Soul24 Chapter One: To the Victor

Chapter One: To the Victor

My death was immediately ruled a suicide. The Provincial Coroner found no fingerprints but mine on the murder weapon, and the police saw no reason to interfere with my family's grief by investigating further. The maids were summoned to scrub the blood from cool marble tiles, and arrangements were quietly made for my burial.

I found it quite strange, however, that I remained somewhat aware long after I felt the last breath pass between my lips. I saw nothing, and heard nothing per se; yet on a deeper level than that of sensory perception, I knew all that came to pass during the visits of the Coroner and the Chief of Police. My pain had long since left me, but knowledge and memory remained even as I understood my sister to be discussing my funeral plans. My unique situation offered unlimited time for contemplation, and I took advantage of this, thinking long and hard upon the matter. I came to no conclusions. For all intents and purposes, I should have gone on to my eternal reward, or to the void that some believe awaits us after death. Yet, defying explanation, I was not all the way detached from my body.

As for emotions, I had few. I was too detached to feel anger. The complete sensory deprivation of half-death left me in a state of deep reflection and nearly complete objectivity. As events unfolded, I found myself feeling merely curious- was all death like this? Did the dead normally remain able to perceive events surrounding their own deaths? Or was my case an anomaly, and was my 'presence' at the meetings held to discuss my burial plans sacrilegious? All the same, I felt no remorse at eavesdropping; after all, the discussions concerned me.

As I understood, my funeral was an intimate affair. My suicide had dishonored the memory of my parents and was to be hustled into distant history as quickly as possible. For pall-bearers I had my former bodyguards, and for mourners, only my sister's crocodile tears. Yellow lilies adorned my grave- a subtle stab at my cowardice- and there was no monument erected next to the mausoleum that housed my family members. A simple granite tombstone stood watch over my burial plot, near, but not neighboring, the final resting place of my parents.

No final peace overcame me as my body was lowered into the ground; so much for the theory of the dead remaining only long enough to observe their own burial. Thankfully, my body had taken with it also my claustrophobia, and I felt no anxiety as I laid, half-awake and half-asleep, six feet beneath the soil. More time, more contemplation, more disjointed questions entered my mind, and were blown aside by the apathy that more and more overtook me.

I do not know how much time passed between my burial and the sensation of footsteps above me, but I do know that I was immediately aware of the person who came, barefoot, to tread on my grave.

Nazali.

The only one who I felt would truly miss me- she had come, as I knew she would, after the somber procession of my sister's staff had departed and the weather had erased all traces of their presence save for the lilies. I could not see, but knew that she wore a shawl to cover her hair and that her eyes were full of questions and tears.

For the first time since my death, I wished for the return of my voice. It stung to know that she at least half believed the press reports concerning my death. It more than stung to know that she blamed herself. I tried to touch her mind with my consciousness, to reassure her and to explain, but I felt no answering spark. I was truly dead to the world, if not to myself, and for the first time it troubled me.

She left at last, her questions unanswered. Thus they would remain- in my world, there were no whistleblowers, no citizen's arrests, no demands for justice or the excavation of a gravesite. The case was closed, the tombstone engraved, the flowers wilted.

In my world, when royalty kills royalty, to the victor go the spoils.