Chapter Text
mors mihi lucrum
(death to me is reward)
Any movement will be noticed, he furtively thinks.
What am I doing?
No.
Where am I?
_
There's something moving. Or maybe not. It's dark and blurry; not unlike the few moments of respite he treasured when his eyes were a dull black instead of the glaring red that unsettled everyone but him.
But, oh, his eyes were red.
Or, were they?
_
Is he awake? Is he asleep? Is he dreaming?
He feels sluggish. And there's no conscious physical movement on his part to suggest that he's in control of his body. Contrarily, calling himself awake would be a disservice to people who were actually awake.
He just is.
There is a serene darkness all around him, and he somehow feels entitled to a comprehensive explanation - something that would clarify the motive behind his consciousness, as dubious as it is.
He feels that he should be compensated for the fact that he was awake at all.
But drudging up emotion was hard, harder than usual. He feels – something (not nothing); but that something is not an emotion he is familiar with. Were they always this complicated? (this difficult to understand?)
He dearly hoped not.
He had a vague inkling that emotions, at any stage of his life, had never been his strong suit.
_
It's black when the question pops up. Just a faint murmuring, a lilting tone of a voice he doesn't recognise.
It asks, "What's your name?"
Name? Name. He knows he has one. He's been called by it many times over and over.....He knows it's not a common name. It's significant somehow; significant enough that it should be uttered with reverence? grief? contempt? regret?
He contemplates long enough to erase the last of his doubts that perhaps, he is nameless.
Clearly, he's not; especially when his half-dead body? mind? is used to being called something. That 'something' merely continues to evade him.
How tiring.
_
Time continues to pass and he drifts.
There's no way of knowing if he's been here for days, months or years. He is stuck in a constant state of stagnancy - a marvel, of course, but severely maddening.
It's impossible to guess if he's alone or in someone's company (he abhorred the notion of showing such vulnerability in front of an unassessed hostile).
But most importantly, he resents not knowing if he even has a body.
There's nothing to do besides think anyway. And the unwanted deduction that he is not corporeal has come up more times than he would willingly admit.
Still, he's not really aware. That's the only comfort he could derive from this wretched predicament.
He had arrived to that conclusion because this state of helplessness was wholly unfamiliar. It was like chipping nails off of decaying wood; like an itch that would break out into hives if left unattended for too long.
It was strange and unwelcomed and pathetic.
It was unreal.
It felt as if his cognizance had been ruthlessly snatched away and caged in a bottle of inky murkiness. And every time he fought to gain some sort of perception, it was dangled before his helpless - body (?) It was.....cruel.
Within reach and yet, so, so out of it.
With that realisation, something familiar inadvertently rose within him. Something he knew intimately but kept in thick ropes of constraint - anger.
It swelled and flickered and swelled again, disinclined to be squashed and stowed away.
Was he angry because he was alive? Or was he alive because something in him was angry enough to not let go?
In this cheap excuse of a mess–because there was no better word to describe his situation–he was acutely aware that he had been dead. Or was dead.
Or was supposed to be dead.
_
It is not an entirely new phenomenon - for him at least, to be thrust into undesirable sitches. Thankfully, his muddled instincts seem to agree too. However, and to his great consternation, it is this completely novel sense of impending doom blaring in his head (?) that has him on edge.
Adding it to the unholy verity that no, he is not actually dead, as he should be, did not help his rising temper at all.
Despite the lack of apprehension that permeated whatever body or form he has been stuffed (?) into, he has grudgingly made peace with the foreboding sensation–which did nothing to ease his delicate sensibilities–that he should not be here.
What that here is – could be anyone's guess.
_
More time passed, but unfortunately, he could no longer drift in his self-made haven of incomprehension.
The annoying feeling of wrongness persisted incessantly, and he noticed, amidst his cloying paranoia, that he was more present and coherent in his thoughts than he had been before.
Nothing made sense anymore, so it was only logical that neither would he. Because when had life ever been on his side - if it had, then he couldn't recall. (He wanted to be dead and he was not. There's some unresolved trauma there - he could succinctly speculate).
He didn't feel worn out after a rigorous session of thinking, not like he did when he had first gained some sort of discernment. So it would seem that thinking too much or too little were both detriments.
He would have never thought that one day, just thinking would be a hassle.
He's tired.
It's like a bone-deep ache, echoing with some leftover vestiges of injustice, frustration and why me, please - just stop, no more.
Quite suddenly, his mind (?) raged. It felt satisfying to rebel against whoever is keeping him alive and shackled. He did not want to be either, not anymore - it's the last thing he wants. So he fumed and seethed, relishing in the warmth that washed over all of, well - him.
Turns out, life was still not on his side.
Because soon, the warmth churned inward, and twirled - as if mapping the entirety of his whatever and attacked.
It enveloped everything - all of him, in him, around him. It wasn't the warmth that he's come to cherish (and that perhaps, should have been a warning in itself).
This was not the warmth of a steady fire. Definitely not. This was the opposite of fire; but just as deadly. And it burned. Hot, hotter, endless.
If he has a body, he imagined that it would be writhing in agony, it's limbs contorting and convulsing due to the unbearable heat.
This was also how he realised that fire and he were old friends - because, he could list the process, step by step, of what exactly fire could do to a body.
It would start with the uncomfortable trickling of seeping heat. The upper layer of the skin would stand no chance. Then, the hair, the glands, the edges....and slowly, the nerves. At one point, there would be nothing left to feel - like a gaping miasma of unidentifiable colour, and of course, pain.
What it would leave was a charred body - that could be red, white or black, depending on the mercilessness of the act. And with that unfeelingness, would come peace. Death.
He felt happy, another unfamiliar emotion, because finally, finally, it's over. This is how it was supposed to go. He has no destiny, no fate, and the gods he once believed in, and prayed to devotedly and begged to for freedom could go fuck themselves.
He was free.
(In hindsight, he should have known that his life was a big cosmic joke and the gods he was cursing would make sure that it remained just that and nothing else.)
_
Somewhere, in the sheltered cocoon of embroidered mats, towering pillars, gilded stairways and gossiping servants; a comatose woman snapped her eyes open to infinity.