Page 17 of Claimed By Night

“Come, my Shadow Knight.”

The words, as soft as fluttering wings, are an order to a body that cannot refuse them. And I am locked inside that body. My eyes snap open of their own accord. And though it is pitch blackness, I can see.

But what I see does not make sense to me. It is the top of something round that surrounds me on all sides. I am trapped beneath it. I turn my neck. No, I am trapped within it.

“Call on your shadows, Revenant, tell them to free you.”

Something burns within me. Determination, perhaps.

I do not understand what the voice is saying but I feel something welling up within me all the same. It flutters and fills me with a buoyancy I struggle to describe.

I feel my hands come up on either side of me, and my palms place themselves flat against whatever is encapsulating me. I push.

What feels like wood begins to splinter beneath my hands, breaking away as something dark and crumbly falls against my face and into my mouth.

Dirt. And worms.

I close my eyes as I continue pushing against the wood, cracking it with the sheer force of my strength.

I feel myself sitting up as more of the wet earth pushes against me, trying to drive me back into the cold and moist darkness. I claw at the dirt, digging through it as I force myself into a standing position. The dirt falls around me, filling the cavity of the hole that holds me captive.

I dig upward, never pausing, never stalling, even when I realize I am not breathing—there is no expansion in my chest, nor the feeling of air filling my lungs. I do not breathe and yet I am animate. I cannot explain it.

Instead, I dig for what feels like an eternity. And when I finally feel nothing but air beneath my fingertips, I do not pause. I pull myself from the crevice even as it attempts to suck me ever downward.

“Open your eyes and behold a world you have not seen in far too long,” the voice announces, but its mistress is nowhere to be seen. “You have arrived, Revenant.”

The dirt falls away from my eyes as I blink, allowing my vision to adjust to the bright moonlight that acts as a beacon upon me. I do not understand where I am. Colors are dim, as though bathed in a wash of gray, and every sound is foreign, new. The world appears strange.

I glance around myself and feel a shudder pass through me at what I see.

Headstones, old and broken.

Some are nothing more than crumbling masonry. The ground is uneven, sprayed here and there with tufts of mostly dead grass.

I am in the hallowed ground of the dead, surrounded by those engaged in a sleep that has been denied me.

Brief images suddenly splatter through my confused mind. Before this place, I existed somewhere else. That place was dark, too, but the darkness was not akin to this. It was not so cold. A fleet of faces, scenes, and feelings blast me at the same time—all jumbled and confused.

“What has happened?” I demand, my voice sounding scratchy. As though I have not used it in decades. But it is my voice all the same; I recognize it.

“You have returned upon my dictate,” the voice answers. “I have awoken you from your forever sleep, Revenant, because I have need of you.”

My forever sleep? I try to understand what this means, to understand what came before this moment, but my memory is a blank slate. There is nothing there, other than the flood of images that feel more like a half-forgotten dream.

I do not understand how it is possible, but I understand what has happened.

I was dead.

Perhaps, I still am.

I attempt to stand, but I am wobbly on my feet and must grasp onto a large headstone so I do not lose my footing. As I do, a gentle rain begins to fall, bathing me in cold tears.

Looking down upon myself, I find the dirt that coats me becoming mud, successfully camouflaging my ripped and mostly disintegrated clothing. I wonder how long I was buried within the unforgiving ground.

Somehow, I have been returned to a world I vacated long ago. How long ago, I am uncertain, as the hollowness of my memory is unreliable at best.

I throw my head back and open my mouth as wide as it will go as a scream blasts from my lips, echoing through the headstones of the city of the dead.

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