Chapter 8 – A Comedy of Bones

The putrid smell of burning flesh was everywhere, there was no escape from it. The carpet of carcasses stretched towards the far end of the sand valley to the other end, growing thinner from the sides, like its threads were unravelling. The killing fields were being devoured by the fire, purged from horror, only the pace was dreadfully slow. It was an absurd nightmare, more absurd than any maddened mind could conjure. To see so many battle-mutilated carcasses at once, the visage grossly clashing with what a mortal mind considered normal, your reaction would not have been to scream. Any man or woman to see such a thing, would have been gripped by awkward laughter instead. Charred ribs and skulls trodded randomly in the most awkward of angles, many stuck in the sloppy mass of other corpses, like skeletons having rough, bloody intercourse. The brush strokes were countless, the golden canvas of the killing fields was the stage for a comedy of bones.

The corpses posed not just a sanity test, but a physical challenge for those wishing to traverse across this red line. The desert had effectively been cut in half for a second time in its history. The indomitable colossus stood still on his post, unfazed by the carnage.

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Chapter 3 – Obituary of The Universe

The giant slab of unnamed stone peeked from the bottom of the sand pit. Scribbled with words not read for aeons beyond remembrance. Only some lines were visible. Like one gigantic tombstone, untouched by the ravages of time and wars past. Did it speak of an age lost to historians, divine laws of the land, or was it a warning? The only words that the white-haired slenderly man could read on the small surface area that was partially visible, despite his vast knowledge, were just the name of it.

“Obituary of the universe… it exists”, he whispered to himself as he fell to his knees that just lost their strength.

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Chapter 2 – The Dead Are Digging

Shovels, pickaxes, carts. Borrowed from nearby farms and mining towns. The workforce was borrowed as well, without an expiration date for return. The racket at the digsite was infernal, as thousands of walking corpses tinkered with their many tasks. For any work more complicated than shoveling sand and dirt and rock, they would’ve been unfit for. But for monotone, repetitive work, the dead were ideal. They knew no exhaustion when doing their master’s sinister bidding.

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