A Hand-Woven Universe 70 70. Absolute Exhaustion

The bones of a thousand people laid throughout the large cavernous room.

Noone silently walked in and the door shut behind him, however he didn't even notice. He looked around in a grief-stricken daze. He wasn't even sure how much of this was getting through to him. Noone had never seen bones before, not like this. But he understood that every skull he saw was another person gone.

When he saw a lone body his heart would bang against his chest in horror. When he saw the interwoven bones of two skeletons together, he imagined them wrapped in each-other's arms. The fear and horror and exhaustion he had seen on Elder Azelle's face in the vision was overlapping with his thoughts on the people he saw. He could only feel shock in his soul.

He walked towards the front of the room. In the past, the elders would sit in the front and preside over the rites of the deceased. There was a pulpit and a large slab-like table which rested on the ground. That was where the dead bodies would be dressed and laid out to be gifted alms.

There were skeletons up on the front stage as well. When Noone saw them, he numbly noted a difference among them. The deceased he had seen up until now - their bones were pure white like those in books. Picked clean by time. But the skeletons in the front of the sanctuary were colored and more intense. They looked like crystal or stone, not like the bones of the rest.

Elders… Noone thought. He wasn't sure how he knew. But he knew. It would have been obvious just by thinking about it, but the last thing Noone could do right now was think. While his mind had begun fighting his thoughts at every turn, his body had begun to take over.

His steps echoed even more clearly at the front of the sanctuary, bounding off the back walls and ringing in his own ears like a lone heartbeat. His eyes latched onto the slab-like pedestal just off-center of the raised front of the room.

Laying on the stone was a single lone skeleton. It was tall and unique. It was no longer even bone, but instead it looked to have completely transformed into a blue-hued crystal structure in the shape of bones. As Noone approached it, he failed to hold back the cry which had been building in his chest.

His body shook and trembled, and he collapsed next to it, throwing his arms up onto it as if trying to grasp the last vestiges of hope he had. "Just what happened!?" He screamed.

Whatever apocalypse had occurred in Tapestry, it had come, and it had left, leaving nothing behind.

The loneliest hours in history pa.s.sed with his sobs becoming hoa.r.s.e gasps which eventually further degraded into heavy breathing. Noone's eyes dulled, and his face became slack as even the sadness and shock and anger which had welled up inside him had nowhere to go.

His body shook and his mind threatened to shut down completely. He stood up and looked out over the cavernous sanctuary. His mind completely stopped working, he sat there for some amount of time – but he had no clue how long.

"No…" He thought. "I must let them rest, they shouldn't remain here like this." Noone wasn't sure where the thought had come from and he didn't care. He knelt down and gently gathered the bones of Elder Hollice Azelle – the oldest member of Tapestry, his own grandfather, the man who had raised him.

Turning around, his body moved with shocking quiet efficiency, autonomously, he walked into the cavern that led to the cemetery.

The Cemetery was easily the largest s.p.a.ce in Tapestry, dedicated solely to the housing of the dead.

Endless graves lined the floors and the walls. Still there, there was enough room to last for the next hundred thousand years. If only they had been around for that long…

Noone carried the bones of his grandfather to a far distance within the cemetery, eventually coming to an unbroken spot within the stone cavern. He knelt down and mindlessly began to lay the bones out into their proper places.

Time had slowed down for Noone, and the world grew gray and colder each pa.s.sing moment, colder than it had ever been before.

Noone stood up and returned to the sanctuary only to gather the nearest bones and bring them into the cemetery. They were hued red and were longer than many of the others. The person this was had been tall and robust once upon a time.

He laid out this body in the spot next to Elder Azelle's and then slowly, mechanically and without emotion returned back to the sanctuary.

This cycle repeated and hours pa.s.sed. Time for Noone had stopped though, he did not feel hungry or thirsty nor did he hear the ragged sobs of his own voice. His heartbeat slowed to a nigh unnoticeable pace. Unknown to him, he had lost full awareness of anything and everything that wasn't his current actions. There was no longer reason to think.

And like that Noone's first day back in Tapestry pa.s.sed without rest. Morning came, and the Sanctuary was cleared of bones. The bodies of everyone who had pa.s.sed were now laying in the cemetery above.

Without stop, Noone began working towards the hallway outside of the sanctuary. He saw the endless bones outside, piled on top of each other like a storm of chaos had run through them. Noone couldn't even imagine what had occurred which left everyone in this state.

He carefully picked up what he could see of a full skeleton and carried it to the cemetery, coming back again.

And again.

And again.

…

Minutes turned to hours, hours turned to days. And Noone tirelessly worked through it all.

He instinctually worked through the bones, sorting them accurately without pause for thought. He could sense it, how they all fit and the people that they used to be. Some of whom he may have known.

Sometimes his mind would just become aware enough to wonder if the bones he held was someone he knew before.

Tahmel. Trisha. Porose. The elders. Liter… especially Liter. But before he could think too much his mind would quietly retreat back - shutting down while doing endless work. Anything to stay busy and not have to think about what he was seeing.

He worked through the bones in the hall, which stretched on forever, all the way towards the city itself. Thousands upon thousands of bodies.

Noone entered into the city, the familiar lighting giving way to an unfamiliar devastation. His eyes were glazed over as he numbly observed his surroundings. The once beautiful homestead was razed to the ground. Ruins littered the city, streaks of charred stone snaked their way across the floor. In a corner of the city, what once had been the forge was blown open into a shattered disaster of molten steel and stone.

Noone looked towards the first body he could see, a skeleton picked as clean as the rest, and brought her to the cemetery. Time marched on and Noone followed it like a soldier and a slave. The bodies grew further apart, some were trapped under fallen stones. Others within the few buildings that remained standing.

Like a subtle pull in the back of his mind, Noone was always able to find the bodies no matter how hidden they were.

He shuffled helplessly through one of the living districts, the subtle pull of the common heritage leading him into a home. Somewhere in his mind he realized he knew this house. It belonged to Trisha and Tahmel.

He walked unhesitatingly to the back most room. When he opened the door, the first thing he saw was rope laid on a pile of bones. It seemed as though someone had been bound here. Next to the door he saw another skeleton along with a bottle of alcohol.

Both sets of bones were carried in numb arms back to the cemetery.

Later Noone encountered the large warehouse, cots lined the walls in rows. It was full of skeletons, all compiled near the front of the door. It left him with a similar feeling to those bones outside the sanctuary.

Days pa.s.sed and Noone finally moved everyone into the cemetery above. Without stop He hoisted a pick onto his shoulder and with the same autonomous motions he had carried the skeletons back, he began to carve graves into the dense stone.

One for Elder Azelle.

Then the rest of the elders.

Ten turned to twenty.
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Twenty into fifty.

A hundred.

A thousand.

Noone's hands shook from exhaustion. He had been awake for weeks, existing without food or water. But he paid no mind and continued to carve into the stone.

Two thousand.

Three thousand.

Five thousand.

Each grave was carved neatly into perfect rectangles, perfectly aligned just as the graves of times long pa.s.sed.

Nine thousand.

Ten thousand.

Noone's hands shook with such ferocity that he could no longer hold the pick. His mind and body both threatened him with complete collapse. Despite this, Noone continued to carve away until all the graves were made.

The pick fell from blood-soaked hands where freshly ripped callouses dangled unnoticed, clattering onto the cold stone floor. He walked towards the nearest skeleton and knelt down next to it, preparing to lower the bones one by one into the hole. Before he could place it in the grave, he collapsed onto his side. His eyes shuttered violently and then stilled. The weeks of sleeplessness had finally caught up to him.

The dust in the air which had been stirred by Noone's existence quietly settled.

He did not dream.

When he awoke, his eyes were only vaguely focused on what was around him. He continued as though he never lost consciousness. Has hands lightly grabbed the bones and placed them within the grave. Gently covering them.

He stood up and moved to the next grave over.

What he did not notice in his daze and exhaustion was the subtle feeling of energy filling his veins. It was barely noticeable, and he probably would not have felt it even if he was in the right mind. But within the grave, the skeleton which he had been gently placed, glowed like the subtlest of embers. A particle of energy, no larger than a hair rose from within the grave and entered Noone through his breathing.

Like a drop of water in a lake, Noone did not even feel it.

Quietly he worked, undisturbed. No noise or sensations reached through to him, and silence reigned king.