(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

her hands and placed a paper-thin kiss upon my forehead. I closed my eyes
as her lips touched my skin...
"May the Planes receive you kindly, Mebbeth."
She sighed, long and slow as her chest fell for the last time. Little by little her
skin flaked away, drying up and shedding like autumn leaves before
crumbling into dust. I sat beside what remained, the closest thing I'd had to
a mother.
That afternoon, one more name was chiseled on the black obelisk before
the Mortuary.
~~~~~
Those who look forward tend to prepare for their own deaths. They
purchase a plot, visit the gravesite to check the view. In a way what I was
doing wasn't much different.
It would be a while yet before I stepped through that portal. My visits to the
Mortuary were brief, merely testing the waters of what I was about to do.
The smell of incense greeted me like an old friend. Then the sharp, cold
fumes of formaldehyde cut through the sweet smoke as I ascended the
staircase. It brought back old memories. Strange to think of this as home,
but it was the closest I've ever had to one.
Always a place I could reliably come back to, I thought wryly.
"So... you return once again. Have your memories left you as they have so
many times, Restless One?" Dhall took a rasping breath, then broke out in a
fit of coughing. Despite the wet hacking his quill never blotted the page he
had been writing on.
"No, Dhall," I smiled softly, and he returned with a gaze that spoke of his
weariness with the world, "You've always said I would return here... that it's
the way of all things flesh and bone."
"For what purpose?"
"To thank you for saving me so many times, old friend. Now I know what I
have to do to break this cycle. I've found information as to where my
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