Unholy Trinity: Emergence, The March & Necromancer by Martin P. Fuller

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Emergence

The grave is cold, devoid of light. Something urges it to lift decaying limbs, breaking the rotting coffins lid. A cascade of soil crashes through. It digs, claws, and pushes upwards.

Time is irrelevant as it tunnels higher. A fierce desire to bite and devour settles in what passes for its mind. 

A fist breaks the surface. A final lunge. Rebirth from the womb of the tomb. It is compelled to wander the world, driven by a voracious need to sate a taste for flesh, the drip of blood on dry withered lips, and the crunch of bone. 

It walks.

The March

The dead thing was joined by a fellow journeying cadaver. They walked abroad, stumbling occasionally, decaying legs almost crumbling beneath them. Something had changed their rotting tissue, making it harder, stronger. Muscle and tendon transformed, becoming similar to rusted iron. Regeneration, especially after the first victim’s been torn apart by sharpened teeth. Flesh invigorated and restored. Their addiction to consume human meat increases. The companionship of other reanimated corpses returns a memory of community. They are given purpose. Hunt, kill, render, and feed. Bring the living into the herd of the dead.

All travel on into a blood red future.

Necromancer

He falls to his knees, exhausted after the incantation, hands and chest smeared with the sacrificial victims blood. The cemetery trembles with a shimmer of movement as the dead arose through the cold earth. Their decomposed brains were congealed into instruments of his will, and his will was strong.

The world would fall with his army of the dead, each containing the seeds of death and re-birth in their bite and scratch. The hellish host would thus increase and march on, blood and flesh their payment for being soldiers of the grave.

The Necromancer stands, ready to own the world.