[ Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Serrin
Date: 16 Nov 1999
Time: 16:48:28
The street was empty, even in the living world. The wide stairs in front of him led down to several tracks of road, and the buildings shot up around these like rusty nails driven into a rotten piece of wood. The sky belched out its violent, rolling waves of pandemonium as always, dominating the gray, panoramic cityscape. He had just gotten off the train from Indiana, and was standing outside one of Dallas’ many stations. Travelling was relatively easy for this man, Joe Serrin – taking temporary residence in the skinlands engine wasn't pleasant, but it worked. Some might consider him a stowaway, but he didn’t himself. Everyone did it. And there had to be certain rights, privileges as well as restrictions to being dead. And he was here now, so what did it matter?
Joe was looking ragged in his large army jacket, which covered an additional layer of clothes in the form of a business shirt and tie. His face was concealed by a dark gasmask, the black rubber and pale glass eyepieces making him look elephantine in an unsettling way. He started walking, taking slow, ethereal steps down the stairs towards the sidewalk, a sub-sonic drone in the back of his head telling him where to find his destination - The Necropolis of Dallas, Texas. He was far into the city itself, but the center of the city’s dead did not have to be as widespread as that. It just formed a small, cancerous growth within, or beyond the borders of the living realm. As it always were.
The eternal fog of the shadowlands lay heavy on the scenery like a blanket of dirty gray smoke, flowing through the streets along with the unusually still wind. Joe looked up the buildings, both seeing them and seeing beyond them, into the hearts of the hidden skeletons within. The gentle vines of Oblivion were crawling everywhere, invisible to the mortal eye, sinking their tendrils into the hearts of everyone. None more so than himself, or his fellow restless. They were just aware of it. To a degree. He felt cold.
The quick, those still living in the mortal lands, were oblivious to his presence as he walked down the street. To him, they looked gaunt and sick, their eminent deaths shining from within them with the black light of Oblivion. To them, he wasn’t there. He was indiscernible from the death energy that permeated the world they shared, that they could only feel through their own reflections on mortality. So he ignored them as best he could, occasionally being caught up in a swirl of emotions, but unwilling to brood over his lost life. He knew his purpose.
That purpose kept him going, now as well as for the last forty years. The thought of her kept filling his mind at times like this, when solitude and isolation were his only companions. His daughter Cheryl. It was her presence that led him here today, her continued existence that was his only source of joy. So he led where she followed. Her husband through many years had convinced her they should spend their twilight years here, in Dallas, where her husband’s family lived their comfortable lives, so they had moved here about a month ago. Joe had to work for weeks before he was allowed to follow her, as his superiors in the monolithic Hierarchy of the dead found his talents useful. Finally his unlife could begin anew.
Pressing on, he could see something glinting in the distance – and from the shadowlands, nothing in the skinlands even remotely reflected the light. As he approached, he saw the brief glitter turn into the hard, black sheen of Stygian chains. They were hanging from these heavy poles that seemed hammered into the ground, forming a sort of palisade that seemed to stretch out forever. It didn’t take many heartbeats for Joe to figure out he had found what he was looking for. He reached out to let his fingers lightly graze the heavy chain in front of his mask, but he recoiled at the thought of their origin. He started walking along the rim.
After a while, during which Joe had crawled along the skeletal palisade as best he could, he saw it come to an abrupt stop. Opening unto a quiet street was the opening he had been looking for, an official entrance to the dead city, unimpressive as it was. Just a gap in the fence, where the chains lay crawling on the ground, it was nonetheless guarded appropriately. A wraith was leaning against one of the fence posts, looking bored but sinister in his torn sports jacket and sunglasses. His left arm was almost separate from his body, as a chunk of flesh had been ripped off, revealing the bone beneath, the wound looking slightly blurred by the mists. He did not seem impaired though, as he spotted Joe and eased off the post to approach him.
‘Who are you, and what is your business?’ Joe noticed the sword at his side as he waved towards someone on the other side of the gate. His tone was monotonous and grim, and devoid of meaning. A formality. Joe replied, as another man came out of the shadows from within. “My name is Joe Serrin, of the Skeletal Legion. I have been granted permission to come here by my Anacreon in the Whitin Necropolis, for personal reasons.” He tried to sound confident, but the thought of Cheryl conflicted with this formal, inhuman bureaucracy he was dealing with. He pulled up the sleeve of his jacket to reveal the cross-and-circle legion symbol that scarred his forearm. It was hard to like the Hierarchy, but it worked.
“You have, have you?” The second man had come around behind him, and walked around him to look straight at his mask. He was wearing a twisted, demonic visage to hide his own face – masks were a traditional symbol of the Hierarchy, and used to show allegiance in public. He was heavier than the first guard, but dressed more conservatively, in indistinguishable dark rags. His voice was leering, slightly mocking but not a provocation. “Yes” Joe replied. “Like I said, I want to enter this city, and I imagine you want me to meet your superiors. So will you take me to the Citadel of the Dead?” The large man was silent for a second. “Sure.” , it finally came, matter-of-factly. “Lance, please escort this gentleman to the Citadel and make sure he sees Walker. And take Ashael with you.” He looked at the crippled guard, who nodded with a “Yessir”, and bowed for me to enter the Necropolis gates. Another shape came out from what I could see was a nearby building, some sort of store, in the living world, and they both walked behind Joe as he started advancing down the narrow, suffocating street with quick steps.