Lifeless [GOT Oneshot]

Lifeless

“Eleven years ago, a young man was cast out from this tribe. He wandered alone, but never lost hope, guided by the faith burning within him. This man has stared into the depths of pure evil. He stands before you now, willing to share the wisdom he found.”

The tall, slender orator emphasized his words by gesturing with his whole body. His knees bent almost to a crouch, and then sprung up while he threw his arms into the air as if energy  was erupting from him into the sky. The tribespeople gathered around him followed his every movement as he spoke. They were drawn in closer by the bonfire burning in front of him, radiating warmth against the biting cold of the harsh Northern winds. But what captivated their attention the most as he talked was the creature tied to the tree behind him.

It had the gaunt figure of a human, its ribs exposed and cheeks sunken into its skull. What little flesh it had was gray and frozen. It looked like someone who had been mummified in the ice centuries ago. It did not look like something that should be alive. Yet it was, its glowing blue eyes surveying the crowd facing it. The wildlings could not look away, except to avoid eye contact.

 “Look into his eyes,” the orator implored them, “You can see his soul trying to escape. But his soul is trapped inside his old body by an evil that grows in this land. It takes root in the ground and it spreads. The farther North you travel, the stronger it is. I have been to the edge of the world, and I have felt the presence of evil so strong that I could hear its voices in my head. Telling me to concede control of my flesh. Spewing threats about the tortures it would inflict on me if I did not comply. But I resisted, and with the fortitude of my faith to carry me, I returned to you, my people. But some of our brothers and sisters are not so lucky. They walk through the white wastes, guided by insidious whispers in their ears.”

The speaker paused to let his words sink in. Then he took a deep breath and projected his voice even louder.

“To free their souls, we must love them, no matter how disfigured their flesh is now. They are still inside, screaming to be let out!”

With no warning, a young girl in attendance collapsed and succumbed to a seizure. Her muscles spasmed violently and her eyes rolled back in her head so that only the whites were visible.

The tribespeople started to get angry at the speaker. “Look at what your poisonous words have done!” One of them shouted.

The girl’s parents calmed them down. “She has a condition,” her mother said, “This has happened before.”

As abruptly as the seizure started, it ended. The girl stopped convulsing but was still unconscious. The tribespeople forgot about the sermon and followed the girl’s parents as they carried her back to their yurt, offering anything they could to help. The orator was left alone, his attempt at converting the tribe a failure.

The orator turned around to look at the whitewalker chained to the tree behind him. Its eyes were no longer glowing and it arms hung limp at its sides. His prize was nothing more than a corpse now. Dejectedly, he unchained the body and dragged it to the outskirts of the village to bury it.

***

The girl was awoken by a cold wind. She was discombobulated and struggled to piece together what had happened to her. The last thing she remembered was the sermon and staring into the eyes of the evil creature behind the speaker.

Now the girl was lying under blankets between her mother and father in their yurt. She sat up to see that the entrance to their shelter was open. She noticed a set of footprints leading into the shelter from outside, which ended in a puddle of melted snow right in front of where she was lying down.

She looked around the shelter, panicking, and then tried to shake her parents awake. They didn’t respond so she shook them harder. Their heads wobbled around as she shook them, their neck muscles limp. The girl sobbed, refusing to believe her parents were dead.

She pried her mother’s eyes open to make sure. The eyes glowed blue, just like the demon at the sermon. The girl was startled and jumped back. Then her mother’s hand shot out and grabbed her ankle. She screamed and struggled to break free. Her father’s stiff, lifeless body slowly sat up and faced her with the same glowing blue eyes in his sockets.

She kicked at her mother’s hand repeatedly with her free leg until she heard bone snap and the tension in the grip was released. Her leg finally free, she dashed out of the shelter as her parents’ reanimated corpses got to their feet. She ran to the other shelters around her but they were all empty. The interiors were disturbed in each one, indicating that struggles had taken place inside.

She went back outside and noticed the large shadows streaking across the ground around her. She looked up to see two massive condors circling in the sky above the village. She looked back down to find a dismembered foot, cut off at the ankle, lying in the snow in front of her. It was standing up with the sole flat on the ground as if it were still attached to an invisible person. She saw a bloody streak in the snow leading away from the foot and she followed it to the body of the speaker, lying face down. Crows squawked at each other as they pecked at his remains. 

The girl scared the crows away and kneeled down next to the body. “Don’t die. You are the wisest. Tell me what’s happening.”

The orator’s head jerked up and looked at her. A blue light flickered in his pupils.

“My child,” he rasped, “Your energy is beautiful.” The flickering gave way to a constant blue glow.

The girl stood up and backed away, realizing that she brought him back by touching him, channeling the evil forces he preached against when he was alive. She turned around and came face to face with the whitewalker from the sermon. It was holding a bloodied blade in one hand, and the other hand reached out towards her. It locked her into a stare and she blacked out again, her eyes rolling back in her head.

She was now looking down at her own convulsing body from the eyes of the whitewalker. She watched, unable to control it, as the creature pinned down her trembling arms and legs. Then its gaze turned toward the knife in its hand, and she could do nothing as she watched the blade slowly descend toward her throat.