La Muerte

I - void

part zero: prologue

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"La muerte ... viene para ... todos nosotros."

A cold gust of wind gently brushes against my cheek, and I awaken, summoned to my ending tenacity of mortality.

Crashing waves of tranquility assault my ears, as the vehement silence feels reminiscent of my loyal comrades, who have not long ago fallen upon the same demise as I have—this void, an ocean of an abyss, a vestige of how longing life would have been.

Amid this ocean of darkness, it reveals itself as my captor, as my body struggles to free its limbs from death's strangling pull. I lay ensnared in the hands of death, the invisible force which shows no mercy to that of life. Though, the passion within my body's movement doesn't let me succumb to this perpetual gravity.

Sensations I used to feel before, they had vanished from the bottom of my soles. No trace—not a single mark—left on this body that I held victories with, as all sores I've gained from such conquests simply leave my body longing for final sensations.

My eyes, glued shut, leaves me walking blind from all mystery—this mystery that I have never attempted a voyage for. Though, this blindness is no different from what is visible to a working eye, because it's this tenebrous blackness that shrouds me and my environment; such a sophisticated cloak, it wraps around me, its warmth signifying the eventual end of my character.

But I will not yield to temptation until my jailer sets me free.

"La muerte ... viene para ... todos nosotros."

Elusive eyes, they see me struggle like a beast in a cage. My excessive writhes bang each and every line of metal. My rancor begins to fabricate. These judgmental eyes, they are ones I had always feared. As I hear them solidify in my ears, they call my mouth deplorable for this damnation.

And within this fear do I begin to move.

Jolts of sensation trickle down my spine, as fast as light has its grip on my skin. My pale epidermis leaves my eyes entranced in its fleeting existence whilst the body of a true musketeer becomes apparent—his legs, his arms, his chest, and the rest of his body. Glints of flashing flames immolate every subtle curvature of my skin, its hazy colors brighten up under the inconsistent light of utter darkness.

The trembles hasten. My shivering arm begins its scavenge to seek vestigial function, as my heart begins its rhythm once more. Whistles of swift air slashes my pinna, such deafening blades maims my hearing. Though, sans these discordant sounds, silent chatter emerges under sheer solitude.

My body plummets, clambering in pursuit under undefined gravity; its erratic attempt to secure myself of this freefall only ceases when I comprehend that nothing in this realm exists tangible, let alone perceptive. This fall appears infinite, my head turned towards a barren void. As my eyes roam billowing blacks, a glimpse of white is captured as a blinding cloak—such flowy silk, entangled in a golden ornament, disappearing under my hallucinating sight.

"La muerte ... viene para ... todos nosotros."

As treacherous gusts hiss into my ears, I thrash around the winds. The paucity of any object, despite my eyes being able to see, makes this ending inscrutable. Nothing about this storm is as boisterous as any storm I've encountered. As shrewd as I used to be, nothing seems barely axiomatic of existence. For such a bleak ending, the blaring whistles of air imitated those of sirens, blaring into my ears incessantly.

The malaise of the entire segue of life and death had me wounded, worse than the whetted scythes of Death himself. As I fall, I recall the thud that resounded in the room when the wolf violently threw me in the ground, the distaste of the metallic liquid in my mouth still reenacted in this void. As sharp claws pierced through the skin of my cheek, the sanguine pain of mortality, it left me paralyzed.

The air around me is no different to the one in the room, as the gales forced me to breathe in the pungent scent of booze and drunkards—the same odor I wheezed to support a withering body. My indignance had arisen, albeit much of my mind had fallen to despair. As I attempted to escape the perennial agony, two piercing weapons, metallic and irrepressible, ripped my viscera open; as my vision darkened, my world was seized. Pain—it was all my body felt.

For someone who's lived through everything for so long, it felt wistful to live anew; the agony I felt, it felt completely remarkable.