Zedrik Abney's Questionnaire

I make my home and my living out in [I don’t know the lore well enough to name a city off the top of my head]. I’ve lived here near all my life and don’t see no point in leaving. Not that I’m saddled with any particular sense of attachment to the city, mind you, but I have a business to run that would make it a hassle to leave and I’m not sure where I’d go if I wanted to. As for home sweet home, I’ve got myself a house in the attic of the funeral parlor. I work nights so often, I just stopped bothering with the commute back and forth entirely. 
Now I know life in a funeral parlor sounds dreary but, I assure you, it’s not without its advantages. For instance, there aren’t too many tall buildings around the shop, so my view of the night sky is unparalleled. Also, my houseguests never complain and are always such good listeners. 

Through a idd lifetime of circumstance, I’ve found myself in charge of a funeral parlor. I don’t mind though, business is great. It’s the most secure job in the world if you ask me. I’ll always have new customers at my door, and my clients never talk back to me. The money’s nothing to sneeze at, either. Sure, I’m no millionaire, but I got enough to keep myself happy. For instance, I’ve got a garden that’s my pride and joy out in front of the entrance to the parlor that receives quite a hefty slice of my money and attention. Outside that, I’ve got a soft spot for clothes and antiques, and I’m constantly broadening my collections of both. 

I hear them. Sometimes they whisper, sometimes they scream. Ever since that day, when I woke up on that table under the scalpel, my ears have been tuned to hear the voices of the dead. So much sorrow, so much regret. Oh, how I’d give anything to ease those voices, if only to bring some fleeting solitude to my crowded mind. And so what’s a mortician to do? I already spend my days granting final favors to the dead, what’s a few more? I’m no doctor, not in the traditional sense, at least, but easing pain is still my dream. I’ve decided I will rid this world of wayward souls, become a beacon, a lighthouse in the rocky seas of the afterlife, so that all may know the end they deserve. 

When I was just a young lad, no older than 8 or 9 if my memory serves me well, I was stricken with a terrible illness. My parents, bless their hearts, took me to every doctor they could find, but none of them could even identify my affliction, much less provide a cure. Indeed, as their pills and tinctures failed, my parents turned to more... esoteric means of healing. I don't recall much from those months, but I remember the scents of sulfur and incense well, as they were often my only bedfellows as my parents spent many a sleepless night away. Eventually, I would slip into a coma from which I doubt I was supposed to wake up. What awoke me was a voice, a warning whisper in my ear. When I opened my eyes, I was under the knife on a mortician's table. I must have given the man cutting into me an awful fright, he took off screaming even louder than I was. The hours that followed were a whirlwind of doctors, needles and stethoscopes slamming into me, each trying to pry out the answer to how I was alive. When the chaos died down, I learned that my illness had disappeared. I asked to see my parents, and that's when the bombshell dropped. In my stead, they had passed away. The mortician told me that I would be staying with him now, since I had nowhere to go. What a kind thing to do. Perhaps he felt pity for me, or perhaps he felt bad for stabbing a kid. Or maybe he saw an opportunity to get some extra hands around the place. Whatever the reason, I took him up on it. And so it was that the mortician, Victor Hargrave, became my guardian. He gave me a proper gentleman's education and taught me his trade and, when he finally kicked the bucket, he gave the whole business to me. But job security wasn't the only thing I got out of this whole inexplicable resurrection business. Ever since that day, I've heard voices, the whispers of the departed cling to me like cigarette ash clings to clothes. Nothing shakes them off, so I've had to learn how to live with them. My miracle recovery and incidental change in parentage made me the man I am now.