The Grim – Origins

The Grim – Origins!

The Grim – Origins Prologue

It happened a very, very long time ago.

The wildfire tore through Vale Keep like judgement itself. Flames devoured timber and thatch, swallowing homes in roaring gulps of orange and gold. Smoke coiled into the sky like a black omen.

Screams echoed across the valley.

Vale Keep had been peaceful once — a quiet sanctuary between forest and mountain. Farmers tilled fields. Monks prayed. Priests lectured about virtue and modest living.

They had lived long, comfortable lives.

They were not prepared for what came next.

Because death had changed.

The fallen did not stay fallen.

They rose.

The Grim – Origins Chapter One

I awoke at the altar.

The temple was a grave of smoke and ash. Charred beams creaked overhead. My robes were blackened, brittle at the hems. Somehow, I had survived.

I staggered toward the shattered statue of my god, half-buried in rubble. I knelt.

I stared into its stone eyes.

I had served here my entire life.

And yet…

I could not remember my god’s name.

Not his face. Not her teachings. Not a single prayer.

Worse — I could not remember myself.

My name. My past. My reflection.

Nothing.

My mind was a blank page scorched clean.

I told myself it was shock. Trauma. Smoke inhalation.

Yes.

That must be it.

The Grim – Origins Chapter Two

The temple doors burst open.

Two monks stumbled inside, slamming the doors behind them as something clawed and groaned on the other side.

They turned.

They saw me.

Relief flickered in their eyes—

Then terror replaced it.

They raised their weapons: a pitchfork and a spade. Farming tools. Desperate tools.

I tried to speak.

To reassure them.

No sound came.

So I raised my hands in surrender.

A mistake.

Because the hands that emerged from my sleeves were not hands at all.

They were bone.

White. Bare. Skeletal.

The monks recoiled.

Slowly, I lifted my hood.

I did not need a mirror to know what I would see.

My face was gone.

In its place — a hollow skull.

If I had lungs, I would have screamed.

Instead, I stared at them in silent horror.

The monks found courage in fear. They lunged.

I moved without thinking — faster than I ever had in life. I slipped between them, light and nimble, my footsteps little more than rattling echoes. I fled up the steps and out into the burning world.

The Grim – Origins Chapter Three

Outside, chaos reigned.

Fields burned.

Zombies staggered between the flames.

The living fought the dead with whatever tools they could find.

A scythe leaned against a barn wall.

I do not know why I chose it.

Perhaps it chose me.

I seized it just as the two monks burst from the temple behind me. I parried their blows, careful — careful — not to harm them.

I was not a monster.

I needed them to understand that.

A scream cut through the smoke.

A child lay in the dirt, a zombie clawing toward his throat.

I ran.

The scythe arced in a clean, terrible sweep.

Bone split.

Silence.

The child stared at me, drenched in blood.

I offered my hand.

He hesitated.

Then he took it.

For a moment, I felt hope.

Then the villagers arrived.

They did not see a saviour.

They saw a skeleton holding a scythe.

They saw Death.

Torches rose. Pitchforks followed.

And so I ran.

The Grim – Origins Chapter Four

The forest swallowed me whole.

Branches clawed at my robes. Smoke thinned into mist. I slowed only when I was certain the villagers had turned back.

Then I saw them.

Three figures sat calmly around a campfire.

Calmly.

As though the world were not burning.

I raised my scythe.

“I wouldn’t,” said the largest of them.

He carried a massive axe and wore a beard thick as a hedge. His voice rumbled like distant thunder.

“You’re not like the others,” he said, studying me. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Looking for me?

“For what?” I tried to ask.

Still no voice.

He stepped closer, grinning.

“We’d like to offer you a position.”

He gestured lazily to the others.

“That round fellow gnawing on… whatever that is — that’s Famine.”

The large man waved without pausing his chewing.

“The tall pale one coughing up a lung? Pestilence.”

A gaunt figure nodded weakly.

The bearded man extended his hand.

“They call me War.”

He clasped my skeletal hand in a crushing grip.

“All we need now is some horses,” War continued, eyes gleaming, “and we can bring proper order to this world.”

He clapped me on the back hard enough to rattle my spine.

“One last thing,” he said. “What shall we call you?”

I looked down at the scythe in my hand.

The flames reflected in its curved blade.

And for the first time since waking, something felt certain.

The Grim – Origins Epilogue

The Grim leaned against his scythe, finishing the tale.

“And War was right,” he said. “We brought order. Balance. Structure.”

He gestured vaguely at the swirling mist of the afterlife.

“For example, thanks to me guiding souls like yourself onward, zombie incidents are at an all-time low.”

He adjusted a sleeve he didn’t technically need.

“I complain about the paperwork, but it’s good work.”

The recently deceased woman stared at him.

“That’s… fascinating,” she said slowly. “But when I asked how did all this happen, I just meant — how did I die?”

The Grim froze.

“Oh.”

He glanced at a wrist where no watch existed.

“Would you look at that — terribly behind schedule.”

“But I—”

“Terribly sorry.”

He swung his scythe gently through her spectral form. Her soul drifted onward before she could finish protesting.

The Grim stood in silence.

Then sighed.

“Well, that was embarrassing.”