Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural

The gleaming human skeleton stood at the top of the grandiose staircase. It posed as if for a photo op, its polished leather dancing shoes gleaming beneath white, oversized socks. It had no muscles, skin, eyes, or face, but it swaggered down the stairs with the air of a god-king. Its bony skull inclined as if looking down its missing nose at pathetic peasants below.

The closer it got, the smaller it seemed — five foot five, if that, with slender, frail-looking bones. But every twitch of the diminutive frame radiated a grandeur that made all other beings seem tiny in its presence.

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At first, we’re led to think the skeleton is evil simply because he’s a living skeleton. But then we learn that local legends of an undead zombie-like thing living in the old mansion after the owner died are actually eyewitness accounts of the skeleton. As the owner, he had died in the mansion, but he says during the story, “I can’t leave this place. There’s too much to do.” He wants to continue making the world a better place, just as he did when he was alive.

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“…so you see, it was my own jealousy that killed me…and long before my time,” as he said that, he turned to pick up something from a shelf.

“Oh, it was disgusting for a long time as my flesh slowly rotted away. Big chunks of skin and muscle would randomly slough off. My nose fell off one night while I was sleeping, and I swallowed it. Can you believe it? It was lodged in my throat for days! Thankfully, being dead, I couldn’t feel pain or that horrible choking sensation. I know I look frightening now, but I’m much better off like this; no more body parts falling off.

When I was brushing my hair one evening, and my entire scalp was torn away by my hairbrush, that was the final straw. I took it all off after that.”

His visitor tried to understand, “you…took it all…?”

“My flesh. I took it all off.”

His visitor shuddered, “That’s disgusting.”

“How do you think I felt? I stripped down to the bones, then scrubbed them clean. It was quite a mess. Then I bleached myself in the sun for a month. Sunlight cleans the body and soul. The result is rather attractive, in my opinion.”

The visitor he’s talking to still looks disgusted and opens their mouth to speak, but he interrupts, “And my opinion is the one that matters,” he says, making it clear that he does not want to know what that person thinks about the bony form he’s so proud of.

The person nods and says something like “Oh, absolutely!” realizing that they shouldn’t comment.

They attempt to change the subject, “So..um…your…charitable ventures?”

“Well, there’s only so much I can do from my hilltop abode…”

He explains that as a living skeleton, it’s difficult to do things publicly, as he used to when he was alive. That’s why he’d called the visitor to his mansion. The visitor was a reporter, and the kinds of stories they specialized in gave the skeleton confidence in their ability to help him continue his philanthropic work…