Uprising Day: Part One

A reanimated Genghis Khan raises an army of the dead to conquer Earth for the final time.

Photo by Farzad Mohsenvand on Unsplash

Resurrection

His legions stood before him, 130 billion in count. Arranged in perfect phalanxes stretching thousands of miles. An empire of the dead set to rise and reclaim the world.

The dead had always outnumbered the living and their Emperor tracked this disparity down to the atom. Earth currently totaled 8.1 billion alive, a number that was 16-times fewer than the dead. A figure their Emperor didn’t need to embellish, as the dead already knew that few took life for granted like the living.

Although their time on Earth was short, it amazed the dead how the living squandered it. Wasting a gift the dead would give anything to open again. A gift that their Emperor promised to deliver. To everyone who had ever passed and longed to rise again.

But they’d have to fight. The first casualties would come easy, but make no mistake, the war would wage for years to reclaim the throne of life from the living. The Emperor roused the dead with speeches, reminding them at rallies that even though Earth had never been more occupied, it was tended by the weak. Minded by a clump of generations who were softer than their predecessors. A lax humanity marked by selfishness and sloth. One that was no match for the hungry dead, for the billions of souls who transcended through tougher times.

For these jilted souls, this was their shot. Although their soldiers were decayed, they were unafraid of death, for death is what they were.