Blurry eyes gazed towards the light, blinking ancient dust from their eyes. Their tattered clothes and shriveled flesh a testament to their curse. Slowly, painfully, they clawed their way towards the light, creatures from hell clinging to their last hope. They had been trapped for so long, repenting, fearing, and hiding. Hoping for a light which would never come. Spurned by their kin and killed by their “protectors” they had run to the most familiar places to them. Their graves.

They carved a tomb under the earth, meeting, trying to rebuild their lost societies. Living in peace that they had never known they could have. They had sated their unholy thirst. They had become more human than humanity. They found ways of stopping the process of decay, and why not? They had already conquered death.

And so they rose, lusting for the sun, crawling towards it like blind moles, thirsting for its warmth and beauty. They longed for color and life.



But life fears death.


The Crusaders came, radient in their gleaming armor, slowly at first, then streaming like a river of quicksilver. Eyes bleached gray from years underground rolled in heads quickly severed. The ground ran purple with ancient blood. Tounges sliced from shrunken heads cursed on their own.

The undead hissed and shrank back into the earth, taking severed body parts to be sewn on later. The Crusaders poured vats of holy water down graves and tombs. When the holy water touched cursed flesh it hissed and dissolved like acid. Screaming, maddened, the dead remembered their dreadful habits. Human blood was spilled.

And the dead licked it up like thirsty dogs.

Their flesh renewed, it grew clean and full. The battle raged on. There were casualties on both sides. But the Crusaders were driven back in the end.


The dead walked the earth again, their thirst renewed.