Sid The Skeleton

The creature collapsed hard enough to tremble through the cavern floor.

Several blue crystals snapped beneath its weight, breaking off inside its body with a series of wet crunches.

Sid pushed himself upright and brushed dust from his ribs.

Then he stopped.

The blue glow in his sockets widened.

“Aha—!”

Both hands slapped over his mouth.

Silence.

Sid glanced into the darkness behind him.

Nothing moved.

“…Right. Good.”

The massive corpse twitched where it lay impaled across the crystal formation. Jagged blue shards protruded from its thick grey hide, their glow muted beneath streaks of blood.

Sid approached cautiously.

He ran his fingers over the rough scales, then stopped at one of the broken crystals embedded in its side.

“Well, aren’t you a big boy?” He gave the creature an affectionate pat. “Now… how do I get you out of there?”

He gripped the shard with both hands and pulled.

Nothing.

His fingers slid uselessly across the smooth surface.

“Of course.” Sid looked at them. “I’m a skeleton.”

He scratched absently at the side of his skull.

A faint blue glow caught his attention.

One of the crystals had broken free during the impact and lay among the rubble, nearly the length of his forearm. One end tapered to a wicked point.

Sid picked it up.

Light pulsed through the translucent blue surface.

He looked from the shard to the corpse.

“Well,” he murmured, “here goes nothing.”

The crystal sliced through the creature’s hide with almost no resistance.

Sid stopped.

He inspected the edge.

“Oh, that is concerningly sharp.”

He returned to work.

The thick grey hide parted beneath the crystal as he opened a long incision along the creature’s side. Warm blood seeped over his fingers. Beneath the skin lay dense layers of fat and muscle, familiar structures arranged in decidedly unfamiliar proportions.

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“I heard creatures like you taste like chicken,” Sid said as he worked through a band of connective tissue. “Guess I’ll never know.”

The blade severed it with a wet snap.

Sid peeled back the hide, cutting through stubborn fascia and tendon until a broad sheet finally came free.

He held it up.

Heavy. Bloody. Primitive.

Useful.

Sid cut two rough holes near the upper corners, threaded strips of connective tissue through them, then draped the hide over his shoulders.

Cold blood immediately ran down his ribs.

He looked down at himself.

“My first trophy.”

A distorted cackle rolled softly through the cavern.

His attention returned to the corpse.

With the hide removed, part of the creature’s anatomy lay exposed: massive ribs, pale ligaments, thick cords of tendon disappearing between slabs of muscle.

Sid’s fingers twitched.

“I wish I had time to dissect you…”

The thought carried hungrily into the abyss.

He lingered a moment longer before forcing himself away.

“I’ll come back for your parts in a few days.”

Sid glanced over his shoulder at the corpse.

“If there’s any of you left by then…”

He disappeared into the tunnel.

His feet crunched over scattered remains as he travelled deeper underground. Every few steps, his glowing eyes dropped toward another collection of bones.

Until—

“Unsymmetrical.”

Sid crouched.

A skull lay sideways beside a collapsed ribcage, its jaw hanging loose from one joint.

He picked it up.

The mandible dropped free and clattered against the stone.

“Hm.”

Sid rotated the skull between his hands.

“What should we call you?”

Silence.

He waited.

Nothing.

Sid tossed the skull back onto the pile.

It struck the ground with a brittle crack.

“Rude.”

Time lost its meaning again.

Sid wandered through the tunnels, stopping whenever a pile of bones offended him enough to demand intervention.

At first, he simply rearranged them.

Skulls with skulls. Ribs with ribs. Vertebrae in neat lines.

Then he started assembling them.

Eventually, an entire skeleton sat slumped against the cavern wall.

Sid stepped back to inspect his work.

The proportions were mostly correct. The limbs matched. The spine was reasonably straight.

He tilted his head.

“Still ugly.”

Sid raised the crystal shard—

—and stopped.

His gaze settled on his own forearm.

Lines had been carved into the bone.

Not random scratches. Deliberate markings, repeated in intricate patterns across the radius and ulna.

“Some sort of rune?”

He traced one with a fingertip.

Then looked at the skeleton.

Then back at his arm.

“What if I…”

Sid crouched beside the skull.

With almost surgical care, he pressed the crystal point against its surface and began to copy the markings.

“Temporal bone.”

Scratch.

“Occipital.”

Scratch.

He shifted toward the front of the skull.

“Frontal…”

Scratch.

Bone dust collected around his fingers.

Once the skull was finished, Sid moved to the rest of the body.

He copied what he could see from his own skeleton, working section by section. Arms. Ribs. Vertebrae. Pelvis. Legs.

By the time he finished, runes covered the assembled bones.

Sid sat back.

“There.”

He admired the result.

“You look pretty.”

A pause.

“Like some sort of tattooed hipster martial artist.”

The blue glow in his sockets brightened.

“I think I’ll call you Tiffany.”

Sid leaned forward and completed the final carving.

The crystal shard dimmed.

He stared at it.

A faint blue glow appeared beneath his other hand.

Sid looked down.

One of the runes on the skeleton had begun to shine.

Another followed.

Then another.

Blue light travelled across the carvings until the entire skeleton glowed.

Sid backed away.

The bones moved.

A finger twitched across the stone.

The detached jaw dragged itself toward the skull.

Vertebrae clicked into alignment one after another. Ribs lifted from the ground. Arms and legs jerked inward as though pulled by invisible threads, every loose bone snapping into its proper place.

Sid stared.

“Oh my word…”

The last joint connected.

The skeleton sat motionless against the wall.

Sid looked down at the crystal shard still clutched in his hand.

Its glow had faded slightly.

“The glow weakened?”

He turned it over.

“Oh, for fuc—”

Blink.

Pink light ignited inside the skeleton’s empty sockets.

Sid stopped.

The skull turned toward him.

A soft voice echoed through the cavern.

“…Ow.”