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It was cold.
That was nothing new.
Sisyphus sighed, standing on the cliffs edge, gazing dolefully at the rocks below. Snow gathered on his spotted gray pelt. The rocks on his back were as bothersome as ever. The chain of rocks that acted as his tail and his tether to the world rested behind him, the largest boulder emanating a soft glow as plants sprouted beneath it. Ever since he manifested his elemental, he hasn’t been sure how to control it, but at least it doesn’t seem to be doing any damage.
Sisyphus didn’t like to think about it, but the wreck of his old car was still down there somewhere.
Well, now I can’t get it out of my head.
Would there be much harm in looking?
Unable to control the compulsion to confront the last worldly object he possessed, Sisyphus started to descend down the drop, his boulder rolling haphazardly behind him. Anxious now, he slowed down a bit and went behind the boulder, slowly guiding it downwards with his hands. It wasn’t as fast this way, but he couldn’t bite the old habit.
And there it was. The car, once red, was now a hardly distinguishable hunk of scrap metal, partially concealed by snow. Dread in his heart, or where his heart should be, Sisyphus gingerly pried open the door. Maybe his wallet was still in here. Maybe there was a photo or trinket he could take home.
Instead, Sisyphus saw the thing he both least wanted and least expected to see.
His body.
He didn’t understand. He was transformed to be an esk, right? How can his old form stilll physically be in the world? But it was. And it stared at him with a fleshless and lifeless smile.
Sisyphus wanted to run away. But then he was hit with a wave of sadness. Nobody really found him? He knew that, technically, but being hit with the reality of it was different.
“Is there someone out there still looking for me? Who wonders if I’m alive?”
He stared at the body again, still in the driver’s seat, but warped and crushed from the initial impact. It wasn’t much more than a skeleton at this point, but it wasn’t a clean one. It was still wearing his favorite coat. The fuzzy cream and purple spotted coat he wore almost every day. The coat his fur pattern now mimicked. It was hardly recognizable now though, mucky and brown from the decomposition fluid.
Disgusted but also anguished, Sisyphus felt like he just.. just had to do something. He had to close this part of his life. He couldn’t just leave his old self here. Fighting every instinct not to, he wrapped his furry arms around the corpse and hoisted it out of the wreck. It wasn’t too hard, since being a ghost, he could just phase through the twisted metal. It didn’t hurt.
Squicked out by the dampness of the body- his body, somehow- Sisyphus opted to just teleport to the top of the cliff this time. He laid down the corpse, crossing its arms over its chest.
It felt so unreal. How many people can say they’ve been face to face with their own dead body before? Maybe other ghosts have. Could Sisyphus even call himself a person anymore?
He walked a little ways away from the body.
Why did I bring this up here? What am I supposed to do with it?
Tears were welling up in eyes now. He wish he had someone to help him through this.
He absent-mindedly stared at the ground and started digging. After a few minutes? Hours? What did time mean anymore- there was a decent sized hole. He didn’t even remember digging the whole thing. But it would work.
He trundled back over to the cadaver and dumped it gracelessly into the hole, and then began filling it with dirt. After he was done, he felt a little better. He had closure now, he thought. He had to accept that he would never be human again. This was the first step.
Sisyphus procured a relatively small boulder from the landscape and set it into the dirt. Nobody would make him a grave or hold a funeral for him, so he would have to do it for himself.
He plopped down next to the makeshift grave marker and started to cry. He couldn’t make human sounds anymore, and the only noise came out was a pathetic whine reminiscent of a sad dog.
Sitting up slightly, he pushed the large rock of his tail onto the burial site, and his elemental began to take root, as moss and leaves sprouted from the lump of dirt, making the makeshift grave look like a garden compared to the barren earth around it.
It was done. He could move on, he thought.
This was supposed to be cathartic, but all he felt was the same old emptiness.