Honestly, I’ve woken up in worse places.
I flexed my fingers—the raw click of bone on bone loud in the cavern’s hush. I looked down. Arms. Hands. Feet. Rib cage. All accounted for. All bone.
I was basically a discount gag skeleton at Spirit Halloween. Maybe a bit cleaner.
Which, all things considered, still wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
Top five, maybe. Seven, if you count the first date that ended in a locked restroom, or the time I tried to fix a toaster with a fork and optimism.
But at least those left me with a face.
While busy trying to come to terms with the idea of hands that were mine but weren’t mine, I turned my head and caught sight of my reflection in a shallow puddle nearby. Two tiny blue pinpricks of flame flickered in the sockets of a decidedly un-fleshy skull. My skull. My… eyes?
“Well, at least they work,” I muttered. But the voice that rattled out, my voice, was hollow and raspy. Like death dragging a scythe across a dinner plate.
Which, incidentally, is exactly how I felt.
Then the whispers started.
"Great Bone King!" a voice, somehow both gravelly and high pitched, hissed.
I turned to find myself surrounded by little green people.
I say people… But, I mean, I’d seen enough questionable fan art and played enough fantasy games to know what they were. Goblins. Dozens of them, all staring at me like I was their favorite rock star. Sadly, I was all out of dance magic. The only thing I had left was a healthy dose of “What the fuck is happening?”
"He rises at last!" the biggest one declared.
I glanced at my skeletal hands, back up at the goblins, then around the cavern—a place that managed to land somewhere between evil lair and grandma’s basement after a flood. Dim blue mushrooms flickered against damp stone. Tattered, ancient-looking furs littered the ground. The air smelled of earth, mildew, and poor decisions.
"Right," I rasped, which was both my first word above a whisper and my first mistake, because the goblins erupted into cheers.
“He speaks!” one shouted.
“Praise the dungeon!” another added.
“Long live the Bone King!” a third one screamed ecstatically.
“Okay then,” I said in response.
So. Let’s recap.
Number one: What in the everlovingsonofachupacabralicking hell. Number two: Goblins.
Putting… All of that aside for a second.
I tried to think about how I got here, but there was nothing. Not even a 'last thing I remember.' Just a hard cut from existence to... this. Like someone changed the channel on my life and lost the remote.
I was honestly having a hard time remembering much about myself–things coming back in pieces like videos downloading on dialup into the boney void where my brain used to be. With a similarly annoying series of tones to accompany.
Then, my name dropped into my head: Edgar Allen.
Oh, right. That.
Because waking up as a skeleton wasn’t enough—I also had to be Edgar “Fucking” Allen.
My parents thought they were literary geniuses. Instead, they’d just made sure I’d get Poe jokes until I died.
And, apparently, after judging by my new body. No flesh. No heartbeat. Just me and the hollow space where my dignity used to be.
This, I realized, was no ordinary waking-up experience.
For one thing, my usual routine didn’t involve being undead, surrounded by goblins, or greeted by a mysterious, disembodied voice.
“Welcome, First Floor Boss! Your task: Defend the dungeon. Adventurer incursion in 8 hours.”
“What’s... going on?” I asked, gesturing vaguely at my bony self, the cavern, and the growing sense of doom in the room.
Gravel Voice stepped forward and bowed low. “Me Grib, leader of goblins. And you Bone King! Our leader! Great and mighty boss of first floor!”
“And what exactly does the first floor do?” I asked, already suspecting I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“We stab humans!” Grib said cheerfully.
“Stab humans?”
“Mmhm. Stab.” Grib nodded with the enthusiasm of one of those wind-up toys you find at flea markets or wedged in between the cushions of great uncle Lester’s sixty year old couch.
I sighed. Or at least, I tried to. It came out as more of a hollow breath that sounded like death politely calling from the void. “Well… Grib, was it? What happens if we don’t stab the humans?”
Grib blinked at me.
The other goblins exchanged confused glances.
“Boss,” Grib said carefully, “why wouldn’t stab humans? Humans for stabbing. That just how it works.”
“Right,” I said, eyeing the countdown. No sudden revelations. Just a ticking clock and my own impending demise.
The goblins had returned to their “trap-building,” which seemed to involve the same amount of planning as a squirrel burying its nuts. I decided not to ask why one of them was shaking a bucket while the others shouted things like “More mud!” and “No, angrier mud!”
Instead, I did what anyone in my position would do: I stared at my own hands. Again. Because honestly… What the fuck, man?
The slight blue glow that radiated from my bones felt accusatory. Like it was judging me for not figuring this whole “undead” thing out yet. I rotated them slowly, half expecting to wake up any second.
I didn’t.
This was real. Or maybe I’d smoked the good stuff before going to bed. At least my roommate didn’t get any if that was the case–total piece of shit, that guy.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The existential dread that had been quietly simmering in the background decided to bubble over. I didn’t just look undead—I was undead. Gone was the comforting tat of a heartbeat or the familiar sensation of air filling my lungs. In its place was... nothing. A quiet, eternal emptiness that I was already beginning to resent.
“Great Bone King!” Grib’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
He was waving something in my direction. A stick, sharpened at one end and smeared with something that looked deeply unsanitary.
“You should see this trap!” he declared, proud as a peach, sounding like he’d just invented the wheel.
I glanced at the stick, the goblins, and the crude contraption they’d assembled in the corner. A rickety wooden frame covered in what looked like an alarming number of rusted nails, balanced precariously on a wobbling stack of skulls. A rope dangled from the ceiling, attached to what I could only assume was the trigger, except the trigger appeared to be another goblin holding the rope and grinning expectantly.
I decided I valued my sanity too much to engage.
“Later,” I said, turning away.
That’s when i noticed a shimmer at the edge of my vision. Pulsing in the air, just out of focus. I turned my head to follow it, but it stayed stubbornly out of reach, like a thought you couldn’t quite remember.
I tried again, this time reaching toward the shimmer. My hand passed through it, but the motion seemed to trigger something. The glow expanded, unfolding into a panel of floating text that blinked smugly in the air before me:
Boss Overview:
- Species: Lich
- Role: Dungeon Boss (Assigned: First Floor)
First Floor:
- Trap Effectiveness: 17% (Margin of error +- 17%)
- Minion Combat Efficiency: Statistically Untrackable (Too Low)
- Adventurer Incursion Timer: 7 Hours, 43 Minutes
I stared at it, letting the words sink in. Then, slowly, painfully, I read the first line again.
Species: Lich.
Lich.
The word was alien, distant, and yet... uncomfortably correct. My gaze drifted back to my skeletal hands, my mind fumbling for some way to protest this. I wasn’t a lich. I was... someone. Someone with skin and a pulse. A person. A human.
Except I wasn’t. Not anymore.
“What’s it say, Boss?” Grib asked, poking his head around the corner of the trap he was definitely not improving.
“Nothing important,” I lied, though my voice came out shaky and hollow.
I turned back to the panel, hoping for some clue, any clue, that might make sense of this. It had apparently decided to double down on unhelpfulness, adding new lines below the glowing statistics:
Recommended Actions for Boss Success:
- Fortify traps to eliminate weaknesses.
- Train goblins for improved effectiveness.
- Do not let adventurers kill you.
“Oh, brilliant,” I said flatly. “Thanks for the groundbreaking insight.”
The floating words stared back at me, unhelpfully blinking in the cavern’s dim light. Recommended Actions for Boss Success. Fortify traps, train goblins, and, my personal favorite, don’t die.
As far as advice went, it was right up there with “try harder” and “just stop panicking.”
I waved my hand through the text again, mostly to see if I could swat it away. I couldn’t.
“Boss?” Grib’s voice cut in before I could spiral further into sarcasm. “You okay?”
“No, not really, Grib,” I said. “But thanks for asking.”
Grib frowned, clearly unsure how to process that answer, and shuffled closer with something vaguely bucket-shaped in his hands. “You wanna see the mud trap now? It’s ready!”
I took a deep, metaphorical breath. “Sure, Grib. Show me the mud trap.”
7 Hours, 40 Minutes.
Grib led me toward the far side of the cavern, where a group of goblins had gathered around what appeared to be an opening in the chamber framed with sticks and unearned optimism. A bucket dangled precariously overhead, tied to a piece of fraying rope.
“Watch this,” Grib said proudly. He yanked the rope. The bucket tipped forward, spilling its contents: a gloppy mess of mud, rocks, and what I could only hope were mushrooms.
The goblins cheered like they’d just invented fire.
“See?” Grib said, beaming. “Humans walk through, and splat! Trapped!”
I stared at the puddle of muck. Then at Grib. “What’s supposed to happen after that?”
“They... slip?”
“On mud.”
“Yeah!”
I closed my eyes—or at least, I thought I did. Hard to tell without eyelids. “Grib, let me explain something to you. Humans don’t fear mud. Mud isn’t scary. Mud is... mud.”
Grib looked crestfallen. “But sticky. And slippery!”
“So are goblins,” I snapped. “And we’re not throwing them at adventurers.”
The goblins muttered among themselves, clearly rethinking some plans. I sighed—again, a soundless rush of air that did nothing to make me feel better—and turned back toward the center of the room.
The timer ticked down another minute. Seven hours and thirty-nine minutes now. Time wasn’t stopping, even if I desperately wanted it to.
“What am I even doing here?” I asked, more to myself than anyone else.
I crouched near a shallow puddle by the cavern wall, looking at myself again.
There was nothing in it that was… me.
Not the familiar flop of messy black hair, receding slightly on the left side. Not the crooked nose I’d broken at fifteen in a tragic encounter with a skateboard ramp. Not the sharp cheekbones my mother always swore would make me look “distinguished” when I was older.
It was a strange thing, looking at your own face and realizing it had absolutely nothing to do with you. Like losing your wallet, but instead of panicking about your credit cards and ID, you were left wondering where your entire existence had gone. And if anyone would bother turning it in.
I wasn’t human anymore. But I didn’t look like a king. Or a boss. Or anything remotely powerful. I looked like a Halloween decoration that someone had unpacked, decided against, and left sitting on the garage floor.
I was dead. That much was obvious—what with the whole "no skin, no heartbeat, glowing blue bones" situation. But how?
I remembered it had been my day off. I’d been outside. There had been a cat. A little black one, sitting on a fence, staring at me. I remembered stopping, maybe reaching out. And then… Nothing.
Just this.
I glanced at the floating panel, which continued to be entirely unhelpful. Fortify traps. Train goblins. Don’t die.
Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to care if I understood it.
Grib’s voice broke through my spiraling thoughts. “Boss? We’re gonna need more mud.”
He and the other goblins were still busy arguing about their latest masterpiece—a bucket of mud, a crude spear, and some sort of dried lizard, all cobbled together with the enthusiasm of toddlers and roughly the same level of engineering skill.
“No mud,” I said, rubbing the side of my skull. The sound of bone scraping on bone did absolutely nothing to ease the growing pressure in what used to be my temples. “Just... figure something else out. Something better.”
Grib nodded slowly, though he looked like I’d just told him Santa wasn’t real. “What we use, then?”
“Let me think,” I muttered. “There has to be something.”
“Boss… Grib wants to be good. But without stabbing or mud…. What we do when humans come?” His voice was quieter now, nervous. His wide, beady eyes were locked on me, unblinking.
He wasn’t grinning this time. He wasn’t waving around a stick or enthusiastically pitching the next big thing in mud-based warfare. He looked scared.
“I...” The word stuck in my throat. My gaze flicked to the floating panel, to the timer, to the goblins who had stopped their bickering to watch me. They thought I had an answer.
But I didn’t. I wasn’t a king. I wasn’t a leader. I wasn’t even sure I was real.
“I don’t know,” I said. The words were quieter than I meant them to be. And heavier than they had any right.
“Oh.” His ears twitched, then drooped in disappointment.
The other goblins fell silent.
The low hum of distant dripping water and the crackle of shifting rock filled the space where their chatter had been. The cavern was suddenly too big. Or maybe I was just too small. They exchanged murmurs, their glances quick and uneasy. Their voices returned, but softer now. Whispers that felt suffocating in the emptiness of the dungeon.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said quickly. “Just... get back to work.”
Grib muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “mud always worked before,” but didn’t argue. He wandered off to rejoin the others, leaving me alone with the timer and the faint ache of... well, nothing.
I stayed where I was, staring at the timer as it ticked down. 7 Hours, 20 Minutes.
All I knew was that adventurers were coming.
Presumably to kill the first floor boss.
Me.
And I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do when they got here.