#she's never been in any contact with any liquids except hand sanitizer today when i cleaned her

[creativerogues]

"Did You Know Her Well?"

“Did you know her well?”

I felt like this was a question I didn’t need to answer. Of course I knew her well, but I guess it’s not appropriate to say that. We hadn’t even been in a relationship really, but then again we were. I guess it’s complicated. We were much more than friends, but not going steady or doing anything lewd. I walked out of the morgue to clear my head. I decided I’d head toward the waterfront, maybe take a swim in the frigid water. It didn’t normally bother me, and it especially didn’t today. I felt that my heart grew even colder than the wind and waves combined. I clamored out of the liquid filth feeling less than refreshed. After I dressed back up, I climbed the pier ladder and walked toward her apartment. Inside, all the memories flooded back. 

It was a warm day, slightly less than pleasant, but the breeze helped some. I couldn’t help myself from going down to the coffee house. I wasn’t thirsty or hungry, at least in the normal way, but instead I was starving for human contact. I entered the building to the harsh but cheerful tingle of the bell. Unlike most days, I was the first customer inside. I sat near the back, a place that draws the littlest and most attention to you. The barista asked me if I wanted anything, but I politely declined. It was the next person to come in that was the one. She walked in straight to where I was sitting.

“You’re in my seat.” I was shocked to say the least, but also blown quite off my feet. Her voice was cute, but not in the normal cutesy way. More like a jazz singer’s voice, but not as deep. It’s still hard to describe well. She had dark and slightly mussed hair and ghostly eyes. I glanced up at her, then the barista, who proceeded to look away quietly. Looking back the woman, I stood up and offered the seat to her. 

“No no, I was just pointing it out. You can sit back down there if you want to.” I moved to the next seat over at the table, but I didn’t sit down there either. I motioned to “her” seat and insisted that she take it. She did so, and promptly afterward I sat too. She looked at me.

“Well, we’re here then. So who might you be? I’ve seen you around here before but haven’t heard you talk.” I told her my name, Melki. Melki Svashenko.

“Ah! Well that’s quite an unusual name Melki, or may I call you Mel? Where’s that name originate?” I told her of course she could call me Mel, and that my first name was an old and underused Baas name, and that Svashenko came from an old Murlas heritage I was pretty sure I had. I also mentioned that if I was right about the heritage, Svashenko meant Shark. 

“Well that’s quite a deal you got going on there Mel. Baas and Murlas huh, that’s interesting. Ooh, you’re a shark! Haha, that’s funny. My name’s Dancer. So what do you do for a living, and how did you come by that awesome coat you’re wearing?”

This chit-chat carried on for a long time, until it was evening and Dancer knew much more about me than I did her. I looked at my timepiece and gasped. I had to be back soon, and I’d have to run to make it on time. I stood up and told her that I’d have to be going, but I asked her if we could meet up again tomorrow.

“Well, if you turn up in my seat again, that shouldn’t be to much of a problem! I’ll see you tomorrow Mel!” I didn’t run so much then as I flew. That was the effect she had on people, or at least on me. I ran to the nearest manhole and hopped inside. I ran along peeling off my boots, mittens and turtleneck, finally able to breath well now that my gills weren’t covered up. And I had much more freedom of movement now that my toes and fingers weren’t being smushed. I made my way to my hideaway, observing my creations weren’t still in place guarding the entrance. I realized I was too late, so I decided to take my time. I scrambled inside to my clear and clean pool, shedding the rest of my clothing and sliding inside. I swam about, mentally noting the numerous bones littering the bottom of the pool.. 

After I while, I swam over to the edge and clamored out. I made my way over to my workstation, picking up random bones as I walked along. At my desk I sat down, slapping down handfuls of bones. I began to put them together, recreating the shapes of small exotic animals, muttering incantations as I went along. I wasn’t sure why they had fallen apart, I looked at my timepiece and realized they should still have been together for a bit longer. Once I finished them back up and instructed them to guard the entrance again, I proceeded to pore over all of my necromantic books. I had an idea, but I wasn’t entirely sure if it was true. 

I found it, in one of the more obscure books I had. Since life and death are so interrelated, the love I felt had more to do with life, thereby breaking the hold I had over death. None of my creations had stuck around through the love induced mini-apocalypse. I wrote this down in my book under “Failures.” 

I spent time remaking everything, and at the same time tried to imbue them with stronger stuff. I replaced a few minor lines with some harder stuff, and added a few safeguards here and there. Hopefully this time they’d stay around through my next warm and fuzzy encounter with Dancer. 

In her apartment, I looked around, finally coming in after standing in the doorframe for so long. I looked at all of her belongings, noticing the things that I had given her. All the little things, both alive and dead, sweet and morbid, loving and manufactured. I’d never been very good with living creatures, a fact that became apparent with all things but her. She had still kept the bony bird that I had reconstructed for her after her live one escaped. I had run after it, but when I found it a cat had just gotten to it. I scared the cat away and reinvigorated the creature’s remains. I didn’t know then how to preserve something that freshly dead, so I only reanimated the skeleton. I brought it back to her after cleaning it off. It’s name in life had been Tyrell. It was a large bird that stayed in her very spacious apartment. It had never been caged. 

I freed Tyrell then and there, opening the window and shooing it out. It would probably come back, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and her presence. 

After many such meetings between Dancer and I, we would part in the same manner that I had that first time. We conversed at length about a great many things, but one thing in particular keep nagging at me. It tore at me to not tell her, but I didn’t feel I had the strength to.

One day she asked me where I was always in a hurry to. I finally decided to show her. I didn’t want secrets between us, and I had been keeping some large ones. I brought her down a more pleasant way than through a manhole, but we still ended up walking through the sewers.

“Don’t tell me, you’re a sanitation worker! A plumber? What is it, I can’t be too far off can I?” I told her yes she was, and asked her if she was prepared for something she most likely had never seen except maybe in books.

“Of course you silly, we’re friends. Whatever it is, I won’t judge you on it.” That day I had worn a scarf instead of a turtleneck, so I unwound it, took off my mittens, and finally my boots. She gasped, but caught herself.

“You’re a… What is it. You were an experiment or something right? Djadhre? Wasn’t that the term?” I nodded my head and asked her if this was too much for her to handle. 

“No no no, I mean it was unexpected, but I’m totally fine with it. That’s cool that you’re not just a conventional being, no offense of course. But if I may, I’m gonna call you Sharky too now.” But of course there was none taken, and I said she could pretty much call me whatever she wanted. I told her that if she was fine with this, she could probably handle what I do. I promptly grabbed her hand in mine and walked at a quickened pace to my hideout. My heart was fluttering like mad, and I felt like I was going to vomit at any second. Thankfully that didn’t break my hold over my creations any more. I had a larger undead creature guarding my door now, the skeleton of a sabertooth I had received as payment for a job once. She seemed barely fazed by it, I guess the bigger shock was over. That or she had held in her awe. 

“You’re a necromancer?” I told her that was about half of it. I told her the whole of it. I mentioned my horrible inception, my studies in the basement of a fine necromancer from one of the northern islands. I told Dancer how other than necromantic literature, the necromancer had kept a full library of fiction and non-fiction. My favorite genre the lady kept was crime. True Crime, Hardboiled, Mystery, etc. I took up a side job of being a P.I. in the last town I was in until someone else came along and took all my clients. I used my necromancy to gain insight on the cases I solved. I came here, and hadn’t been able to get work. I fished in the waterfront for food, and stored the bones for use later. I kept detailed anatomical charts of many different creatures. The one thing I couldn’t do though was anything but skeletons. There were tons of books detailing how to do it, but I just couldn’t seem to accomplish it.

We talked long into the night that day, and she ended up falling asleep while sitting on my bed. I decided to sleep in the pool. I had to stay decent while she was around though so I went out into the sewer to change into some old pants and a shirt I didn’t mind getting wet. 

After that night we became much, much closer. We went around town together, we went on picnics together, we went almost everywhere together. One time I bought an old boat from the harbormaster. It was small, but still sturdy after what appeared to be many years in service. Since I had been saving money for so long, I got it all on one big payment. I sailed it to an abandoned and blocked off exit of the sewer. It had been a dead end at one time, but because of the extreme erosion on the rock face near it, it opened up near the water. I docked the boat there and began to work on possibly making the old sewer line nicer, and adding a rather real dock. It took me a while, but I did it. I repainted the boat as well, and re-outfitted the ropes and sails to newer and less frayed material. 

Finally the Lilac was finished, as was the dock. Because of its position and proximity to the city, all of the work I had done hadn’t drawn the attention of anyone. This was all good and worked towards my plan of surprising Dancer with it all on her birthday.

It finally arrived. Her birthday was here. I met her at her apartment and took her to my place, where I then told her to close her eyes while I led her to her surprise. We walked over to where I had fixed up the tunnel and she opened her eyes. I motioned for her to walk down the nice hardwood flooring that I had made over the gross sewer floor and towards the light. We walked together, and when she saw the Lilac she gasped. 

“Oh Sharky, you're wonderful!” She wrapped her arms around me in a great embrace. I probably blushed. I walked her over to the gangplank. She wore a sunhat and a long flowing dress, I wore a vintage sailor outfit, and even had the cap to match. We stayed out on that boat for days, I had outfitted it with all the necessities. It was some of the best fun either of us had ever had.

In her room, I was sifting through her belongings, deciding how I could possibly take everything with me. I thought about it for a while when I realized that I could just pack it all down the fire escape and into the manhole in the alley behind her building. I began to pack everything up when I came across a diary of hers. I obviously wasn’t going to read it, that’s private, but when I picked it up a letter fell out addressed to me. I could feel the blood rush to my face again for the umpteenth time. I picked it up and slit open the seal with a spare bone from my pocket. It read:

Dear Mel,

If you’re reading this then I’ve died. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my illness, but I didn’t want to burden you. That’s my flawed thinking, I know, but it was incurable. You know I trust you more than anyone I know.  Look Sharky, I understand that you don’t have control over every faculty of necromancy (especially the dead with flesh and organs). I think I may have found a way to help you post-mortem. Look in the drawer in my dresser, third from the bottom. There you’ll find a book that I got for you after contacting the son of that necromancer you studied under. It should be able to help you.

I love you,

Dancer

She actually said it, that she loved me. I had hinted at it for so, so long. The page had tears on it, both mine and hers. I folded it back up and placed it in my coat’s inner breast pocket. I went over to the dresser and got the book. I realized that I needed to start working on this now, so I grabbed that flowing dress, put it and the book in a suitcase, and ran out of the building. Back at my home I started to read every letter of that book at the fastest speed I could. 

In the morning I ran as fast as my lanky legs would carry me to the morgue. I found her body and dressed her in the dress I had taken. I picked her sleeping body up and snuck out of the building back to my place. I set her on the bed and broke my focus with everything that I had reanimated. I lit incense and candles, I tried anything and everything with the capability of calming my nerves. I started the incantation, looking at my gorgeous sleeping beauty. It took hours and hours, I had to be half submerged in the pool to continue with the greatest piece of majick I’d ever done, and possibly the greatest ever done in this area of the world. 

I was growing very tired, but I couldn’t give up. I glanced at my timepiece with my peripheral vision and saw that it had almost been a day. Gods, this was taking a long time. I really hoped I was doing it correctly. I had to keep clearing my mind to get rid of all of the incessant doubts in my mind. I think at one point I drifted off, but when I apparently awoke I was still speaking the spell. Almost done, one more page left to go. The color still hadn’t returned to her yet, but I pushed on.

Finished. I sank down into the pool. Exhausted. I couldn’t believe it. I think it worked. I climbed out of the pool and walked over to my bedside, looking at her. I gingerly grabbed her wrist. A flutter? I had to wait. I put my ear to her chest, straining for a sound. 

I heard it. I heard the heart puttering back into life. I started to cry. It wasn’t joy that I felt, but relief. I had her back. I drew my head back and smiled, then I pulled my chair over to sit and wait. I heard her breathing, and I knew that she was asleep still. This time however, I had parted the curtain of death. She was sleeping the sleep of the living now. I crawled back over to the pool and lay down at the bottom, content.

After that day, I wasn't able to use my majick again. I think it was the pneumic strain of carrying on the spell that kept her alive. Dancer luckily suffered no brain damage of any sort, and picked up living where she had left off. After a long while, we got married. I knew in the back of my mind that as soon as I died she would too. I began to study life so that I should live as long and healthily as possible. We spent our days on the Lilac, sailing around and exploring places we came across. At least, that’s what we did in my dreams.

-Baker Haas, January 14, 2016.