HOME | DD

Description
He didn't remember his name.

He didn't remember where he came from, or what he did there, or why he left.

He didn't even remember how he died.

The first thing he remembered clearly was the unpleasant touch of some strange magick, and a raspy voice calling out to him in the dark oblivion of death. He didn't recognise it, but it didn't seem very nice. The next thing he knew, he was clawing his way through dirt and stone, bleached bones shirking off worms and plant roots as they rose to motion once again.

Perhaps the voice was making a joke, but he certainly didn't find it very funny. Just before he could reach the surface, just as the sunlight broke onto his weary skull once again, he saw at last the insurmountable. His legs still buried in the dirt, he could no longer dig any further.

He knew he wasn't the first the voice had spoken to today. The clinking, clanking, sound made him certain that others had been roused from their eternal slumber as well, and the last sound of fletched stone, crackling fire, and metal on bone made him certain he was, again, alone.

He spent days staring at the sky. The circling sun overhead served as his only record of what was going on in the world. It was comforting in a way, he could spend hours at night thinking, just waiting for the warmth of the sun again at dawn. Beyond that small simple joy, he didn't really have much to contemplate, so he just kept replaying the few memories he had over and over again. He knew they made him want to cry, but that ability had long since decayed into the earthen tomb he in which he awoke.

Then he heard wood. Logs. The clattering of an axe against a belt. A lumberjack? He was sure that was the term. The sound wandered past his prison one day, and he paid critical attention to each footfall. What about the voice? Was it gone? Did it send the lumberjack for some new purpose?

A few hours later he heard the sound again as the moon began to return, right on schedule. Was it going back somewhere? A temporary period of leave for some unknown destination? Maybe he was near a settlement of somekind, he did occasionally make out the crackling of embers or the clanking of a hammer.

If he still had the muscles for it, he might have raised a smile when he heard a different sound. More wooden, like carpentry tools, and a grumbling! Mumbled curses and cynicism, this sound was very interesting to him. And another sound too, like the grumbling but stronger, more heavy. The area was positively brimming with life!

He could still only see the sun overhead, he could still only imagine the warmth as it struck him, buried in the mud. But for a time, he thought, perhaps he could be content to chart the goings on of this land of the living by the warm sounds of its beating pulse.

Description
He didn't remember his name.

He didn't remember where he came from, or what he did there, or why he left.

He didn't even remember how he died.

The first thing he remembered clearly was the unpleasant touch of some strange magick, and a raspy voice calling out to him in the dark oblivion of death. He didn't recognise it, but it didn't seem very nice. The next thing he knew, he was clawing his way through dirt and stone, bleached bones shirking off worms and plant roots as they rose to motion once again.

Perhaps the voice was making a joke, but he certainly didn't find it very funny. Just before he could reach the surface, just as the sunlight broke onto his weary skull once again, he saw at last the insurmountable. His legs still buried in the dirt, he could no longer dig any further.

He knew he wasn't the first the voice had spoken to today. The clinking, clanking, sound made him certain that others had been roused from their eternal slumber as well, and the last sound of fletched stone, crackling fire, and metal on bone made him certain he was, again, alone.

He spent days staring at the sky. The circling sun overhead served as his only record of what was going on in the world. It was comforting in a way, he could spend hours at night thinking, just waiting for the warmth of the sun again at dawn. Beyond that small simple joy, he didn't really have much to contemplate, so he just kept replaying the few memories he had over and over again. He knew they made him want to cry, but that ability had long since decayed into the earthen tomb he in which he awoke.

Then he heard wood. Logs. The clattering of an axe against a belt. A lumberjack? He was sure that was the term. The sound wandered past his prison one day, and he paid critical attention to each footfall. What about the voice? Was it gone? Did it send the lumberjack for some new purpose?

A few hours later he heard the sound again as the moon began to return, right on schedule. Was it going back somewhere? A temporary period of leave for some unknown destination? Maybe he was near a settlement of somekind, he did occasionally make out the crackling of embers or the clanking of a hammer.

If he still had the muscles for it, he might have raised a smile when he heard a different sound. More wooden, like carpentry tools, and a grumbling! Mumbled curses and cynicism, this sound was very interesting to him. And another sound too, like the grumbling but stronger, more heavy. The area was positively brimming with life!

He could still only see the sun overhead, he could still only imagine the warmth as it struck him, buried in the mud. But for a time, he thought, perhaps he could be content to chart the goings on of this land of the living by the warm sounds of its beating pulse.