Eralia, the Brain-Eating Zombie

The Commons, Krastas. October 18, 1434.

Laufa collapsed to the dirt with a thud. Behind the cloud of dust from her fall, the captain’s stena gemstone pulsed. His smirk vanished.

* * *

A sickening, wet scraping.

That was the first thing she heard. It vibrated up from the ground along with muffled sobs. Immediately, something felt horribly wrong. Her fingers twitched. She felt dirt against her back, uneven and cold, as a warm wetness spilled from her. Her breath caught in her throat with a gurgling liquid. And her mouth tasted like blood. Suffocating. I can’t breathe.

“Laufa, Laufa!” The sobs formed a name.

…Laufa? The name felt familiar, but she didn’t completely recognise it. She tried to reach for her own name, but couldn’t remember anything. Anything at all.

Warm droplets splattered her eyelids. She pried them open, and the world slowly came into focus. She saw a boy sobbing above her, his mouth twisted in grief.

“…Killed her…”

“…Survived?”

Hushed whispers. A woman wept nearby. Blurred figures circled her, staring. Her head throbbed and her limbs felt heavy. She didn’t even have the strength to move them. Hospital, someone…

Her vision cleared, landing on the boy’s clothing. A brown tunic, leather clogs. Behind him, a man watched intently. There was a glowing crystal in a silver-ish fitting at the base of his neck. She glanced down.

Ah. Blood. She was drenched in blood. Her hands fumbled for her chest, her body barely obeying. Her fingertips felt like they weren’t even hers, slippery and lifeless. Slicked in blood. Litres of it.

“H—huagh,” she choked.

The boy’s swollen eyes darted to her face. “L…Laufa?”

Stop calling me that. Help. Please, I can’t move. Somebody help. It hurts, it… It, it doesn’t hurt?

Her fingers probed her body. They stumbled on a soaked cloth, then found her own chest. She braced herself…

But it felt totally fine. There wasn’t any pain, and there wasn’t any wound. She hacked up the liquid clogging her throat and breathed in. The icy air felt like it stung her lungs. She wasn’t dead. She definitely wasn’t dreaming, either. She was alive.

“Captain, she’s alive.”

“Indeed… She is.” The man adjusted his glove. “Laufa, was it? See to her induction.”

He flicked his hand and two men parted the masses, their eyes fixed straight on her. They seized an arm each, clamping down tightly with rough hands. As they hauled her up, her knees buckled and she stumbled forward. They dragged her through the crowd, a blend of fearful and awed faces. A father jerked his child back as her heels scraped across the dirt. The awful scents of sweat and blood filled her nostrils.

The captain studied her. “…The order for her brother is still valid.” He turned on his heel. “Take him as well. A conscript, and a volunteer.”

Brother? She strained her neck.

A woman cried out. “Fiann! No!”

A guard wrenched an arm behind the sobbing boy’s back. His terrified eyes darted around wildly before meeting hers. His tears fell, mixing with the pool of blood on the ground. He mouthed a word, but she couldn’t be sure what.

She couldn’t be sure of anything.

No, that wasn’t true. There was one thing. The captain’s parting message. The word that boy had sobbed. Her name was, probably, Laufa.

* * *

The Krastas College of War. October 18, 1434.

The library of the Royal College smelled stuffy, equal parts parchment and leather. An afternoon light highlighted the dust between its twisting shelves. Its silence was broken only by the creaking of a history book’s spine where Eralia Adeus sat alone.

…The treacherous southern lords saw the royal establishment of the Stena Merchant Guilds in 1146 as a threat to their traditional privileges. Led by House Miarties, they sought aid some twenty years later from the Garath Empire, whose humid marshes had long harbored envy for Lodran’s vast stena deposits.

“Amateurs.” Eralia sneered. “Overplayed their hand, went begging for foreign support, and were crushed. Too little, too late.” She turned the page, coarse with age.

Their banners were torn down, their names struck from the rolls of nobility. The vast holdings of House Miarties were divided amongst the Houses of Lesnick and Rustes, whose support of the Compact had proved their unwavering loyalty…

She paused. Her slender finger rested on the name Rustes.

“Loyalty?” Eralia muttered to herself. “More like better opportunists.”

She closed the tome with a thump and opened her own leather-bound notebook. Inside the front, her fingers traced the sharp crease of a folded letter. Her jaw tightened. She didn’t need to read it, her cousin Corvan’s words were already burned into the back of her mind.

…I pray that allowing your enrollment into the Royal College was the right choice. Should your ambitions of military command fail, a noblewoman such as yourself has other uses at the capital.

A draft from the window sent a chill straight down Eralia’s neck. She whipped past the letter and her pages of combat notes, landing on a list of names in her own scratchy handwriting.

House Vellen. House Pasaulis… House Rustes.

She uncapped an ink pot. Her quill scratched against the paper as she scribbled beneath in small letters: Miarties.

Her head lifted at the shuffle of boots from the corridor. She saw a group of lectors and instructors march past the library’s arched doorway. A flash of silver thread on one man’s mantle caught her attention. It was a royal sigil.

A Royal Inspector? Here? Her chair scraped against the floor as she shot to her feet. She jammed the stopper into her ink pot, flung it into her satchel, and slipped into step behind them. Their colourful robes were simple enough to follow among the uniforms of disciples clogging the halls. She fought the urge to shove the dawdlers aside.

Her own footsteps were absorbed by a growing chatter ahead. The dim corridors opened into a grand courtyard where the sudden sunlight nearly blinded her. Before her eyes could adjust, the crowd surged around her. A warm, disorganized mass of bodies. Her procession vanished into the chaos. She frowned and raised her head. Of course…

Eralia stepped back, leaning against a pillar as she caught her breath. Lodran banners fluttered in the mountain’s wind. Spectators circled a large, paved square, kept behind by a low stone wall. A voice, a touch too loud, chimed over the chatter.

“Young Lord Rustes, what a pleasure it is to see you!”

Her head snapped towards the young noble. He had an eager smile, his bow a touch too deep.

“…I wish I could say the same, Ottro.” The young lord in question, Mordhun Rustes, sighed before he turned to respond. The scar on his right knuckles vanished as he clasped his hands behind his back neatly.

“Ah, Lord Rustes, surely you jest!” Ottro shifted from foot to foot nervously. “I wouldn’t expect a disciple of your importance to be here, watching the entrance ceremony, though!”

Mordhun turned his shoulder to Ottro, his gaze drifting to the line of recruits ahead.

Ottro gave an unsubtle cough before continuing. “Could it be, perhaps, you’ve heard the rumours surrounding that commoner?”

Mordhun’s eyes narrowed. “Which commoner?”

“They say that she came back from the dead. Dozens of witnesses reported it!” Ottro leaned forward and whispered. “It’s possible she could be a manra—“

“I should have known not to expect anything of value from your mouth, Ottro.” A sharp laugh escaped Mordhun. “What, you claim there’s some sort of vengeful revenant among the recruits? Do you take me for a fool?”

Ottro’s smile remained plastered on his face as he bowed again. “Of course. It was only a rumour—“

“Be gone.”

“Of course, Lord Rustes.”

As Ottro left, Eralia kept her eyes fixed on Mordhun. She followed his gaze to the recruits, their drab wools, the marching steps, and a flash of auburn hair.

Close, but if anyone were a revenant, it would be me. Still, revenant. How rude. A revenant was a zombie. Her case was more of a takeover. Replacing a stranger’s consciousness at birth, before their life had even begun. Then again, this body would’ve been stillborn otherwise, so whether they even had a life to begin with was debatable.

She had inhabited the body for nearly eighteen years, eighteen long years of Lodrian nobility. Almost as long as she had lived on Earth. Her fingers traced the spine of the journal in her satchel. Which life was the real zombie, now?

* * *

The Krastas College of War. October 18, 1434.

The gravel crunched under Laufa’s boots. She pinched her arm for what felt like the millionth time and slumped her shoulders in defeat. Nothing. She flinched as a guard’s polearm grazed her skin, a reminder to stay in line.

She’d been keeping her mouth shut. Even a single, misspoken word might just go and turn the men on her.

The recruits marched on. Any conversations would’ve been lost to their footsteps on the cobble, anyway. Golden banners lined the winding mountain path leading to a massive fortress just ahead. It was blocked by an iron gate, though it looked more like a cage, flanked by statues crowned with blue crystals on either side.

Guards in plate armour stepped aside and the gate lifted with a heavy grinding. The recruits were guided into a courtyard where the city they’d marched from was visible far, far below. It was nothing like the cities she was used to, though. Walled-off figures in robes moved through the courtyard, their gazes lingering on the new arrivals and her. Laufa rubbed a thumb against her palm, the reality of her situation finally settling in.

From the moment she’d awakened in this nightmare, there hadn’t been a single moment to rest, or even just to gather her thoughts. Not among these strange people with their strange clothes, strange gems, and scary weapons. I definitely don’t belong here.

One boy took a breath of the thin air and nudged his friend. “Can you feel it? This is our chance to crush those Forsgailte bastards!”

“It's a chance to not die to some spear, you mean,” another boy sneered. “Soldiers like us’ll get torn up. That’s all we’ll get.”

“Y—Yeah? Well, I’ll be different.”

Laufa jumped as the crowd’s chatter was interrupted by a horn. From a stepped altar in the center of the courtyard, a man’s voice boomed.

“I am the Grand Master of Arms, Ochist Vellen. You stand here today because the Royal College has presented you with our Compact’s most prestigious opportunity. The opportunity to advance. Today, we will discover whether you are fit to be a shield, or worthy of being the Compact’s sword.”

He stood before them, a dark wool cape over his shoulders, with a noticeable widow’s peak. “Step forward, grasp the stena, and place your hand upon the stone!”

The recruits tensed up as the guards stepped forward to sort them. One jabbed a slow girl in the ribs with the butt of his spear while another boy stumbled, but the men didn’t even flinch. A hand shoved Laufa forward. She shuffled into line behind the boy she’d been enlisted alongside, Fiann. At least, I think that was his name.

He snuck a glance back, his eyes widening. “Laufa, are you okay!?”

Whoever you think Laufa is, it isn’t me. But the words wouldn't come out. Were they even her words in the first place? She could see the hope drain from his face as he waited for a response she didn’t have.

Her eyes dropped to the ground.

“Ah…” He fiddled with the hem of his tunic. “I guess… We might have to miss that festival, after all.” His voice cracked as he tried to laugh.

The recruit at the front was jerked towards the altar. A man handed the girl a teal gem, the same one on the captain’s uniform and in the statues.

“Illumine,” the Grand Master commanded.

The girl was face-to-face with a polished, obsidian stone. She set a trembling hand on it. Her face turned red with effort as silence hung over the courtyard. Nothing, the stone sat completely still.

“Infantry.” A man beside the Grand Master marked a ledger, and another guard pulled the recruit aside.

“I’m sorry, Laufa,” Fiann whispered. “This is all my fault…”

The next recruit followed. He whispered to himself before touching the stone.

A faint point of light appeared in the obsidian. One distracted recruit suddenly craned his neck to see, while another held his breath. Dozens of smaller dots followed, stationary and arranging themselves around the first. Between them, crackling strands of light connected. It felt like… Magic.

The words felt silly, like something straight out of a film. Yet there it was, right in front of her. Then, the pathways splintered, and his light flickered out of existence.

“Infantry.”

Even though the stone lit up… He didn’t pass? The recruits shuffled forward as her eyes drifted to the next-in-line. It was Fiann’s turn.

“Don’t worry about me.” His voice squeaked higher. “...I’ll, I’ll see you in a bit, yeah?”

Fiann managed one last, brave look at her before being shoved forward. He approached the altar and took the gem with shaky hands. He exhaled, held his breath, and squeezed his eyes shut…

“Infantry.”

Obsidian stared at him unchanged.

Fiann opened his eyes and stared back at the stone. The guards roughly pulled him away. He looked back at Laufa again, any bit of bravery he had gone.

“Step forward.”

Laufa crept forward. If I run, I’m definitely catching a sword to the back, right? Maybe nothing will even happen! Maybe I’ll touch it, and they’ll let me go home.

The gem was pressed into her hand. Its surface felt smooth, completely alien. She stared at the obsidian slab in front of her. It was glossy, dotted by hundreds of tiny holes. Her own reflection was warped, a face she didn’t even recognise. Her gaze darted between the bloodthirsty eyes of the men surrounding her, the massive stone walls, and a beautiful blue sky that reminded her of home. Earth, not whatever layer of hell she was trapped in.

“Illumine,” the man commanded.

What does that even mean!? Will you kill me if I can’t? This isn’t fair. You can’t just drop me into this world and expect me to work magic. This isn’t fair at all.

She poked the obsidian. The surface slicked with sweat beneath her hand, it was like touching freezing metal. She nervously palmed the azure gemstone in the other. Damn it, Damn it, Damn it.

A strange sensation coursed through Laufa, first from her fingers, then into her chest. Her reflection seemed to distort and her thoughts became a whirlwind. There was the smell of a room she didn’t recognise. The tug of a small hand on a sleeve. She tried to form a sentence in her head, but all she could come up with was a jumble of words and names that didn’t mean anything. Would the real Laufa have known what to do? What would she do? What am I supposed to do!?

She gripped the gem tighter. There was a searing flash of white, then everything vanished. Her vision lurched back into focus on a small, blue spark on the obsidian. Blurred heads turned towards her. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. There was a familiar taste on her upper lip. Blood, it was a taste she’d learned clearly today. She brought a hand to her nose and wiped it away.

Soon, the light began to fade and the onlookers turned away. The man overseeing the test narrowed his eyes. Ah, no, no.

Her heart pounded. The spark flickered violently, like an out-of-control fire. I don’t want to die here!

She threw her entire weight onto the obsidian. It exploded with light, branching out into hundreds of glowing lines. They illuminated the obsidian’s speckled surface. The current that’d travelled up her arm felt like boiling water in her veins, and her headache had grown into a stinging pain behind her eyes. Her breath hitched, the pain was too intense to function. She couldn’t hear anything except for a low crackling as the slab itself shifted between a deep black and a bright, blue glare. She squeezed her eyelids shut. Time passed, seconds or minutes, she couldn’t tell, then, she felt the light vanish.

“Bearer.”

What? Her eyes fluttered open. The man’s expression had changed from an indifferent frown into something she couldn’t fully understand. Before she could even process it, a hand grabbed her wrist. Her feet tripped over each other as she was dragged away from the altar, and away from the other recruits. Her gaze wandered to them as Fiann’s mouth hung open in shock.

“LAUFA!”