Those Who Should Be Dead

Death should be an ending. For the Black Veins, it wasn't. They walk, speak and remember, yet their bodies carry none of the signs of life. No heartbeat. No pulse. No blood. Some remember the lives they once lived, while others remember the moment they died, and every one of them carries the same impossible question: why did they come back? Time does not touch them as it does the living. Wounds can heal and years can pass without leaving their mark, but immortality is not what it seems. Without the energy of a soul, a Black Vein's body begins to decay. Whatever brought them back did not free them from death. It only delayed it. Worse still, somewhere in the darkness, there are creatures that have learned to feed on them. To survive is not simply to avoid death, but to hold on to whatever remains of the soul that keeps them from falling apart. Then there is Kilo. He has no heartbeat, but unlike the others, blood still runs through his veins. He remembers nothing of a previous life and nothing of a death. He does not know where he came from, why he is different, or why he exists at all. And there may be a reason for that. Some mysteries are buried because they were never meant to be found.