✓ DYING MOURNINGS, original

three : another lesson, another loser

┌─────━┿──┿━─────┐

𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 : 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐎𝐍, 

𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐑

└─────━┿──┿━─────┘

I followed the same path to the trailer I had that terrible night. Obviously, I got slightly lost on my way in because frankly, it was dark and I still didn't have a clue how I had found the trailer in the first place that long month ago.

It had been luck, or perhaps, the help of a spirit secretly guiding me.

I liked the latter.

Unfortunately, there was no ghost or ghoul helping me navigate through the woods. I did, however, find the trailer after thirty minutes of wandering.

It was exactly how I had left it, only a bit worse for wear. The letters were fading on the outside and when I got inside, it seemed that a few animals had made a nest within the torn up cushions of the couch. Thankfully, I saw no animal life as I picked through old photographs with my one free hand.

I had stopped by one of the hardware stores in town and bought myself a shovel, knowing that I'd need it tonight and however many times I needed to dig up a body. I'm begging every being and creature above that I won't ever have to use it again after tonight.

But I knew better than to be a fool.

When I finally touched the earth with the metal tip of my shovel, it gave way easily. Metal slipped between mud and smooth dirt, turning it over until the body was uncovered like something sacrificial.

When I had gotten most of the dirt scattered free from Eric Conner's host body, I realized my plans for revival were incredibly short lives. I hadn't anticipated the body to be so decomposed already. I realized, knee deep in an uneven grave, that I really should've looked up how fast the human body decays before wasting money on a shovel and my strength digging.

The host body was swollen and red and emitting a stench so thick it made my eyes water and my nose sting with rot. Its gut was extended and leaking a dark brown liquid from where it had already begun to burst. Even if I somehow succeeded in bringing him back, there was no way anything would be truly correct with this level of death. I wouldn't even be raising a living soul, only one trapped in a deadly host unable to function and move.

It would be a misery no man or demon should have to endure.

I ended the night covered in dirt and smelling spoiled. I covered the body, patting down the dirt until it was flat and even before taking off on my solitary walk back through the forest with my shovel on my shoulder like a man coming home from the mines. If I wanted to bring the dead back to life, I would have to visit a graveyard and I wasn't sure I had the stomach for it tonight, still queasy from the smell.

I was fairly certain my night was over but when I entered my home, I found myself in a world of dark gray. The figure standing in my kitchen was not one I had any joy in facing, especially after a long night of digging.

Cage Lake was just as disheveled and bloody as always.

I didn't bother with any theatrics as I might've when encountering him. Wordlessly, I dropped my bag on the kitchen counter and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jacket.