My master awoke. I had been waiting with tense patience outside his hallowed door, listening as he lay. He had not been previously breathing when I had left him, lying, only ten-thousand moments ago, though, despite my record of his passing-on, I had observed a constant breath from within the chambered room, which, throughout the draw of the dark and tempting ritual, had kept a steady rhythm until the eve of the process’s time. Slowly, he rose, my master’s living corpse, dry and gaunt, and utterly without human expression, except for the subtle panging sting of a realization unwanted. Without warning, he drew back away from the altar, and sprinted forth, feverishly, toward the exit of the room. I caught a hold of him, but he tore away, fleeing from the manor, down the hillside, and, despite my calls, dashed forth immersing himself fully, into the broad, cold, depth of the lake beyond.

*~¤Ø¤~*

  It was raining and bleak. The market, only lit by the cloaked sheen of Luna, was packed full of people milling about, some going one place or another, others just wandering, almost none gathering goods. After methodically pushing myself past a small crowd of the likes, and stumbling more than a few times over the studded toes of some of its members, I reached the cabbage man. He was short and thin, balding on the left side of his crown. He seemed frail enough that the wind would blow the raindrops right through him, his flesh and bone easily falling apart and scattering like soft ashes; but somehow, seemingly by force of will, he stayed intact, and remained all the more menacing. I began reciting my master’s request: a large head – without hesitation, he began to pull away from his stand, turning toward the black door set back into the stone wall behind him, even before I could finish my statement – a cabbage head, purple and gray in color, torn, dead flesh, as if the fallen bod of a brother. With reluctance, while grimacing, he strayed back to the stand by which I had kept. He chose a nice and large one of color purple and dull gray flesh. I thanked him, and in response he grunted and quietly withdrew back into the darkness.
  My master’s abode was not un-enchanting. Gruesome, eerie, and sublimely morose, it may be yet wholly attractive to those of a lesser class. God could not deny its ominous eminence. There sitting upon the morbid, sickened, deathly hill, the house and my master within awaited my return. My master was a grotesque and ghoulish man, torn and scathed by ages of hatred and torture. As I made my way across the open foyer beyond the entrance of my master’s mansion, I could not but help to feel, as ever, the immense intensity, being present in the wake of my master’s air. Over the years I’ve learned to overcome the sheer and salty paralysis, panging sharply throughout ones veins as they traverse further across the hall, accompanied by the ever-present desire to grasp one’s own neck, and to take one’s own life where they stand. The feeling is provably unshakeable for any an unaware trespasser, from the moment they step upon my master’s floor; and I must collect those bodies who had fallen. Being aware of my master’s intentions, I immediately approached the chamber of my master’s oft retirement. Fiendishly constructed, there stood within the center of this room a monolithic slab, laid across so as to be fit a raised platform, encompassing the parameter of the idolic tablet, were the satanic and devilish carvings that had possessed my master’s obsessive creativity for the many nights before. Yet all the devils and demons alas, seemed to be subtly squandered, by some unknowable force. My master lay there upon the alter; at first notice he seemed peacefully relaxed and unmoving, as if a dove laid to rest upon a raft of ivory bone, slowly gliding upon the frothy spew of an ancient riverhead, which drew, slowly running, over a rocky crag, to fall light and swiftly throughout the depth of a great abyss, there to find rest forevermore.
  Without words, I set about fulfilling my dark and doleful appointment. The accursed draught had already long been prepared and waiting; only the last of the ingredients needed adding. These I had previously labored for, searching, over the course of many nights past. The brew began to bubble as the last of its requirements, now fulfilled, sunk and became viscous within. My master would have to consume the potion, and the effects would take place. His soul would be torn away from its physical counterpart, his conscious life would slip away, into the unknown; this is the concept of my master’s experiment. I am to allow him a period of three turns of the hourglass in complete darkness and solitude, during which time my master’s allowance of death to overtake him will be determined to prove fruitful, for aft the three hours, a second draught, wiped across the corpses brow, and under its chin, will provide a strict resurrection of the parted soul. To overcome death, to learn of and unveil its hidden mystery – is the object of my master’s desire.

*~¤Ø¤~*

  I ran to the water’s edge, wading through and scouring the bed for his helpless frame. As must have been his mind, nothing was to be fished up; it was only me and the empty waters. I saw the stars; the clouds were shifting apart now. The sky seemed to reflect a supreme relief of the earth and atmosphere. The air began to crisp as I made my way back towards the manor, where I stepped inside, as if passing through a seal which defined the end of the natural world and the beginning of the innate. There, I finally gave in to the eternal rite of my master’s manor.