Life Eternal (Camren)

Extract from The Seventh Mediation by René Descartes

I. OF DEATH AN THE SOUL

II. OF THE DEATH OF CHILDREN

III. OF NON MORTUUS

IV. OF BURIAL RITUALS 

V. OF LATIN AND ITS EXTINCTION

I. OF DEATH AN THE SOUL 

In these meditations, I will attempt to consider the idea of the Dead as Undead. Matters of the Body and Soul are ones that our faithful institutions of government and justice would like to keep hidden. Therefore, in accordance with the idea that knowledge should be accessible to all men, I will divulge in these writings the little-known facts about Life and Death. 

Humans are made of two things - a Body and a Soul. Upon death, a person's body dies, after which point his soul is "cleansed" and reborn into a new person. This is why some moments feel as though we've lived them twice; why a person can often have the same essence as someone who died decades before.

II. OF THE DEATH OF CHILDREN

The matter of Children is one that is particularly troubling to adults. All adults follow the rules stipulated in Part 1 of this Meditation. However, there is one exception. When a child dies, his Soul leaves his body. Yet, in opposition to our customary education of the biological processes of Life and Death, the child does not die. Instead of "dying", as adult bodies do, the child's body lies dormant for nine days. On the tenth day it rises again without a soul. The child then wanders the world, searching for it. It is my supposition that this is nature's way of giving youth a second chance at life. They are what we call Non Mortuus, or the Undead.

III. OF NON MORTUUS

The Undead  have no Souls. They cannot be killed by normal means, for they are already dead. Although they are still children, and appear harmless, this s a falsehood. The Undead have no human instincts. They do not eat, they do not sleep, they do not feel. With time, their bodies decay, and they must constantly seek ways to preserve themselves before their bodies die again and return to the earth.

The observed characteristics of the Undead are those often associated with other dead creatures. Skin that is cold to touch. A stiffness of the limbs. Breath that contains no human warmth. They have also been identified to have incredible healing powers, their wounds closing as quickly as they are broken. Fluency in Latin and Latinate tongues. A lack of complete sensation and emotion. Yet most notably, they are known to reanimate into the best versions of themselves. Stronger than their human form, or more intelligent, or more beautiful.

Thus, their existence is a tortured and miserable one. They have but one purpose - to seek and obtain their missing Soul. They have twenty-one years to find it, twenty-one being the number demarcating the transformation from child to adult. If by their twenty-first year they do not find their soul, they begin to decompose at an accelerated rate until their bodies are completely destroyed. This, I have observed to be a particularly painful process. However, if they do find the person with their Soul, they reclaim it through the pressing of mouths, otherwise known as Basium Mortis. Through this act the Undead becomes human again, and lives a natural life. The victim dies from a failure of the heart, their corpse aged and withered without its soul. 

The danger of the Undead lies in this method, for they are also able to take Souls that are not theirs. This temporarily reverses the decaying process; however, it also results in the death of the other. The problem for humans dies in the dire handicap that we are unable to distinguish between the living and the Undead. In my logic, it would this seem that humans are doomed to fall under the mercy of these unkillable, soulless creatures...

IV. OF BURIAL RITUALS

Ancient civilisation discovered a way to prevent children from turning into the Undead. Before this period, burial rituals were not yet in existence. The dead were left to nature, which was the fate that all of Earth's creatures met when they died. The Egyptians were among the first to discover that by mummifying their dead and encasing them in pyramids, the children wouldn't rise again. 

Later civilisations found that there were three things the Undead could not withstand wIth out decaying: fire, geometric golden ratios and being underground. Since then, each society has discovered new ways of preventing the Undead from rising: by fire - funeral pyres and cremation; by golden ratio - coffins and pyramids; and by the subterranean - burials and catacombs. Each of these rituals was created for one sole purpose - to let our children rest. 

Over time and transgression, the rituals became so ingrained in society that people forgot why they were performed. Soon, everyone - including adults - was buried or cremated, and no one remembered that children could rise from the dead. 

V. OF LATIN AND ITS EXTINCTION

Latin is the language the Undead speak. In ancient times, before the founding of the Roman Empire, before people discovered burial rituals, Latin was only spoken by children. It was the one way to tell who was Undead and who was alive. 

In Roman mythology, two children were the original founders of Rome. Their names were Romulus and Remus, and they were brothers. While this is a commonly accepted myth among educated society, what most are not aware of is that Romulus and Remus were Undead, having both drowned in the River Tiber before rising again. 

Before the founding of Rome, knowledge of the existence of the Undead was no prevalent. Romulus and Remus gained followers by displaying their incredible abilities in large public gatherings. People were awed at their inhuman healing powers, their inability to be killed by normal means, and their advanced rhetoric and linguistic skills, and believed the children to be sent from the gods to found their city.

However, they quarrelled over who would be king. Romulus slew Remus by burying him alive. As the first king of Rome, Romulus instituted Latin as the primary language, teaching it not only to children, but to adults of the upper class who were involved in governmental matters. 

Eventually the clergy adopted Latin. Since Latin came so naturally to the Undead, they believed it had to be a language sent from the gods. Meanwhile, Romulus was trying to find his lost soul, and worried that the other Undead in Rome would accidentally take it. He thus instituted burial rituals and funeral pyres to rid the city of the Undead. 

With the spread of Protestantism and the reform of the Catholic Church, Latin slowly died out, replaced by the Romance languages. Many people forgot about the Undead and, consequently, the origins of Latin. Thus, it came as a surprise when an entire language ceased to exist. Of course, one realises that a language can only become extinct when the people who speak it have been exterminated.