The next morning.
As the first thin blade of sunlight cut through the treetops and touched his face, Eric jolted awake.
His eyes flew open, breath snagging in his throat as if he'd surfaced from deep, black water. Cold sweat clung to his skin—an absurd detail for someone who shouldn't be capable of sweating at all.
A zombie shouldn't wake up like this.
He pushed himself upright, vision swimming before the light settled into painful clarity. Eric rubbed his eyes, trying to dispel the last wisps of darkness still dragging through his mind.
Then he looked around.
And he stopped breathing altogether.
The ground beneath him had turned a sickly, ashen gray—brittle and powder-dry, as though life itself had been wrung from the earth.
Leaves disintegrated when the breeze brushed them. The towering trees that had loomed over the clearing last night now stood shriveled and skeletal, bark cracked open like the desiccated ribs of long-dead giants.
He stood up slowly and took one slow step forward, then another.
And when he reached the place where the villagers had gathered…
His blue pupils blew wide with horror.
Every villager from the night before—every glowing-eyed figure that had encircled him—was still there.
But none of them were alive.
They lay scattered across the dead soil like discarded skins. Dried husks. Faces collapsed inward. Limbs twisted at impossible angles. Their flesh had shriveled tight to the bone, as if something had drained them from the inside out and left nothing but empty shells.
Even the massive tree at the center of it all… the one that tried to devour him… was nothing but a hollow, brittle shell. The once-gaping maw had collapsed inward, its wooden "teeth" scattered on the ground like broken splinters.
Eric swallowed hard, feeling a little scared by the scene, not understanding what could have done something like this.
"What the hell happened here…?" he whispered as he scanned the dead clearing.
He finally looked down at his own body—and froze again.
The places where the branches had punched through his chest were completely gone. Even the huge tear in his stomach had disappeared without a trace. He touched the spot carefully. Smooth. Solid. Normal.
That shouldn't be possible. A dead body shouldn't heal. He pressed his hand to his chest to see if his heart was beating again—nah, it wasn't. He was still an undead.
"Did something… save me?" he wondered. The idea only made him more uneasy.
He didn't know the answer, and he wasn't planning to wait around to figure it out.
"I need to get the hell out of this village before whatever that thing was comes back."
Before leaving, he paused and offered a quick prayer that the villagers might find their way to the afterlife. Even though they attacked him, he still felt grateful to Garrick for showing him the way and for his kindness.
As he walked away, the torn scraps of his shirt flapped behind him, exposing the place where the branches had pierced through his torso. For a moment, something shifted on his bare skin.
Black ink rose from beneath the flesh—thin, sharp strokes forming as if someone was carving writing onto living skin. The markings twisted into an unknown language, moving on their own.
They stayed for only a heartbeat before sinking back into his skin and disappearing without a trace.
*****
He jogged back to the village, ducking into the inn long enough to grab his bag and change into a clean set of clothes. As he rushed out again, he skidded to a stop in front of the village chief's office.
A thought flickered through his mind.
Everyone here is dead anyway… so why not take the money? Emotional damage compensation. It's not like dead people need it.
He slipped inside and rifled through drawers and cabinets. After a moment of searching, he found a pouch of money—and a folded map.
"That guy lied to me," Eric muttered, shoving both items into his bag.
He opened the door to leave—
—an axe crashed down from above, smashing into the floorboards a centimeter from his face.
He froze, breath catching. Slowly, he looked up at the person who'd tried to split his skull in half.
Something inside him snapped. All the frustration he'd been holding back since the moment he arrived in this world finally burst out.
"Do you know how much bullshit I've gone through today?" Eric screamed, voice cracking with rage. "And now an axe? You fucking gorilla piece of shit!"
The burly man above him snarled, veins bulging. "What the hell are you shouting for, you Vorek scum?" He ripped the axe out of the floor and swung it in a horizontal arc straight toward Eric's neck.
But something was off.
To him, the man's movements looked… slow. Like the air had turned thick around him.
His body reacted before his mind fully processed what was happening. He raised an arm, catching the axe handle with surprising ease. In the same motion, his foot shot out—landing a perfect, merciless kick right between the man's legs.
The brute dropped the axe instantly. His hands flew to his groin, and his face cycled through shock, pain, betrayal, and pure despair before he collapsed to his knees with a strangled wheeze.
He stepped back, catching his breath, when movement flashed at the edge of his vision.
Two more men rounded the corner into the doorway, clearly the fallen brute's companions. They froze for a split second at the sight of their friend kneeling on the ground, making noises no grown adult should make.
Eric's heart jumped, but he forced himself still. He shifted into a sloppy, improvised fighting stance—something half-remembered from action movies, done poorly, but it was all he had.
"If you're planning to take a swing too," he warned, eyes darting between them, "just know I'm having a very, very bad day."
He didn't know who these guys were. The first one had attacked out of nowhere. For all he knew, they were bandits, raiders, or just more muscle-headed freaks ready to jump him.
Either way, he braced himself. If they wanted a fight, he was ready to give them one.
And why the hell did he feel so energized? Confident even? It was like some new current of strength was running through him—something he'd never felt before.