Page 3 of The Scattered Bones

“Whose do you think?” The Stranger’s eerie hum answers. This is the second time I’ve seen him in person, but his visage is no less frightening. So, I look back to the crumbling temple hidden deep within the jungle, its broken stones entombed by vines.

“Death?”

“Death,” he agrees. “No other god would leave his holy ground so empty.”

“It’s so far from civilization.”

“Hreinasta wouldn’t dare set foot close to his shame, and the realm followed suit. It’s why the jungle surged around it. One day, the temple will disappear completely, a mound of greenery its tombstone.”

“I should go before the sun climbs higher.” I start to move, but his serious tone halts me in my tracks.

“My child, when Death left this tainted ground, the shrine called to the darkness, desperate to fill its walls. Absent power, an evil took up residence here without resistance.” I stare at the Stranger. Concern is written in the line of his lips, in the emptiness of his white eyes, and he continues, “The dead crowd this temple, corpses of the unfortunate souls who couldn’t escape its grasp before the shadows fell. What you seek will be concealed in plain sight, just another rotting bone scattered among this evil’s victims. It’s why he was hidden here.”

“I’ll know him when I see him,” I say, and I almost pray I’m right before I stop myself. The gods have turned their backs on me. I refuse to offer them anymore worship from my lips.

“I hope you will, my child, but a word of warning.” He pulls his hood back so I can see his chiseled cheekbones, his black hair framing his beautiful yet hideous face. “This evil lurks in the shadows. You can escape it while the sun reigns, but the malevolence will still hunt you as you move within those walls. Do not step into any shadows, my child. I know it’ll prove difficult as the trees block the moving sunlight, but my warning stands. Avoid them at all costs. Do not give it a taste of your soul.”

“I’ll try,” I promise.

“Do not try. Do.” His expression almost softens. “I’ve grown fond of you, and your quest is only at its birth. It would be a shame to lose you so soon.”

I nod, unsure if his words should encourage or alarm me. I linger amidst the foliage, but after a long silence, it’s clear his warning is complete, so I turn toward the temple.

* * *

I don’t knowwhat I expected to find inside this forgotten shrine to Death, but nothingness wasn’t it. The Stranger’s warning rings like a gong in my brain, but only peace and sunlight wait for me in the rubble. And bones. Hundreds of bleached piles huddle in corners and tangle in the vines, and it takes me a minute to realize that the human remains are concentrated in areas where the shadows fall first. It seems The Stranger’s concern was well founded, and I swallow with a dry throat at the task before me. I’m hunting a single body part among thousands. Hidden in plain sight, yet impossible to find, much like his thigh in the Sivatag. Cast aimlessly, where no one would discover him.

I grit my teeth and leap over a small shadow created by a fallen boulder. That’s why they hid him here. One could search for a thousand cycles and still not identify which bones are his. Cycles that trespassers don’t have, for the moment the sun sets, the evil hiding in the shadows owns you. You can never leave, and judging by the piled skeletons in my path, many have wandered into these walls believing darkness wouldn’t trap them, only to die alone in a jungle where no one could hear their screams. I’m well acquainted with evil. It craves destruction and pain, misery and violence. Whatever took possession of this temple when Death was banished has spent cycles beckoning travelers to its doorsteps. Each of these bodies had a reason to venture to this unholy ground. A reason encouraged by this entity so it might feed its hunger. That thought makes me shiver despite the humidity. Did my quest bring me to danger’s mouth, or was it this evil tricking yet another sacrifice?

I say his name out loud, pushing thoughts of him to the forefront of my mind to drown out the dread. I say it once, twice, ten times, twenty. I picture his face, his hands, the flawless skin that stretched over a broad chest and abs. I imagine how its softness felt pressed against mine, the way his fingers pushed through mine. I picture his scars, his hair, even his feet. My memory recalls the sleek and dangerous clothes that hugged his powerful frame. It remembers him gloriously bare.Thirty times, forty times, sixty.Over and over I speak it because one day I woke to find my memory of his voice muddled. I couldn’t recall its gravel, or how deep it sounded when he laughed, when he groaned, when he whispered his love into my ear. It was the first thing I noticed about him. How rich and low his voice was. It rattled my chest, embedded itself in my bones, and I can no longer remember it. The sound abandoned me, so I speak his name. I visualize him from his crown to his soles, and not the body I search for that lies in ruthless pieces. The body that was whole and imperfectly perfect. The body that worshiped mine.Seventy-five times, ninety, one hundred.

One hundred and twenty repeats later, I’m still no closer to finding him. Nothing calls to me. All I see are the hundreds who died before me and the empty spots where thousands will die after me. Dust and decay fill my nostrils, and then it strikes me. The air is silent. The sounds of the jungle have vanished. I see the greenery peeking through the collapsing walls, but I hear nothing. Not a bird, not an insect, not the wind.

“Stranger?” Panic lodges in my throat when he doesn’t answer. He sometimes ignores me, but this silence is different. He’s not ignoring me. He can’t hear me. I’m utterly alone, cut off from everything outside these ruins, and as the sun flies across the sky, my time races with it. I leap over another shadow as fear claws at my throat. The day is fading, and I don’t know where to search. Time behaves unnaturally here. The sun is farther than it should be, and his warning crashes into me tenfold. I’d wondered how so many could lose their freedom within these walls, but now I understand. Time obeys no laws in this temple. Its master is the evil that creeps ever closer.

I want to run, to race through the rubble in search of his bones, but anxiety cannot steal my control. I can’t cave to insanity. I must be smart and act with intention, so I close my eyes. I picture his face, his chiseled jaw, his brown irises with their flecks of gold. My memory gazes into them, hones in on them, and begs them to lead me.

“I’m here,” I whisper. “I’ve come for you like I promised I would. Guide my feet.” I pause for a long moment, but I sense nothing. The evil has isolated my soul, hiding everything from me save the sight of the sun slipping lower through the trees.Slipping, slipping, slipping.

I move through eroded hallways, crouch under fallen pillars, and scale protruding boulders, but all the bones look the same. All the rotting corpses resemble each other. I’ll never find him. For all I know, I’ve passed his limbs one hundred times over and never noticed—

I yelp as the ground gives way, and I collapse to my knees with a painful crack of bones, both mine and the dead’s. My leg falls through an opening, but my foot thankfully lands in a patch of sunlight. One inch to the left, though. One centimeter to the right, and it would have touched the shadows filling this new hole.

I slap a hand over my lips and sit frozen in fear as an unseen thread pulls at my chest. My heart sinks like a battered ship in a storm. I know where he is.

I carefully withdraw my foot and peer through the opening. I hadn’t noticed at first, but the collapse here is worse than in the rest of the temple. The vines that braid through the ruins are absent, as if this section hasn’t stood exposed to the elements for long. My heart sinks further. This is where they laid him to rest. They placed him in the lowest part of the ruins and then toppled the stones above him. The only way I’ll retrieve what they hid is if I descend into the shadows.

I shiver and check the sun’s position. I won’t be trapped until it sets, but The Stranger instructed me to avoid even the smallest shadow. I don’t know what will happen if the lurking evil tastes my flesh, and I curse myself for not asking him to explain his warning.

Swinging to my knees, I peer into the shadows, and from what I can see, the cracked opening descends into a cavernous void. My guess is this was originally a cellar, and I pull my head back and scan my surrounding. With how fast the day is dying, I don’t have time to clear the rubble to gain more sunlight. The fallen slabs of stone are too heavy for me to shift, anyway. I only have two options: admit defeat or brave the evil. I picture his face and know. He would never admit defeat. He never did. Neither shall I.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I glance at where I left the Stranger in the jungle. “If I don’t make it out, thank you.” And then I drop into the blackness.

Chaos erupts around me in the form of a vicious wind. It batters my body and steals my breath, and I cough as my feet slip, the air’s force too strong. The darkness is hazy, and I can barely see my own hands as they crawl over the floor. I think I’m screaming, but the violence silences any cries I make. It strips me of my voice, my hope, my courage. It replaces my every emotion with fear, and I want to lie down and die.

One, two, three times. I say his name even though I can’t hear the words.Ten times, eleven, twelve. I crawl blindly forward.Twenty times.I do not stop. I never stop.

The thread in my chest tugs harder. Our vows, our promise, our love. It cannot be silenced. We’re bound even in death, and that’s why I still sense him. I move despite the pain. Despite the evil salivating to claim me. I’ve granted this entity more than a taste. I’ve given it my entire being, and it is ravenous. Its hunger pulses against my skin, through my bones, and into my soul. Its desire is impatient, raging that it must wait until nightfall to devour me whole, but damn the gods, it will wait. It cannot have me yet.

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