Even If

After finishing my business I dragged the body, leaving the sword behind for a lucky villager, to the meeting place. I could have just waited there for the others to show up, but I decided to walk around for a bit to clear my head.

Clearing my head didn’t take long, unfortunately finding my way back to where we decided we’d perform the ritual took much longer.

Fortunately my recollection about what happened the night before distracted Sanson from the fact that I had been late.

“Interesting.” Sanson was nodding along with my explanation. “That makes sense. I thought Eris was joking when she said she left partway through, but I suppose not.”

“Forget hiding, she left?” I was wondering why she didn’t help with the body. She managed to overcome weakness and find an even greater strength: ambivalence.

“There is one thing, Rem my friend, there must have been some unintentional miscommunication. This man’s injuries seem to tell a different story than simply being crushed under his horse. And I know of this man. He is too strong to die from something like a horse crushing him. Despite the ease in which you described defeating him, he is actually quite famous back in Ah’Ruh.”

“Even if I lied, does it matter how it happened?” I narrowed my eyes and stared at the body as I spoke. A gash along the neck, a cavity in the chest, and countless other pieces of flesh that had been forcibly removed. “He’s dead. I killed him. Does anyone have anything else to gain from discussing it? Or. . .”

Would you like to take responsibility for his final moments?

I’d rather not. The first two were different. Things were moving quickly, I didn’t mean to kill anyone, I didn’t understand why any of it was happening. They were weak and died without any fuss. Besides, it’s not like I stuck around to watch them die from their wounds. With him though, I knew. I can’t even use a cliché line like, ‘my body was moving on its own.’ I knew what I was doing, and I wanted to do it. His wounds told a story no human could write. And if they did, they’d cease being human. Even if I recovered my body, what about my mind? Hadn’t I already changed completely?

Those were the thoughts I didn’t want to process. Not because I couldn’t accept them, but because I could accept them so easily. I was uncomfortably comfortable with the whole thing.

He was crushed by his horse.

Upon seeing my determination, or lack thereof, Sanson dropped the subject.

We waited in silence until Rakki proudly exclaimed that he was finished preparing the ritual.

“So, I probably should have asked this earlier, but how will this work?”

As long as it worked I really didn’t care how it happened, but I figured I’d ask him out of politeness.

“It’s fairly simple really. Generally speaking, souls want to inhabit physical bodies, so it’s not hard getting it back in. The more challenging part is recreating the human’s body. The most challenging part was delaying the ritual while waiting for you to finally show up.” Rakki’s hand started to glow as he spoke.

“That’s not my fault! Why’d you pick such a difficult place to find?”

“You are the one who picked the location, and I should also mention that this isn’t even where we were supposed to perform the ritual.” Huh? Really? I was pretty sure it was the right spot. “This human and I just so happened to run across this body and figured you got lost.”

An incredibly accurate assessment, but I wouldn’t accept it.

“Let’s just agree to move past that point. Why do you have to create a new human body? Why couldn’t we have used my current body?” For the new vessel or the sacrifice.

“You're still using that one. It’s an undead body now. I can’t just put the original soul back in with you.”

A fair point. My body had already changed completely.

“Then what happens to the body I’m currently in?”

“Huh? Nothing. That’s completely unrelated to this ritual.”

It didn’t seem unrelated to me, but no point in pressing the details. I wasn’t overly concerned with the fate of my original body.

“Alright, let’s disrespect the laws of life and death!”

Rakki snapped his fingers. His hands flashed and the pattern on the ground started to glow. As the light reached the body at the center it started to melt into the silvery liquid.

“Ah, Remnant, I forgot to tell you. I know your sense of pain isn’t right, but this process is going to hurt. Even for you it will be unbearable.”

“First time I’m hearing about this! Why? I’ve always been a fan of surprises, but this seems like a rather unpleasant one.”

“I used part of this human’s soul as your base. Whenever the new body absorbs the soul you gave me it will also end up pulling on the pieces I shoved inside of you. And I can say for certain, damage inflicted directly on the soul isn’t pretty.”

“Let the new body take the pieces inside of me. That’s the whole point.”

“That’s not possible with this ritual. You’ve already made them your own. You’re not using much, so the human should be fine without your share. Actually, having dealt with you for a while, the human will undoubtedly be better off without the portion you're using. But don’t worry about it now, the pain should be starting soon.”

“This seems like exactly the time to be worried about it!”

And then, the pain. I won’t go into detail, I don’t think I could. Maybe pain isn’t even the right word. It was as if my entire existence was being ripped apart. Again.

At some point after that I lost consciousness for the first time since becoming an undead.