People detest necromancers. They call us disgusting, repulsive, ungodly. They are wrong on those, but they are right to fear us.

Necromancers and normal people cannot coexist. We are simply too different; for us, people are materials, a nascent state of zombies, as farm animals are to farmers. For them, we are predators. They are right to fear us; for we are enemies, but it takes many of them to kill one of us and only one of us to kill many of them.

Some believe we can overcome our differences. That is a false notion. The wolf cannot live with sheep, not only because he hungers for their flesh, but because they fear him for what he is. Against normal humans, we must not attempt coexistence. That gives them an opportunity to scheme against us, to betray us at our lowest. In a battle of the mind, they are more, and they can emerge victorious.

No, we necromancers must come in the night, falling upon them like hungry wolves on fat lambs. We shall devour their souls and raise their bodies as our warriors. Before the night is through, we must have made them part of our strength, until we are too great to be slain by their paltry forces.

That is the way of necromancy.

- From the excerpts of Ozborne the Cursed

Jerry—short for Jeremiah—came to in the middle of a forest clearing. He was confused, at first; why was he here? Where was here?

Then it came to him.

Oh.

He had run away. Away from the land that had bred and raised him, away from the parents and few friends he’d made over the course of twenty-five years. He didn’t want to leave, but he had to, for it was the only way to truly live.

Magic was a gift possessed by few. It was the power to impose your will upon the world and achieve extraordinary feats, setting one apart from the masses. These people were called wizards, and they were revered by all.

In fact, to those who wielded it, magic came as naturally as breathing; it was an undeniable part of themselves. For this reason, all wizards discovered their talent early, and none shied away from the responsibility it brought.

But like most gifts, magic was also a curse to some. Not all kinds of magic were revered and praised by the Three Kingdoms. Necromancy, in particular, was considered taboo.

The Wizard Tower taught that, due to the nature of their powers, necromancers were a blight upon the earth. Like locusts, they devoured and devoured, stripping the ground of life and brightness, leaving only a dead wasteland in their wake. They were living disasters, ones that refused to contain themselves because they were invariably evil. Like other wizards, they could not stop themselves from practicing their powers.

In the Three Kingdoms, these were common knowledge.

Jerry thought he disagreed.

It was on his tenth birthday that the dark magic appeared inside him, flooding and all-encompassing. He had not known, then; bringing a hand down, a praying mantis had died. Raising the same hand, it had stood again, the process natural and easy. It obeyed his commands, dancing at his childish, excited laughter.

When he’d proudly shown his mother, she had freaked out. He’d gotten viciously beat up. The mantis had been thrown into the fire, burned in dark smoke, and Jerry himself had been grounded for a month. He did not know, then, what it was that he had done, only that it was bad and he shouldn’t ever do it again.

No matter how much he wanted to.

Later on, he’d learned about necromancy and the danger it posed. It was evil. Jerry was a good guy. He did not want to be evil.

He bottled the desire up. The magic grew and bubbled inside him, but he kept it down. Besides his parents, nobody else knew.

But holding it in was painful. It filled his mind. It distracted him, a presence at the edge of his consciousness that constantly begged for attention and release. It was like having a third arm and keeping it tied up behind his back for years, like resisting an addiction whose fervor refused to die down.

It was difficult, and it almost drove Jerry crazy. At all times, his mind was simply not there. He had trouble talking with people. Like all children, he dreamt of becoming a soldier and fighting on the Damn Wall, but it was hopeless. Even after he’d followed in his father’s footsteps and become a shoemaker, he sucked at it; focusing was impossible, and he failed more often than not.

People thought he was retarded. Eventually, even his parents did.

And yet, he had persevered. Necromancy was his own problem. He did not wish to burden the world with it. Fifteen years passed in a semi-conscious blur, Jerry’s muddled mind only remembering things in flashes. Until one day, one fateful April day, he just couldn’t take it anymore.

He ran away. He ran into the forest, as far as he could, unleashing his power freely. It rose with the power of a compressed flood; animals died and rose again, trees rotted, flowers wilted, bones long-dead stumbled out of the ground.

He was surrounded by death and the beauty of necromancy, the magic that was him, the part of him he had kept locked up for fifteen long years. The release was so exhilarating, so ecstatic, that, after a while, he’d fainted.

And now, he woke up, feeling alive for the first time in many, many years. His mind was finally working again, and the constant headache was nowhere to be seen. The magic was content—for now. And strangely, unlike what he’d read, he had full control of his magic; he was still a good guy. The books had lied.

Fifteen years wasted.

Jerry smiled sadly. He knew, at this moment, that he could never return to his suppressed state. He could not handle it. He could not return to the village either, as his forest excursion would be noticed soon.

Strangely, he did not mind too much. Being whole again was much more important.

Jerry stood up, taking a deep breath and relishing in the combined scent of death and life; the life that, stubbornly, had already begun to creep back into this darkened area. He breathed again, content in finally being free. He knew nothing, but he cared not; life was good.

Then he looked behind him. A veritable army of undead animals stood there, dozens of them, all staring at him with their black, hateful eyes. Boars, foxes, squirrels, moles, birds, insects... They were waiting. Forever waiting.

With a gentle, sad smile, Jerry waved a hand, and their lifeless bodies all slumped to the ground. He would create new undead soon, but these animals were tainted by the hatred he’d felt when raising them—they should just rest. Unlike most necromancers, he was a good guy, and his undead should be good too.

And so, Jerry turned his back on the peaceful corpses and took off, forever abandoning the land of his anguish. It was time to find a new home. He had no destination or plan in mind but he knew that, as in any worthy endeavor…

The first step was to start walking.