Dances with Death

That night I had a dream.

You were in my dream. Not as you are now, but I am sure that it was you. You had less worry on your face and more sparkle in your eyes. I remember thinking that you had beautiful eyes. You stood at the end of the hallway, and I walked towards you. Every time I would take a step, the corridor would seem longer, and you would seem further away. I needed desperately to tell you something, but I couldn’t speak. It was that kind of a dream. Instead, I walked faster. You still got further away, even though you didn’t move. I began to run. That didn’t help. I ran until I was gasping for breath, but you remained the same distance from me. I had begun to slow down in defeat when I tripped over a large, hairy pig that squealed and then ran off down the hallway. I heard you laughing as you waited for me to get up. I pulled myself first to my knees and then to my feet, finding that my sweat had formed a pool around me. I looked at where you had been, but you had disappeared. I knew that you were standing behind me. You laughed. I turned around.

You still have beautiful eyes.

It was late december, 2013 again. I was at a party, can’t quite remember whose. The music was loud and the mood was good, or as good as it ever was in those days. A lot of us were still living the war, while everybody else tried to forget it, like they were told. People who are raised as soldiers often don’t know when to stop fighting. Don’t know how to stop fighting. It was not long ago when every person in this country had lived in fear, prepared to shoot their neighbours dead if it turned out that they were the enemy. If they were told they were the enemy. There had been no end, but as long as people were prepared to believe that there was peace they would pretend like there had been. And fuck the rest of reality.
Two people accosted me on my way to the kitchen. Both youths, male, white, not that that meant much anymore, dressed in black, but no obvious uniform, one as tall as me, the other slightly shorter, but broader. I thought at first that they were going to pick a fight.
“You’re Frank Crow, yeah?” The latest musical stylings of the manufactured underground whined and pulsed from the front room.
“Crowe.” I corrected him. “Yeah, I am. What about it?”
“We know what you did.”
“You do? What did I do?”
“We know what you did to Caroline Levy.”
I shrugged, not really caring. “So do I. This is getting us nowhere. What do you want?”
The tall one appeared taken aback, and blinked. He had hazel, slightly bloodshot eyes. Obviously he had expected me to deny his allegation. He tapped a small badge that was pinned to the end of his sleeve. A sillhouette of a crucifix against a white d.
d.
“We’re the order of the Black Cross. She was one of us. We watch out for our own.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Order of the Black Cross, huh. Don’t that just beat all? I bet you people beat the hell out of the Aethirian society.”
The shorter one shoved me against the wall, and pressed his face close to mine. He had obviously been prepared for this. I heard the telltale shlink of a blade being drawn.
“Don’t fuck with us, Crowe. We don’t like being fucked.”
I regarded him coldly. A deadly certainty settled over me. “She wanted to die.” I said.
The tall one punched me. Hard. I doubled over, feeling sick. The edge of the knife felt icy pressed against my windpipe. I should have been afraid. I looked up at them.
“It doesn’t matter if she did. We’ve come to exact vengeance on her killer.”
“If you’re going to kill me, do it outside.”
They dragged me out, and pushed me up against a wall. Told me to put my hands up. I did. The tall one laughed.
“You’re very brave, Crowe.” he told me. “Most people would be pissing their pants right now.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you.”
He had done this before, I noticed. He did not hesitate as he plunged the knife cleanly through my throat, and blood dripped onto the wall and onto my clothes.

I died. Again.

I found I was alone. There was no blood, no pain. I remembered more than the first time, felt less. There came a clarity to my perception that had not been there before. I walkedk ink into the house. The party was still on. Part of me knew that this was crazy. The same part also knew that it didn’t give a flying fuck how damn crazy this was; it was going to happen anyway. Tall One and Slightly Shorter were still there. They saw me.
“Fucking Hell.”
I felt like laughing. Behold, for I am risen. All due credit to them; they didn’t stay like that for long.
“But we killed you!” The tall one rubbed his forehead distractedly.
“Yes.” I agreed. “You killed me.”
There was a pause. “No shit,” he said finally. “You want a drink or something?”
“Sure thing.”
“By the way, this is Thomas. I’m Simon.” He grinned. “No hard feelings, eh?”
I smiled back at him, slightly embarrassed, and he walked off to find drinks.
“You really phased him.” observed Thomas. “No-one we’ve killed has ever, well, come back. How did you manage it?”
I gazed at the wall for a while. “Magic.” I said. He seemed to accept this.
“Interesting times, huh.”
“Yeah.” There was a lull in the noise level as the song was changed.
“You ever tried to raise anybody else?”
“What, like from the dead?” I eyed him.
“Have you?”
“No.” I replied. It seemed strange now that the idea hadn’t occurred to me before. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to. Simon, the tall one, returned with drinks. I thanked him.
“What were you talking about?”
“Crowe’s stunt back there. We’re not obliged to kill anybody twice, are we?”
“Don’t think so, no. Why?”
Thomas shook his head. “No reason. I was asking Crowe if it was possible to ressurect other people.”
“Is it?” Simon looked at me.
I shook my head. “I’ve never tried.”
He looked thoughtful. “Do you want to?”

That was the beginning for me. No big enlightenment, no glowing light, no voices in my head, or at least none that I remember. My power comes from within, and I know it as a feeling of emptiness and cold that I have carried with me all my life. A hole in the heart, a doorway to the void, it sets me apart from others, and it feeds off death. Any death. My death, your death, the death of a stranger. It doesn’t seem to matter to it, and once awakened, its powers were boundless.

I am the nullomancer. I am the damned.