The messenger's death -- The Flaming Squid's Short Story Post

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Date Posted: 12:03:58 05/22/03 Thu
Author: Remor�
Subject: The messenger's death

My heart is racing, my pulse pounding in my ears as I force leaden legs to move and overtaxed lungs to draw breath. My boots hit the ground with an irregularly planned beat. My tattered cloak flapping in the wind as it is ripped from side to side by the movement of my shattered body, seeming like shred of humanity trailing me. All that is left. My eyes burn as sweat finds its leisurely way into them, my hair falls into my eyes as my breath labors into my chest, rattling my ribs with the pain of yet another breath, and another yet to come. I cannot stop. My boots hit a root in the dark forest and I fall, my mouth filling with the loam on the forest floor, tasting musty and dry to my parched mouth. Trying to summon enough moisture to spit, I empty my mouth as best I can, pushing myself wearily to my feet to take on the role of the prey yet again. My breath is burning in my chest, rattling out my throat and shunned by the trees around me, as if it is foul or accursed. My leather jerkin is shredded in so many places as to call it a shirt is impossible and un-thought of. The tattered strips barely enough to stop the bleeding from several large gashes, the blood still coming like long red fingers down and down my chest. The fingers of hell reaching for its home again, where I will soon join them. My life has not been as it should have, thought I as my boots snag once again. It should have been more of a joy to live rather than the man made hell I had created for myself. Pushing myself up with arms that were numb but still felt as if they weighed as solid gold would, I looked down and saw my life leaving me in those little red fingers. Giving a grunt I pushed myself up again, I will not give up. Not here, not now. Ignoring the pain of breathing, I shamble off toward my destination, seeming vague and indistinct to my sweat stung eyes. A blur on the horizon there, and a hole in the trees here, were all I had to keep me going, all I had to keep me alive. My breath rattling and my pulse faltering, I kept going. My mouth was suddenly wet do I spit on a tree and saw a splash of red, my own blood decorating the tree, slowly dripping down to look like the tree was dying. Laughing harshly and losing more blood to the air I saw the Irony in this. Only I was dying, not this forest, or the tree. Only I would see what lies beyond this day. I kept running, losing all track of time and place. Only the repetitious motion of my feet hitting the ground, a steady rhythm my heart fed off of to keep going with what little blood was left. In my heart and mind I knew that if I stopped again, I would die. So I kept moving, the pain constant and harsh, the realization that I wasn�t going to make it settled in, roughly shoving aside the hopes I had somehow kept alive in my flight, those hopes were shattered by this realization. I was going to die. Suddenly those hopes seemed blinding in their reality, I desired them back, I needed them back. Groping and clutching for them in my mind I didn�t see the root until it was too late. My weary foot snagged and I fell, a wordless scream erupting from my mouth only to stop in a horrible gurgling that I knew to be my last breath. Feeling the air rush out of my lungs, the pain was finally stopping, the red Haze that had dominated my vision fell away, seeming to dribble out of the corner of my vision as blood would drip out of a punctured tank. My hand groped ahead, still wanting to move forward, still wanting to carry on. My eyes looked up on my swollen, scratched and bruised neck one last time to see my destination ahead of me, seeming so close in the dim light. So close it seems I could touch it, So close as to smell the cook fires. Shaking my head weakly I knew these smells were real, I knew that I was there. All I needed was a few more steps.
A few more steps, it sounded so simple as if to be mocking me. All you need is a few more boy, Yes, Yes, just a few more...
The pain returned as the breath came rattling back into my lungs, my limbs were felt once again and the pain from them I greeted and held as I would a friend. It held me to life, and kept me rational. Using my leaden arms to push off the ground, it was all I could do to stay there, on all fours with my head hanging down, sweat and blood mingling on the ground to create mud in the loam. Looking at this I saw my reflection, pink caste as of the blood looking at me. My black hair hung over my face, an unruly mane that refused to be tamed, my frightened, tired, but determined eyes looked at me from under that mane, daring me to go on, daring me to get on my feet. Looking up, I saw my destination, so close, so close. Standing, I wavered on my feet, my body unsteady as it tried to stand. Losing my balance I fell again, my body landing with a fire bolt of pain lancing through me, sending new waves of agony through my body as it landed. Looking through the pain, I saw it again, taunting me, leering at me. The gate of the town seemed as an open mouth trying to invite me in so as I can be fed piecemeal to whatever demons lie behind it. pushing up again, my legs screamed at the abuse, my arms deafened me with their silent but forceful accusations. But still I stood. Still I put my right foot out, the toe of my boots beaten through and showing my toe, which was scratched and bleeding. My right foot made contact with the ground, sending a shudder up my body, my whole body crying out with the pain of it. Forcing myself onward I relished the pain, relished the fast that the pain meant life and life meant hope. Moving on I knew that the destination was in front of me. I reached out one shaking and battered arm to grasp, grope, anything that would help me live. My arm touched the rough texture of wood, the grainy hard surface that showed civilization. Not the rough, hard texture of bark but the smooth, lacquered surface of a door. Smiling faintly, he collapses on the steps. His duty is done, his task finished. As I collapses, I realise one thing. I am finished, my duty is done. I can rest. My eyes close on the steps as my hand gropes in my pouch for that all important piece of paper that I traveled and now will die for. Holding it in one clenched, blood soaked fist, he uses his last energy to knock. A pitiful sounding, weak knock, but it was nonetheless there. Sounding his presence to the world that his job was done, his task fulfilled. I can rest. My eyes are closed and I am floating in a void, seeming to be warm and cold at the same time. I open my eyes to see nothing, hear nothing and in a way, I am nothing.

The next morning, a man opened the gates and saw my body on the steps. Sounding the alarm, the man called the guards in. They took the message and it was delivered. The body was unmarked so they knew not who I was. They buried me en-masse with peasants in an unmarked grave, a fitting grave for one of his quality they said, couldn�t even deliver a message right they said. Let them try it in my place, let them see if they have what it takes. Smiling down, I disappear into the nothingness from whence I came, thinking of how valor and loyalty end up giving you nothing in this life. But as I sit here, I see the rewards in the next. Smiling now, my pain forgotten, I sit ready to reap the bounty of my work. I am in Paradise.

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