymore." Her voice was exactly as I rembered. It was deep and sultry, pleasant to listen to and with a hint of innocence - I found it intoxicating. "Sweet boy, embrace me as you once did.”

She spread her arms wide as she began to descend, as if walking down invisible stairs – a long, green gown with golden trim trailing behind her. The Golems began to reach upwards, bones clattering together in macabre applause.

“Kneel before your queen,” I turned in fright as a thick, raspy howl rose up around me. The bone golems were all speaking in unison. “Kneel before the Goddess, Hel.”