At first, I only felt spasms — small bubbles of blood emerging from the cut on the corpse's chest. It was strange, almost hypnotic. Until suddenly, a subtle sound, like something being drained, echoed in the silence of the night.
I stared at the body and saw with my own eyes the corpse shrivels. The blood and bodily fluids were being sucked away, flowing into the open hole in the chest. The skin, once pale, began to darken, taking on an almost dry-wood color.
My entire body shivered, and without thinking twice, I slammed the coffin shut, trying to block out the rotting stench already invading my senses.
—•—
It was midnight when I arrived at the place for the second time. The air was heavy, thick, and the darkness seemed to swallow everything around me. In my hands, I held a thick chain, the cold metallic weight reminding me of the responsibility I carried.
Beside me, an adult man trembled, desperately pleading.
"Please, master, please... I... I didn't want to kill anyone, it was a mistake..." He sobbed between words. "I swear, I swear I regret it. I can work for you. I can hunt, I can kill anyone... just tell me who!" He staggered and nearly fell to his knees, leaning on the chain. "Just don't kill me..."
I said nothing. Not a single sound. My face was an empty mask, a dark robe covering my body instead of the armor I used to wear. In my right hand, a torch cast trembling light over the terrain; in my left, the heavy chain connected my burden to the man I dragged.
When we reached the spot, a small, hidden, foul-smelling clearing, I lit another torch and planted it into the ground. The flickering light danced across the coffin lids, lined up in the dark like dead sentinels. The man dropped to his knees, trying to grab my leg.
"I have children... please... it wasn't supposed to go this far... I was paid, that's all... I'm not like them..."
I stopped in front of the second empty coffin. Almost everything was ready. Only one detail remained.
I crouched down, pulled the chain hard, and the man fell to the ground, hitting his face. He struggled, but I made no move to stop him. That was part of the process. The adrenaline, the desperation. The vitality in the final moments.
"Please... please..." his voice was now a hoarse whisper, almost childlike. "I can be useful... I promise..."
I opened the coffin lid. The wood groaned with the dry friction of its hinges. I grabbed the ceremonial dagger from my belt. The metal reflected the torchlight for a moment. I took a deep breath.
"I don't want to die..." he whimpered. "I don't want to die..."
"No one does" I murmured, unsure if he heard me.
With a clean stroke, I plunged the blade into his chest. I felt the resistance of flesh and the snap of bone. The sound of air escaping his lungs was followed by a brief tremor. The blood ran warm over my hands. His life vanished like a snuffed-out candle.
I carried the body to the previously dug hole, the one farthest to the left, and placed it inside the coffin. I positioned the black seed exactly where the heart had been pierced. Then I closed the lid.
I repeated this ritual for twenty days. Twenty bodies, twenty silent sacrifices for the orchid's cycle.
When I returned to the first coffin, I opened the lid with a mix of anxiety and reverence.
I was greeted by a chorus of buzzing. Thousands of flies swarmed frantically, lifting into the air in frenzied clouds. The stench that poured out was worse than anything I'd ever experienced — a mix of rotting meat, dried blood, and soaked wood.
The corpse had transformed. The skin was dry, clinging to the bones, with a texture resembling the bark of an ancient tree. Thick roots had wrapped around the body, sprouting from the back and piercing into the earth.
And right there, where the navel had once been, a white flower had bloomed.
An orchid.
I closed the coffin and began digging the earth around it, carefully checking the spots I had left open days earlier. I wanted to be sure the roots had passed through the holes.
And they had.
The roots were doing exactly what the book described — connecting, exchanging nutrients from one coffin to another. A living, pulsating underground system, made of death and purpose.
"Good" I murmured, almost as a whisper.
It was a good sign. After all, I hadn't wasted my time.
Understanding that book hadn't been easy at all. It took months translating word by word, stumbling over grammatical structures of a nearly extinct language, memorizing rules that seemed written by someone who hated logic. And each phrase... each line carried an absurdly technical, almost hermetic weight.
But now, seeing the roots respond as they should, watching everything connect exactly as the text predicted... it all made sense.
The orchid needed a specific environment. It wasn't enough to simply bury the seed and wait. It required soil with balanced temperature, decomposing bodies with precise fat and muscle ratios, nutrients mixed with an almost alchemical precision. And most importantly: patience. It grew slowly, feeding little by little, like a sleeping predator.
When they started glowing at night… it would be time to harvest.
"You learn fast" said a voice beside me.
I didn't turn immediately. Only then did I realize I hadn't heard anything — no sound of branches breaking, no rustling of dry leaves on the ground. When I finally looked, there he was: the vice-director, with the same neutral expression, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes obscured by the shadow of his hood.
Even now, even knowing who he was, he gave me chills.
"The knowledge is interesting" I commented, collecting some of the dirt with my fingertips. "There are many methods to consider... and unexpected problems always arise"
"You speak like an alchemist too old for his age" he said with a slight smile. "Or like someone who has already lost more than they should"
I didn't answer. The smoke from the torch wavered in the air between us, cutting through the silence.
"How is your wife?" he asked after a few seconds.
The question came with the subtlety of an arrow piercing the chest. I turned my face away, feeling my jaw tighten. The cold of the night seemed sharper all of a sudden.
My heart weighed heavier in my chest. I sighed, looking at the white orchid growing amidst the stench of death.
"She's... holding on" I replied. "Dealing with it the best she can"
He tilted his head slightly, as if evaluating not the answer, but the tone of my voice.
"Do you know if there's any way to cure her, sir?"
The question slipped out before I could plan it. I hated sounding weak. But for her... I'd accept appearing however I must.
"You ask me like a man who still believes in miracles" he answered calmly. "And that... is dangerous"
I lowered my eyes. My fingers tightened around the torch handle.