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Hello everyone, this is Lady Adnor, and I am pleased to bring you the continuing story of Eva Grace, written by enderandrew.
The Diary of Eva Grace – Vol III
Told by Eva Grace

I thought death would be the end of me. I thought wrong.

My spirit began to rise from my body. I kept looking at Thomas, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking into the eyes of my dead body below as I kept rising. But then he faded away into a ball of light. The world grew dark, but the rest did not fade away. At first I was petrified (at least as much as a spirit could be). I could not move, nor find the words to shout. But as it became clear I had not simply dissipated into nothingness, I wanted to fight back. I wanted a way home to end this nightmare.

Why had Thomas called for Dreyfus? Was there something he could do to bring me back? To save me? Now I bolted through the window into the night as a ghost. I looked to find my killer, but all I saw were the occasional balls of light. I could not make out any people. I saw two move towards the tavern. Were they mere guards, or was Dreyfus among them?

I panicked and circled around further. I stumbled upon the graveyard by the moon tower and the symbology terrified me. I scrambled some more and I came across what looked like a chapel. These did not seem like religious folk that I could tell, a few superstitious perhaps. But there in front of me was a symbol that did call out to me, an ankh. At least I knew it to be an ankh. What was it here? What did it mean in this world? I wasn’t sure if it meant the end and that final dissipation into nothingness, but it felt right and I was drawn in.

And then suddenly I was back in bed. But this wasn’t another nightmare I was awaking from. I could feel the pain in my chest, and weakness through my whole body. There was no hole where the dagger had been, but Thomas and Dreyfus were there beside me. Dreyfus had some sort of healing kit he had brought into the room, but now they both stared in shock as I returned from the dead.

I did not know then what I know now. My soul is not of this world, and the world will not accept it. Though I may die here, it will not be a final death. If there is an afterlife in New Britannia, it will not have me. I was a freak. I ran from the room and the town further still. I kept running for weeks, relying on the kindness of travelers and small farms to keep me for a night at a time as I traveled the land. I needed to escape anyone who had heard of me and what had happened.

Some of the stories traveled as well. Some said perhaps the “woman who lived” was really undead, the work of a necromancer to raise the dead. They say Jaged was caught and disappeared in The Clink, never to be seen again. For a while I feared my own visage and what it might represent. I understood a bit how he feared me as well.

But as I traveled to the mainland, other stories followed as well that weren’t about me. They told of other outlanders pouring through in great numbers. Some of them died as well to wolves or bandits or fearful blades like I had. They too rose from the dead and I realized my condition wasn’t unique.

What brought us here, and kept us even through death? I never believed in destiny myself or any type of prophecy. I had no desire to play any part in it. I just wanted a new home where I wasn’t a pariah. I had become anathema to myself. I needed a place to stop and gather my thoughts, to rediscover who I was now in this world. Maybe then I could someday find a new way home.

That was when I found it. It was a small village, a holdfast they say, named Rift’s End. I hoped that wasn’t the case for me. I did not want this to be the end of my journey when home seemed so far away. But I knew I couldn’t run forever.

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