Part III:
04 January 1796
I don't know who made me. I have no god. I am my own god. I awoke on a slab. Lightning crackled through the open ceiling above me as snow fell across my face. My binds were unlocked but there was no one there to greet me. This is what life was? I have since understood that most of the pink kind starts small. Babies. They grow into the people they are supposed to be. I started full. I gave myself a name, a name after the man whose research created me. When I arose however, that man had long been dead. I never found who made me. I might have been timed out by the doctor as he knew his first creation was lost. Maybe he thought he could do better. He thought I was better.
After I learned what life was I learned fear. The villagers of Bran did not take kindly to my existence. They branded me a monster, chased me with fire to my castle. My only friends bats, wolves and finally the fear I gave to them. I was dead. Always cold. I felt hunger, I felt pain, I felt fear and love but I could not age. Could not die from disease, animals did not attack me. I was dead.
I spent my time researching my birth, teaching myself how to read and write. I found out how I was made, how the doctor's technology supplanted God himself. Where he and his monster ended their struggles atop the Arctic Circle. It was on my journey to find them when I first discovered their kind.
The first Mummy I met was Nesyamun. I encountered him in Leeds, 1824. I had spent a month in England tracking the doctor when this vile specimen crossed my path. At present I still believe myself to be old, but this creature was supposedly three millennia, preserved, though cursed by his people. He was a High Priest who had sinned against his god. I had no god to sin against. While he sought redemption I still sought only fear.
He had none. He was also no longer afraid of death. We were two dead things who did not understand each other. We scuffled across the dark streets of Leeds but he gained the upper hand, casting me with great strength into a carriage then summoning locusts to disguise his escape. I believe he was a coward, not of facing me, but of claiming another life. He should have claimed me there.
After years of searching I discovered the doctor's body in the Arctic, but his creation was lost in pyre. I know not what drove him there, no other Frankenstein has yet conquered his fear of flame. Something happened between these two, something that made this fear as silly as it is.
I brought the doctor back to Bran, hoping to revive him using his own technology. After many tries I was successful, in 1831 I gave my first life to a dead thing. The monster rose from the slab and opened his eyes as I had. He knew not who he was though. I showed him the doctor's notes and explained what he was, though I have never told him who he was. Victor, I named him. I believe some part of the original doctor exists yet in his mind, as he is the most solemn and melancholy of all my army, but also my oldest and most loyal Lieutenant.
Slowly we grew our family. After eking out a living for years we added a brother, Ernest in 1836, Jerry in 1845. Elizabeth, bride for Victor in 1848. While I had great anger for a world that doomed and hated us, we had little choice for many years. The Mummies did not bother us, nor us them. That is...until he showed up.
11 March 1895
Kharis was deranged. Even older than Nesyamun, he was unleashed by an Egyptian cultist priest in the late 19th Century. Kharis quickly turned on the priest, the English explorers and every other mortal who stood in his way. Using sacred Tana Leaves he began calling all other awakened Mummies to his base in catacombs deep in Egypt. That's when we began our serious feud.
Ernest was adept at spying on the villagers. Bran was a small town but connected to the crossroads. He heard that there were strange folk lumbering through on their way South. Dressed in many layers, leaving traces of dust and bandages after their path. I knew it was time for revenge on my humiliation suffered by Nesyamun. We made a journey to Bucharest to intercept him and Djedptahiufankh. No, I cannot believe that name, either. We brought rifles and water to Bucharest, where we jumped them at the train station. Victor stayed behind, he was always worried and sorrowsome.
The guns proved ineffective. They slowed the creatures but mostly puffed through the dust. The Mummies could summon the power of plagues and sand, although most did not affect that which is already dead. The fight was slow, each side lumbering against each other. In the heat of battle I first met Kharis.
He blew in almost on the wind of sand.
"What manner of creature are you?" He snarled. He had an uncanny presence among his kind.
"I am a dead thing. We are dead who live!" I proclaimed. Jerry, Ernest and Elizabeth held their weapons high and cheered.
"You are dead? So you have no fear of death?" spoke Kharis. I am not one for banter. I aimed my rifle and fired into his chest. He merely glanced down and laughed. "You do not learn well." He loped towards us and grabbed Ernest, lifting him up high. "It is time to feared death!" Earnest stabbed his pitchfork through Kharis' gut but showed only dust for it. Kharis' eyes glowed and he ripped Ernest apart. I rushed and hit him with the butt of my rifle, breaking it in half. Kharis twitched. Nesyamun winced behind him.
"There can be only one group of people who defy death. We are here for a reason. We are here because we are cursed, forbidden from the afterlife. You are unnatural. Abominations." I had heard the same my whole life.
"What gives you the right to live where we do not? We want to live!"
"We do not have the right. It is our curse. I," he sighed, "I just said that, were you listening at all? This is what I'm talking about. You know not even the meaning of your own existence."
"Rrrrgaaghhh..." Jerry moaned.
"That's right, Jerry!" I exclaimed. "You die!" I threw a bucket of water at his face.
"Dammit!" He screamed. "Do you know how badly it smells to have damp moldy bandages covering your face? This is going to take at least a half-hour to dry! I need to go take care of this!" With that they vanished again in a swarm of sand and crickets.
We left Ernest in Bucharest. We could have revived him, we have since done so with many other of our family we have lost. Out of respect for our brother and to remember to respect the power of Kharis, we let him rest.
From then on both sides built their armies with fervor. We hold a distinct advantage in this regard. The only thing we ask of our recruits is to die. We do not care how or why or when. Of course, finding volunteers has been difficult. We can reattach body parts and re-jump heart beats, but stalking, murdering and dragging back new recruits is not always easy, especially when the villagers start to become wary. Thus it has been a slow process, we dare not risk losing members unnecessarily.
It was in 1974 then when I met someone who could finally bring us to the core of the Mummy Forces. Detective Schnelppvort would take us to Lowcountry.
End of Part III
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