2E 396
Within the temple’s right wing, towards the back of the
infirmary, on the ground floor, resided the morgue. This was a dark room, lit
with only a few candles resting upon the stonework surface at the back of the
room and two sconces, one either side of the heavy wooden door. These flames
created long, dark, shadows that flickered and danced along the walls of this
unloved space. Within a temple dedicated to life, this room of death was often
ignored, pushed away from the forefront of the minds of those that called this
temple home. Six tables took up the bulk of the room, each of them built from
strong oak which had aged over the years. The bodies of those the temple
healers were unable to save occupied four of these tables. Each one covered
with white linen sheets. These sheets had been removed from the faces of the
bodies by the hidden dweller of this dire chamber.
Hidden within the dark shadows, atop the shelves of supplies at the back of the
room, a troubled nineteen-year-old Lia perched. She liked it here, only the
spiders and corpses for company. She stared at the still, empty, bodies below
her; the things that had once been people. The recent argument with her brother
repeated itself within her mind.
How could he be so foolish?
She clenched her fist tight, feeling the sting of pain as her fingernails began
to dig into the flesh of her palm. The pain was a welcome distraction. Proof
that she was not like those empty bodies below her. Eleven years had passed
since she had witnessed her mother slip from a person to a body. From a she, to
an it. The shock of her death had sent Lia and her brother in two different
directions. Anton had leaned in closer to the temple, relied on them while he grieved,
which strengthened his faith in Vita. He was now a twenty-five-year-old man,
and a healer devoted to Vita.
Lia had become the black sheep of the temple. She had begun to question the
teachings of the Goddess of life. Vita taught that life was a gift that should
be cherished, nurtured, and protected. This teaching stood in complete
contradiction to the lesson taught by one of the bodies in front of Lia right
now. Three of the bodies were of a natural age for death to have collected
their souls. Lia would have guessed they were within their seventies or
eighties. But the fourth body. The boy couldn’t have been any older than
fifteen. As far as Lia could understand it, life wasn’t some wonderful gift, it
was a chaotic mess. You could be young, fit, and seemingly healthy and then
just die because your heart was simply too weak to continue. This had been what
had happened to her mother. Maybe the dead child in front of her had fallen
down a flight of stairs or had been unlucky enough to have caught an illness too
strong for the healers. Whatever had killed him was just another part of the
chaos that was life.
For a while after the loss of her mother, Lia had latched onto the idea that
life didn’t end with death. That souls would be able to spend eternity with
their chosen Deity. She had gone searching for stories of those able to
communicate with the dead. All she had found were stories of souls trapped
within the physical world as ghosts, wraths, liches, or other forms of the
undead. She had found no evidence of anyone being able to talk with those that
had passed on from this physical realm. Despite what all the faithful within
this temple told her, Lia could find no evidence that life continued after a
soul left the physical realm. As far as she could understand it, the evidence
pointed towards a soul just ceasing to exist when it left the physical realm.
This, oblivion, this, true death, was not something that Lia could allow to
happen to her. Any existence was surely better than no existence at all!
Such a claim was heresy. It went against what the Gods and Goddesses had
assured their faithful. To claim they were either mistaken or intentionally
hiding the truth would have been heretical doctrine within almost any church.
Yet, as Lia stared into the absent blank stare of the dead boy below her, she
could believe nothing less than this. It was what the evidence pointed to.
The loud sound of her brother opening the heavy door to the morgue pulled her
attention away from the bodies.
“Lia?” His voice was trying to sound concerned, but the irritation was still
obvious after their last argument. She had fled from their shared dorm room,
slamming the door behind her, and had hidden within her new favourite spot.
How long had he been looking for her?
The flickering of torchlight from the open door told her that it was at least
past sunset.
“You in here?” Anton questioned as he took one uneasy step inside. Lia couldn’t
help but smirk at his natural discomfort with the very idea of this room. Death
was something that he was unprepared for as a monk dedicated to the Goddess of
life. As he looked around, she imagined his eyes struggling with the darkness.
Eventually he noticed that the linen sheets had been pulled back from the faces
of the bodies in front of him. “I know you’re here. I can see you’ve removed
the burial shrouds!” After a moment of no response, he sighed and took a step
forward, towards the bodies. Without looking directly at them he slowly, and
carefully, pulled the linen sheets back over the faces of the corpses. He
eventually reached the body of the young boy and began to pull the sheet over
the boy’s face.
“Stop!” Lia’s loud command broke the silence like a hammer through a window.
Anton physically jumped at the sound. Although he turned to face her direction
it was obvious that he still couldn’t see her in the darkness.
“I’m not doing this again, Lia. Especially not here!” Anton called into the
shadows.
“Why not? Look at him.” Anton turned to face the body of the child in front of
him, laying there, dead on the table. He quickly turned away, uncomfortable at
what he saw. “Was he undeserving of your lady’s gift?”
“We’ve been over this Lia! Vita doesn’t control death, she only puts life into
the world, once the lives are there, her power over them ends.”
“What about mum?”
“The same went for her too.”
“Does Vita let you talk to her?”
“You know the answer to this. Vita says that the living and the dead must
remain separated.”
“How convenient.” Lia snapped at her brother, venom dripping from her words.
“What are you saying Lia?” Anton’s words held a threat of their own.
“I don’t think I can believe in something without evidence.”
“Are Vita’s words not enough evidence for you‽” Anton’s tone had softened; it
sounded almost like he was pleading for her to stop this line of thinking. She
dropped from the shadowed shelf onto the stone workbench below her. As she
landed on the hard stone she scooped up a knife used during autopsies.
“I need proof, real proof.” She drew closer to her brother, who in turn took a
step away from her. A fear response. “Look at this poor boy. He’s gone, Anton,
just gone. All we know for sure is that he's not here anymore. I need more
evidence than the vague words of a Goddess that refuses to show herself to me
just because I question her teachings.”
“Don’t go down this path Lia.” Anton’s voice had lost all its edge now; he was
outwardly pleading with her.
“How much do you truly believe that souls go to their God?” Lia’s voice was
sharp, a razor ready to cut.
“With my whole heart.” With this Lia lunged forward, pushing Anton up against
the wooden door, as she plunged the knife towards his throat. It was only due
to her precision with the weapon that it didn’t end up pinning him to the door.
As it was the knife was dug about a centimetre into the wood, with the blade
held against Anton’s throat.
“So you wouldn’t mind if I sent you to her?” Lia could feel her brothers throat
strain against the blade as he swallowed down his fear. He was obviously trying
to figure out the perfect thing to say.
“It is my duty to protect the gift given to me by my Goddess!” A bead of sweat
dripped down his forehead.
“Coward!” Lia pushed the knife deeper into the wood of the door, the blade pressed
hard enough against her brother’s throat to draw out a trickle of blood. As she
was considering what to do next, all the air from her lungs was forced out as
Anton’s knee collided with her ribs. Lia fell backwards, knocking one of the
tables containing a body over as she did. She hit the floor along with the body
of an old woman. Lia’s knife clattered to the floor next to her. She quickly
snatched it up and began to lunge at her brother, but he was gone. The door to
the morgue was slowly closing under its own weight. Through the shrinking
opening of the doorway, she saw her brother sprinting away down the hallway.
She couldn’t stay at the temple anymore. After what she had done, what she had
said, she would no longer be welcome within Vita’s home.
She had taken her first real steps away from her old life…
