Hey. Today was bad.

I woke up and all I knew was pain. I had barely managed to gurgle a strained groan of utmost suffering before my pain addled mindscape was shattered by yet more pain. Someone, Onica, had belted me over the head with a freaking tree!

So that was how the day started.

It didn't get any better.

I remembered something. Faces and names rushed my poor mind like starving orphans a free buffet. I was just walking along, minding my own business, when I heard someone calling my name.

Yeah, my name. I still don't know what it is though. Just that I was being called. The voice was tired, frantic, panicked.

I ran. Pelting over rocks and through trees to answer the call. As I neared more voices rose. Calling my name. Some in anger, some in pain, all in fear. Finally I reached them.

Men and women I recognized. My men and women. My soldiers. One caught my eye. A simple soldier, dull brown hair that kept falling into his warm amber eyes as he shyly ducked his head. As I approached him in a daze his shy smile cracked and splintered. His flesh dulled and greyed before his face fell off in a slick of dead flesh and oozing pus.

I looked away, there was a cook, her green eyes sparkling happily even as she served unruly soldiers well into her gray years. She rotted away before my gaze. Her eyes dull and staring.

Here a foulmouthed sergeant, her curses hiding the trust and faith she has in her troops.

There a dodgy quartermaster, always making sure we got the very best of the rations and supplies we needed.

Over yonder stood my stoic second in command. Always watching my back. Always pulling my ass out of the fire. A good friend, and a good little brother.

All rotted, all dead, all staring at me.

I don't know what happened after that. I am told I burned them. I hope their ashes find their way Home.

The others want answers. I know they do. I don't know what to tell them. That those revenants were my old friends? Is that really something I can tell my current ones? Who knows, maybe I am the one who caused their undeath. Maybe I am cursed.

No.

I am lost in my own mind today. My thoughts are hot knives against my soul. There is no haven from myself. Not today. I can only hope that this day ends quickly, and that the next is not haunted by myself.

I will come back to these thought on a different day. When the new memories and sense of utter loss are less crippling and blinding. I just found, then immediately lost, almost all my friends in the world. I saw my little brother, whose name I cannot even remember, rot into an undead before my eyes.

I am not ready. Not for that.

Goodnight.

*****

Hiya Mr. Book! Tell big bro to get well soon!

We all miss him. Things just aren't as fun without him here.

*****

The Food-giver has been struck down by both sticks and stones, but it is the wounds inside it that threaten to destroy it. Stay strong Firemaker. You are too good a cook to be lost here.

*****

The Fool is indeed foolish. Where is the proof he knew these undead? That they were his friends and colleagues? They bear no markings, and carry no standard. They were just long dead fools.

Beware you do not allow your despair to blind you. Lest you join their ranks.

*****

Salutations! Fen Worthy here!

I was most surprised when I woke from my nap upon the Wearers head to find myself stuck between two branches.

Luckily I managed to track down the others since they left quite a trail and hadn't gone far.

I am most concerned about my Wearer. His head has become rather misshapen from all the trauma it has taken. I hope it is still as comfortable as I remember.

Today I catalogued 327 new varietys of rock and 1,589 new insects! I am blah, blah, blah, blabitty, blabit, bla, blibbity. He just keeps talking about different colored rocks and bugs.

Now he is talking about grass. Ugh, why is a talking lightning spitting hat sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo BORING!

I hope big bro perks up soon. Then Fen can talk to him about all this boring stuff instead of me.

Oh, he's wrapping it up.

-and so I think today has been most thrilling! Thank you for writing this for me Lena. Would you mind reading it back to me? I worry I forgot to mention the mushrooms.

Lena, OUT!