The Curse Lifted

The darkness was deep. Profound, as though it was enrobing him with tighter bonds than the bandages that contained his gnarled, dried form. He couldn't tell whether the cold that surrounded him came from within, or from where he was. Everywhere he went it was constant, chilling his soul and preventing his heart from beating. Or was it his unbeating hard that created the cold which tormented him?

He wandered, unable to remember his own life. Only two things: the name whispered in his ear, ringing in the back of his mind, Amumu, and the same voice whispering that he was alone. Utterly, abhorrently, and forever alone. Even as his sarcophagus was unearthed in the rolling sands of the Shuriman wastes, even as he opened sightless eyes and stretched muscles that had long since deteriorated, Amumu had felt it.

His every footstep caused as much of a crunch in the bones of his padded feet as it did the leaves which fell around his path, dead and withered. It was a sound that only he could hear, the grinding of his bones audible only within his bandages, a constant reminder of his state. Somewhere dimly, lurking beneath the voice in his mind, he knew that he was not... right. Death seemed to follow him wherever he went, and although he could remember the sweetness of a hot meal upon his long dried tongue, and the refreshing course of drink down his parched throat, food he touched seemed to fall to dust and drink was but air the moment it touched his lips.

Amumu knew that he was cursed, that it would be easier to simply return to the dark loneliness of the sarcophagus he should never have climbed out from, but something within him forced him to keep moving. Indistinguishable from the curse that plagued him or from the desire to alleviate it, Amumu was compelled to journey far beyond the shifting sands and miraged heat of his desert resting place, if what he had experienced could even be called a true rest, trying in futile efforts to find a friend.

Just one friend, a single soul that could warm his own. Someone who would not flee from him when he tried to approach a campfire to warm his frostbitten limbs, who would not attack him for daring to venture out of a shadow and plead for help, for passage through dangerous wilds filled with terrors that he was forced again and again to drain the life from without meaning to. Every person, every creature, every living thing that attacked him either ran in fear, or he was forced to walk away from, a flow of tears staining the ground in his wake, the ability to make them one of the few leftover functions of a body long dead.

He never tried to bury them. If he touched their bodies, they would just melt into nothingness. Instead he would reach his arm out, and the bandages that surrounded him would fly to their bodies and wrap their forms. It was the most that he could give those who had tried to hurt him.

Amumu didn't know how long he had walked. How long he had been in this cursed form. He could not remember the voice or faces of his parents, the touch of his father's hand upon his head nor the scent of his mother's hair in her embrace. He knew only that there was an eternity ahead of him, and that no matter how loud his sobs, or the screams of those who flew from him, the voice in his head would always ring clearer in its hushed tones than any noise from around him.

At least until he saw lights ahead of him.

His staggered, jarring footsteps increasing in pace, Amumu rushed through the reducing wilds around the town in the distance. As the lights grew nearer, the woodlands becoming less hostile and more tame with every desperate step, he could almost feel the warmth of the fires ahead, wishing for nothing more than to find a hearth to warm his bandages near without fear of being thrown into it. But as he reached the edge of the flickering circle of light that formed the town's outermost edges, he could feel no warmth suffusing him as he had expected.

Feet coming to a slowed progression, his knees began to quiver and shake as he ventured out of the safety of the woods to the town, much too worried about what he might find there than he was that he had begun to see the dank, chilled, wet woods of the wilds as safe compared to the place that he wished dearly he could belong. As he wandered into lanes and avenues, all of the people gasped and ran, fleeing to the safety of shops as their shutters dropped and homes as their doors locked, windows slammed shut as though a wintry wind were sweeping the city. And perhaps it was, the chill of the underworld radiating out from Amumu's diminutive frame, sucking the very warmth from the air itself without giving so much as a degree of comfort to the boy it tormented so.

But then a child. A curious young orphan, emerging from behind a dilapidated old dumpster to wander through the bone-chilling cold, perhaps as used to the sensation as Amumu himself was, and up to the young mummy.

“Are you lost?” the child queried, giving Amumu an encouraging smile.

The mummy said nothing, his lips quivering, his mind forgetting that he had to take in the air that tortured his body in order to produce the sounds that terrified those around him.

“... are you hurt? You're all bandaged up tight.” The question was not one of curiosity, but concern.

The child came nearer, and Amumu backed away, shaking his head quickly.

“I-I don't have my parents either,” the boy quipped, gulping and giving Amumu a knowing look. “And the people 'round here... they're none too nice to boys like us. B-but maybe if we just--”

Amumu tried to stop him. He tried to back away, but his body found the wall of the alley that was behind him as the boy came closer. He held his arms up, trying to keep the child away from him, shutting his eyes, and as soon as he felt the unavoidable touch against his bandaged skin, he knew that it was too late.

There before him the child's small smile faded, a fear growing in his eyes as the cold that radiated outwards from Amumu poured into him, and even as Amumu tried to reach out to catch him while he fell, the boy's body was but ash before it hit the ground. He fell to his knees, his hands in the remains of the orphan, and felt tears wet the tops of the wraps on his arms and hands, the pile of dust darkening with every drop that touched it.

“M-monster!!”

Finally remembering how to, Amumu gasped and stood up, backing deeper into the alleyway. There at the end was a group of men, weapons come to bear, brandished with trembling hands and shaking voices.

“Get on!!” another shouted, holding a sword higher in the air. “F-foul child of the dark! We've n-no quarter for your like!”

They began to advance, and Amumu began to retreat. Farther and farther into the soaked alleway, his bandages splashing through the freezing cold gatherings of water, but his limbs were numb with shock and fear and he felt nothing, not the cold within him or the hunger gnawing at the pit of his stomach. Only the fear, and the regret, and the knowledge that these men were right.

He tripped, falling to the ground, giving the men following him the time they needed to close the gap, and as he raised his arms over his head he felt their blows begin to rain down on him from above. Buffeted about the head and chest with their blunt instruments, his body run through time and again with piercing pains of sword and spear, he didn't know how he had gotten to his feet but the pain was beginning to turn into anger. As his hands curled tighter to his form, his vision began to bleed into red, and as he felt the need to get away, to make them hurt for not understanding, a violent power ripped forth from within his bandaged body. The men went flying backwards, slices upon their face, chest, and arms, their skin already drying from where they had been touched by the necrotic energies flowing from his small form, and he looked around even as they tried to recover before the tears began falling again.

Trying to apologize, but not remembering how to place the words in his head back upon his tongue, he fled. The few men who tried to follow him seemed to lose energy the moment they stepped foot on the salted slick, falling onto the ground once again as the breath was robbed from their bodies. He fled, padding desperately through the city, up stairs and down rails, until at last he found himself near what must have been the city's center, for several groups were closing in on him from all sides.

“He's already killed my cousin!”

I-it wasn't his fault!

“He'll kill us all if we let him...”

He didn't want to, though!!

“I bet the demon'd burn just the same if we set him alight!!”

Why?

Why couldn't they understand?

Why wouldn't they help him?

Always, Amumu. Always alone.

He was but a child, and children could not control their tempers. As the hostile group encircled him fully, Amumu crouched down, his hands over his head, shaking it left and right as he tried to wake himself up from this nightmare. It wasn't fair, it wasn't his fault! His fear reaching a peak, the pain in his dead heart syncronizing with the pain in limbs he wished were as numb, he let out a piercing cry. Bandages erupted from his body, coming from within him, from a place that he couldn't understand, and a darkened, eerie light surrounded his body. The flailing streams of fabric grabbed hold of not only the men who threatened him, but the structures around him. As his scream echoed through the emptied streets of the city, so too did the wraps spread until there was nothing that was not connected to him by the bandages that kept others from connecting with him.

If they would not come close, he would make them do it.

As the bandaged tightened, the life sapping from those around him, the city itself began to decay. All around him men began to drop dead, and before long the screams of the citizens, thinking their doors and window shutters could keep them safe, began to join in. As the chorus of fear and panic filled the air, the cacophony of crumbling buildings brought a low rumble to compliment the high pitched wails.

In an instant, it was over. The dust settled, as much from the buildings that lay in ruin as the remnants of the people who had been captured by the dark force that compelled his dead body to move without regard to the laws of nature, or the desires of an innocent child. And as Amumu looked around, he felt a cold deeper than any he had experienced since he had first emerged upon the tumultuous, soft ground of the desert.

It was the chilling truth that they were right. That the voice was right.

In a puddle of the tears that would drain the life from any who touched them, Amumu collapsed into sobs, his cracked lips parting only to suck in the breath he needed to voice his anguish until, long into the frozen night, he fell asleep.

Like any other child, Amumu had cried until he could cry no more.

When the morning came, he felt not the warmth of a risen sun, nor the sweetness of an early breeze. Instead he felt the pounding of footsteps as soldiers rushed into the ruined city and surrounded him, shields raised, spears directed. He could not react, instead he sat, shivering, in the center of the group until the lines broke and a robed man walked forwards, crouching down in front of him but careful to keep his distance.

“Child, was this your work?” he asked. He wasn't angry, and he already knew well enough the question.

Amumu did not respond, simply shivering, his arms around him, a few stray tears starting to fall once more.

“Or perhaps was this the work of the cruel citizens of this town?”

His sobs stopped, his watered eyes rising from the ground, the sightless orbs glowing hollow.

“Shhh, it is alright,” the man assured him, inching closer and sitting upon the ground. “We have felt your presence. We cannot save you from the curse you bear, but perhaps we can give you a place where you will not feel fear.”

It couldn't be true. He sniffed once, raising a bandaged arm to rub at the tears flowing over his covered face, his eyebrows trembling as they settled somewhere between a concerned furrow and a desperately hopeful raise.

“A place where legends are eternal.”

He did not reach out to try and take the hand of the man. He knew better than to touch him. But Amumu sniffed once more, giving a small hiccup, and his bulbous head replied with a hesitant nod, casting a wary glance around him as the spears raised, the shields dropped, and the man stood.

“Come, Amumu. I will lead you to your new home.”

Amumu had no desire for battle. He felt no need to kill, or to injure those around him. But the man told him of the League, of the Fields of Justice, and how all who joined were forces for justice, for good, in the world whatever they might be from. That by using the powers that tormented him he could help those who could not fight for themselves. That his was a power entirely unique, and that even if people could never understand it, they would be glad when it helped them. He spoke at length as they traveled, and although people kept a distance from the mummy in the massive city at the end of the journey, they did not run in fear. They did not scream, nor panic. And as he was brought to a set of large, golden gates, the man urged him forwards. In front of the assembly his steps were small, shy, and he spent more time looking around than moving forwards until, at last, he came to the massive shining doors.

His reflection lay in front of him now. His bandages torn and stained with tears and decay. His eyes stared back into his own, and he watched as tears began to form in them. Perhaps if he just reached out, maybe he could know what it was to touch someone again. As the hand upon his wrist and the hand in the mirrored surface came together, he felt not the warmth of another's skin, but the clunking of gears and the shifting of magic around him. The doors began to swing open, their massive hinges groaning from the weight, until with a final shuddering crash they came to rest, leaving the way ahead open. Amumu backed away, gazing upwards, and took a small step forwards before looking back towards the man who had brought him here, who only gave him a small smile and motioned for him to walk forwards.

For the first time in he didn't care to know how long, Amumu had a reason to put his one foot in front of the other.

Everything the man had said, and had warned him of, came true. His abilities were indeed powerful, and although he did not like what he was forced to do, the summoners chose him again and again. As time went on, Amumu found that he could save people, not just hurt them. His body could not die again, and so he could take blows for others. The people he fought against were powerful, and could withstand the decay of his powers, merely tangled or briefly stunned when he pulled himself to them or unleashed his inner pain when it reached its crescendo.

But the summoners never responded, no matter how many times he asked. Within the battles, no one ever spoke to him. Time and again he was put into the darkness between where the others fought, forced to battle against the terrible monsters within the artificial jungle, alone again.

Alone always.

Until one day.

Amumu sat behind a massive pillar in a long unused hallway of the building that had become his home. It was his place now, where he always came when he was not to be used to settle disputes that he was far too young to understand in a way that he was far too innocent to truly enjoy. The hallway was cold, empty, devoid of life on all days but today. As he sat in the shadow of a massive pillar in an area where no torches' light came he heard the gentle humming and the staccato skipping of someone nearby. Withdrawing deeper into the shadows he watched, eyes wide, as a young girl came prancing into view and stopped, noticing the glow of his eyes within the darkness.

She did not run in fear, or back away. In fact the girl came closer, squinting to try and get a better view before a bright flame erupted in her palm, and she held it up to give light to the corner that had not seen such a boon in years. The girl gasped, not out of terror but out of interest, and her eyes lit up with the same fire that she held in her hands as she walked closer. Amumu withdrew slightly, looking away and down, holding his hands against his chest so that he would not accidentally touch her. The flickering light moved around him, and he saw her hand come into his vision, waving him to look up at her with the bear she held. "Have you seen my bear Tibbers?" she sounded almost giddy, proud of what she had made. A child wanting attention for her art.

As his head rose slowly, and his eyes glanced around taking another small step backwards, the girl simply smiled brightly and held out the raggedy teddy bear towards him. “You wanna play a game?” she giggled, giving him a smile that could melt the iciest of hearts. “It'll be fun!!”

Amumu said nothing for a long time, simply staring back at the girl, glancing from her face to the bear held out to him. Slowly his arm extended, wrapped fingers opening to grip at the arm of the bear. Instantly his heart felt warmed, the pain in his chilled bones receding, and the girl gave another giggle, her smile growing, as she led him out of the shadowed corner, the bright smile on her face never fading even as the fire in her hand did. She began to walk faster but was stopped short when Amumu did not. Looking back quizzically at the mummy, the bandages around his mouth seemed to shift around as he struggled to form a sentence.

“... w... will you be my friend?”