Decayed the Zombie

In a land far beyond the borders of the living and the dead, there was a place known as the Forgotten Lands, a realm where time itself rotted away, and memories withered like dry leaves in the wind. Here, the souls who had lost their way wandered, half-remembering lives they had lived but long since abandoned. Among them was one named Decayed - a zombie, once a man, now neither truly living nor entirely dead. His skin hung from his bones like tattered rags, his eyes were dull and clouded, and his step slow and shuffling. Yet, unlike the others who wandered aimlessly, Decayed carried within him a purpose, a faint ember of will that refused to be extinguished.

Decayed had not always been this way. Long ago, in the distant haze of his forgotten past, he had been a bard, a singer of songs. Music had flowed from his soul like water from a spring, filling the hearts of all who heard it with joy and sorrow, hope and despair. His songs had once been the lifeblood of his people, his melodies known in every tavern and hall. But a terrible curse had befallen him - he could not remember how or why - and it had taken everything from him: his voice, his music, and, in time, his life. Now, reduced to a shambling creature of decay, he wandered the Forgotten Lands, haunted by the faintest echo of a song he could no longer remember.

One night, under the dim light of a blood-red moon, Decayed heard a whisper. It was soft, almost too soft for his rotting ears to catch, but it called to him like a memory he could not grasp. The voice spoke of a lost song, one that had the power to bring life back to the dead, to restore what had been taken. "Find the Song of the Living," the voice murmured, "and you will be whole again."

Decayed, despite the weight of his decayed limbs and the fog in his mind, felt a spark of something - hope, perhaps? - ignite within him. He knew that this was his quest, the mystery he had to solve. The Song of the Living was his only chance to reclaim the music that had been ripped from his soul.

And so, with nothing but the faint whisper as his guide, Decayed set out on a journey through the dark and twisted corners of the Forgotten Lands. He passed through valleys of ash where the earth cracked beneath his feet and mountains made of bones that groaned under the weight of centuries of the dead. He met other lost souls - some who tried to stop him, others who begged to follow, though none could hear the whisper that called him.

As Decayed trudged forward, he encountered the Riddling Crone, an ancient being who was neither dead nor alive, existing in the in-between space of time and decay. She sat on a throne made of petrified wood and watched him with eyes as deep as eternity.

"You seek the Song of the Living," she rasped, her voice like dry leaves in the wind. "But do you know what it truly is?"

"I do not," Decayed replied, his voice cracked and hollow. "But I must find it. Without it, I am lost."

The Crone tilted her head, as though considering his words. "The song is not what you think. It is not simply a melody to be played. It is a truth, a secret woven into the very fabric of existence. Many have sought it, but none have returned. Do you think you are worthy?"

Decayed, though frail and broken, stood as tall as he could manage. "I have nothing left but this quest," he said. "If I fail, I lose nothing more. But if I succeed, I may regain what was stolen from me."

The Crone smiled, a twisted, skeletal grin. "Then you shall face three trials. Each will test a part of you that has long since rotted away. Succeed, and you will find your song. Fail, and you will join the Forgotten, lost forever in these lands."

With a wave of her hand, the Crone sent him away, and Decayed found himself in the first trial. He stood before a river of black water, its surface smooth and still like glass. On the far shore, he saw a figure - a reflection of himself, but whole and alive, his face radiant with life, his hands strumming a lute as if it were second nature. The sight of it made Decayed's empty chest ache.

"To cross this river," a voice echoed in his mind, "you must remember who you were."

Decayed stared at his reflection, trying to recall the man he had once been. But it was like grasping at smoke. The memories had been buried for so long beneath the weight of decay. And yet, as he looked into the eyes of the man on the far shore, a fragment of memory surfaced - a moment when he had played a song for someone he loved. It was faint, but it was enough. He took a step into the river, and though the water was cold and dark, it did not drag him down. Slowly, painfully, he made his way across, and when he reached the other side, his reflection faded, but the memory remained, like a single note in his mind.

The second trial took him to a field of withered flowers, their petals gray and brittle. In the center stood a woman, her face hidden behind a veil. "To restore life to these flowers," she said, "you must remember what it is to feel."

Decayed looked at the flowers and felt nothing. His heart had long since stopped beating, and his emotions had rotted away with his flesh. But then he thought of the song he sought, and for a moment, he remembered the joy and sorrow his music had once brought to others. He knelt by the flowers and, though his hands were stiff and cold, he touched them gently. As he did, a single flower began to bloom, its petals turning a deep, vibrant red. The woman vanished, but the flower remained.

The third and final trial took him to a vast emptiness, a void where nothing existed but silence. "To fill this silence," a voice said, "you must remember your voice."

Decayed tried to speak, but his throat was dry, and no sound came. He had not sung in so long, he feared he had forgotten how. But deep within him, he felt the faintest hum - the echo of the song he had once known. He opened his mouth and let the sound grow, and as it did, the silence began to crack, like ice breaking on a frozen lake. The more he sang, the more the void filled with sound, until at last, the song burst forth from him, whole and complete.

And then, in a flash of light, Decayed was no longer in the Forgotten Lands. He stood in the world of the living once more, his body whole, his voice strong. The Song of the Living had restored him, not just to life, but to himself. And though he could not remember every detail of his journey, he knew that the song would live within him forever, a reminder that even in the darkest of places, there is always a way back to the light.

Long ago, in a time when the Earth was young and the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thin, there existed a village called Nithgard. Tucked away in the shadow of a forgotten mountain range, this settlement flourished under a sun that shone both bright and harsh, its heat tempered by the chill of an everlasting mist that rolled down from the highlands. The people of Nithgard were hard-working, resilient souls, living by the simple code of life and death. They honored the cycles of nature and performed rituals to ensure prosperity and peace.

But within this peaceful village, there was a secret - a dark legend spoken only in whispers, told only in the shadows of the firelight, for fear of awakening something that should remain forgotten. The story began with a name: Decayed.

Decayed was not a typical name - no one knew if it was an actual title, or a curse, or perhaps the true name of a soul that had wandered too far beyond the reach of the living. Some believed it was a name given to a monster, others to a forgotten hero who had passed into myth. Yet, the most terrifying of all the stories was the one that spoke of Decayed as a figure who existed beyond death itself.

It is said that Decayed was once a man named Eremon. In his youth, Eremon was an explorer, a seeker of secrets hidden in the deepest parts of the earth, a traveler who journeyed into places where few dared to venture. His obsession was with the boundaries of life and death, a curiosity that led him into the forbidden caves beneath the sacred mountain that loomed over Nithgard. These caves, known only as the Halls of the Vanished, were filled with strange inscriptions - symbols of ancient powers - and rumor had it that a terrible force, capable of twisting fate, slept deep within their caverns.

Driven by the thirst for forbidden knowledge, Eremon entered the caves despite the warnings of the elders. No one knew exactly what he found within those dark depths, but when he returned, he was no longer the man who had left. His eyes, once full of vibrant life, had grown pale, and his hands trembled with a constant chill. The air around him grew heavy, and when he spoke, it was as though his voice was not his own - distant, hollow, as though it echoed from beyond the grave.

Though he tried to continue his life as before, something had been broken in him. Over time, his mind began to fray. His body, too, began to wither, as if some malignant force was consuming him from within. Those who had once called him friend now saw only a shadow of the man he had been, a figure caught between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Yet, despite the illness creeping through his flesh, Eremon did not die. Instead, he roamed the village, his body slowly decaying, but his spirit - if it could still be called that - never fading. He became a husk, a zombie, an entity that lingered at the edges of death but never fully embraced it.

The villagers, fearful of his transformation, sought the counsel of the wise woman - an elder who had once been Eremon's confidante. She gazed upon the man he had become and spoke words that would become legend: "He is no longer of this world, but neither is he of the next. He is the Wanderer of the Threshold, bound to neither life nor death. He is Decayed, the one who crosses the boundary but never completes the journey."

In his hollow state, Decayed did not speak of his experiences in the depths of the mountain, nor of the power he had awakened. He simply wandered, aimlessly, forever bound to the village that had once been his home, his gaze distant, his soul torn. The villagers, in their fear and confusion, locked him away within the crumbling walls of the old temple, hoping that the place of worship would keep him from causing harm. But Decayed could not be contained. His restless, decaying body found ways to escape, and each time he broke free, his power grew.

It is said that during the nights when the moon was full, Decayed could be seen wandering the outskirts of Nithgard, his steps slow but determined, as if searching for something - someone - or perhaps for an end to his torment. Those who ventured too close to him spoke of a strange pull in their hearts, a sensation that threatened to drag them toward the shadow of his being. Some claimed that when they looked into his eyes, they saw not just the hollow gaze of a corpse but something older, something that belonged to the very fabric of existence itself. It was as though Decayed held within him the key to the mysteries of life and death, a secret that could never be understood, yet forever haunted those who glimpsed it.

Decayed's legend spread far and wide. Some came to Nithgard seeking to study him, believing that the answers to immortality or eternal life could be found in his decaying form. Others came to destroy him, hoping to end the curse that had befallen their village. But none succeeded. Decayed was neither alive nor dead, and as such, he was beyond the reach of any blade or spell.

In time, the village of Nithgard itself began to wither and fade, its people scattered and its buildings crumbling, as if the very land had absorbed the weight of the curse that Decayed bore. Yet, Decayed did not die. He did not rot away to nothingness. He remained, a presence in the dark corners of the earth, a symbol of the boundary between life and death, forever wandering, never resting.

The Halls of the Vanished, where Eremon had once gone, were sealed and forgotten, but Decayed's story lived on, passed down through generations. The villagers who had once feared him now whispered his name with reverence, as a reminder of the dangers of tampering with the unknown, and of the fragility of the line between the living and the dead.

It is said that on certain nights, when the mist rolls down from the mountains and the moon is high, if you wander too far into the wilderness surrounding Nithgard, you may still find him - Decayed, the eternal wanderer, trapped between the worlds, forever seeking what he can never have: peace.

And so, the legend of Decayed endures - a tale of loss, of broken boundaries, and of the unrelenting quest for knowledge that, once unleashed, can never be contained.

Long time ago, in the forgotten corners of a desolate world, where the sun had long since faded to a pale ghost of itself, there existed a place where time seemed to collapse. A land roamed by the 'Decayed,' beings who were not quite alive, but not truly dead either. Among them, one stood out as the most beautiful, even in her rotting form: Lyanna, the Decayed Maiden.

Once a noblewoman of the ancient city of Velnar, Lyanna had been renowned for her striking beauty. Her skin, once as fair as moonlight, had long since deteriorated, leaving only remnants of what had been. Her hair, once cascading like golden silk, now clung to her skull in tattered strands. Yet, her eyes - those eyes - still shimmered with an eerie, captivating glow. Even in death, she was undeniably alluring. There was an ethereal charm about her, an unspoken grace that made her a subject of fascination, even among the other Decayed.

The Decayed were a tragic breed, cursed to walk the earth for eternity, forever caught between the realms of the living and the dead. Each of them had a story, a life they had left behind. For most, those stories were lost to time, their memories decayed as their bodies had. But not Lyanna. She still remembered the day she died - the day she had been struck down in a bloody betrayal, the day her life had been stolen from her in the blink of an eye. But that wasn't the end of her story.

For she had been chosen by the Coin.

The Coin was an ancient, cursed relic, said to hold the power to bridge the divide between the realms. No one knew its origins - only that it had been passed down through the ages, whispered of in myths and legends. It was said that whoever possessed the Coin could command the boundaries between life and death, could summon spirits or trap them, and could, perhaps, even find their way back to the land of the living.

Lyanna had found the Coin once, on the very night of her death. It had appeared before her, gleaming like a shard of the moon, beckoning her to grasp it. Desperation had consumed her, a burning desire to live again, to return to the world she had lost. She had taken the Coin, and in doing so, she had become the first of the Decayed. Her beauty, now ravaged by time and rot, had somehow been preserved by its power. She had not been brought back to life, but she had been given something even more profound: an eternal existence. An existence caught in the twilight, suspended between the living and the dead.

But with her newfound life came a curse. She could no longer touch the world of the living, and yet she could not truly belong to the world of the dead either. Her heart, though still beating, was frozen. Her soul, though still tethered to the mortal realm, could never fully rest. She had become a creature of longing, forever yearning for the warmth of life, but doomed to never experience it again.

It was during one of her aimless wanderings, when the wind howled like a chorus of forgotten souls and the moonlight bathed the land in silver, that she encountered him.

His name was Kaelen, a man from a faraway village that had once been known for its thriving market and bustling streets, before it too had fallen to decay. He was different from the others. He was a wanderer, a traveler who seemed to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. His eyes were dark, haunted by memories that seemed to stretch back through time, as if he had seen the very fabric of the universe unravel.

He had heard whispers of the Decayed, tales of creatures who roamed the earth with the bodies of the dead and the souls of the living. But nothing had prepared him for the sight of Lyanna. When their eyes met, the world seemed to stop. The wind stilled. Time itself held its breath. Kaelen could see it - the soul beneath the decay. He saw the life that still lingered in her gaze, the fire of something long extinguished but never quite forgotten.

He did not fear her. He did not recoil in disgust, as most would. Instead, he felt something stir within him - an aching pull, a deep, inexplicable connection. For reasons he could not explain, he found himself drawn to her.

Lyanna, too, felt it - the pull between them. Her decayed form was no longer a prison. In his presence, she felt the stirrings of warmth, a flicker of something alive in her chest. Could it be love? She didn't know. But in Kaelen's gaze, she saw a promise of something more, something beyond the curse that had bound her for centuries.

Their love blossomed in the shadows of the night, an impossible, otherworldly bond between the living and the dead. They spent days wandering the desolate ruins together, speaking in whispered words, their hearts entwined despite the distance between their worlds. Lyanna, who had long since abandoned hope of ever knowing the warmth of another's touch, now found solace in Kaelen's presence. And Kaelen, who had known loss and sorrow all his life, found peace in the silence they shared.

But love, as they soon discovered, is never simple.

One fateful night, as they stood together on the edge of a cliff, looking out over the desolate landscape, the Coin began to glow. It pulsed with an ancient energy, casting an eerie light across the land. Lyanna could feel it - its power, its dark, insidious grip tightening around her. The Coin had been silent for so long, but now it was waking, stirring with an urgency she could not ignore.

Kaelen looked at her, confusion clouding his face. "What's happening?" he asked.

Lyanna's eyes were wide with fear. "The Coin... it's calling to me."

Before she could say more, the earth beneath them began to tremble. A cold wind swept through the air, and a strange voice echoed from the shadows, a voice that seemed to come from the very fabric of time itself.

"The Coin was never meant for love. It was never meant for those who would defy the natural order. To love the Decayed is to invite chaos into your world. And chaos will not be denied."

The ground split open beneath them, and Kaelen was torn from her side, falling into the abyss below. Lyanna screamed, her heart breaking as she reached for him, but the Coin, in its malevolent power, pulled her away.

When she awoke, she was alone. The world around her was unchanged, but she was no longer in the place she had once stood. The Coin had done what it was meant to do: it had separated them, severing the fragile thread that had bound her to Kaelen.

Her beauty, once ravaged by decay, had now taken on a new form. She had become a creature of sorrow, her heart an eternal wound. She had loved - and in loving, she had lost. But somewhere, in the depths of her soul, she knew that the love they had shared would never truly die. It would remain with her, an eternal flame in the darkness, the one thing that the Coin could never take from her.

And so, the Decayed Maiden wandered once more, her heart broken but unbowed, forever searching for the one thing she could never reclaim: the love she had lost to the ancient Coin.