the mortician | Teen Ink

the mortician

May 5, 2009
By krysling PLATINUM, Naples, Florida
krysling PLATINUM, Naples, Florida
30 articles 4 photos 15 comments

Favorite Quote:
I have found that when a person gets involed with cloak and dagger business, they usually end up deep in the cloak, without the dagger and out a business.


Prologue

Perhaps the Beginning Will Do After All


As you will have noticed, I am a mortician. I work with the dead. I lock them up, clean and clothe them. I tell people how they died, when they died, why they died. I tell families their loved ones are not coming home again.

I am a keeper of corpses. It is the only reason I am strong enough to protect you from what we may come up against. I tell you this in order to reassure you.

(By the time we finished here, you will understand the need for all of this.)

We begin our journey here, in my office. It is sparse, and people have described it as cold. The walls are an off white- gray that reminds a person of brushed steel. The desk is of stainless steel and, in the event of a bombing, can withstand a forty pound blast of dynamite, or worse. My chair is straight backed and also made of metal, although of what kind no one is sure. I have no pictures on the walls, I have no couch. I have one big window that is in the wall above my desk that looks out over the entire morgue. There is a cot six feet behind my chair with one gray blanket and a white pillow without a case. The carpet is industrial grade, and it is the blue gray color found on the floors of low budget schools. I have two filing cabinets and one high tech top of the market computer. I have a top of the line dead bolt on my office door that, in the event that I am forced to spend the night, which happens often, is locked from the inside with a key and has no way to unlock it from the outside. The door is made of the same metal used to build atomic bomb shelters.

The entire morgue building is made to weather an all out military attack. You will soon learn how I came to know this. And yes, it is from personal experience. It is the main reason for the telling of this… story, as you will soon see. Or not, as you choose.

And now that we have begun, I must tell you. This is where it starts, here in my office, and here, is where it will end, with you, and me, and the dead. The only things that will change are the emotions you associate with morgues, this office, the dead, and me.




Chapter One

All is never as it seems


You may wonder what may have possessed me to become a mortician. Well, that is a simple matter in itself really. I am dead. I was born that way, and that is how I stayed.

When my mother brought me into this world I was blue, cold, and without a pulse, but my eyes were open, my arms were moving and I could focus on the faces around me. This is when the rumors of vampirism started around my mother and I. She begged them to say nothing of my “condition” and, being honorable men of their field, they did as she asked, and no one was the wiser. I have never been back to a hospital.

That makes sense only because I have never been sick and have several acquaintances that are masters in their fields. They set bones when I can’t do it myself. I am a qualified doctor in any case so going to a doctor for things I can do myself is nonsense. It is a sure way to cause problems for myself.

I am a freak of nature, I have known it since I was a month old. I developed light years faster than my year mates, which had no psychological relation to the fact I have a photographic memory. Two days after my birth I began to grow three times as fast as any normal human child and then, at the age of 13, I stopped growing. I was completely developed. I have no fear, diluted emotions and a sixth sense that is at least one thousand times stronger than a normal human’s. I have ears that can pick up a bat’s echolocation frequencies, and a conversation across a crowded football field. I have a dragon’s eyes. I am not a vampire. I am 100% human, times six.

I was twelve when I graduated valedictorian of my class. I had the highest honors when I left the hallowed halls of John Hopkins University. I was thirteen when I graduated Harvard with my masters in law. At the age of fifteen I had three masters degrees, two bachelors degrees, and was a Ph. D in three subjects. I am a qualified neurosurgeon, psychoanalyst, therapist, doctor, lawyer, journalist, scientist, heart surgeon and mortician/coroner.

You are wondering by now, I’m sure, what I look like. As it does not pertain to the story, I will tell you only these things. My eyes are identical to a wolf’s, my skin is pale and somewhat transparent, and my hair is so black it is almost blue. My teeth are white and sharp as knives. The gentlest of bites will break your skin if I choose.

While we are talking about me, I should tell you I am skilled in several hundred fighting styles. Tae kwon do, jujitsu, Judo, aikido, karate and Savat are only my favorites. This is just the beginning of my hand to hand combat series. I am a master in all of them.

I also am skilled with weapons. Samurai swords, katanas, broad swords, scimitars, crossbows, sniper rifles, guns, whips, glaives, knives, daggers, maces, chains, and staves are easily within my realm of expertise. As you can see, I have made a hobby of fighting and weaponry. Death and I have a comfortable relationship, as a result, people no longer bother me when they find my secret. They used to.
Children know. They always know. Some of them are fearless or brave, (or just stupid,) and will touch me, or hug me or cling to me as if they can sense a sadness in me, but it is not sadness they feel when they hold me close. It is emptiness, and the seek to fill it. Some of them are fearful of my cold skin and my ever silent heart, and they will not come near me. They will cry, or scream, or become uncharacteristically quiet when I come close. Still others are only cruel. They will seek to destroy what they fear and do not understand. Much like their parents I suspect.

When I was five, I went to a park near my home to sit on the swings. I have always loved the swings, and once, it was the closest I could ever get to flying. There were children there I had seen at the elementary and high schools, but I ignored them, as I always did, and sat in the swing farthest away from the shrill screams and laughter to think.

It wasn’t long before they noticed me, and it wasn’t longer before I felt their intentions starting to lean with a dangerous wind. All of them. There were twelve of them five high school students and seven younger ones, and only one of me. I knew before it started how it would end. I tried to subvert it.

I was silent as I slid carefully off the swing. I was silent as I crossed the park on the opposite side of them. I was silent as I stepped onto the tarmac that would lead me away. They were too. I was stubborn then, just as I am now, and I did then exactly the same as I’ve done countless times in my life alone. I walked normally. I did not give them the satisfaction of seeing me run away.

I should have. That is the first time I was beaten by outsiders. It was the last time I was beaten by anyone. At the age of five I took it upon myself to go into training. At the age of six I was not to be messed with. At the age of seven I was dangerous. At the age of eight… I was deadly. Just ask my father.

No one will ever find his grave. That, I can guarantee. In blood.


The author's comments:
this one isnt quite finished but ineeded some feedback as it is not like my other writings.

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This article has 1 comment.


CatCave GOLD said...
on May. 17 2009 at 8:54 pm
CatCave GOLD, Duluth, Georgia
17 articles 14 photos 39 comments

Favorite Quote:
We do not inherit the earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.

your writing style is so witty and i was immidiately drawn to your character. please write a second part to this.