Hunched over a patch of disturbed earth, where the mound of a recent grave was still stark against the older, moss-covered ones, stood a boy.
He couldn't have been more than seven or eight, his small frame illuminated by the pale moonlight as he diligently worked with a small, well-worn shovel. Each scoop of soil was lifted and carelessly tossed aside, revealing the dark, gaping maw of the opened grave. The rhythmic scrape… scrape… scrape was the sound of his shovel biting into the earth.
"Hey!" Leonotis' voice cut through the quiet scratching of the shovel, a blend of curiosity and a prickle of unease.
The digging stopped abruptly. Slowly, the boy straightened, turning towards them.
Even in the dim moonlight filtering through the yew branches, there was something deeply unsettling about him. His skin possessed a pallid, waxy sheen, and his movements as he turned were stiff and jerky, like a poorly strung puppet.
His eyes, when they finally met Leonotis's, were strangely vacant and devoid of the spark of childhood. He didn't say anything, simply stared at the one who had interrupted his work.
"Just wondering what you're up to so late," Leonotis said, taking a cautious step closer, his hand resting near his own root-sword. "Digging in a graveyard at this hour seems… unusual."
The boy's gaze flickered back to the disturbed earth.
"Gathering specimens."
"Specimens?" Leonotis exchanged a bewildered glance with Low and Jacqueline. "What sort of specimens?"
"For my master," the boy stated, resuming his digging with a mechanical, relentless precision. "Njiru requires them."
"And what does your master Njiru intend to do with these… specimens?" Leonotis pressed, a knot of cold apprehension tightening in his stomach.
The boy paused again.
"Undead soldiers."
Jacqueline stepped forward, her brow furrowed in disbelief. "That's… impossible. The magic required for such an undertaking is incredibly complex, not to mention the unethical abominations created."
Her voice held a sharp edge of scholarly authority. "To animate the dead in such a way… it's not something that can be done easily, or without a great and terrible cost."
The boy finally dropped his shovel with a soft thud, his vacant gaze settling on Jacqueline.
"It is possible," he stated, his monotone unwavering. "I am proof."
He paused for a beat, letting the words hang in the still night air between the graves.
"I am undead."
Leonotis' jaw dropped, his eyes widening in utter astonishment.
Low, who had been observing silently, recoiled instinctively, taking a swift step back as if the boy emanated a palpable chill.
Jacqueline's face, previously etched with academic disbelief, now registered a dawning horror, her eyes fixed on the boy with a chilling, clinical understanding of his unnatural stillness.
The silence that followed was thick with shock, the chirping of the crickets suddenly sounding like a frantic, desperate chorus.
Leonotis crouched, his brow furrowed in genuine curiosity as he studied the boy's unnervingly still features.
He noticed a small, pinned-on name tag on the boy's simple shirt.
"Zombiel," he began gently, reading the tag aloud. "What's it feel like? Being... undead?"
"Zombiel? How do you know that's his name?" Low asked, her voice a sharp whisper from a safe distance.
"It's on his name tag," Leonotis said, pointing to it.
"I'm pretty sure it reads 'Zombie One'," Jacqueline corrected, squinting in the dim light.
"No, I think it's Zombiel," Leonotis insisted, turning his attention back to the boy. "So, Zombiel, what's it like?"
The boy's gaze, a disconcerting shade of milky grey, remained fixed on some unseen point beyond Leonotis.
His voice, when it came, was flat and devoid of any inflection.
"I do not feel anything."
A shiver traced its way down Low's spine. She shifted, her gaze fixed on the boy with a mixture of apprehension and a strange sort of morbid fascination.
"Is it… is it because you don't have a soul anymore?" she asked, the words tumbling out.
The boy, now seemingly accepting the name Zombiel, tilted his head slightly, a jerky, unnatural movement.
"My master said... my soul is gone."
There was no sadness in his tone, no grief, only a recitation of information, like a student repeating a memorized lesson.
Jacqueline stepped forward, her expression a thoughtful blend of deep concern and academic interest.
"It's more complex than that, Zombiel," she explained softly, her voice taking on a teacherly tone. "All sentient life possesses three integral parts: a body, a soul, and ase. The soul is the seat of our emotions, our memories, our very essence—what makes you you. The ase is the vital spark, the animating force or mana that connects us to the world around us. All three are necessary to truly walk this earth as a living being."
She paused, her gaze hardening slightly as she looked at the boy.
"Only the most profane and forbidden magic can wrench a body back from the moment of death without its soul or ase. What remains is… an echo. A puppet animated by dark, foreign energies, capable of movement but devoid of true feeling or independent will."
Leonotis' gaze softened as he studied the boy.
Zombiel stood hunched, his thin frame casting a long, distorted shadow in the moonlight. His eyes, though open, held no spark, no flicker of life.
A wave of unexpected, overwhelming pity washed over Leonotis. This wasn't some monstrous undead warrior; this was a lost, stolen child, trapped in a horrible, empty existence.
"We have to help him," Leonotis declared, his voice firm, cutting through the stillness of the graveyard. "We have to find a way to give him a soul."
A drawn-out groan escaped Low's lips. She threw her hands up in exasperation.
"Oh, for the love of… Leonotis, are you serious? A soul? Where in the blazes are we supposed to find a spare soul just lying around? They don't exactly grow on trees!"
Zombiel's head tilted slightly, his vacant gaze settling on Leonotis.
"Njiru… he commands me... to work here... every night... to gather what he needs. If I do not… I do not know what will happen. The magic that keeps me… here… it might unravel."
A hint of something that could almost be described as fear flickered across his otherwise blank features.
"And during the day?" Leonotis asked. "What do you do then?"
"Nothing," Zombiel replied simply, his voice flat and devoid of inflection. "I wait for night."
A slow smile spread across Leonotis' face, his eyes gleaming with a sudden, impossible spark of optimism.
"Then that's it! During the day, Zombiel, you're with us. And we'll find you one. We'll find you a soul."