Descent (non-definitive title)

Pain

It drained him.

That constant ticking and tacking... but no clock was seen.

It grew stronger and needier with each passing day, revolting against the very one body from whom it was born.

At first he tried to hold on hope, but he already knew that it would be futile. His father was gone, as he had marched to the far war in the east, and he would probably be dead by now. His poor mother died when giving birth to him, a life for a life. Henceforth, he had no one to beg for a merciful end.

Laying on those wooden planks, rotting away like some piece of hooked meat forgotten in the butchery.

His weakened gaze could no longer distinguish any colors, but vague shadows that twisted and mockingly laughed at him over his dying frame.

Any movement he made required an astounding amount of energy, but even then he could not keep from drawing his hand and placing it on his swollen abdomen, bloated both from hunger and from sickness.

He was dying, painfully slow to his dismay.

He ought to have killed himself when he still had the strength to do so.

He should have known better.

Now he helplessly awaited for his final breath to come.

Would this really be the end? This was not nearly the grandiose death that his kin was promised. He should have died as a well known doctor or lawyer. Maybe even at the battlefield, although he has always been a weak boy, with a sword strongly held in his hand while praying for the souls of his fallen brethren.

But not this way. Not like this.

Not alone, here in the dark, abandoned and spurned. His serves all gone long time ago.

How he dwelt, as a nobleman, with the dispair of being left behind by his own vassals had no other explanation that he was way too weak to care.

Dishonored and depressed, he laid over his own feces on those wretched wooden planks that were once his bed.

He felt the urge to vomit once again, the nasty fluid quickly climbing up his throat. He was too exhausted to move to the side, and so, the stenchy liquid erupted from his mouth and covered him full.

He closed his eyes.