You tried to follow the direction that the sound had come from but since the sound had died, it had been followed with utter silence. It was difficult to tell if you were still moving in the right direction. Then you heard another grinding and trailed off in its direction.

A soft light in the distance caught your eye.  You turned toward the decrepit mausoleum and the faint glow that shone from the slightly open door. You were on high alert as your approached. You listened at the door. Nothing. You peaked around the door. You could see the small room, the open stone sarcophagus in the middle, and a large brick on the floor. A lone torch on the wall illuminated the room, casting long shadows across the floor. There was no one inside, however.

You squeezed your body inside, careful not to make any noise as you further investigated. The brick on the ground caught your attention. It looked like it had been pulled from the wall. You were about to advance towards it when you felt arms wrap around your body.

You reared your elbow to jab it into the gut of whoever had grabbed you. Your body froze when you felt the cold, sharp blade of a knife press against your throat.

You weren’t about to let your attacker threaten you. You slipped though the shadow of the casket you stood in and reemerged in your attackers shadow. Now it was your turn to grab him and press your dagger against his throat.

“You know,” you whispered in his ear, “you’re the first person who has successfully snuck up on me.” You thought carefully about your past experiences. "At least in many years," you added

He raised his hands in surrender as best he could while he remained restrained by you.  His dagger clanked to the ground. “I’d hardly call it successful seeing the position I’m in now,” he retorted.

You pushed him away from you and drew your longer, primary blade into your other hand. You leveled both weapons towards him. He turned to face you. His light auburn hair hung in bangs over his slanted, foxlike eyes. He had a surprisingly cute face but you suspected he was older than his features would lead you to believe.

He also got a good look at you. “You know,” he stated matter-of-factly, mimicking the structure of your previous statement, “you’re the most beautiful woman who has successfully held a blade to my throat.”

You were taken aback a bit at his odd compliment, but you didn’t allow yourself to visibly waver. “Do you often have women trying to hold a knife to your neck?”

He simply laughed, his eyes lifting into crescents, as he took a seat on the rim of the casket. “You can lower your weapons, by the way. I have no intention of fighting you. I only held my weapon to you because I didn’t know how you would respond to me, but I can see you’re not inclined to start a fight either.”

You looked doubtful. He stomped his foot down on the hilt of the dagger he had discarded. It flipped up into the air and into his hand. “Besides, if I wanted to attack you,” he stuck the blade into his belt, “I would have by now.”

 “Fine,” you contended. You put your weapons away. If it got serious again, you were confident you would be able to get the better of him, and your companions were just a scream away.

“The City of the Dead is quite an unconventional place to spend time. What are you doing here?” The man asked you.

You placed your hand on your cocked hip. “I could ask you the same question.” He simply looked at you expectantly. “I’m just clearing out some of the dead.”

“How nice of you.”

You would expect words like that to be said sarcastically but his tone suggested neutrality. You gazed quizzically at the hole in the wall where the brick had been removed. It appeared to hold some kind of mechanism.

He noticed your gaze. He tapped at the sarcophagus with his heel. “This one was guarded with a nasty trap.”

“Why did you open it?”

He lifted a dazzling ruby necklace and dangled it from his finger for you to see. "I'm redistributing a few goods." He gave you one of his unique, innocent looking smiles.

You balked at him. "You're a grave robber?"

"Well," he looked into the air and tapped his chin in mock thought, "I don't stick exclusively to graves."

"Isn't it immoral to steal from the dead?"

"You know how this graveyard is." He tipped his head in the direction of the skeletal woman in the sarcophagus he sat perched on. "She'll come back eventually. And besides,” he dropped his hand into the casket so that the necklace dangled over the thin skin that stretched over her bony neck. “Don’t you think this would look better on me than it does on her?” He addressed the body, “Don’t take it personally, it just doesn’t suit your lack of a complexion.

You couldn’t help but let out a laugh. He looked at you, slightly startled at your appreciation of his grisly joke. His expression softened when he saw your face lifted in mirth. Breathy words escaped his lips as if he were half talking to himself. “Wow, your smile is pretty… it’s really… and your eyes…”

That immediately made you stop laughing as your body filled with nervousness. You smiled awkwardly and stuttered out non-words, as you couldn’t seem to find an adequate response. The flirtatious man just stared at you and admired your looks. You were beginning to feel anxious under his scrutiny and wished for an escape from the rapid pace of your heartbeat.

You received one. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the way you would have preferred. You gasped as a ghastly hand grabbed his throat. The awakened wight rose out of the coffin, lifting him into the air. The other hand pulled a long sword out from under it as it stood. It snarled and saliva dripped from between it’s jagged teeth.

You were about to leap to the man’s defense when he gripped the hands at his throat and swung his legs around to wrap around the creatures arm, twisting it in a way the bones wouldn’t support. They cracked under the pressure and your new friend fell to the floor.

“I guess she took offense to the quip about the necklace, after all,” he said while massaging the red marks on his neck.

You both drew your weapons and jumped at the creature. The wight was fast, but you two were faster. You both moved in perfect harmony, him with his twin daggers and you with your shimmering saber. His movements were fluid like water and yours were light and yet powerful like wind. Onlookers would have thought you were performing a dance and the wight had been caught up in the middle. It desperately tried to parry your attacks, but it honestly would have been overwhelmed trying to defend from one of you with your dizzying attacks.

Jun, Chan, and Kijung burst into the room right as the wight fell with an ear-piercing screech. “We heard a struggle…” Kijung said as he wistfully regarded the defeated body of the wight.

Jun pointed between you, the boy next to you, and the wight, “What…?”

Chan was equally confused. “What happened here?”

“This is…” You trailed off, realizing you never caught his name.

“Marco, pleased to make your acquaintance.” He shot you another one of his eye smiles.

The five of you wandered back outside as it was too small in the mausoleum to comfortably hold all of you and a dead body.

Marco was explaining to everyone how he snuck in, and how all the racket your group caused distracted the undead and allowed him to get as far in as he did. Beyond picking up that much, you didn’t process the words Chan, Jun, and Marco were exchanging. Your attention was completely on Kijung, who stared off in the distance at a much larger mausoleum. The confusion and concern he felt was written all over his expression.

“Kijung,” what’s wrong?

He blinked at you and looked back at the structure. “That’s not supposed to be there.”

“What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t there before.”

You squinted at it, trying to make out its condition across the distance. “Are you sure? It doesn’t look new.”

Kijung didn’t have an ounce of doubt in his expression. “I’m positive. There is something wrong with that building.”

(chapter art by kristele.deviantart.com)