Crimson Fields

Prologue [Steven and Cherie]

Steven Whitman

7pm, Friday, June 9th, 2023.

There were bright lights, glasses clinking together. Merry laughter amongst numerous tables, none more apparent than from the man and woman that sat at the heart of the restaurant. "Oh, you always seem to know what I'm thinking, Steven!" Cherie, a stunning woman with bushy red hair, swooned in her chair. She was admiring the red wine her date, Steven, had guessed was her favorite. "How do you do it?'

A hearty chuckle came from the silver haired man, tightening his tie. "You could call it something of a gift, my dear. Perhaps we just share that much of a connection," Steven responded, taking another fruity sip of his red wine.

They talked merrily about things they cherished. Days spent walking through Diaedem Harbour, hearing the sounds of waves crashing from the shoreline. Their eyes often looked toward the beach. The restaurant was atop the roof of the town's hotel, having stood there for the past two years. Compared to the rest of the buildings, it was the only one that looked brand new. Modern. Its existence made the town look like an ancient relic. Despite that, most of the people in Diaedem went about their business without a care in the world.

Conversations of strangers mulling endlessly around the room. For Steven, it was tiresome. His smile dullened. Shifting his gaze back to Cherie, he asked, "Cherie, what do you think of all this Undead nonsense? So much chatter about it appears to have blown up these days."

"It is a little strange how quickly it blew up," she admitted, taking a sip of her wine. "It must be because it's almost been a thousand years since the last we'd heard of the Diaedem legend happening. Part of its story is that it repeats at exactly that time."

Steven sighed. "Indeed. It appears we're growing close to the most recent century they're supposed to make an appearance... Just a load of hogwash if you ask me." He took a meaty last bite of his steak, wiping his mouth with the table cloth. "Let's go for a walk my dear. I grow tired of all this incessant flare."

Shortly after, they made their way to the elevator and took it down to the lobby. Cherie talked cheerfully to Steven about her favorite products of his (he owned a soap and bathhouse company) and her hopes for their future. He nodded and smiled at what she said as they passed the front doors. He was hardly listening. It had only been two years since he'd settled into the town of Diaedem Harbour. He'd known the moment he visited it a decade ago that he wanted to build an establishment here. It was a beautiful place to be sure, a town winding down a hill to a white sandy beach. He'd had his hotel built within the town because of how much he'd fallen in love with the view.

From the glorious lighthouse on the sands to the worn buildings throughout the hill. It was easy to tell what was recently renovated and buildings that had serious wear and tear. It would've made a good ghost town... If only the people in it didn't exist.

What he couldn't stand however was how obsessed everyone was with the superstition of the Undead. When he'd first heard of it, he'd thought they were talking about zombies or some other sort of flimflam. It was similar in the sense of the dead being resurrected, but that's where the similarities ended. It was the rising of those recently deceased within the summer of the one hundredth year, only they would walk amongst the living. Not a rotten corpse like in the movies, but completely normal and whole. Normal, until they randomly decided to slaughter whatever was around them, with no provocation or reasoning understood yet to the townsfolk.

The Diaedem Bloodbath was a historical event, one that supposedly repeated every couple of centuries, but chalked up, in Steven's point of view, to being nothing but cultists doing the ridiculous depravities they always did. Nothing that seemed remotely supernatural, let alone worth investigating. Every house on the block had a cross on it despite not every citizen being super religious. The chapel wasn't particularly full on Sundays or the rest of the week, for that matter. Sometimes, Steven wondered if moving to this town was a good idea, but it did bring in good profit.