Like that, a week slipped by.
Eric had learned a few things about being undead — none of them pleasant. For starters, he didn't need food. No hunger, no thirst, not even the faintest craving for human flesh like all those zombie movies promised. He just existed — cold, stiff, and weirdly aware.
Once every week, the hooded master would come down with a small vial of murky liquid. Each zombie was forced to drink it. Eric couldn't resist even if he wanted to; his body moved on its own, obedient as ever.
The moment the potion slid down his throat, he felt… different. His limbs loosened a bit, his senses sharpened, and for a short while, he almost felt alive.
He guessed the stuff kept their bodies from falling apart. After all, a pile of rotting bones wouldn't swing a pickaxe very well.
So that became his routine — mining that dull gray ore called Atraxium, dumping it at the feet of the hunch-backed man, and being herded back to the cell like livestock.
His body followed every command without hesitation, no matter how small, yet his mind stayed awake — trapped inside, screaming silently at every forced movement.
'Great,' he thought bitterly one day while his hands dug through the rock, 'a zombie with free will but no freedom. That's just perfect.'
The other zombies didn't think or react; they just stared blankly and swung their tools. Eric sometimes caught himself wondering if he'd end up like them one day — his thoughts fading away until nothing was left but the endless rhythm of mining.
But today felt different.
The hunch-backed master — the one who always came down to collect Atraxium — didn't show up.
'Huh… where's he at?' Eric thought, leaning against the cold iron bars. The dim corridor outside stretched into darkness, silent except for the occasional drip of water from the ceiling. By his usual schedule, the guy should've been here hours ago.
'Maybe he's out doing… whatever creepy things warlocks do,' Eric muttered inwardly.
He ended up calling that creepy guy "Warlock." It just fit — the unsettling face, the eerie, zoned-out expression, the staff, and the strange energy clinging to him. Everything about him screamed warlock, so the name stuck.
'It's not like I'm free to go anywhere.'
He sighed — or tried to — when something caught his eye.
The cell door.
The lock wasn't secured. It was just a simple iron rod slipped through the latch, easy enough to move from either side.
'Wait… has it always been like that?'
A strange realization crept over him. There was no need to lock up undead slaves who couldn't think or act on their own. They'd never even try to leave.
But Eric wasn't like the others.
Slowly, cautiously, he reached for the rod. His stiff fingers curled around the cold metal and tugged it free. The door creaked softly as he pushed it open.
For a moment, he simply stood there, staring into the dim, twisting corridor beyond.
'Well… no better time than now,' he thought, forcing himself to step forward. He wasn't particularly worried about running into the Warlock.
If it happened, he could always pretend he'd wandered off by accident. The Warlock wouldn't suspect a supposedly brainless zombie of having motives, anyway.
Besides, staying in that cell forever wasn't an option.
Risky or not, this was something he had to do. His future depended on it.
The stone floor felt uneven beneath his bare feet, each step stirring thin layers of dust.
The air was heavy with the stench of decay, and the torches along the walls burned low, their dull orange flames flickering just enough to make the shadows shift like they were alive.
After a few minutes of wandering through the twisting tunnels, Eric found a wooden door slightly ajar. A faint metallic scent drifted through the gap.
He hesitated, then pushed it open — and instantly froze.
The chamber inside looked like something straight out of a nightmare.
Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with jars filled with cloudy liquid — and things floating inside them that he really didn't want to identify. Human organs, animal parts, eyes staring blankly through the glass.
Chains hung from the ceiling, some still dripping with half-dried blood. A few carcasses — animals, maybe — dangled upside down, their bodies stiff and gray.
The stone floor was stained dark with old blood, thick enough that it cracked under his feet as he stepped forward.
Eric just stood there, his mind blank. If he still had a stomach, he was sure he'd be throwing up all over the place.
'What the hell was this guy doing down here…?' he thought, forcing himself to look away from a jar containing what looked suspiciously like a child's hand.
The air felt heavy, suffocating — even for someone who didn't need to breathe.
He slammed the door shut at once.
That one glimpse was more than enough.
If he'd had a beating heart, it would've been racing.
Now he truly understood the kind of place he'd landed in—far worse than his old world in every imaginable way. He remembered the trailer again, the one that promised the game was filled with countless horrors.
The memory sent a shiver through him; just imagining what lay outside was enough to stir real fear in his chest.
And this room alone… this room was already warning him that the horrors waiting beyond might be far more than he was ready to face.
But he gathered what little courage he had left.
He turned away and kept moving, forcing himself deeper into the tunnels in search of any kind of exit.
The passage wound on in uneasy silence, his footsteps echoing softly against the stone. After a while, another door came into view ahead of him.
Heart lifting with a fragile hope, he reached for it and pushed it open—praying for even a sliver of daylight.
But it wasn't an exit—just another room.
Yet this one was different from the previous horror show.
No jars. No carcasses. Just shelves packed with books, bloodstains streaking across the floor, and a single table in the middle littered with scattered pages and melted candles.
The room was illuminated by a glowing blue rock set into the wall, its light washing everything in an unearthly hue.
*****
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