There’s no fuzziness, no feeling of drifting into consciousness when he wakes up.

Perhaps that’s the first bad sign.

Wherever he is, it’s dark and the air is dank and stale. Not to mention, he’s lying on the floor. The cold, hard, extremely uncomfortable stone floor.

But really, he could forgive himself from last night for getting into this situation, however it happened, if he could just remember.

Not just last night. Anything at all. His name. His age. What his own face looks like.

As he lays on the ground, not groggy from sleep but wishing for a bed or at the very least a nice, soft pile of dirt, he realizes he has no idea who he is.

What a cliché, he thinks, and at least he remembers some things. Books, yes. He probably read those. Amnesiac heroes are a dime a dozen. Hit on the head, cursed by a witch, fought a great villain to the death and mysteriously reappeared later as a farmhand. Idly he wonders which one he is.

As he begins to push himself up off the ground, he realizes two things:

He is wearing armor that doesn’t seem to fit. It hangs off him oddly and rattles when he moves.

And his body doesn’t feel…right.

His glove falls off when he lifts his hand and he leaves it to grope around in the dark. There’s a satchel nearby, half-rotten, but he searches through it. He finds a tinderbox inside it and, searching the floor some more, a dusty torch. After a few tries, he manages to light it.

The first thing he sees is a skeletal hand wrapped around the torch. He nearly screams and drops it before he realizes it’s his own hand. And suddenly everything is thrown into sudden, horrible clarity.

He can’t remember anything because he’s dead.

--

The satchel has a name embroidered on the inside: Mordecai. He hates the name, so it must be his.

Inside is a book, the pages so weakened by age and moisture it’s falling apart. He handles it carefully, placing it back in the satchel with a reverence one would use when handling a newborn child. It’s too awkward to try holding the moldy thing one-handed while trying to read it by torchlight. He’ll look at it when he gets out into the sun.

There are also some furry clumps in the bag wrapped in a disgusting cloth. It takes him a moment to recognize them as what used to be food. He leaves them on the ground.

There is a knife lying on the floor a few feet from where he…

He cuts that thought off with a shudder. He’d only freaked out a little, but the idea of being dead still makes him…uncomfortable. He has no idea how long he’s been down here.

He wishes it were the one night of possibly drunken antics that led to him passed out in a cave that he originally thought it was.

The knife is still in decent condition, even if the wooden bits on the handle are a bit soft. He begins to put it in the satchel before he notices a sheath for it on his hip. It fits much better there, and has the added bonus of not cutting up his stuff.

Interestingly, there are two other skeletons in the cave with him, but he’s the only one moving around.

Both are bigger than he is, he thinks, and there’s something familiar about them that he can’t quite put his finger on. Trying to remember anything is like trying to look for something in pitch blackness. He knows the memory is there, but he can’t find it no matter how hard he tries.

There’s not much of interest on the skeletons. One has a sword so big Mordecai is honestly shocked that he can even lift it. The other has a crossbow. It’s big and bulky and he can’t find any bolts for it, so he leaves it and the sword where they lay.

He doesn’t know how the whole ‘resurrection’ thing works, but he has a theory about why he’s the only one that’s risen.

One’s skull has clearly been smashed in, and the other’s ribs are scattered across the floor.

Mordecai is a bit queasy about checking himself over, but he’s pretty sure he’s still whole. When he finally gets sick of the rattling coming from his breastplate, he removes it just enough for something to fall out. An arrowhead. He’s not sure what compels him to put it in his satchel, but he does.

Having explored the cave to its fullest, he sets off toward the mouth of the cave and out into the sun.

Almost immediately, he runs back into the shade of the cave.

The sun burns. His exposed bones feel like they’re on fire. Searching his memory, something unexpectedly rises through the void and whispers in his skull. The voice is nebulous, the face that says it a smudge, but the words are clear enough: The undead only walk at night.

He doesn’t remember anything about the sun hurting them, though, which he thinks with some bitterness would have been useful information.

He’s pretty sure bones shouldn’t burn like flesh or hair, but he doesn’t want to press his luck. He hunkers down just out of reach of the rays of light to wait for nightfall.

--

The moon is much more friendly to his new constitution and despite only being a sliver he can see perfectly by it as though it were day. He finds a creek nearby and leans over the water to examine his reflection.

It’s surreal, he thinks, to see a bare skull looking back at him.

Two lights burn in his eye sockets like embers, the only sign of life in his countenance. The moonlight casts shadows across his face, deepening the shadows under his cheekbones. He looks positively ghastly.

He raises a hand to his face, watching in wonder as the spindly bones roam over the ridges and hollows of his skull.

I guess this is my life now, he thinks to himself before he stops to consider the thought. A short, barking laugh comes from him somehow, and the sound almost startles him. It’s ethereal and hollow, not like a human voice at all. Wryly, he corrects himself.

“This is my undeath.”