章 2: No Time For You
Letting go of the corpse, it fell limply on its back, the monster moved onto inspecting its own hands.
They were skeletal, nearly nothing but bones, so was the rest of its body, it was a skeleton.
Not only that, it wasn't a pristine white one, its body was discoloured and rotten bits of flesh seemed to be sprouting everywhere like parasitic mushrooms.
For all intents and purposes, anyone would believe this undead to be the animated remains of a human, save for the long and pointy teeth that filled its jaws.
Pinching one of the rotten bits, it oozed out with putrid blood, the vile liquid falling right on the old man's body.
The undead stared at the spot it had just touched for a whole minute without moving in the slightest, it had grown back.
Its arrival had made the room completely silent and empty, moving over to the deep pit where the countless corpses had been kept, it looked down, seeing nothing but pure darkness.
With unreadable intentions, it moved back and forth, dragging the old man by the wrist before lightly kicking him into the hole.
Silence ensued once more as the undead remained in place like a statue.
Multiple minutes after, a loud splash and clap came from deep within the hole.
As though it was all meaningless, the walking cadaver turned and headed toward the very same direction the old man had been trying to escape toward.
Of course he would, the only door out of this room was there, it was a roughly built wooden door, made by an amateur of the craft, hastily assembled nails and planks.
The frame and door weren't even fitting well, the skeleton stared at the door with his hollow sockets, not having a clue what a door was for a few seconds before trying to open it up normally, reaching for the handle and pulling it.
One pull didn't do anything, the second neither and by the third, it was clear that the old man would have never made it out of here even with a severe head start.
One could only wonder how he had even found his way inside of here.
One could, but the undead didn't, instead opting to pry the planks off one by one with remarkable care.
Peeking into this new room, the light flickered for an instant, the source of it unclear, there was simply light and no reason to bother questioning why.
This one hadn't suffered from his entrance, and was thus, filled to the brim with its old owner's personal belongings.
Papers, papyruses, stone tablets, a wide variety of objects and materials used to write down information were gathered here, spread out on tables haphazardly, many laying on the ground, others hanging from the ceiling or displayed on the walls.
Most were damaged but even for those that were legible, the skeleton wouldn't be able to find a usage for them, for he couldn't read.
Picking up one of the planks he had taken off the door, he moved on to the next room.
The door swung open effortlessly this time, it was much smaller than the frame.
Unlike the first two, which had been relatively large but still nothing too grand, this one was simply gigantic.
The ceiling was too high to be made out, the only proof of its existence being the pieces of debris that had fallen from it and smashed into the ground.
The light source wasn't unknown this time around, the area was much dimmer, illuminated by differently coloured orbs similar to the one the old man had been clutching so longingly.
Each of them were resting on stone pedestals, there were two rows of them, ten of them in each row.
There used to be at least, a good portion of where pedestals had most likely stood had been destroyed by rubbles from the ceiling.
All of those that remained had an orb sitting atop however, each sporting different shades.
The undead walked in between the two rows, undisturbed as a rock the size of his skull fell right beside its position.
All were shining a light but one shone much brighter, moving up to it, the skeleton inspected it, feeling something that shouldn't be from it.
"Hello? Hey? What the hell is happening?" a youthful and confused voice rang out from the brilliant orb.
"Anyone there? Seriously, am I in a coma? Did I have a heart attack or something?" on and on, it seemed like the orb was speaking its thoughts aloud.
What was most curious however, was that the undead was understanding the words being spoken, which was ludicrous on multiple levels.
It didn't even have clear thoughts and had only gotten the rough grunts of the old man as words until now.
Grabbing the orb with one hand, the undead lifted it up to its face, clacking its jaws loudly.
The physical touch startled the orb as it began to speak rapidly, shooting out sentences one after the other without end.
"Oh!" suddenly, the rapid fire of words ceased as the voice exclaimed loudly.
"Is that? Oh my god! It's like in those-"
"Dear lord, why the hell is it so cluttered? It's like if someone never closed any of their tabs for a year straight…"
The whole time, the skeleton had been calmly walking until it found itself back in the very first room.
"Hold on, we are moving right? To where? Are you God? Or something like that?" the orb seemed to finally realise what was happening.
Frankly, the soul contained within the orb had been quite confused at first, one second, the young man was eating heated noodles as the only meal of the day, and then, he was seemingly blind and unmoving.
It had been so quick that he hadn't had time to let it sink in and now, strange things were appearing before him and someone had picked him up.
"My reading experience tells me that this is a-"
The skeleton dropped the orb into the hole.
The light allowed the undead to get a better idea of what was down there, although it was still much too deep to see anything.
There was definitely some water or liquid at the bottom, but it was hard to judge just how much.
Now that that was done, it made the short trip back and shattered all of the other orbs, only keeping one intact to serve as a light.
The only other way beside the one it had gotten in from was a simple corridor without any luminosity.
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