Chapter 1

  A low throaty moan echoed around me. The sound echoed around in an off-key cadence, rhythmic and slow.

  I slowly regained consciousness, opening my eyes slowly. No that wasn’t quite right, was it? I expected the flick of my eyelashes, but it was only occupied by the driest eyes I had ever felt in my life.

  My head felt foggy; I found myself staring down at grey lifeless rock. It looked pitted and porous, as if tiny ants were making holes into the stone.

  Hold on, I thought to myself. That didn’t seem quite right. The last thing I remember was that pretty goth girl smirking at me while swinging her feet on that gravestone.

  I attempted to smile as I remembered her bouncing pale feminine pillows. Why wouldn’t my face move? I attempted to make a scary face and realized I couldn’t move my facial muscles. I couldn’t even lift my eyebrows.

  I attempted to touch my face only to find my hands bound to something. Metal clanking began to resonate; A sound I always found myself cringing too. It reminded me of pedaling my bike down a road, just as I smashed my face into a tree. Chains clinking and hitting something solid.

  I looked to the right and was startled to see a skeletal hand. I, being brave, definitely did not scream. That of course would be a lie.

  My hollow sounding voice echoed out within the dim lit cave. The hand moved and flailed, which made me scream louder. The closest thing to a bone I had ever been poking a rotten possum with a stick.

  Another low moan was heard, and something shuffling around caught my attention. My head turned quickly and I saw the iron bars sunk into the stone. I was chained to a wall and locked in a cage. I screamed again.

  A louder moan came. This one of a questioning tone. Low and dull, but with slight infections.

  “You got the wrong guy!” I began to scream. Chains clinking as I fought my restraints. “You got the wrong guy!!!”

  A low moan rang out again, and a literal zombie came to the bars. I’d like to say that I ripped my shackles off the wall and tore down this rusty cage. Beat the literal rotting corpse to smithereens and strode out of my cell, but I’d of course be lying again. I screamed louder. Or at least I tried.

  I seemed to scream for long, long moments. Longer than I thought my semi physically fit body could. I was beginning to make a horrifying realization, but I shoved that thought away. Surely, I was wrong. Hopefully.

  The zombie simply looked at me and cocked its rotting face. It turned and began to shuffle off. Slowly. Agonizingly slow.

  “Wait! Where are you going!? Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, try to eat me or something!?” I called back to the apparently noncanablistic zombie.

  A loud groan escaped his throat as he continued. About a minute later he seemed to disappear around a blind corner I couldn’t see.

  “Great. I’m into this whole role-playing experience, but this is just too freaky, even for me. I mean I haven’t even seen the glistening thighs of a beautiful maiden yet.” I grumbled.

  The last thing I remember was that stupid hot goth girl talking to me. She seemed into me too judging by those salacious eyes she gave me. Those plump red lips wrapped tight around a cherry red sucker.

  “Ohhh my,” a feminine voice dripping with enough sugar and spice, it made my teeth ache. “I think I rather like this look on you. Positively delicious.”

  Out of the corner of the room, a woman stood. Jet black hair with two pigtails wrapped in white bands. A set of skulled berets, sitting glistening into her gleaming hair. They seemed to be moving upon her head in silent screams.

  Her dark red lips pursed around a small sucker. She smirked as she watched my head work down her small stature, but curvaceous figure.

  She gave me a spin and a twirl as her black short skirt twirled around her. Her open neckline was topped with a pair of skeleton hands shaped in a heart around her neck. It bobbed and swayed enticingly between her supple breasts.

  She stopped and lifted a leg showing off her knee-high socks and thick high topped style combat boots.

  “Pretty cute right?” She gave a heart stopping smile as she popped her sucker back in.

  I tried to gulp, but it felt off somehow.

  “I’ve come to really like the fashion in your world. I got this dress from a lovely girl with purple bangs in her hair. I thought she was going to have a heart attack when I said hello to her for the first time.” The gothic woman; ghost; deity; devil, it didn’t really matter to me, she was positively breathtaking! She strode slowly up to me, not taking her eyes off me, taking each step with slow methodical grace, crossing each step like a runway model.

  She stopped close to me; she gazed up with stark purple eyes and winked coyly.

  I felt strange hanging there on the wall. I could feel the arousal, but I didn’t feel my blood pressure rise. In fact, now that I thought about it, I couldn’t even feel my heart racing.

  That was impossible. I always find it hard to talk to anyone remotely attractive. My palms would sweat, my breath would become labored, and my mind would stop working. This woman had stolen my heart when I first met her. There was no way I wouldn’t feel it throbbing.

  I glanced down and was horrified to see something missing. No, it was everything that was missing. I began to stammer and shake, rattling the chains that bound me to the wall.

  “I LOVE when they squirm.” The woman’s melodic voice purred. “Why don’t you scream for me again. It was so very cute.” She purred as she stroked my exposed ribcage.

  If I had lungs, without a doubt, I would be hyperventilating.

  She giggled and smiled as she could clearly tell I was uncomfortable.

  “I can feel your touch, how?” I asked, my body somehow trembling at her touch, or maybe not? It doesn’t really matter; what matters is this felt impossible. It had to be a fever dream.

  “Magic.” She said simply as she moved up my collarbone and through where my cheek should have been. She followed the curvature of my jaw and pleasure unlike anything I’d ever felt coursed through my bones.

  It was intoxicating and filled with a solemn promise. Of rapture and a cold embrace. It felt like a promise, one that would see me to eternal ecstasy.

  She removed her hand and smirked at me as I clearly tried to follow her fingers.

  “In time. For now, I need you.” She whispered to the side of my skull. I could hear her smile as her head came back into my field of view.

  Something akin to a chill ran up my body. Something was flooding into me and through my bones. It faded, leaving behind a feeling of freedom.

  “You… Need me?” I stammered.

  “I do.” She seemed to shrink rapidly, her legs seeming to retract to her original height. When the…?

  I blinked? Attempted to blink? Alright, I was just as fucking confused as when I woke up. This was going to take some getting used too.

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  “I have freed you from your soul bindings though your body is still bound by magic. That will be up to you to free. Grow strong my skeletal warrior. The time is coming short.” She turned and started to sashay to the corner. Her skirt showed only hints of what lay underneath.

  “Wait! Your name? I need to know your name!” My voice came out clumsily and rapidly. I sounded desperate even to my own ears.

  “You can call me Ash for now. By the way, don’t tell her you’re from another world. Tell her… You’re just an awakened undead. Don’t give in or she will learn what you are.” With that she was gone, and I was alone, hanging in a cell as a skeleton.

  I was about to start screaming again when I heard the clipped tones of heels on stone. It was a measured pace and followed by a shuffling of something scraping the floor. Heavy boots soon joined the cacophony until it was a parade of noise.

  Two rather impressive looking skeletons in full spiked plate mail clomped into the small room on the opposite side of the bars. Only their boney sockets filled with a dark crimson light scanned the room before parting to allow a woman entry.

  A woman in a flowing red gown walked with a sinuous strut. She was rather pretty, if a bit wrinkly. She looked like a wilted grape. Granted a pretty grape, but a wilted grape, nonetheless.

  Her skin was taught and wrinkled in all the wrong places. Her curves were accentuated by a ripped and torn sequined crimson dress. Her eyes were filled with malice and scorn.

  I did my best to stay as still as possible hanging limp on the chains. To my right, skeletons seemed to spontaneously come to life and thrash against their chains on the wall.

  The woman turned and gestured to someone I could not see, hanging as I was. She scoffed and gestured a finger.

  The shuffling picked up tenfold, and moments later the seemingly noncanabilistic zombie seemed to shuffle into the cell. It made a moaning noise.

  “You buffoon. It’s the ONLY skeleton that isn’t moving. Look at all of the rest. My beauty is too alluring to these worthless corpses.” The woman in red scoffed.

  The zombie moaned mournfully and sounded genuinely confused. The woman grunted and slapped the zombie who soon found itself flying into the wall.

  “CRASH!” The zombie hit the wall crashing into a skeleton and shattering it into bits. She loomed into the room, and the other skeletons seemed to quiver in quiet excitement.

  I felt something that seemed to fluctuate and I could feel a cold sense of dread surrounding me. I wanted to run, to hide, but I dared not move.

  “For your ineptitude, you shall die once more. BEGON!” She held out her hand and the skeletons in heavy armor moved like metallic lightning. They snatched the zombie up and dragged it to the feet of the woman. She reached out her hand and grasped the zombie by the face, and it rapidly turned into dust and something sickly flowed into her.

  Her skin began to smooth and sit right on her face. Her beasts seemed to lift and shape correctly on her chest. Even her arms seemed somehow daintier.

  I recoiled in shock, rattling my chains. My jaw tensed as the woman’s eyes snapped to my… eyes? Sockets? Skeleton visage with a chiseled jaw line?

  It mattered not as my mind began to panic as she strode over to me. She peered at my face and seemed to try to look at where Ash had touched me. She shook her head and took a half step back. She stopped and held out her hand to me.

  “Wait. Wait. Wait. Don’t do anything rash! We are all friends here, right?” I stammered.

  “So that incompetent jailer was telling the truth. Pity.” She said that last word with all the gravity of someone finding shit on the bottom of their bare foot.

  She stared at me and I could feel something within myself click. “Speak,” she commanded.

  “I’m a little teacup short and stout…,” I began to sing uncontrollably. It was a little embarrassing if I’m being honest.

  “Stop.” She held up a hand. “Why are you different from these other skeletons.”

  “I don’t know ma’am.” I found that my body complied without my meaning to say so. The traitor!

  “Call me Mistress!” She snapped back immediately.

  “Why does my aura not affect you?” She demanded.

  “I don’t know mistress.” I tried to fight them back, but the words poured out of me.

  “What are your capabilities?” She demanded.

  “Unknown.” I tried to fight against the compulsion, but it was like trying to drown a fish.

  “What do you mean unknown?” She snapped.

  “I mean I do not know.” I replied in a deadpan voice. This time, I tried to say something else, and it worked!

  “Obviously you twit!” She raised a hand to strike me but lowered it as she seemed to calm herself.

  “Grave Sense!” She called out as magic suffused her eyes.

  She furrowed her delicate brow in confusion. “What do you mean ineligible target? He’s undead!”

  Recognition entered her eyes and a sadistic smile crossed her face.

  “Are you sentient?” The woman’s face was that of a cat that finally cornered a nice, plump mouse. I did not like being the mouse in this scene.

  I fought with my whole being but, in the end, the mouse could never win unless it knew the cat was coming.

  “Yes,” I strained.

  “Marvelous!” She clapped her hands together and did an exciting tap that made her overinflated beasts bounce in excitement.

  “Bring him to the main hall. I wish to speak to him in comfort. Keep him bound in mana shackles until I deem it necessary to release him.” With that proclamation she turned and practically skipped down the hall.

  A few minutes later, the guards dragged me from my perch into a grand if destroyed audience chamber.

  Piles of rocks littered around the uneven floor. Dusty carpets of varying shades, once of bright and vivid colors, fading and desiccated. Tapestries hung in much of the same way trying to hide the imperfections in the walls and at the end of the hall sat the woman in red.

  She sat upon the back of a kneeling zombie. I could see her sitting upon the creature, creating a cruel chair. Bones could be seen lining the wall behind her in a horrific display of grotesque art. She smiled coyly as the skeletal guards sat me down on the crooked rug.

  “Kneel before me whelp.” The mistress purred. “Know your place.”

  I felt my body begin to comply, but my mind was rebelling against the idea of this facsimile of a woman. With a groan I felt my knees hit the carpet.

  I hung my head in shame, conscious of the yellow bones of my knees. I idly wondered on how they stayed together without cartilage when the mistress spoke.

  “Let’s try without the compulsion this time. I would deign to hear what you have to say. It isn’t often a sentient undead is born without intent.” She purred as she leaned on the makeshift chair.

  I lifted my head and stared at her shapely legs. Her bare delicate feet hung haphazardly across her makeshift throne. She smiled and wiggled her toes in my general direction. Her heels kicked to the side of her chair.

  I tried to hold my revulsion in. The gesture donned on me, she could tell where my eyeless sight was. Noted. Creepy, but noted, nonetheless.

  She frowned as I took my time to formulate my thoughts. A look of utter exasperation appeared on her once fairly pretty, if Barbie's cousin’s plastic mom is your thing. Seriously, she kind of looked like that old cartoon of the skull villain guy’s mom if she had skin.

  “Keep me waiting any longer and I will force you to speak whelp!” A hiss of anger escaped her lips. I could swear I saw a green toxic miasma fly from her lips in the shape of a skull.

  If I could have gulped, I would have. Instead, I simply prostrated on my hands in front of her. I gave my absolute best rendition of a terrible servant scared of the big bad guy.

  “Ohh great and powerful mistress! Wait, that’s what I should call you right? Not something like your great unholiness?” Stunned silence filled her lips as she stared at me in confusion. I continued before she could reprimand me.

  “A foul creature such as I should not be graced in your wonderfully majestic visage. I must say you are the single most beautiful woman I have ever seen! Dare I say it!? I do believe I dare! Maybe even in the entire world!”

  A pregnant silence filled the room as I continued to bow before the walking botched plastic surgery. I paused as it seemed a minute had gone by with no comment.

  I looked up to see a furiously blushing woman in red slowly walking from her grotesque throne. She stood and only then did I realize it was a living zombie. Well living is ambiguous with these things. Not dead, maybe? No, that was wrong too.

  The woman had turned the poor create into a chair. I thought the poor bloc was just kneeling there. He had bones driven into him at sharp angles creating a back arch set. His hands were nailed to the floor and his mouth was sewn shut as were his eyes.

  “My and it has a way with words.” She coed. She stopped inches from my face as I prostrated myself again. She lifted her foot and placed it on the back of my head.

  “A good servant is worth its weight in gilded bones.” She sighed contentedly. “Now rise!”

  Her voice took on an air of impatience. She strolled back to her seat and sat in an upright posture.

  I did so and stood to my full height. Shackles still bound my wrists, and I could feel it pulling something within them.

  “How were you created?” She asked trustily.

  “I do not know ma’am.” I replied honestly.

  “You will call me Mistress or my lady.” She snapped at me once again.

  “Yes, Mistress.” I replied, trying not to let the exasperation into my voice.

  “What do you know? Do you know anything at all? I’m beginning to question your sentience.” She crossed her leg and tapped her bare foot.

  “I am myself. I do not know who I am or who I was or what is going on. I woke up in my cell chained to a wall and I saw a zombie. The zombie left, you came, I am here. There really isn’t much more to say other than, hi my name is Jack, Jack Skell-E-Bro apparently. It’s nice to meet you.”