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If I don’t have a body, if I’m just a soul right now, then how… why does it feel like I have a rope around my throat?
It didn’t make any sense. And the more I pulled at it, the tighter it coiled around my throat and chest. I stopped struggling. Maybe this was my punishment. To feel like a rope was crushing me and suffocating me forever and ever. The moment I stopped fighting it, it wrapped around me from my neck down to my waist. I looked down, and something shifted inside me when I realized that the thing was not a rope at all, but a… string of life. My string of life. Longer, thicker, stronger… more possessive than ever, desperate to attach itself to me. It had a will of its own, and its will was to... keep me alive.
It pulled me up through the earth, through damp darkness and places no man had ever seen, and dumped me in a pile of broken flesh. It felt cold, painful, and disgusting. But I had no other choice. The string of life forced my soul to mold against the body, fill every cranny from the inside, and expand around it in a field of renewed energy. I recognized it as my old body, the one I’d just left behind when the sword pierced my heart. I thought I would’ve wanted back, but I didn’t. Hell would’ve been easier to stomach. This thing was dead, cold, and unwelcoming. It smelled fowl, too. But there was no way back now.
Something or someone had decided that I wasn’t done yet.
It was so bad, that once my soul and my body were back together, I lost consciousness.
* * *
It was cold. So cold. I stirred awake, my hands reaching around, trying to find something to cover myself with. I was naked. I opened my eyes, but only saw darkness. I finally found something, wet and slippery and disgusting, but at least it was warm. I pulled it over me, and realized it was moving, breathing. It had the texture of rough skin, and it was covered in small, round suction cups that oozed something nasty. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I had to get out of there.
My senses were coming online, and the first one was my sense of smell. It hit me hard. If I had anything in my stomach, I would have vomited. Rotten flesh, stale water, dried blood.
Water. Stale water.
And I suddenly knew where I was.
I scrambled to my feet, my hands feeling for things I could use for support. Vines, more slippery, moving tentacles, and a wall, the rock warm and sharp under my fingertips. I moved around, my bare feet slushing through rusty water mixed with blood, sweat, and God knew what other fluids. Everything that was down here, in this pit of death and terror, was on my body too, in my pores, in my hair, in my eyes and my mouth, under my fingernails. I was drenched in it. And it smelled awful.
“I have to…” I croaked. Good, my voice was working. And I did sound like me, like the old me, like the Mila I used to be. Was that a good sign? A bad sign? Too soon to tell. “I have to get out of here.”
I don’t know how I did it… The old Mila wouldn’t have been able to climb the wall of the well with just her bare hands. But I did. My feet searched for nooks and crannies in the stone, my toes digging deep inside them and using them to propel my body upward. Up up up, and I could finally see light. I grabbed the edge and pulled myself over it, falling on the floor like a ragdoll. I stayed like that for a while, eyes closed, naked body shaking, nails scratching at the white stone. Candles flickered all around me.
“Mila?”
That voice. I knew that voice. I couldn’t look up yet. No, not just yet. I focused on my breath. In and out, in and out. My lungs were working properly, and I knew that my heart had been mended and my blood had been returned to my veins. But how? Through what ancient, dark magic? Through what horrendous act? Through whose sacrifice?
“Mila, you’re alive…”
Another voice. And I knew that one, too. It was time to confront them.
I pushed myself up on my hands and knees, then with extreme effort, to my feet. My blue eyes rose to look at the circle of people with black cloaks on their backs and candles in their hands. Through long eyelashes that dripped someone else’s blood, I stared at them in silence before I remembered how to use my voice again.
“What have you done?”
“We had no other choice,” Francis said. He looked at me like a lost puppy who knew he’d done something bad and was hoping I’d forgive him. “You were dead.”
“Goddess, he killed you,” GC’s voice trembled. “He murdered you in cold blood, and then he hid your body deep in the forest.”
“It took us three days to find you,” Pazuzu added.
“It took us hours to dig you up,” Sariel whispered, still in shock at what they’d all had to do.
Klaus was there, too. Joel, and Patty. Lorna…
“I’m a mage, not a necromancer,” Lorna said. “I would’ve… but my magic has limits. Francis said he knew a way.”
I straightened my back, moaning in pain. To move was to hurt.
“You brought me back,” I managed. “No, you asked your Great Old One to bring me back in a body that had been buried for three days!”
Francis whimpered. I threw him a death glare, and he immediately realized all his moaning and whining annoyed me. He gathered his courage and did his best to hold his head high.
“Your body will be back to normal in a few days. Y
ou’ll be stronger and faster, you’ll be able to do things you could never do before. Your senses will… sharpen.”
