The rise of Torrestrot pt. 1

What felt like hours passed by. There was no heaven, no hell, just lying there in darkness unable to do anything. Unmoving, or rather, unable to move. Though he was able to still hear and feel but with his eyes, actually his eye, closed he couldn't even know if he would be able to see. He couldn't bear the thought of staying like this for long but over time he became accustomed to it. What felt like months passed by before anything happened, by this time he had come to peace with his death and abandoned the name David in his mind, not like anyone planned on calling him anything else. He was able to even feel his body decay thought the years, he felt every bit of it. From being picked on by scavengers and worms, he felt the earth naturally bury His body over time. What felt like years had passed, though his body had stopped decaying though he didn't know why he didn't question it he continued to lay there peacefully.

All of a sudden the was a faint digging noise as he felt his body drug out if the ground, a wrinkly and decayed hand ran up and down his body and all he could hear were what sounded like an old man. "Torrestrot" he said in a voice that sounded ancient "That'll be your name". The hand planted itself onto his chest and plunged it into his delayed flesh. He felt it wriggling around inside him until it finally grasped the pile of mush that must've once been its heart.

He felt energy surge through him once more and sat up out of the dirt, confused and lost he started to freak out. He was used to the feeling of just lying still. He had to even remember the feeling of opening his eyes, then he remembered that the Dullahan had killed him by stabbing his head through one of them. He reached up a hand to feel it and sure enough all that was left there was a gaping hole. But to his surprise when he opened his other eye, he could still see out of both of them though the sight through the one missing was odd and he decided to keep that one… closed?

First he looked at his body. He was still wearing the same clothes a tight white tank top type shirt and a pair of black pants with suspenders though they were in tatters, the left suspender and that side of the shirt were nowhere to be seen and the pants were riddled with holes from where animals and insects had taken them for whatever reason

Then he looked toward the man who he heard before. He looked around frantically for him before finding him behind him to his left. He was a small creature, he resembled a man sure. But his back was extremely hunched and his skin was a dark grey, he walked around with a cane that seemed to be just a stick he had found.

"Who… what are you, what am I!?"

"Hello Torrestrot.. " The old creature said but was cut off

"Torrestrot? I remembered you saying something like that but that's not my name."

The creature shook its head and said "it is, whatever name you had before must be cast aside."

"What, why? That doesn't make any sen-" He tried to tried to say however the creature shushed him with a bony finger

"If you had just allowed me to finish I would've told you, children these days.." The creature sat in silence for a moment thinking then spoke up "I think you used to be human so I can't blame you for not understanding at all but as a monster names make up your very essence, not only does a name give life to monsters it also tends to determine how powerful they can get though you'll never know until they actually hit the cap on how strong you can become"

Davi- or, Torrestrot's mind was in turmoil. Not only was he speaking with a monster, that very monster had turned him into one. He had half a mind to strangle it but for some reason he was able to keep his calm. "Well, what am I then?"

The creature smiled seeing that Torrestrot seemed to be coming to terms with the situation he was in, or at least he appeared to

"You see, I am a rare type of undead called a grave digger. I have the ability to bring undead back to life after their mind should've been long gone" As he said that a look of realization hit him "however usually I'm able to control the zombies I raise, even if it's only a little bit. Then there's you so why are you so questioning. Actually normally zombies can't even talk, I must be getting old"

Torrestrot started thinking the same thing and then an idea hit him "could it be, that I'm a variant?"

The creature's eyes widened at the idea and it started to look him up and down "actually, yes that seems to be the case. Your skin is a touch whiter than it was before I raised you, whatever your variant type is I can't tell but it's not of importance at the moment. What's important right now is that...YOU'RE a VARIANT, I actually managed to raise a VARIANT. I must figure out how I did it" The creature was clearly thinking deeply about something and Torrestrot wasn't sure whether to interrupt or not but there was something that was on his mind.

"Um, so what exactly is a variant? Up until now I've only known them as a monster that's maybe slightly stronger than average at least. But you're making them out to be something extremely special, is it just cause they- we're rare?"

The old man got a faraway look in his eyes and began to tell a story "is that really all humans believe they amount to these days? The old variants were much, much more. They used to be referred to as demons, monsters born with special powers and the ability to gain strength up to the point where no normal humans could rival them. Variants were born leaders that monsters would flock to and serve, but that was back when monsters ruled the majority of the world. Now they rarely ever gain the strength to fight against someone as strong as a hero. I'm sure you've heard tales of one even as a human. These days I heard they call those variants of the past demon lords now rather than just demons, the most famous one would be demon lord Sirus"

"Demon lord Sirus was a variant!?" Torrestrot was in shock, as a child he had heard stories of demon lord from all types of sources and he knew that they were powerful monsters but he never knew that they were just variant monsters but this only led to him wondering how the stories changed so much or why

"Yeah, he was one of the strongest too. Maybe it's not much to humans but variants are a big part of monster culture as we know it. There's many variants in this forest actually, that lead groups of other monsters though that was only in recent years so I doubt you've seen them before. Your body is at least 6 years old, I can tell because whatever stopped your body from decomposing didn't affect your eye. Even the bone there looks pretty rotten." The creature walked up to Torrestrot and shoved its finger into the hole that was his eye

As soon as he did it Torrestrot started shivering and he yanked its finger back out of his eye socket "Never! Do that again, that was the worst feeling I've ever had the displeasure of feeling. Even worse than when that monster stabbed it."

The Small creature looked at him questioningly but sighed and gave up on even asking. "I've wasted too much time here already, normally I'd take my zombies with me but I doubt I could handle you so I'm afraid to say that you're on your own from here on."

Torrestrot tried to stop it but it was out of his sight before he even knew it , he thinks to himself ' where the hell did that thing even go, there's barely a forest here.' then all of a sudden he hears a crash and what sounds like horses whinnying and Torrestrot rushes towards it.