Smoke curled up from the blackened earth, thin and ghost-like. The fire had passed, but the smell of burning roots and flesh still lingered.
Ash coated everything; the branches, the broken stones, even the tips of Gein's boots. There was no wind. Not anymore.
Graveyard, for many these places are sacred spaces for honoring the dead. Remembrance, solace, a sense of connection to their loved ones. A reminder for a memory not meant to be lost.
Even for those without religious beliefs, the atmosphere of quiet respect found in a cemetery can offer a comforting space for introspection, grief processing, and remembrance.
Gein stood where the stone used to be, the one with his mother's name etched in fading letters.
Nothing remained now. Not the graves. Not the prayers. Just silence and the burnt stench of forgotten memories.
Gein stepped over broken gravestones and split roots.
Whoever had done this hadn't just desecrated the dead, they wanted them forgotten.
He bent down on his knees, touching the ashes of the burnt ground.
"I swore myself to give you a visit once a month.", Gein murmered.
His only family, the only person he loved and cared for was his mother. She passed away when Gein was young, but he could never forget about her.
Her face, her memories, he remembered everything to this day.
Yet someone, snatched the last bit of memory from him. He had come to mourn. Instead, he found a battlefield.
Then he heard it.
Faint breaths.
Like someone was trying to cling to the very last peice of their life.
Gein stood up, and walked towards the center of the ground.
"How can someone be this cruel?", He whispered looking at the corpse in front of him.
A boy, no older than eighteen, lay twisted in the soaked earth like a discarded offering. His eyes had been gouged out, sockets hollowed and raw. The flesh around them had turned dark and crusted.
His throat had been slashed wide, not cleanly but in a violent, torn arc, ripped jagged like it was done with cruel delight.
Blood, thick and black, had long since congealed and mixed with the mud, caking his neck.
His arms and legs were mangled beyond recognition, bones protruding at unnatural angles, skin peeled and twisted back like overcooked meat.
Chunks of muscle were missing, bitten off or carved away, it was impossible to tell. What remained was torn, pulped, ground into the mire.
His skin was scorched, blistered, and peeled away in strips, revealing the bones underneath. In some places, his ribs had broken through the chest, exposed to the cold, soaking air.
Steam rose faintly off him in the rain, like death trying to escape his ruined frame.
And yet, he was alive.
Barely.
A faint, dark energy coiled around the shredded husk, thin as smoke but impossibly heavy. It pulsed like a heart that refused to stop beating.
It wasn't protective but desperate.
Gein stood motionless for a moment. Then he knelt.
He turned his eyes to the shattered gravestone, the place where his mother had been laid to rest. Rain slid down its broken face like tears, washing away years of silence.
He stared for a long moment.
Then; whispered, barely above the wind, "Even in your last moments, you'll be able to help someone."
Slowly, he unclasped the heavy, dark coat from his shoulders, soaked and frayed at the edges. Wrapping it around the corpse, just surviving.
The moment he touched him, the child's body trembled.
Gein's fingers brushed what was left of the boy's back. The flesh was so charred and peeled, it came away at his touch. There was no skin left, only ruined muscle and exposed bone, but the body still recoiled, still felt pain.
He wrapped the coat around him with careful hands.
Blood soaked through it instantly, warm and thick, as if it didn't want to leave the child's body yet.
Gein could feel it on his arms, could feel the pulse of fading life through the ruined limbs.
The boy was feather-light from blood loss and ruin.
He carried the boy toward the road cutting through the trees where, just beyond the wrought-iron gate, a sleek black car waited. The engine was already running, the headlights were low in the fog.
The driver opened the door without a word.
Gein stepped in, soaking wet and holding death itself in his arms.
His assistant turned pale at the sight but said nothing, only shifting aside to give Gein space.
"To the fortress," Gein said.
The door shut behind them with a solid thud, sealing the silence inside.
----
I never knew her. The woman who gave birth to me. I couldn't even remember her face. All I remembered was the cold, the hunger, the way people looked at me.
I remembered the way I'd clutch my stomach at night, not because of hunger, but because it was the only way to keep myself from crying too loud.
No one ever came looking.
Not once.
I'd tell myself stories, when I was small. That maybe my mother was rich, maybe she was watching from afar, maybe she was just waiting for the right time to come back.
But as I grew older, those stories stopped comforting me.
They just started making me angry.
I survived on scraps. Stole when I had to. Ran when I had no other choice. Took beatings for things I didn't do. I learned early on that the world wasn't fair.
But I still tried to rise above it. I studied when I could. Tried to get into a school, to make something of myself.
And I did. For a while.
But no matter where I went, the past clung to me. The kids at school didn't care that I was trying. To them, I was a beggar in cleaner clothes.
Birthdays weren't a thing for me.
I was never invited anywhere.
If something went missing, I was the first suspect. If someone needed a scapegoat, I was already guilty.
Even when I moved to a better institution, I thought maybe things could change if I kept to myself. I didn't talk to anyone. Made no friends. Just kept my head down. But silence didn't protect me either.
The one mistake I made. The only time I let my guard down...was falling in love.
"You're up," a voice said as I opened my eyes.
The first thing I noticed was the wooden ceiling above me with its beams worn smooth with age.
A soft mattress cushioned my back too soft. Warm. The faint scent of burning incense clung to the air, earthy and calming.
The scent like that of the forest after rain.
I turned my head toward the voice, and pain shot down my neck, sharp and stabbing, like needles driving into my spine, like a metal rod was jammed through my shoulders. Still, I managed to shift my gaze.
A boy, maybe my age, dressed in orange robes, stood in the room lighting candles.
He was bald, and a white string of beads circled his wrist like a band. His presence was calm. Unbothered. Like he belonged here.
"The Master Keeper himself healed you," he said, settling down beside me with his legs crossed.
"Don't worry. You'll be fine with time."
His tone was light, almost cheerful, and when he looked at me, I could see it clearly, he was an optimist. The kind of person who probably smiled even when it rained.
"How do you feel?" he asked gently, eyes steady on mine.
"Hurts," I whispered ... or tried to. My voice cracked into nothing but breath. A ghost of a word. Still, he nodded like he understood perfectly.
"You'll get better. Your voice will return too. Just give it time."
He glanced around the room as if trying to gauge how much I understood, then leaned in slightly, like sharing a secret.
"You're probably wondering where you are, right?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "You're in the fortress of the High Monk or the Master Keeper, as we call him. He's the only disciple of The Seer. This whole place... it's built at the peak of Mount Qiyun."
His voice carried a sense of pride maybe even reverance.
"This is where the warrior monks train. There are five peaks surrounding the central Citadel of the Seer. You're on one of them now."
So this was the temple of monks... but not like any temple I'd imagined.
This was a fortress.
"Outside Mount Qiyun live the Spiritual Monks and the Bead Keepers," the boy continued with a light voice. "But you'll learn about all that in time. Oh, and... only conduits are accepted as Warrior Monks."
Conduits.
I tried to speak, to ask, but my throat couldn't manage more than a whisper of breath.
That word alone made my heart pound. Conduits. The man who destroyed me… who left me broken in that graveyard… he kept saying that word. Over and over. That I wasn't even a conduit.
"Yes, conduits," the boy nodded, catching the look in my eyes. "They're people who can channel qi, life force, through a core that forms in the body. Usually in the heart, but some choose different placements. Chest, heart, mind... It depends on the kind of power they awaken."
I didn't understand any of it. My mind was still fogged with pain, but I kept listening.
"To put it simply," he smiled, "conduits are people with supernatural abilities. You're one now too. A core manifested in your heart not long ago. Bit late, but nothing unheard of! It's really okay, you know. You and I are kind of… peers, I guess. I mean, not exactly, but you get what I-"
He was still talking. Rambling, even. Correcting himself, jumping from one thought to the next. His optimism was... disarming.
'A conduit…? Me?', The thought lodged in my skull like a stone. I didn't feel powerful. I felt like something that had been dragged out of the mud, barely stitched back together.
"It looks like the Master Keeper is here," the boy said, suddenly straightening up.
He stood, folding the cushion he'd been sitting on with practiced ease. He placed it in the corner and turned to me one last time with a grin.
"I'll come see you later, alright?"
He slipped through the wooden doors, closing them gently behind him.
Silence.
I tried to move, even just a little, but my entire body screamed in protest. Everything was bandaged, wrapped tight.
I pushed with my arms, and a searing pain tore through my spine, radiating through my ribs and into my lungs.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Only air.
Just air.