FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Thoughts of the Thoughtless

comidacomida copyright 2019

It shuffled its way down the hallway. Although it had once been known as Samuel Fieldman, that name no longer meant anything; it had no sense of self; it didn't consider itself worse off for it; it didn't consider anything to be honest; it didn't really think... not in the traditional sense anyway. When it was alive it had been told stories of the undead, but those stories were unimportant; the living could not understand what it meant to have died and yet remain part of the world.

The empty husk did not lament its existence; it also didn't celebrate it. The not-living-and-yet-not-fully-dead corpse had no real preference since it existed wholly to do the bidding of its Master. Its Master was high above it, able to understand things that it could not even begin to comprehend and so his will was its own; that was what it understood and, in truth, the only thing it needed to Understand.

So it was that the thing that had been Samuel Fieldman wandered the stone hallways of the keep; it didn't know the name of the keep, but that was unimportant. It probably used to know but it just did not matter anymore because it was where it was meant to be. It didn't Know it in a cognitive sense precisely, but that was the way of the brainless undead; its Master wanted it there, and so there it was. Still, it did know that it wasn't meant to stand there and so it shuffled along the corridors, slowly making its way up the stairs of the tower.

Somewhere in its base level of cognition the shambling corpse realized that it had armor; rather than cowering within it and praying to the gods that it would be able to protect itself, the undead creature just felt it as more weight, caring neither for its protective qualities or the fact that it required more effort to move while within it. Its Master chose that the armor not be taken off which, to the animated body, was the way things were: it wore armor because its Master left it on after reanimation.

Samuel Fieldman's body made it to the top of the stairway in at least twice the time it would have taken a living person but time was irrelevant to the undead. Once reaching the top it stood for several seconds as it stared at the closed wooden door. Had its Master directed it to open the door it might or might not have had enough coordination and wherewithal to remember how such a thing worked. He had not, however, told it to do anything but patrol the stairway; fortunately it did remember what 'stairway' and 'patrol' both meant, which was a good thing if it was to follow its Master's orders.

Slowly turning about with a palsy to its slow, shuffling step, the animated meat sack once again faced the steps and, with as much careful precision as its atrophied muscles allowed, the undead began the long and arduous task of retracing its steps, slowly descending the steps one at a time so that it could descend the 40-some-feet down to ground level. It had no concern over the time it took to go up or down the stairs; it existed at the whim of its Master, and patrolling the staircase was its Purpose.

Just as the corpse that had been Samuel Fieldman made it to the bottom a sound echoed down to it from the top of the steps. It jerked around to face the stairway again and the speed of the movement very nearly caused it to fall over; fortunately a wall was present to intercept its lurching stumble. The resounding fleshy-thud of its head striking stone went unnoticed by it; pain was not a part of its comprehension and neither was self preservation. It pulled away, a section of its scalp sticking at the point of impact but it did not care to notice; it complied with its Purpose, and began making its way back up the stairs in the event that it needed to do... something?

Its Master's words reentered its thoughts "If you encounter anything that is not me in Traven Keep then kill it."

The shambling corpse that had been Samuel Fieldman recalled that the building in which it was assigned had been called Traven Keep, but it felt no joy or accomplishment at having recalled what it couldn't previously remember. It didn't matter, after all; only its Master's will was important, and the animated body had its orders: kill anything that was not the Master. It once again began the long trek back up the stairs.

It made it nearly half way up before it encountered what must have caused the noise; a child-sized humanoid lizard with red and yellow scales was running down the stairs toward it; Samuel Fieldman would have recognized it as a Kobold, but the soulless husk that remained knew it only as 'anything that was not the Master', and so it made ready to use its fists to bludgeon it until it was no longer alive. True, Samuel Fieldman would have used the combat pick that was still hanging from his belt, but the corpse was no longer Sameul Fieldman.

The little lizard skidded to a halt some many steps away (the corpse didn't count, so numbers were of no real significance), which meant that the undead guard would have to close the distance itself. Its target stared at it, neither approaching nor running; if the corpse had any sense of satisfaction it probably would have been pleased at how easy it was going to be to do its Master's bidding, but it did not, so it continued diligently toward the Kobold. Its task didn't turn out to be that easy.

Throwing its little claws out, the Kobold said something. The zombie that had been Samuel Fieldman took one step more until a bolt of glowing energy shot out of either of the little lizard's talons. The impact didn't hurt; falling down however-many-steps-it-was-to-the-bottom was painless; landing head-first on the ground floor was also without event. Unfortunately, after that, the undead was unable to move.

The Kobold followed it down, hopping onto its back as it reached the ground level. It strolled past the broken corpse, turning around before it reached the door to the tower. Scowling down at what remained of Samuel Fieldman it sighed. Raising up one of its talons, it summoned forth a small spark of flame and sighed. "Hmm... I guess Dad wouldn't be happy if I didn't clean up after myself."

Samuel Fieldman had been killed that morning, but he ended up dying a second time before nightfall.