Challenge 29: Resurrection

[WritesNaughtyStories]

As spring begins to dig it's way out of winter's cold, dark grave religious feasts celebrating rebirth have long been celebrated.

Here, in the American Midwest, magnolia trees and daffodils are blooming as pale buds start to show on many other trees and, with Easter looming, resurrection seems a natural theme.

The requirements are simple: something dead has returned. Tell me you zombie stories, resurrections, reincarnations and reanimations. Horrific, hot, humorous or hopeful, bring your dead back to life. Bonus points (maybe, I don't actually decide the winners, popular vote does) for putting the "romance" in necromancer.

4,000 ecchi credits to first place

2,000 to second

1,000 to third.

Have fun and good luck. Voting will begin at midnight, April 7th.

Edited April 12 by WritesNaughtyStories

[SataiRolePlayingGuy]

Death.  It consumes everything.  Friendship, family, love, life.  You never know how long it will last.  The lonely sometimes even more susceptible to it.  Ryo had watched it happen over the years.  First his grandparents, one after another, a few uncles, then his father.  He had few friends.  He feared the day he lost any of them.  While he was not elderly, he was certainly not a kid anymore either.  His own death terrified him more than anything.  He desperately hoped for an afterlife, but suspected and feared oblivion after the final breath.  He felt no confidence any religion was true.  He feared how close it was getting.

Death and the fear of it gnawed at him from the earliest childhood.  As a kid he could tell himself it was very likely a long way away, barring some freak accident or disaster.  But now things were different.  There was a desire to reclaim the past escape the end.  Many had tried it in the past, some much more wealthy and powerful than him.  But he still needed to try.

He dug through many shady books and websites.  Dug into any material he could find.  Eventually on obscure forums, he found people telling strange stories.  Probably fake, but sounded just genuine enough to give him hope.  It led him to take a drive to a small business, in a town hours away.

He was welcomed inside by the owner.  A strange, older man, with an odd look in his eye.  This was not old fashioned superstition or magic though.  Not entirely at least.  It was technology, but technology he claimed would do the seemingly supernatural.

It back there was a cluster of machines.  Helmet’s and gloves, that made Ryo think VR.  But the man claimed they let you reach out.  Think about what you lost.  Whether someone dead, or just a lost connection.  It would link you to them.  Perhaps draw them back into your life.  He offered Ryo a chance to try it out.  Warned him to trying something small first.

He walked back.  Got into the chair.  Put the equipment on.  The old man told him to focus on an old fond memory.  He thought back to a childhood friend he had not seen in many years, he focused on the thought.  Then he felt a jerking pull.  His sense were pulled away from the building, his body.  He found himself in a strange house.  Standing before a man, familiar, yet not.  The man introduced himself, asked what was going on very confused.  It was the name of his old friend.  They talked a little.  Remembering the past.  Ryo wanted proof this was real.  He suggested maybe they should meet again, asked his friend to contact the next day, then he felt himself get pulled back.  Shaken up, he left, waited to see what happened.

He was contacted the day, got confirmation it all had happened.  Plans were made.  But more importantly, he returned to the old man’s business.  This time he tested to claim what had been lost.  He remembered his childhood dog.  He found himself reunited with her, in a strange empty field.  He played with her for a few hours.  Then brought back again.  The old man told him to be careful with the dead.  The nature of the connections were still unclear.  Whether there would be consequences.

He kept going.  Seeing old relatives.  Talking to them.  They had all the memories they should have, it was just like he remembered them.  But they avoided the questions on death or the afterlife.  They could not or would not sooth his fears.  Leaving him a little uneasy, uncertain.

But he kept going.  He wanted to reach out to someone else he long missed.  An online connection.  One of the few people he felt comfortable talking to about personal things and had played somethings with online.  She had just disappeared one day.  While he mostly recovered, it hurt at the time, and the pain still lingered a little.  He had no idea where she was now.  If anything happened.

He thought back on all of that.  He got pulled in, found himself in an old house, that appeared long abandoned.  A faint voice called him back.  He found a young woman, maybe early 20s, lying weakly in a bed.  She apologized to him, for not anything.  She had suddenly got sick.  Did not last long after that.  There were many she did not have a chance to say goodbye to.  She thanked him for the visit.  But she said she had an offer to him.

As man and woman, dead and alive.  He could bring her back.  If they ‘became one’ in the place.  Instead of giving her child, he could give her life.  One of legs spread a little.  She knew it was a little weird, but asked if he would do it.  He paused for bit, nodded.  He then undressed, crawled into the bed and they made love for some time.

After it was over, he returned again.  A strange feeling in his body this time.  The man had an odd look as well.  Concerned?  He did not say anything though.

He went to bed, had a restless sleep.  When he woke up, he felt different.  Strange, in a way he did not fully understand.  But he continued his days.  Until one day, he could not move.  More precisely, the body did not move on its own.  It was not his body either.  It was his old friend’s.  The woman’s body.  Her thoughts echoed in the head so he could hear.  They had truly become one.  Every few weeks they would take turns controlling the body, the body would change.  She reassured him.  They would never be alone again.  Even when it switched back to his body, he would hear her thoughts from now on.  She told him to look forward to seeing life as a woman, she would do the same as a man.  He had no control over the body as a woman.  But he see, hear, smell…feel, everything she did. He was a little uneasy.  But he hoped not to be too weirded out by it.  Looked forward to where life might go, two lives as one.

[IsabellaRose]

first draft, not well edited, around 1500 words, and it ended darker than I intended.

Resurrection Incantation

It is a dark night with only a hint of moonlight filtering through the clouds, and as I stand upon the ancient stones paving a ring around the alter the cold lances up through my bare feet like knives of ice. I am naked and the air is chill upon my bare skin. Blood seeps from the unholy symbols carved into my flesh. It wells in the self-made wounds but does not drip, leaving a pattern of black and red sigils and whorls over my pale white skin.

I studied the pact, a life for a life, and I now prepare to offer up the young woman who until this night has been my lover. I have known her intimately, and she had given herself to me, physically, mentally, and finally, after months of carefully cultivating the seeds planted so many months ago, spiritually. But her entrance to the fold of the initiated was not what she thought. I told her she would join me as an equal, which in a sense is true. Her life force will bring back my love, her flesh will be reshaped into the form of my master, the only man to whom I have ever willingly given myself. But she will cease to be. The rituals we performed were not to make her one of us, but to prepare her for sacrifice. 

I feel a pang of regret, but brush it aside. It is why I took the poor thing as my lover in the first place. Why I sheltered her and made her trust me, why I provided for her and made her feel she belonged. I not only needed her to love me, but I needed to love her as well. She gave herself so willingly, like a hungry animal begging for a gentle touch, kneeling beside me, desperate for the approval only I could give. How could I not have fallen for her, at least a little bit? But I fell harder than I intended. Still, it is what is required, love for love, life for life. Had I not loved her, the sacrifice would not have been adequate.

I am sorry. I told her as much as she slid into unconsciousness. I knew from the start she would die by my hand, but I had thought to keep myself distant, maintain some sort of emotional barrier, but in the end, she found her way into my heart. It is like putting down a childhood pet, an unpleasant and sad task, but one that must be carried out, and something only you can do.

She stirs as I stand over her on the altar, and I begin the incantation.

In moon's soft glow on this dark night,
I forsake my love, call beyond life's light.
With blood and words I weave this spell,
To return true love from death's dark well.

Lightning flashes in the distance, and I see her laid out before me. She is also nude, her body lean and luscious, the curves I have caressed and felt pressed against my own call out for my embrace. Her breasts rise and fall with her breathing. I know she is aroused. The brew I concoted makes her groggy and hungry for the touch of a lover. The knife, when I plunge it into her heart, will feel like a lover entering her willing and ready body. It will be bliss at the end for her. 

I continue the words of the spell, my voice rising as a breeze stirs the air and the clouds seem to move faster.

With heart and soul, I call your name,
Tear through the veil, our love aflame.
From bones grown cold, let warmth arise,
And bring my love to mortal skies.

There is another flash of lightning, closer this time, and a fat raindrop lands on my outstretched hand. It is followed by another, and then a third. The clouds dance across the sky in unnaturally rapid formations, swirling around as if an anomalous storm brews beyond the ability of man to predict. My voice rises with the wind.

By ancient bonds and magic's art,
I summon thee, with beating heart.
Come back to life, oh love so true,
Our destinies entwined anew.

She moves on the altar, her body writhing as if in the throes of ecstasy, one hand sliding between her own legs, but whether to try to reduce her arousal or make it stronger I cannot say. I have an urge to put my hand there as well, to urge her on, to give her one last release, la petite mort, before her final act. But instead I grasp the knife, raise it above my head, prepare to drive it through her chest and into her beating heart.

To heart's embrace, I drive my knife,
To bring one back, I give a life.

I hesitate, looking down at her, so young, so beautiful, so full of life and energy, so full of love and willing to give everything to me. I do love her. I do. But I loved another before her. We made a pact. I cannot falter, and so I drive the knife into her chest.

Awaken now, return to me,
My love reborn, so mote it be.

There is no scream, no mad scramble for survival. She lets out a sigh as if I have given her pleasure, and then she dies. I stare at the hilt of the knife poking up from between her perfect breasts, breasts that no longer rise and fall with the breath of the living. As the rain begins in earnest, I continue the incantation.

Through time and space, our spirits blend,
Together now, until the end.
By magic's might and love's pure flame,
I call my love back whence they came.

The wind whips my long hair about my head and torso, raindrops pelt my naked flesh like stinging mites, lightning flashes and I can feel the energy of the dead surround me like a warm blanket, ready to lull me into its deadly embrace. But I resist, I continue the spell, my voice rising above the howling wind.

Hear my plea, powers beyond,
Unite our souls, let love abscond.
With this enchantment, let it be,
My love returns to life, to me.

I collapse onto my knees on the cold, wet stone. I feel as if my soul has been ripped from my body, every fiber of my being stretched to the edge of the cosmos, my mind shredded, my heart... my heart... 

She is gone. She was innocent and pure and she loved me more than he ever did. Her love was pure, the kind of thing he would mock and use for his benefit. Just as I did. I realize now that she was my one true love, not him. I weep uncontrollably. What have I done? 

And then I hear the wail of my old love's voice, a cry of hatred and frustration that fades into the clouds, and the storm ceases even faster than it came. Silence blankets the altar with the fragments of all the lies I told her and myself on the path to this place of utter loss.

When I needed focus and single-minded purpose, my feelings grew confused, and I broke the spell. I sacrified the one who ended up being my one true love to bring back the one I thought was my true love, and in the end, I lost both. I cannot believe the sense of loss. I stand on shaky legs, reach across her lifeless form, pull the knife from her chest with a sound like wet grief. 

I cannot go on, and I lift the knife to drive it into my own chest. It is then that I her her voice.

"My love."

I see her body move, hands and arms jerking inhumanly as she pushes her lifeless corpse upward. Her neck twists at an impossible angle and glazed, unseeing eyes turn toward me. Her exanimate body rises, realigns itself, the wound in her chest open and oozing. She is still beautiful. She is still the one that I truly love. 

She crawls toward me, more crablike than anything, arms and legs moving in ways no human body has ever moved as bones crack and shatter and realign to whatever new purpose animates them. 

"Kiss me," she says. and she is before me, hands upon my nudity, fingers teasing at the open wounds of the symbols carved into my flesh, cold insensate lips searching for my own. Her tongue extends into my mouth and I return her deep and passionate kiss, wanting my love, wanting her back, knowing that I have made the biggest mistake of my life. 

I don't even realizes she's taken the knife from me until she slides it into my belly and spills my entrails at our feet. The warmth of my own insides and viscera coating my legs and feet is a contrast to the thick, cold tongue that blocks my airway. 

"Love me," she says into my mind. And I do. With everything I have. Until the very end.