Sunrise

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Sunrise.

Shreds of grey mist lazily rolled over the forest floor, covering the gnarled ferns and trees in a frigid dew. The first rays of sunlight started their day-long fight against the grey clouds that slowly migrate through Lordearon skies. A lone squirrel peeked out of it's hole high up in a tree, it's twitching snout glistening in the morning dew. Once it's beady eyes had decided the forest lay still, the critter cautiously made it's way to the forest ground. With quick jumps and leaps it bounced across the barren earth and diseased moss. It knew the dangers of this forest. It knew not to stay grounded for long. Yet every day, hunger drove it to descend from the canopy. The ground had nuts. It had been a long, snow-less winter.

Lost, ghoulish figures shambled between the trees in small groups. Forgotten people. They too where hungry. Forever hungry, cursed with an eternal yearning for warm flesh and blood. Very little of it remained in these parts. The walking corpses had long ago stripped the woods of anything with a heartbeat. At the rustling of leaves, one of the shamblers raised it's head, and it's eyes saw the squirrel cannon past them. Ghoulish eyes blinked.

Three seconds later, behind three layers of muck and fungus, their brain realized what they had seen. Unused lungs drew in a draft of air... And the zombie moaned. Soon, it's brethren joined in the unholy chorus, and one by one, they turned to the direction the squirrel shot off to, and started their slow but relentless pursuit of living flesh.

The squirrel knew it. It know that the shamblers had seen it, and it knew they would not stop. It's only hope was to outrun them, to lose them. Even if they could not find it anymore, they would continue their pursuit. A pursuit of nothing, with an eternity to complete it. So, the squirrel ran. It ran across the forest floor until it hit something unfamiliar. Stone walls rose up in the middle of the forest, covered in the bile green of the forest's unholy moss. There where high openings that had once held windows in them, the painted glass shards still littering the floor below. High above loomed the sharp tip of what was once a tower, it's roof and bell now laying on the forest floor, becoming one with the diseased forest. The squirrel raced up the side of a tree, flipped off a branch, and launched itself through a missing window, disappearing into the darkness that lie beyond.

It's pursuers, incapable of such agile feats of trickery, did what zombies tend to do when confronted with complex problems. They shambled into the wall. When the wall didn't budge, they started shambling along. To where-ever they would happen upon the next thing-with-a-heartbeat.

The squirrel tumbled into the darkness, and hit a stone floor with a thud. Crack. Stunned by the drop and the snapping of some very crucial body parts, it peered into the darkness. It found itself in a long hall. Stone tiles made up the floor, patches of damn green moss fighting for dominance over the remains of a blue and golden carpet. Piles of rubble littered the hall in places where the high roof had caved in. At the far end of the hall stood a large wooden altar. In front of it knelt a figure, obscured by once-white robes. Alerted by the squirrel's sudden and violent arrival, the figure turned around with a snap. Two golden eyes flared up under a heavy, shadowed hood, and scanned the environment... And landed on the squirrel. Wounded. Helpless.

The squirrel knew that it was facing it's final moments in this world. It knew those yellow, luminous eyes. The skulking, jittery physique. The tattered robes... An undead. A zombie. A shambler!

The zombie approached, arms outstretched stiffly towards the squirrel...

The squirrel tried to crawl away!

The zombie came closer...

The squirrel crawled faster!

The bony fingers of a ghastly hand slid out from under a baggy sleeve...

The squirrel squeaked!

The fingers grabbed.

Doom!

...

Doom...?

The squirrel couldn't help but notice it hadn't been eaten yet. In fact, it was at this moment that something very odd was happening. Bony fingers, instead of savagely crushing, where holding gently. A lipless, ghastly maw was not biting, but producing a soft series of soothing sounds the squirrel's little brain could not comprehend. The heavy curtains of unholy gloom where lifted, and the morning sun, warm and pure, shone though. The squirrel bathed in an invigorating golden glow, filling every pore and every muscle, bone and hair with an elation unknown to the creature. Then...
The darkness returned. Suddenly, someone had closed the curtains. But some of the light remained! The squirrel could feel it. Lingering, deep inside.. The feeling of goodness, the feeling of warmth. Boney fingers opened up and a ghastly hand lowered to the ground. The squirrel's heart jumped for a moment. Freedom? ...Freedom!

The squirrel skittered across the floor, raced up the wall, and went for the empty window, back into the forest.



The zombie watched the empty window for a while. The smell of burned flesh lingered around it, thin coils of smoke twirling out from under tattered, once-white robes. It turned and shuffled back to the altar at the far end of the ruined church, righting a toppled candle-holder on her way. It knelt down, neigh-skeletal hands piously folded, neck cracking as a ghoulish head lowered in respect. Once, this had been a place of splendor. An icon of the Church of the Holy Light's reverence. Yet, this destroyed and gaunt-looking skeletal frame was still a blessed place. After all this time, the blight of the woods outside had not managed to diminish this holy ground. No matter how it's exterior was ravaged, no matter how many bricks fell off or how many windows where broken, it was still sacred ground. The light does not abandon it's champions.

In the remains of a human church, in the eerie silence of a dead forest, as the dim rays of the morning sun rose into an ever-goomy sky...

The corpse of Scuzy Sunburn prayed.

Nothing really dies in the world of warcraft, do they? Excellent read and an interesting perspective from a Squirrels point of view.