My Necromancer Wife

Furuno.

The darkness here is haunting rather than soothing. Even the stillness hints at danger.

I keep getting the prickling feeling at the back of my nape that I'm not alone.

The dorm building looms before me like a mausoleum.

I can see the dungeon building in the distance. It always has this dark and forbidding look, even in the daytime.

Karim is probably in there, serving his punishment with the same sense of responsibility with which he does everything.

'Larkaway' hall, is the name of my dorm. It had been built as a memorial of a great school hero - Meryl Larkaway.

All of the school heros have something in common - they all died.

What had they been fighting against, that they were killed and are being remembered centuries after their carcasses have rotted?

The hallway is eeriely silent. No laughter, no voices, no late night movies, nothing.

I limp toward the grand staircase, grunting as it coils before me endlessly.

My room is at the top floor - the seventh floor.

A door creaks on its hinges somewhere along the hall, slow yet cutting through the film of stillness.

A voice in my head whispers that I should check it out.

I finally give in, limping toward the slightly open door with caution.

I grip the doorknob and push it open. The room is devoid of any form of life.

All the furniture in it is covered with dust clothes. Everything reeks of dust and abandonment.

I walk further into the room as I feel along the wall for a light switch. The dim light coming from the hallway only reaches one side of the room, leaving the other side in total darkness.

I flip the switch and nothing happens. I try flipping it again, still nothing happens.

I pull out my phone from the inner pocket of my leather jacket and switch on the flashlight.

The only thing not covered with a dust cloth is the reading table. Several candles are set up in a circular pattern on the reading table. A bulky book lies in the center.

A circle has been drawn around the open book with white chalk. It looks like the summoning rituals I usually see in movies.

I don't go any closer.

I turn my attention to other parts of the room.

The shoes in the open closet are stacked very neatly, although they are covered in a thick film of dust.

The floor is also covered in dust. My footprints stand out like prints in snow.

Who does this room belong to?

The windows have been sealed with wooden planks.

I set my light and cloak down on the covered bed and investigate the contents of the drawer beside it.

The first drawer holds nothing of importance as I skim through it.

I move on to the second one.

The only thing inside it is a picture - one of a brooch, exactly the same as the one I had been given earlier.

To rid myself of all doubt, I grab the brooch and place it alongside the picture.

They're the fucking same.

No one among the cloak-clad ritualists had been wearing the same brooch.

Each one had been different. Mine is that of a black eagle.

My heart skips a beat.

The brooch falls out of my trembling fingers.

This is too much - way too much.

I have been turned into a living sacrifice?

In my quest for more answers, I pull on the handle of the third drawer - it's locked.

My lock-picking techniques have become rusty from disuse.

I look around for anything I can use.

I lean down and look under the bed.

Beneath it is a small wooden box covered in dust and cobwebs.

I drag it out and dust it a bit with my hands. Much to my surprise, it isn't locked.

It creaks as I open it.

It is filled with neatly stacked pieces of square-cut paper tied in ribbons.

I pull out the first stack and loosen the ribbon holding it together.

The mass of paper scatters in my hands and I struggle to pack them all up.

On one of the papers reads;

Antonio Juan Carlos, 17th September, 2014 - dead.

Reason: Incompatible as host.

Manner of Death: Suicide by drowning.

I gasp.

The next paper has almost the same thing, just a different name and date. The third person, however, died by jumping from a window in the top floor of the dormitory. Another one died by slitting his wrists.

Another one drank cyanide and went to sleep.

One of them even hanged himself.

Are these people who were chosen as hosts? Is there any that survived?

But the answer to that question is obvious - if any had been compatible, I wouldn't be the host.

Now, I know for certain that I'm not the first, and I might not be the last.

I pack up the papers and dump them back in the box without bothering to tie them with the ribbons.

The deeper I go into the stack, the older it gets.

This ritual has been going on since the nineteenth century.

Considering the volume of the papers, does this mean that so many people have died because of their cause to bring back Sinclaire?

Am I going to be added to that pile?

Something glimmers at the bottom of the box. I reach inside for it.

It's a key. The shape of the key matches that of the lock.

But, instead of being excited, I hesitate as dread floods me.

Something warns me that I would not like what I would find inside.

I open it anyway and my stomach sinks immediately with regret and disgust.

Inside it are image of boys with gouged out eyes, tied to chairs in the same room I had been locked up in.

Is this what happens to rejected hosts?

Why would anyone want to resurrect such a being after all the lives he has claimed?

I drop the photos back in the drawer and lock it.

I can't even say the worst is behind me - my own testing phase has begun.

Would I survive it?

"We'll see". A voice whispers behind me.

Perspiration drips down my back.

Bloody hell.