BLUSANG ITM (RE-IMAGINED) - PART 3

Jessica lost count of how many are now part of her royal undead servants. From the looks of it, it’s already reached hundreds and perhaps most of the people in her community are now among the decaying cohorts behind her.

She saw many familiar faces and even break a tender yet sinister laughter as she can now do anything on them especially those who disrespect in the past due to her disfigured face. With a sadistic gusto, she tramples on the bodies of men who insulted her during her teenage years. Those girls who didn’t accept her as part of their supposed “elite” circle, she slapped them one by one as hard as she can until their heads fall off from their shoulders. The annoying vendor in the market who never misses the day of making contemptible jokes about her face, she kicks it right into his groin until it can’t even stand anymore.

And when she finally found the walking corpse of Manang  Tessie, the glee on her face has gone extreme. She picks up the nearest thrash bin in the street and starts slamming it on the head of her former boss. She didn’t stop until the rotten head is now but a pulp of indistinguishable heap bone and flesh.

“Just like a turd..” Jessica grin at the sight of gore. Still unsatisfied, she lifts off the skirt of her black dress and starts squatting over Manang Tessie’s body. Warm yellow discharge began to flow from her to the twitching carcass of her boss.

The desecration continues until Jessica pinpoints all the corpse she wants to cut, thrash, humiliate and destroy. As expected, no one even retaliates after what she had done. She doesn’t hear any complaints nor begging. No one fightback; they just pick their own dead bodies and start walking again closer to her.

Like a true princess, she can do whatever she wants without any cost or repercussion.

After letting out all the demons from her bottle, Jessica returned to her post in front of the parade of the walking dead; the wooden, beautifully ornate  couch carried by the four bystanders who are now willing also to undergo the same desecration like

“As you can see, once you wear this black dress. You absorbed all the life force around you, particularly sentient beings.”

The voice from the black dress explains to her while they are parading the whole town. Those who saw grotesque parade can’t help but to make a sign of the cross or cover their nose from the noxious miasma coming from the dead parader.

But before they start decomposing against their will, all of them can’t help but wonder who is the lady in a black dress who seems in command of the horde of walking corpses. Her indescribable beauty is the last thing that registered in their mind before it collapses from the rot.

“...and this life force makes will be absorbed by this dress and then to your body; making it youthful, vibrant, flawless…”

Jessica loves every word that coming from the black dress but the last own top it all.

“...timeless. Immortal. Owning a lot of life force will make the wearer of this dress the master of death.”

“How is this is all possible?” She asked the clothes while getting refreshed by the cool breeze of the night that caresses her face. Suddenly the stink of her army becomes bearable to her nose; everything is all perfect to her now.

“Because the threads that made it comes from the feathers of the angel of death…all of it came from me.”

Jessica nearly fell from her make-shift throne when she heard the revelation. It seems there are more to this night than making the dead alive and turning her as their princess.

“Your kind has its ways to break the rule…and one of them is to defy death. I am the product of that heinous aspiration.” The voice might sound monotonous but it can’t hide the speck of bitterness on her tone.

Along their way, the black dress narrates a haunting tale of how a group of sorcerer manages to coax him to go down to heaven to investigate a transgression of another sorcerer who allegedly created the first elixir of immortality.

And like a true vanguard of God and the order he imposed in the world, the angel of death leaves his post as the taker and transporter souls to their rightful place. He went down on the mortal and found out that he has been tricked.

The elixir of immortality is not yet done because they need his wings, the source of his essence and life, to create it.

He was trapped using their forbidden seals; took him on their chamber that even the devil will pale before once it saw what’s inside of it. There they started dismantling his wings by force leading to him losing his power and existence on his angelic body.

And the rest was a bloody history.

“But I don’t get it…no one didn’t even wear you after you were made?” Jessica asked while thinking if Manang Oryang doesn’t about the inhuman power of this black dress.

“Some tried to worn me but ended up losing their sanity in exchange for immortality. When that happened, I always end up being thrown away like thrash; waiting for another who will discover the bane and boon  bring to their life.” The black dress confessed to her new wearer.

“The human you are calling as Manang Oryang didn’t even have the chance to wear...I guess she is too afraid to do so when she heard me talking to her.” He further added.

“So that’s the reason why she intentionally left it to me,” Jessica said to herself as she realized that the old, rich woman doesn’t have the guts like her to don the black dress.

Or maybe unlike her, the old woman has already had a good life. She doesn’t wish for anything more with all the luxuries, respect and adoration she has as compare to her who have nothing but a bestial countenance that is more than enough for her to desire so many things; to grab a chance when they come knocking at her door like what happened right now.

After a minute of silence, Jessica asked the question that seems to be the only that might ruin her night after hearing the tale of the angel of death.

“Will I lose my mind like the others?”

“It’s inevitable. You are wrong to think that upsetting the balance of life and death will not charge you at all. Wearing this dress is already a proof that you have done one of the greatest crime of man against heaven.” The black dress speaks matter of fact. It was an answer that Jessica didn’t expect at all. In fact, it was a warning of what is about to come after all the fun she had done with the black dress.

It seems there is no living left in their town when Jessica realizes that they already at the cemetery. All the streets and houses she passed by are all empty or if not those people inside of it are already joining the parade of the living dead.