"Don't you dare forget me. Promise you'll come back, you have to." This sentence played over and over again in his mind. He could hear the words, not the voice. This living-dead of a man knew someone once told him this, but who it was seemed to escape his memory...
The Quinn brothers lived in a city, on the corner of Regret Avenue and Revenge Lane, a few blocks away from Baker Street. They owned a bakery and lived in the small apartment above it. Their lives were not exciting nor were they boring, but just right. One of their frequent customers, the Lazarovici family, recently had their second child, but that is the other story, not this particular one, but they two stories will meet eventually, just not yet. Anyways, the older brother was named James, the younger was Dante. Peaceful days were normal, until the day Dante died. It was an early morning in June, raining like it does everyday in June (in this city at least), and Dante was bringing out the garbage into the alleyway to put in the dumpster. Now, before I continue on, let's jump over to John's story for bit. John, 53 years-old, hates his job, his wife's cheating on him. When John confronted his wife about her affair, she told him the address of the man she was seeing. Unfortunately she mixed up her lover's address with his neighbor's, the brothers. Now back to Dante's death. John snuck up behind him, and brutally murdered poor Dante who had just turned twenty-one. Leaving the scene of the crime, and Dante's corpse, John returned home to find his wife with her lover and then murdered them both before killing himself, but enough about John, he's a very silly man. Let's go to James. James had just returned from picking up ingredients to get to work on making bread and other things, when he noticed the back door was open a little bit. He slowly proceeded over to the door, trying to keep himself calm, but the music on the radio wasn't helping. "Dante? You out here?" the older brother asked cautiously as he opened the door all the way. It was raining much more heavily than it was earlier, so it took James a few moments to realize what he was looking at. What he thought was just some collapsed drunk was actually his younger brother, lying in a pool of his own blood mixed with rain water. James eyes went wide with panic and such immense sorrow that the neighbors could hear his heart breaking...
After Dante was buried in Pleasant Grove Cemetery, James didn't want to accept that his kid brother was dead and would never come back. He had to find a way to bring him back from the grave, no matter the price. He searched for weeks, until he came across a small shop that one would normally overlook and not notice it, but this was not normal circumstances. James entered the shop, the bell rung to signal that a customer was now present, and a very small wrinkled old man came out from behind a bookshelf. His eyebrows and mustache were so thick that you couldn't see his facial expressions. "Yes sonny? What is it you're looking for?" James looked around a bit at what goods the store had, and said, "I'm trying to bring my brother back. Don't suppose you would have anything to help me with that?" The old man stopped and thought for a moment before scurrying off to find a ladder. When he came back he propped the ladder against one of the tallest bookshelves James had ever seen, and climbed up to the very top. The wrinkled man plucked a book from on top of the bookshelf, and went back down. Before he gave James the book he said, "Be careful. What this book holds is a way to bring back the dead. However, there is limited life in this world, in order to bring one back from the dead, someone from the living will have to be exchanged with them. Death doesn't like to be cheated." But before the old man could tell James the last and most important detail, James grabbed the book and handed the old man a 50 Tenets (Tenets are their form of currency, kind of like the dollar or the euro) and practically ran out of the shop to get his brother back.
He waited until midnight to get his brother's body from the graveyard. He had been digging for what seemed like years, but was really only an hour. When he opened the coffin, Dante's body was beginning to rot and his skin had turned a light green, which wasn't that surprising considering that the graveyard was surrounded by factories and such. Dante's wounds had been stitched up horribly (the wounds that had killed him) and were visible all over his body. James frowned a bit, but wrapped his brother in a canvas cloth and brought him to the bakery. Once everything was ready, he began the ritual. A fog from nowhere rolled into the room, and the candles threatened to go out. A cloaked figure appeared and croaked out at James, "Who has called me, the Lord of the Dead?" When James told Death of what happened and how he wanted his brother back, Death agreed. With the snap of its boney fingers, the corpse began to move a bit. When Dante opened his eyes again, they were no longer the bright blue they used to be, but were now a foggy blue color. He sat up slowly and stiffly. "Don't worry, he may be half dead but he won't eat human flesh like most mortals foolishly believe. Now, it is time for payment," Death said in a very grave tone. Shackles were now placed around James' wrists. "What are you doing?" James yelled, frightened. "Taking payment. The old man explained it to you, did he not? One of the living must be exchanged for one of the dead. But they must share the same blood, or it will not work." "He never told me that! Why does it have to be on of the same blood?" Death looked at the man and said, "There is no greater bond than the bond of blood." James looked worriedly over at his brother who was staring at them listlessly. Death saw this and said, "Do not worry, he's just waking up. You'll meet him again someday, but not anytime soon though." James felt a little better about that, and Death opened the door the realm of the Dead. James shouted something to Dante before he passed through completely. The door that was the midway between the Living and the Dead closed behind James, the last thing he saw was his zombie brother just staring at him...
Pain, it hurts, everything FUCKING HURTS. His sight was foggy and blurred, and everything hurt. He heard two people talking in the distance, but it got louder and louder until he was in the same room as them. He sat up, and saw a man talking to Death. He didn't know what was going on, but it seemed important. After awhile a door suddenly appeared and Death was taking the man through it, but the man looked over his shoulder and yelled to him, "We'll meet again Dante, I promise, so don't forget me." And then the door shut and they were gone. "Dante huh? I guess that's me, but who was that guy? I kind of wish Death hadn't taken him, he seems like he knows me... Why can't I remember anything?" Dante got up and looked about the room, until he saw a mirror and had a good look at himself. "God damn, I look like I was in an accident. Two stitches on my face, well at least it isn't as bad as my chest, fucking stitches palooza there... Why the hell is my skin green?" He rubbed the back of his neck, it was so stiff it was like he slept on the floor for weeks. He went and explored the rest of the house looking for clues as to who he was and who that guy was...
End of part 2.
