Soulbound Destiny

Chapter 17: Bones and Pursuers

Gene lay sprawled on the cold, uneven ground for what felt like hours, gathering the tiniest shred of strength. Hunger gnawed at him relentlessly; he could no longer ignore it. He had to find food.

His thoughts immediately went to the place where the bandits had tethered their horses. Struggling to his feet, bracing himself with a rough wooden stick, he began the arduous trek back along the path he had come, each step a torment of pain.

Every movement tore at his battered body. The wound on his back, scabbed over but still fragile, cracked open with each motion, oozing pus-stained blood. His lungs screamed with every breath, forcing him to breathe shallowly, painfully, just to keep moving.

When he finally reached the clearing, all that greeted him were a few skeletal horse carcasses, picked clean by scavengers, their heads swollen and rotting, maggots crawling through the decaying flesh.

Hope seemed utterly lost. But Gene’s eyes fell on the thick, sturdy leg bones. With a desperate flicker of ingenuity, he pried them open. Inside, he found marrow—rich, fatty sustenance that could stave off death for days.

Laboriously, he gathered a bundle of relatively intact leg bones, dragging them inch by inch along the ground. These bones had become his lifeline, the slim thread keeping him tethered to survival.

By evening, he managed to ignite a small fire beside the roadside. Carefully roasting the marrow-filled bones, he inhaled the savory aroma as the fat melted and crackled. The scent carried a faint gaminess, but to a man starving to the brink of collapse, it was a feast fit for kings. He ate sparingly, consuming only a single bone, and stowed the rest with painstaking care.

With the food in his belly, his strength returned in small increments. Yet as night fell, a new terror stirred in the darkness.

The familiar, heavy, hopping footsteps echoed behind him once more, rhythmic and relentless. Gene’s scalp tingled with dread. He turned—and his heart nearly stopped.

The black-faced zombie had returned. One jump after another, it pursued him with unyielding determination, hopping across the ground like death incarnate.

The nightmare had not ended. How had it found him again?

Fear overrode every other sensation. Ignoring the burning pain in his body, Gene seized a marrow-filled bone and his long knife, spinning on his heel to flee. He ran with every ounce of his energy, the undead figure keeping pace behind him, relentless yet methodical.

He ran for miles, lungs burning, muscles screaming, nearly vomiting blood from exertion. Yet when he dared a glance backward, the zombie maintained the same grim, unchanging distance.

Exhaustion threatened to pull him under. Spotting a large tree at the roadside, Gene’s survival instinct ignited one last surge of strength. Using both hands and feet, he scrambled up the trunk, his body trembling with effort.

The zombie reached the base of the tree and began circling, hopping with a heavy, thudding rhythm, the stench of decay curling up to Gene’s nostrils. It could not climb. It could only wait.

Perched precariously on a high branch, Gene’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. The night stretched endlessly, the rotten, relentless figure below refusing to relent. He sat there, eyes wide and unblinking, confronting the creature, his mind a whirlwind of fear and exhaustion, surviving yet another night in the shadow of death.