CrossyCross said:
YES. Any contribution to this thread is welcomed by all (as far as I know).
I'd write my own, but I honestly wouldn't survive a day in the asylum, and I just can't make myself write something so obviously impossible (aka, getting through Lordran).
On the other hand, there's an idea in my head about having Thorkell the Tall of Vinland Saga fame being the chosen undead after he dies under the assault of an entire tribe of armored uberbears.
Surviving a day in the Asylum isn't that hard. Now, surviving the first
battles of the Asylum on the other hand...
Ah well, but you'll see how it might work soon enough. Suffice to say that my sort-of goal of "make everything even worse" despite the whole pseudo-SI thing seems to be going fine. :3
Regardless, here you go~~
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He doesn't remember how long it has been, as he sits in the cell and withers. He broke and forgot seemingly aeons ago. The passage of time grows murky, indistinct. He feeds, sometimes, but mostly grows hungry. He hoards his water, what little he can gain. He survives.
But he doesn't remember.
The cell seemed large, at first. Enough space to stand, enough to walk, enough to lie down. A room, but for the bars, the cold stone and the ever present tinge of rot.
The cell is far too tiny. Far too empty. He knew at first, but as he broke he forgot.
He speaks, sometimes. Counting the stones and mentioning the result aloud. His voice is raspy and cracking. Every once in a while, he tries to think of names, but he has forgotten them. All the important ones drifting away. He cannot remember why that was important, but he knows that it is, and the loss pains him.
He watches the others, sometimes. They barely change. In comparison, he finds himself almost lively. It is as much amusement as he can gain, wretched and broken though he may be, watching the others who have forgotten to even exist, fading into the stones until they become rooted to the floor.
Further away, he hears the faint stomps of the demon. It too, is trapped.
Of all that he knows, it is perhaps the one being he feels the most kinship with.
***
The day a body drops from the hole in the ceiling, a part of him wakes up. The part of him that remembers far more than it could bear. The part that
was him, until he shattered into pieces.
It remembers.
With excruciating slowness, he manages to move his deprived body and find the key.
It takes him twenty minutes to somehow fumble it into the keyhole of the cell, and by the end, his body aches.
But he is out. And as he collapses forwards, lying prone with his legs sticking back and his torso sticking out, something inside him ignites.
The corridor is at most twenty metres long. He knows that were he who he had been, it would have been trivial. He would not even have noticed the length.
It takes him an hour to crawl through it. Pushing himself bit by bit, collapsing to the cold stone and resting. By the end, his breathing is ragged and his body
burns.
But nonetheless, the putrid smell of stagnant water feels so
good to his senses, as simply a break from the monotony that he cannot help but feel euphoric.
He sleeps there, his first sleep outside the cell, contentment settling over him and warming his soul.
He does not remember when he last slept so well, but nonetheless he whoops with joy, voice hoarse and cracking, as he regains the keenness of mind to comprehend what he had lost.
He struggles to his feet, standing upright once again, despite wobbling precariously, and exults in the slow stares of the hollows with whom he shared his prison.
The water is disgusting and cold, but the shivering pain it brings is as nothing compared to the aches and the hollow feeling in his stomach, and he forges on to the ladder, memories of the place, of the world, returning.
The ladder is old, rusty and as cold as everything else in the stone prison. His tired limbs protest his actions, and lying down in the icy water seems incredibly pleasant, but he knows. The cold water would kill him more surely than the ladder, were he to give into the siren song of its false comfort.
So limbs aching, burning, full of stabbing and tearing pain, he climbs, every rung a challenge.
He overcomes.
Crawling pathetically, he finds himself in the courtyard and spots his salvation. A single sword, stabbed into the earth.
A bonfire. Safety.
Home, in the land of Lordran, where the Gods lived, and now reigns only death and endings.
He touches it, grasps it. It does not burn, but it is
there. It is enough.
He sleeps.
***
To light the bonfire required only sparks, and
need. The broken blade and his soul's yearning sliding against it was more than sufficient.
However to repair what was broken remains impossible. He remembers, and he does not. He knows,
remembers, what comes ahead. The demon, strong, deceptively fast from a distance, but foolish, slow-witted. He can kill it. He
must kill it. If he cannot, he will simply fade away.
But he cannot as he is now.
He tests himself, running from one end of the courtyard to another, and his pace is horrible, his stamina atrocious. He did not even make it half-way.
As he is... he would die.
But... the bonfire heals, nourishes. His body is stronger than when he first fled the cell. With food and time, he might ascend to usefulness.
He has time. So all he needs... is food.
***
One day, he pushes the great gate open as swiftly as he can manage. He has prepared carefully for this, days and days and days where he fought with his body, until it achieved and then surpassed the strength he had had before. He does not know how long it took, only that the pain, at last, faded.
The moment he fits into the opening of the gate, he squeezes through and runs. He can hear the demon. It arrives swiftly, but he already knows his target. Before the demon can even notice, he is through, rushing into the small corridor and listening to the sudden 'clang' of a portcullis dropping down.
He breathes a sigh of relief, as he stands in the small room, before looking around confusedly for a missing bonfire.
Then again, why would one be there?
Discarding the train of thought, he turns his attention onwards. The next part will be challenging, he knows. The next part will require him to fight, and to win.
He hesitantly presses himself up against the doorframe, peeking out while clenching the broken sword hilt nervously in his hands. Further away, he can see a hollow. It hasn't noticed him yet.
He thinks, and remembers. Along the path, there should be tools, a shield and a weapon for him to use.
He runs. Leaps from his hiding place and out the doorway, looking desperately for a shield. The hollow has a bow, and knows how to use it, so even as he fumbles along the path, bare feet trampling along the cold stone, it draws, aims...
He does not let it finish. He has seen the doorway and knows that it is his sanctuary. He throws himself inside and hears the thwap of a loosened bow and the clang of an arrowhead bouncing off stone. But it doesn't matter, because he sees what he needed. A shield. A simple, wooden shield.
He grasps it, fastens it to his arm, and with shaking breaths, walks out.
The hollow is gone. Further up, he knows there will be a weapon. He walks, slowly, shield held lightly at the ready, carefully stepping around the stone fragments littering his path.
A weapon. A simple club, but far more useful than the broken hilt he was carrying. He grasps it and clings to it, a certain measure of courage welling up inside him. He is ready. At least, as ready as he will ever be.
He walks forward, turns the corner, and faces his foe.
The Hollow hisses as it comes into view, snarling with primal hunger and desire, coveting his life and vitality. Bleak, mindless immortality driving it.
He strikes.
The club impacts softly. Hesitance, fear, grief and inexperience welling up and preventing him from doing as he
must, as is
required.
He does not wish harm onto another being.
The Hollow abandons its bow and leaps, smashing into him and forcing him to the cold stone floor. He whimpers in pain from the impact, and tries desperately to push the ravenous being off even as it rakes its fingers against his naked skin, spittle flying from its mouth, rotting teeth snapping at his face and closing towards his neck.
He drops the club, pushes against the head of the beast, and howls in pain as it bites at his fingers. He kicks and screams, and surging with mindless violence, he overpowers the withered things, rolling to sit on top of it, blind with pain and desperate fury.
He strikes with what he has, the wooden shield crashing down on the skull of the Hollow. He has abandoned thinking, roaring like the wounded beast he has become. He strikes, strikes, strikes and strikes again.
Eventually, the skull of the Hollow breaks, spilling brains and blood all around, and he slowly wakes from his fury and takes in the carnage.
The vomit mingles slowly with the dark blood as he crawls away, whimpering to himself.
***
Returned to the bonfire, he slowly calms, even as he stares at his bloodstained hands. His mouth tastes faintly of iron, and his back is covered in scratches.
As his wits return, he laughs bitterly at the realization that he was almost killed and overwhelmed by one of the weakest creatures of Lordran.
Thus he stews in his dark thoughts and crushing fear until sleep claims him, and the morning offers fresh determination.
He returns to the site of the "battle", the stench of dried blood and vomit hanging over it.
The Hollow lies, still dead, but slowly mending. The bow and the club remain where they were discarded. He draws his sword hilt.
The Hollow has a heart. A cluster wherein the soul is found. Something akin to the soul of a Fire Keeper. He remembers.
With an angry thrust, he plunges the sword hilt into the 'heart' of the creature, striking the clump of soul at the core.
A sound like shattering glass.
A scream.
A flash of light.
***
The Darksign brands the Undead.
The curse of immortality and madness, the fate of being undying, yet eternally hungering for souls and life. A slow descent into madness.
And yet, the bodies of the Undead are frail. They may be slain and destroyed, killed such that they will not return for days, weeks, months, years. Or burnt to ashes, devoured by monsters until they may never return.
What reason, then, could there be for such things as Asylums? What reasons, for sparing the Undead, and not simply burning out the curse?
Curses, he remembers, do not go away. They might merely be redirected into something else. It is the nature of malice to cling to the world far past the actions that gave rise to it.
The Darksign cannot be burnt away. It lingers in the world long after its vessels are destroyed. Lingers, and clings to what it may.
The curse of the Undead is not merely a wretched immortality, but a pestilence that cannot be cured.
A pestilence marked by a single, burning circle, surrounding utter darkness.
And as the hunger grows within him, he can do nothing but weep and howl with anguish at the realization of his discarded mortality. For he is Undead, and he may never again truly reclaim humanity.
***
He slays the Hollow at the top of the stairs, and feels his hunger subside as he consumes the souls and pitiful scraps of what was once its humanity. He sees the trap has broken the wall, and he remembers. Oscar of Astora. A name. Perhaps a friend.
He steps through the hole, into the dimly lit domain of what should be the first voice not his own he might hear in the land of Lordran.
He sees a shape. It stands frozen a few steps away from a pile of rubble, holding a sword and a shield.
Something is wrong.
In a flash, the sword strikes against him, hammering against the pathetic wooden shield he frantically uses to defend himself. He staggers backwards, but already the sword is swinging again, and this time cutting into his arm. Blood spills from the wound and his grip fails.
Ah, he thinks, he has gone Hollow.
There are but a few desperate moments more, before the knight of Astora cuts open his stomach and he falls down the stairway towards the bonfire, seemingly leaving his opponent satisfied.
There he dies.
