The Dead Vol. 1

What would you give to escape the grasp of cold death? A fortune? Your one true love? My brother chose to sacrifice his entire bloodline, both living and long departed. It wasn't shocking when the black-hooded figures broke into

our family estate. In truth, we had all been planning one form of betrayal or another. A family whose forebears dedicated their life's work to necromancy can rarely be trusted, after all. But... what happened when we were taken

was far worse than anything I had dreamed was going to happen. An experience so painful that even now, only a disembodied soul, I still feel the echoes of the pain I felt that night. We were ushered down into the basement one

by one. We knew we were going to die, my family and I had anticipated that. The proper countermeasures were in place. Our protection was guaranteed by the shades that reside in the crimson beyond. Yet, I remember the

distinct feeling of terror in my gut as I heard the screams of the others brought down before me. My brother had saved me for last for that single reason. To hear the dying sounds of my family, to know what fate awaited.

I wondered what my death would be, decapitation? Burned alive? Slowly drained of my blood over a cauldron? Or maybe he would simply strike me through the heart with a blade? None of those turned out to be true.

When I entered the basement, my insides felt like they had been shredded. None of my family had been killed. They hung from the ceiling like cattle in a butcher's shop. Their skin flayed, their digits removed, their eyelids cut off.

Eternal suffering. That is what my brother intended. His immortality would be guaranteed by such a gruesome task, the Dead God would be ecstatic. I could hear the quiet din of his dark magic keeping them alive. They would be dead forevermore.

And then, after letting me take in the entire situation. He bent to his work of ripping my soul out of my body. It would have been an act of ultimate kindness, had he let me suffer the fate my kin still endure to this day. Instead, he reamed my very being

Decades, centuries, millennia? Such conepts meant nothing under the weight of being tortured for an eternity during the span of every second. The punishment varied, oh it varied so much. Torn apart by creatures born of nightmare.

Hacked into pieces one inch at a time by a rusty cleaver. Thrown off a cliff, only capable of watching my descent towards the spikes below. Any reality he wished was possible. My soul was forfeit for eternity.

That is, until he was slain. By whom? Some poor fool on a righteous quest, most likely. He was cast into the abyss by my brother's final curse, any proper necromancer will at least have a death curse or two in waiting.

I came back into this world in tatters, fragments of my soul strewn across reality. Even today I have yet to retrieve them all. Don't you worry one bit, I WILL find them and return myself to my former glory. And my family?

Who knows what they could be experiencing right now. Probably still hanging from the basement ceiling on hooks like they were when I last saw them. I COULD save them... but like I said before: A necromancer's family can't be trusted.