Vashj, a tale of the recent dead

A voice from behind Vashj startled her…

“Ah. You are awake at last! We were about ready to throw you on the pyre. You were starting to stink.”

Turning, Vashj saw the source of the voice – one of the undead. Instinctively Vashj reached for the sword that had once been her constant companion for so long, so long ago. The reason for the reaction, like everything in those first days, was a blur.

With a sniff in Vashj’s direction, the man addressing her continued.

“Wow, you do need a bath eh? A few hundred years in the tomb will build up quite a stench. You need a bath. The pausing, a large smile crossed his face and he slapped Vashj on the back with a boney hand. Just make sure things don’t start dropping off eh? Well, you had better go on down to the church, they are waiting for you. You have been asleep for quite some time.”

Vashj met the man’s humor with a blank stare, not knowing what to make of the situation. Her stare was answered by a gently guiding hand from the only ‘Human’ she had come in contact with since awakening.

“Well what ever it was, at least there was something that was enough to ‘wake the dead,’ so…they’re waiting for you down at the church.”

A puzzled stare from Vashj again was quickly answered.

“The church, down the road, second building on the left.”

What the man had mistaken for puzzlement over direction on Vashj’s part, was not that at all. As she stood listening to the man, all the while memories had come back to her…brief flashes…of herself in the midst of a pitched battle against the undead. She saw herself running a sword through men such as this one before her, thinking them no more than animated corpses. Something was different here. Here she found humor and a friendly smile where she thought there should be none.

Vashj headed down the road in the direction the unexpectedly jovial stranger had pointed her. More than any other affect her new state had on her, was an overwhelming sense not of confusion, so much as loss. She felt a burning desire to belong somewhere – anywhere. She ambled down the road…that in itself being a new sensation; not slithering, not a walk of stately grace…merely ambling. It began to rain; a downpour from the sky as if it were a sheet of water. With the coming of the rain, her already grey and dismal surroundings became even more miserable. Her bare feet slapped on the mud, that with the sound of the rain, created a cacophony of sound that formed a wall of white noise, making it even easier for her to ponder what was really puzzling her. That was her destination…