I watched the bodies. They were still. Every part of their bodies unmoving, their arms, their legs, their heads, even the tips of their fingers. They were simply dead.

One death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths is a statistic. I know all of these people were once living, breathing humans like me, but it is easier to my job pretending they’ve always been like this. Unable to speak, hear or feel. With their eyeballs gouged out and their faces shot into bits since birth. I reach down towards the closet body, ignoring its face. My fingers trace over her hands and chest.

No sound.

Good. I grab my knife, pulling it towards me. One knick, two knicks, three knicks…

100 knicks and its chest is completely gone. Beneath it, there are simply bones upon bones. All grey and cracked, all working together to create a cage of protection. But no matter, for no defence, no army can stop me. I will penetrate every wall, every barrier, every castle. Nothing is forever. Nothing but me. And so, I reach my hand through its body, fingers tangling against the little whites, like skin threading through a beautiful wedding gown. The maze is endless, but I find my way. Always have. My hand dives deeper and deeper until it meets its desire. Soft and fleshy. Covered in blood with veins protruding out of it. My fingers close against the unmoving organ, and with a small pull, it escapes from its chest.

I laugh. I throw my head backwards over and over again and laugh, letting the sound grow from my belly to my chest to my throat to my mouth, and finally, to. my lips. The sound escapes my body like a floating bubble, soothing me until I can wake once more. I lift my arms, ready to be lifted back to the heavens.

But strangely, I do not wake this time. I am still here. Still lost, in this small cave, full of bones and flesh.

Something grazes my hand. No, not my hand. My palm.

It happens again. And again. And again.

It keeps beating.

Horrified, I slowly move my eyes toward what I had just fished from the dead body. But, perhaps, she was not as dead as I had thought. For her heart, unmoving before, is now expanding and contracting aggressively alone in my palm.

But when my eyes flick to where it had been, the body is gone. No, not gone. Just not a body anymore. Not a nameless face. Not still.

My eyes meet the face. The lips are gone, replaced by waterfalls of blood; the cheeks are hollow and the bones peak out at every corner; the hair is tangled across the face, mixed in blood, gore and pain; the ears dangle near the shoulder, only held together by a single strip of flesh; and the eyes. Oh, the eyes. They are black. Two deep, dark, black sockets. Two empty abysses.

The hand finds mine and wrenches the heart from me. It takes no effort, even if my fingers had gripped against it ever slow tightly. But the heart is not returned to the chest. It lays in the hands, as the streams of red from the face mix with it, letting it beat faster and bigger. It beats, it expands, it contracts. One time, two times, three times, four times, five times. It beats and beats and beats and beats until it bursts.

And I am no longer standing in a tiny cave. No, now the light is bright, and the room is ever so spacious. I turn around, and I almost fall over from the sight before me. It is the body, but now she is truly undead, restored to her former glory: her jet-black hair falls to shoulder in gorgeous waves and her cheeks are plump and pink. She raises her eyes towards me, no longer empty, but still deep and dark. But now, the whites have returned and there is strange sparkle, a twinkle in her eye. As though the universe is held in those tiny spheres. Her lips, now red and tender, part slighlty, as words escape them.

“That was me.”

Her finger points to a girl, no older than five, sitting on a chair, waiting…

For what, I do not know. But it seems she is afraid. It seems she is alone, with no one beside her. But I do not have time to question anything, for a flurry of words begin to tumble from the woman beside me.

Perhaps even the dead tell stories.