The world was ending, though I did not know it then. My awareness flickered into being like a dying ember, fragile and uncertain, as if the cosmos itself had exhaled its last breath and I was the smoke left behind. When I opened my eyes—or what remained of them—there was only blackness. Not the black of sleep, not the comforting veil of night, but a cavernous abyss that pressed on all sides. Cold stone beneath me. Dust in my mouth, though I had no tongue. Silence all around.
I tried to draw breath, but nothing came. The truth struck me like a hammer: I had no lungs. My chest was an empty cage of bone, rattling faintly with the effort of remembering life. My fingers scraped against stone, brittle and foreign. They clattered as I raised them into the thin sliver of light filtering from cracks in the ceiling. Ivory. Hard. Crooked. A skeletal hand.
I was no man. I was a skeleton, cursed to rise in an age where the gods themselves had abandoned their thrones.
A surge of panic threatened to undo me. I staggered to my feet, joints creaking like rusted hinges, and collapsed again in a shower of dust. The effort of standing felt monumental, as though the earth itself resisted my rebirth. But some stubborn spark inside refused to yield. Again, I tried. Again, I fell. On the third attempt, I rose, swaying like a reed in a storm, but standing nonetheless.
The chamber stretched around me, vast and suffocating. Old carvings marked the walls—sigils of kings forgotten, worn smooth by centuries. Piles of bones littered the floor, remnants of those who had come before and failed to endure. The air carried a taste of rot, of dust and endings.
Then came the whisper.
"Rise, Sovereign of Bone."
The voice slithered into my skull, soft yet undeniable. It was neither male nor female, neither kind nor cruel. It simply was, a force of inevitability. My empty sockets flared faintly with ghostly light, and in that instant, I felt the faintest pull of purpose. I was not born again by chance. Something had called me. Something expected me.
But what could a brittle skeleton achieve in a world of ruin?
I took my first steps into the dark.
The corridor stretched endlessly, flanked by pillars eroded by time. Shadows clung to every crack. My bones clicked with every movement, a faint metronome of my existence. Rats skittered across my path, their beady eyes glowing in the gloom. One lingered too long, baring yellow teeth. Instinct surged—I lunged, brittle claws clamping down on the creature.
The rat squealed, bones crunching in my grip. And then, something impossible happened: I felt it. A trickle of essence, warm and sharp, flowing into me like stolen breath. My joints stiffened, my spine straightened. The weakness in my limbs lessened by a fraction.
I had taken its life and made it mine.
A hunger awakened in me—not for flesh, but for marrow, for the very essence that anchored creatures to the living world. My soul, if I still possessed one, demanded it.
I did not question. I obeyed.
Hours—perhaps days—passed as I wandered the labyrinth of stone. I devoured vermin, gnawing essence from their tiny bodies. Each victory strengthened me. Where once I stumbled, now I walked with measured steps. My hands no longer trembled as I clenched them into fists.
It was during one such hunt that I found the catacombs.
A cracked wall gave way to a hollow chamber filled with rows of tombs. Dust lay thick as snow, and the air was heavy with centuries of silence. Stone coffins stood open, their occupants long decayed. Among them, relics gleamed faintly—shards of rusted blades, broken shields, splintered spears.
One coffin drew me closer. Its lid was shattered, its occupant sprawled half outside, armor corroded but still intact. In the corpse's bony grip rested a sword. Not whole, but not entirely ruined either. The blade was blackened with age, yet etched with runes that pulsed faintly as I approached.
I reached out. The moment my fingers touched the hilt, a surge of power coursed through me. Ghostly fire licked the edges of the blade. The runes glowed. The corpse shuddered, its jaw unhinging in a soundless scream before collapsing into dust.
The sword was mine.
I raised it high, watching the faint glow reflect in my empty sockets. For the first time since my awakening, I felt more than survival. I felt possibility.
The whisper returned, stronger now:
"Claim what was forgotten. Rule what remains. Become Sovereign of Bone."
I left the catacombs with purpose, though the world beyond was unknown. The ruined corridors gave way to crumbling stairways, and at last I emerged beneath a fractured sky.
The land stretched endless before me, desolate and scarred. Once-mighty forests lay reduced to twisted husks. Rivers ran black with ash. In the distance, the broken spires of a city clawed at the heavens, their silhouettes sharp against the blood-red horizon.
The end of days had come.
And yet, I had risen within it.
For what reason, I did not yet know. But as the wind howled across the wastes, rattling through my bones, I tightened my grip on the ancient sword and took my first steps into the dying world.
Not as a man.Not as a beast.But as something new.
The Bone Sovereign.