Chapter Text
The last man standing, holding onto a broken sword coated with frost.
Hunted down by the silent wraiths in the shadows, burning eyes of blue.
Running through the snow, thick and treacherous, battered by a storm of ice and death.
Legs burning, sweat freezing where it sprung.
Dread running down my spine and spurring me onwards.
But it was all in vain.
No matter how much you run, they’re never far behind.
Like the stag given hunt in a walled enclosure, your fate is sealed from the start.
They will always catch you.
Your frightened desperation, their loathsome amusement.
Not even in death can freedom be found.
They’ll kill you for sport, then raise your body to serve them forever more.
Slaves to their desires, mindless wights and shadows, battered and bastardised remains.
Everything you were, wiped away under piercing gazes of blue.
The fate of thousands.
The fate of my friends.
My fate.
Broken bone.
Frozen gore.
Wounds that should have been fatal.
Wounds that were fatal.
Pain, sorrow, regret and fear, all silenced by the darkness that consumes me.
The vast, unending nothingness of death embracing me like a spider embraces her prey, pulling me down, down, down into oblivion.
Yet here I am.
Standing in the snow.
Unbreathing.
My destroyed heart.
Unbeating.
My hands are as cold as ice, congealed blood and dead flesh darkening them.
Through my destroyed and exposed ribcage, I can see my organs.
With trembling fingers, I dig into my chest.
I feel nothing.
With a strength I never knew I had, I wrestle my heart free.
I feel nothing.
Staring intently, the tattered remains of my heart are crushed by my frostbitten fingers.
I feel nothing.
No pain.
Not even the slightest sway in my composure.
If any breath still remained within me, it would have failed to hitch.
My body is dead, yet I’m still standing.
Not truly alive, not truly dead.
Though phantoms move around me, enthralled to the will of their slavers, in the middle of the current, I remain still.
Though my eyes blaze as blue as theirs, my mind and my body are still my own.
With grim enlightenment, everything becomes so clear.
My mission, feasible at last.
I cannot be slain, for I am already dead.
I have nothing left to lose, for even my life has been taken away.
And so, I march onwards, for I must fulfil my quest.
One only I can accomplish.
To bring light to this world forsaken by the Gods.
To bring an end to this long night.
To let there be fire again.