Once Opposed
The Callers tell us about ourselves. Each one pulled from its graven slumber is a testament to what makes us human, and what is now, invariably, the cause of our downfall.
Of course – I understand – you do not know of what I speak. This journal may never see the light of day, its words never scanned by a mind that may understand, but its purpose must be served, its ideas written.
Attend, and I will speak.
I cannot say when it began, but I recall the first of their number that I saw. It bore a resemblance to a man I knew, a cobbler whose shoes were both sturdy and worth their coin. The thing had his face, but a gait that marked it as something born of the nether, brought forth from the realm of the Undead.
I was the only one to see it as it shambled past, arms at its sides and slack mouth open. Sound rose as it came near, a cackling that filled the air with laughter too loud to be human and too twisted to be right. It rang off of the low walls of the city around me, and I looked up, eager to find another to bear witness to my findings and protect me from malice. All knew that the Undead were weak under scrutiny, and thrived only when the living were left alone.
“Halt!” I cried out, drawing on the strength that the Prophets had provided, willing the creature to turn, but it came on, gait unchanged, laughter ringing. I could see as it approached a look of pure joy on its face, a grin of impossible proportions appearing between each hooting call. The cobbler’s double was happy, perhaps pleased that it had found one of its prey alone, and I must admit I considered flight, considered leaving my storefront and running for the hills.
I considered too long, and found it an arms length away, rocking slightly on heels that were both bare and well-marked. Its laughter seemed to fill the square, multiplying on itself, carrying over and over until it hammered me down, driving me into the dirt in a pounding pulse of ghoulish glee.
It stopped, and I looked up; a twitching form lay in front of me, mouth open in a final, smiling rictus.
Of course, I warned the Elders.
They knew I was not one given to lie or exaggeration, and soon enough the body had been removed from the street. Neighbors confirmed that the cobbler had disappeared late the evening before, just after receiving word of his daughter’s fortuitous marriage to a foreign noble.
There was a collective moment of panic that spread among the citizens of the city; the Opposing had come.
Spoken of by the Prophets, only a few of the most ancient members of the city had witnessed the last Opposing, and they refused to speak of it with those of the younger brood that were curious. The event had been terrifying, that much was clear, and they did not want to be reminded of it.
Now, it had come again, and the knowledge of the ancient ones poured out, describing what we had hoped to never see.
Men and women, cut down suddenly, only to rise again cloaked in emotion they had always eschewed. The cobbler, a serious and solemn man, born again as a shambling and gleeful shade after the news of his daughter’s wedding arrived. The baker, calm and without malice, laying waste to the homes near his as a vengeful abomination after discovering his wife had been unfaithful.
None of the Callers could last for long; their feeble risen bodies ran quickly out of fuel, but we all feared a sudden shock, a sudden jolt that might end our lives and see us forged anew with passion we had never desired.
Homes were boarded, windows blocked and darkness fell, shrouding the city in a calm that was at once forced and required. The gates were closed; the flow of information stopped in order to limit the Callers’ birth, but little could be done. Those hidden found themselves overwhelmed, beset by fear of the unknown, and each day more fell, rising again to lay waste to those who were closest to them.
We had been too calm, too staid, for too long. The Opposing sought us out, determined us as unworthy, as pale and sickly.
The elders went silent; the Prophet’s magic unused.
For once, I was glad of my isolation, my loss in earlier times. I had been wrung over hard, turned by the twists of life into the man I was, a man compromised by the emotions he was supposed to rule.
It made me twisted; made me weak.
It made me safe.
I’ve learned a great deal about the Opposing after it swept through the city from picking through the corpses of men and women I knew. Disturbing the shells that had been their bodies seemed a small price to pay for understanding what we had wrought.
It was apparent all died in the grip of a powerful emotion. Anger was by far the most common, with fear and terror close on its heels. Joy was well-represented as well, as was the humor I had seen on the face of the cobbler. It was a purging, I learned, a necessary expression of what we had been taught to revile. Emotions suppressed were never removed, and without an outlet, the Opposing was a certainty.
Those who had been the most joyless were filled with post-mortem glee, and those who had been calm were cast into fits of anger.
These Callers, these dregs of the Opposing were a reminder, a prediction of what we had buried, but that could never truly be hidden.
I travel now, and I write, bringing my message to other cities that wall themselves off, that live in the silent shadow of the Prophets. Some say I herald the Opposing, some say I end it, but make no mistake: it is coming.
- D
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