Written by Sloanl
Somewhere on the Plains of Sorrow in the Undead Realm, the vast unforgiving desert where despair blows through those unlucky enough to find themselves there like a foul wind, the demon Rosemary stood above its protégé, The Undead Bride. Formerly a sweet, shy, innocent eighteen year old girl named Suzie, she had been brutally murdered at her own wedding by a Yakuza chieftain who had become angry by her fathers refusal to give her to him to pay off a debt, so she, along with her father and everyone in the chapel, fell victim to the blades and bullets of the yakuza.
Somewhere on the Plains of Sorrow in the Undead Realm, the vast unforgiving desert where despair blows through those unlucky enough to find themselves there like a foul wind, the demon Rosemary stood above its protégé, The Undead Bride. Formerly a sweet, shy, innocent eighteen year old girl named Suzie, she had been brutally murdered at her own wedding by a Yakuza chieftain who had become angry by her fathers refusal to give her to him to pay off a debt, so she, along with her father and everyone in the chapel, fell victim to the blades and bullets of the yakuza.
Suzie had been the picture of beauty, but the thing which writhed on the ground before the demon now was far from the sweet creature Suzie had been. It still had the flesh of Suzie, demons like Rosemary had the singular ability of being able to carry mortal meat-sacks of flesh and bone to the Undead Realm, but that flesh bore the wounds and the markings of the massacre that had killed it.
The ritual required to transform dead flesh to undead flesh was long and taxing, impossible for a mere mortal to perform, and it was draining even for Rosemary. The demon had carried the recently murdered body to the Desecrated Church deep within the Forest of Gnosis, and lain it upon the Black Alter there. Lighting the seven candles, she had had to say the correct incantation and make the required sacrifice over each one. Starting with Black, the absence of color, the color of death, the negation of the pulse and the silence of neurons, the zero sum absence of life, the incantation over the black candle is the stark acknowledgement of this reality.
The Sacrifices must not be spoken of, but they get progressively harder until the end, until the Magus (in this case, the demon) must make the ultimate final sacrifice.
The next three candles become progressively lighter, more grey, as the sky at three a.m., the cracks in the soul when it despairs the most and Hope begins to tentatively, patiently, seep in. The incantations become louder, stronger and more urgent, encouraging the arrival of the New, commanding the dead flesh to awaken and to embrace new connections, new pathways. Nevermind the tales and superstitions of peasants... you think a vampires heart does not beat? It does, only so... very....slow, to even the trained physician it appears to be still, silent, but there is a pulse, or maybe just a suggestion of a pulse, a contraction every ninety seconds, and longer as more time passes, the little blood that remains frigid cold to the touch, and coagulates very quickly, so that the formerly dead flesh begans slowly-slowly-slowly to wake up and become something New. As the Black Candle turns grey, so the flesh which was the absence of life begins to accept a state that while not Life, not exactly, is neither death, thus we call it Undead.
The Fifth Candle is Purple, and it is whispered in certain circles that when King Solomon conquered and yoked the seventy-two demons to serve him that all the wisdom of the Realms came to him in a cloud of purple mist. Rosemary is not one of those demons, it so far as avoided the trap circles and triangles of mortals who wish to cage it, it has managed to keep its name out of the limelight, the publicity of the Latin and Hebrew Grimoires that are like People magazine in the Undead Realm, I mean, are you really anybody unless there is a crude rendering of you in one of their silly texts? the conversation usually goes around the demonic dinner tables, but Rosemary has been content to exist in the shadows, has in fact constructed a world from them, so while the Solomons and his much more inept acolytes of the world search for its famous kin, it has been free to study... and attempt to create.
The Purple Candle and its corresponding sacrifice is the trickiest part of the Ritual. Rosemary had, at the last moment, changed the order of the Ritual that even now it is regretting. The Candle to burn after the greys should have been the Red one, for all the rage and passion the Undead Thing would carry, and the vengeance it would seek upon its murderers. The Final candle should have been the Purple one, the candle of Wisdom and Prudence, to temper the fiery passions of the Red Candle with its calming influence. The Circle should have been closed, as it were, with the Purple Candle, the Thing done and sent out into the World with mission of vengeance, sure, with Righteous rage and murder, okay, but with limits. With Understanding.
Yet, just as Rosemary's Father had once told it that it's primary nature was that of a trickster, it was hopelessly drawn to change the ages old Ritual to amuse itself. So, the Purple candle with corresponding incantation was lit, with corresponding sacrifice made, then the White. The White for balance and unity. The white for the palate of all colors. The penultimate waiting for the synthesis candle.
The Synthesis Candle that should have been Purple, but that the demon had impulsively chosen to be Red. The Red Candle, encapsulating the rage, the anger, the cold fires of hell and the vicious hatred that would burn inside this Undead Thing. The Red Candle that only gets hotter as it burns. There would be nothing to temper it with. No Purple Candle of Wisdom following it to calm it, give it direction and focus. It would be the Wisdom of Rage, not the Rage of Wisdom. Two diametrically opposite states of being. So very dangerous. But there was no turning back. Candles once lit, could not be unlit, and incantations chanted, could not be taken back, so that had left only the Final Sacrifice.
The Demon had grown fond of the meat-sack she was occupying. It pleased the demon. The irony in being a nun greatly appealed to it, and it was able to both encourage the deviant on their own roads to suffering, and to alleviate, for a bit, the suffering of the innocent. It had been perfect, for awhile.
It relinquished the body of the nun back to the mortal realm. The nun would have no memory at all of the past five years. It would also not know that demonic possession had actually extended it's life longer than it would have lived. The terminal illness affecting the nun that had been held at bay by Rosemary took hold almost immediately upon the nun regaining control of her body. She would be dead within a years time, and it would be hard. It was hateful to the demon.
The demons act of freely sacrificing its control over the its former host caused an enormous amount of energy to flood the body of the Undead Bride. It had Awaken. It had Awaken to full knowledge of its former life, to knowing it could never be that again, to reliving, minute by awful minute, its murder, and to the oath of revenge.
Its rage was awesome, awe inspiring. It wore the bloody, torn, soiled dress it had worn at its wedding, the name Undead Bride was still on its leg, and its flesh was turning the cold pale color characteristic of Undead things. It's face, however, had become horrifying. It had managed to turn its face into a awful mimicry of a Kabuki dancer, and the demon realized the implication here. This was a creature who understood its previous role had been to please men, but now, now...
Now it was done. The demon stood in it's true form, indescribable by words, above the Undead Bride. "What is your name?" It asked the creature.
"Su Yung," The Undead Thing answered in a strange, alien voice.
"What will you do?"
"I will have revenge."
Rosemary knew that all things followed their course, the water than rushed downhill could not be turned back, and it had started this, so it let the Undead Bride leave the Undead Realm to have its revenge.
"Foolish Child," Rosemary's fathers voice had boomed at it from the walls of the Desecrated Church. "Demons cannot create. All you can create is death."
"Then that is what I will do!" It had replied angrily, and left, but it knew that its father was right.
First, they had found the yakuzas lackeys, all appeared to have suffered greatly before death. Then, they found the Yakuza chieftain himself, his arms had been broken and his tongue had been torn out by the roots, then...
Then it had gotten really bad.
The Undead Bride did not stop there. The friends of the Yakuza members, then the family, then the distant relatives... one by one they were slaughtered. Whole villages, people who had barely any relation to the yakuza at all... merchants who had sold them tea and whiskeys, women who had danced for them or slept with them one night, even children who were playmates with their children... all slaughtered until for thirty miles there was the scent of death, until the Kenpeitai arrived and found pretense to leave, it was too brutal, too horrific, must be wolves, call the hunters, not the Imperial police.
So, Rosemary had gone to fix its mistake. The Undead Bride had had her revenge, and now, it had to stop. The demon had not reckoned on the Undead Things strength. Rosemary had tried a desperate gambit: it had entered the mortal realm in its true form, which, if seen by mortal eyes at all, would resemble at most a cloud of mist, a feeling of ill ease and disquiet, a cold wind.
It had crossed into the mortal world and tried to possess the Bloody Undead Bride. It was a long fight, Su Yung would not give up her body willingly, there was a world to conquer, after all, but in the end the demon was stronger, and it took control of the Undead Brides body as it had the nuns before, but it was a tenuous grip, just enough to bring it back to the Undead Realms, where she brought it to the Plains of Sorrow, and left it.
"This is your home now, " it had said, as it floated above the writhing, raging Undead Bride, "You are too dangerous, even for us."
The demon had left the Undead Bride then, lost on the endless Plains of Sorrow, abandoned to the Undead Realm forever, and had gone on to other curiosities and fancies. There was a mortal girl, a Courtney Rush, whose mind was splintering, whose heart was breaking and who was calling out for pain and darkness, begging for the Shadow, and Rosemary heard.
The demon discovered that it enjoyed the work of Courtney Rush. Professional Wrestling was sanctioned violence among the mortals. She could rip and tear and hurt, within limits, as long as she was pragmatic about it, and that was okay with her (it had begun to think of itself as female) Rosemary had had enough of real death and horror, the violence of the world of Courtney Rush should satiate her for awhile...
But on the Plains of Sorrow, Su Yung worked at her bindings, and they became more and more loose by the day, and now she turned all her rage and focused on a single target, her creator and her captor... Rosemary.
The ritual required to transform dead flesh to undead flesh was long and taxing, impossible for a mere mortal to perform, and it was draining even for Rosemary. The demon had carried the recently murdered body to the Desecrated Church deep within the Forest of Gnosis, and lain it upon the Black Alter there. Lighting the seven candles, she had had to say the correct incantation and make the required sacrifice over each one. Starting with Black, the absence of color, the color of death, the negation of the pulse and the silence of neurons, the zero sum absence of life, the incantation over the black candle is the stark acknowledgement of this reality.
The Sacrifices must not be spoken of, but they get progressively harder until the end, until the Magus (in this case, the demon) must make the ultimate final sacrifice.
The next three candles become progressively lighter, more grey, as the sky at three a.m., the cracks in the soul when it despairs the most and Hope begins to tentatively, patiently, seep in. The incantations become louder, stronger and more urgent, encouraging the arrival of the New, commanding the dead flesh to awaken and to embrace new connections, new pathways. Nevermind the tales and superstitions of peasants... you think a vampires heart does not beat? It does, only so... very....slow, to even the trained physician it appears to be still, silent, but there is a pulse, or maybe just a suggestion of a pulse, a contraction every ninety seconds, and longer as more time passes, the little blood that remains frigid cold to the touch, and coagulates very quickly, so that the formerly dead flesh begans slowly-slowly-slowly to wake up and become something New. As the Black Candle turns grey, so the flesh which was the absence of life begins to accept a state that while not Life, not exactly, is neither death, thus we call it Undead.
The Fifth Candle is Purple, and it is whispered in certain circles that when King Solomon conquered and yoked the seventy-two demons to serve him that all the wisdom of the Realms came to him in a cloud of purple mist. Rosemary is not one of those demons, it so far as avoided the trap circles and triangles of mortals who wish to cage it, it has managed to keep its name out of the limelight, the publicity of the Latin and Hebrew Grimoires that are like People magazine in the Undead Realm, I mean, are you really anybody unless there is a crude rendering of you in one of their silly texts? the conversation usually goes around the demonic dinner tables, but Rosemary has been content to exist in the shadows, has in fact constructed a world from them, so while the Solomons and his much more inept acolytes of the world search for its famous kin, it has been free to study... and attempt to create.
The Purple Candle and its corresponding sacrifice is the trickiest part of the Ritual. Rosemary had, at the last moment, changed the order of the Ritual that even now it is regretting. The Candle to burn after the greys should have been the Red one, for all the rage and passion the Undead Thing would carry, and the vengeance it would seek upon its murderers. The Final candle should have been the Purple one, the candle of Wisdom and Prudence, to temper the fiery passions of the Red Candle with its calming influence. The Circle should have been closed, as it were, with the Purple Candle, the Thing done and sent out into the World with mission of vengeance, sure, with Righteous rage and murder, okay, but with limits. With Understanding.
Yet, just as Rosemary's Father had once told it that it's primary nature was that of a trickster, it was hopelessly drawn to change the ages old Ritual to amuse itself. So, the Purple candle with corresponding incantation was lit, with corresponding sacrifice made, then the White. The White for balance and unity. The white for the palate of all colors. The penultimate waiting for the synthesis candle.
The Synthesis Candle that should have been Purple, but that the demon had impulsively chosen to be Red. The Red Candle, encapsulating the rage, the anger, the cold fires of hell and the vicious hatred that would burn inside this Undead Thing. The Red Candle that only gets hotter as it burns. There would be nothing to temper it with. No Purple Candle of Wisdom following it to calm it, give it direction and focus. It would be the Wisdom of Rage, not the Rage of Wisdom. Two diametrically opposite states of being. So very dangerous. But there was no turning back. Candles once lit, could not be unlit, and incantations chanted, could not be taken back, so that had left only the Final Sacrifice.
The Demon had grown fond of the meat-sack she was occupying. It pleased the demon. The irony in being a nun greatly appealed to it, and it was able to both encourage the deviant on their own roads to suffering, and to alleviate, for a bit, the suffering of the innocent. It had been perfect, for awhile.
It relinquished the body of the nun back to the mortal realm. The nun would have no memory at all of the past five years. It would also not know that demonic possession had actually extended it's life longer than it would have lived. The terminal illness affecting the nun that had been held at bay by Rosemary took hold almost immediately upon the nun regaining control of her body. She would be dead within a years time, and it would be hard. It was hateful to the demon.
The demons act of freely sacrificing its control over the its former host caused an enormous amount of energy to flood the body of the Undead Bride. It had Awaken. It had Awaken to full knowledge of its former life, to knowing it could never be that again, to reliving, minute by awful minute, its murder, and to the oath of revenge.
Its rage was awesome, awe inspiring. It wore the bloody, torn, soiled dress it had worn at its wedding, the name Undead Bride was still on its leg, and its flesh was turning the cold pale color characteristic of Undead things. It's face, however, had become horrifying. It had managed to turn its face into a awful mimicry of a Kabuki dancer, and the demon realized the implication here. This was a creature who understood its previous role had been to please men, but now, now...
Now it was done. The demon stood in it's true form, indescribable by words, above the Undead Bride. "What is your name?" It asked the creature.
"Su Yung," The Undead Thing answered in a strange, alien voice.
"What will you do?"
"I will have revenge."
Rosemary knew that all things followed their course, the water than rushed downhill could not be turned back, and it had started this, so it let the Undead Bride leave the Undead Realm to have its revenge.
"Foolish Child," Rosemary's fathers voice had boomed at it from the walls of the Desecrated Church. "Demons cannot create. All you can create is death."
"Then that is what I will do!" It had replied angrily, and left, but it knew that its father was right.
First, they had found the yakuzas lackeys, all appeared to have suffered greatly before death. Then, they found the Yakuza chieftain himself, his arms had been broken and his tongue had been torn out by the roots, then...
Then it had gotten really bad.
The Undead Bride did not stop there. The friends of the Yakuza members, then the family, then the distant relatives... one by one they were slaughtered. Whole villages, people who had barely any relation to the yakuza at all... merchants who had sold them tea and whiskeys, women who had danced for them or slept with them one night, even children who were playmates with their children... all slaughtered until for thirty miles there was the scent of death, until the Kenpeitai arrived and found pretense to leave, it was too brutal, too horrific, must be wolves, call the hunters, not the Imperial police.
So, Rosemary had gone to fix its mistake. The Undead Bride had had her revenge, and now, it had to stop. The demon had not reckoned on the Undead Things strength. Rosemary had tried a desperate gambit: it had entered the mortal realm in its true form, which, if seen by mortal eyes at all, would resemble at most a cloud of mist, a feeling of ill ease and disquiet, a cold wind.
It had crossed into the mortal world and tried to possess the Bloody Undead Bride. It was a long fight, Su Yung would not give up her body willingly, there was a world to conquer, after all, but in the end the demon was stronger, and it took control of the Undead Brides body as it had the nuns before, but it was a tenuous grip, just enough to bring it back to the Undead Realms, where she brought it to the Plains of Sorrow, and left it.
"This is your home now, " it had said, as it floated above the writhing, raging Undead Bride, "You are too dangerous, even for us."
The demon had left the Undead Bride then, lost on the endless Plains of Sorrow, abandoned to the Undead Realm forever, and had gone on to other curiosities and fancies. There was a mortal girl, a Courtney Rush, whose mind was splintering, whose heart was breaking and who was calling out for pain and darkness, begging for the Shadow, and Rosemary heard.
The demon discovered that it enjoyed the work of Courtney Rush. Professional Wrestling was sanctioned violence among the mortals. She could rip and tear and hurt, within limits, as long as she was pragmatic about it, and that was okay with her (it had begun to think of itself as female) Rosemary had had enough of real death and horror, the violence of the world of Courtney Rush should satiate her for awhile...
But on the Plains of Sorrow, Su Yung worked at her bindings, and they became more and more loose by the day, and now she turned all her rage and focused on a single target, her creator and her captor... Rosemary.