This is a serial story the first update is here: Part 1

Apologies for missing the last update. I’ll be putting up another update later tonight

Chapter 1: Coffin, Tomb, Coffin

Within the coffin was a tomb. This tomb was of course, far larger than the coffin was on the outside. A strange tomb this was. One with beds and cases of herbs, tinctures and ointments. In one part of the tomb, there was even a garden. The styling of the tomb was bare, but there was something odd about the walls, the ceilings and floors. They held a trace of an essence of rejection.

It wasn’t that there was no dirt or dust. It wasn’t that the place was hyper clean. There was however a strange purity. Swirling all about throughout the tomb was a channel, like a pipe with the top half shorn off. This thing was scaled like a serpent, a white serpent. Flowing in it was sparkling water that made not a sound.

There was a library, there was a study room with all kinds of curious preserved specimens. There was even a room with a large mirror on one wall, and a throne before the mirror.

Here and there was a kind of heraldry. A sleeping bone-white unicorn resting its head on a blue cross.

One could have easily missed it at first, seeing as it was a tomb, complete with sepulchres. It could not be mistaken however if you were there. You would have felt it. Smelt it.

In most of the rooms, you’d have stood there and thought ‘hey isn’t this a hospital?’

It wasn’t just a hospital, but it certainly had everything it needed for that. Right down to a blood/sap/[insert fluid vital here] bank.

A fully operational battle operating theatre.

Now, as was noted previously, although this place lacked the hustle, bustle and disease of a regular hospital, something, someone stirred within it!

Deep within the tomb there was a coffin connected to countless tubes that pulsed like veins. The coffin was bright signing red. Upon the coffin was an image of serpent with the head of a unicorn coiled around a glowing green cross. The green light lent an eerie air to the room along with the sound of the undulating tubes.

The red however was fading to blue, and the tubes growing still, and the green, just as the red, also turned to blue. In short order, the coffin was a pale blue and utterly still, the blue was not even casting light.

Then, a dreadful hissing like the song of a whole abyss of serpents. Yet this snakesong was suddenly silenced by a slow click.

Agitated whirring.

Then a gasp of a giant finishing his mead. The lid of the coffin moved outward, cold fog spilling out behind it. Vents opened up like mouths in the room and swallowed the fog. The lid of the coffin turned an ethereal blue and vanished.

There was not some person stumbling out from the fog. Instead, from the darkness, a skeleton fell.

It did not even move as it hit the ground. There was no light in its eyes.

It was like a humanoid skeleton, but the bones were pale green. Not only that, but a skeletal pair of wings extended from the back of the skeleton. Most striking however was the purple crystal horn arising from the forehead of the skeleton.

It was a straight horn the body of which spiralled. A delicate looking thing that looked like it would not have been out of place on a unicorn of any shape of hoof. It was also piercing into the ground. The skeleton had fallen head first after all.

Turned out that the horn was better at piercing than the ground was at remaining firm.

A distressingly large amount of time passed with nothing at all happening. Well, apart from cute blue-green spider-beetle golems crawling out and cleaning up the coffin and the lid returning to its place. One golem even buffed the skeleton.

Now, since there’s actually a story here, the skeleton did indeed move again. Specifically its jaw clacked open and a low moan issued forth from it. The moan of one who has awoken from a night of restless sleep. This skeleton however, likely had ‘slept’ for quite a bit more than one night.

Blue light flickered deep within the dark sockets of the skeleton’s skull as the undead became conscious. The first thing that he saw of course was the floor. As tradition dictates, it has to be observed that this is a significantly better sight than most things you can awaken to in the unnumbered dimensions.

The undead man was however, quite confused about his situation. It wasn’t just facing the ground, his whole mind was filled with fog. He tried to get up. Naturally this was not a fruitful endeavour.

-Who… what? Ow- he muttered, voice manifesting in the air.

He pushed with his wings, arms and legs and managed to work his horn out of the ground. He stood unsteadily, shaking his skull. As a matter of course, he caught sight of his hands.

A high pitched shriek passed throughout the medical tomb.

The undead man stood clicking as he shivered, staring in disbelief at his hands, as if he was surprised to find himself a skeleton.

-I’m dead!- he shrieked.

He really was quite surprised.

-How did I die? How am I still around- he questioned.

He clutched his skull again, and in doing so he finally noticed his horn. He tugged on it a bit.

-A horn? I… I never had a horn right?-

Another high pitched shriek echoed through the tomb. It was quite good that there were no patients.

Having calmed down somewhat (as much as one can when they are a naked skeleton who is having trouble remembering much of anything) he looked around the room, but did not find whatever he was thinking of looking for.

-Mirror, I need a mirror-

He stumbled out of the room and through the tomb. As he did so, he recognised everything. Each bit of equipment. Each specimen and medicine. Each passage and room. He moved partly by instinct, and soon he was before the mirror in the room with the throne.

A skeleton. From fleshless to wingtip.

He was silent. He was remembering some things now. He could not recall everything. Most crucially his memories of life were too distorted and foggy. He could however remember everything medical with crystal clarity.

He could remember that he had been a being with wings. Resplendent feathers.

He could remember that he was a doctor.

-My name is… is this some kind of joke?-

He stared at the skull in the mirror.

-I am Doctor Bones-