Ascended

There was more than one Zombie.

The feeling led us to a big hole in the ground. Judging by the skeleton in front of it, probably the home to some bear before the zombies made a meal of it. While Zombies didn’t need to eat much, they did still eat. Usually only if they couldn’t find some magic to feed on. The strange thing was that humans were the only thing that got infected by the plague. And humans were the thing that they wouldn’t eat. When a zombie bit you, it almost felt like they were sucking your life out. I’d had it happen once, and didn’t want to go through that again.

Val pointed at the Zombie that almost looked like they were napping in the little dugout. “Capture one and kill the rest?”

My Bokor training told me that was the best course of action, but something was very off. The Zombies should be moving around, not sitting there like they were waiting for an order.

“I don’t know…” I tried to feel around, but nothing felt off. It was just that feeling that this was what I was looking for. “There’s probably a Touched in there.”

“One Touched versus the two of us.” Val put down the stick and pulled out her sword. “I like our odds.”

“I don’t.” I shook my head, “Who knows how skilled that Touched is. But they have to be pretty good if they can control this many Zombies.”

“Can you do it?” Val pointed her sword at the Horde.

“Do what?”

“Control one of those Zombies and bring it over here.” Her face lit up, “And then you could just walk it back to Gher though we’d still need to tie it up so it looked like we had wrangled it, but…” She looked at me, “You could be useful!”

“Great…” I looked at the Zombies about fifty feet away, “I can try.”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the Zombies. The magnetic pull turned into too many different buzzings. It was deafening, but I wasn’t hearing it with my ears. I wanted to let go, but I didn’t want to hear Val talk about how I’d failed.

I tried to separate out the buzzing noises and focus on just one at a time. It was like staring at flies that had swarmed rotten meat. They were moving so fast that it was almost impossible to focus on just one of them. My head was starting to throb, but I kept trying to grab one.

I lost count of how many times it was before I grabbed it, but once I had it stopped, I had no idea what to do with it. I tried to pull it closer to me, which took a little bit, but soon I had it where I could hold the little black light in my hand. As soon as it touched my finger I felt a shock, then My eyes shot open and I was looking at Val.

My partner was waving her hand in front of my face. “This is so weird.”

I started to ask her what was weird, then realized that I didn’t have the bandages blocking my view.

“Why did you take the bandages off?!” I looked straight at her.

“WHOA!” Val backed up and pulled out her sword.

“Wait! I held up my hands, except those weren’t my hands. These were covered in dirt and had purple streaks running down them.

I looked to the left just a little and saw my body, sitting on the ground.

I was inside a Zombie.