Grey
Dialectical Hermeticist
Trysday 4th of Hearthlight, 572 After Foundation
Port D'Erbor
The house is dark and silent; the spire of a church two streets over is cast through the window, keeping off what weak Winter sunlight might find its way in. Outside the sounds of the mob are muffled but not gone. Not over. They seem to move away and then return, never entirely leaving your awareness. Like a dream that hasn't quite had time to fade from memory.
Soft creaks of settling boards sound closer, more real. The drip of water from somewhere just out of sight. In the guttering candlelight you can see only rafters, vague shapes of hanging clothes, furniture, the end table where a basin of water had sat when Ellen tended your burning fever. The shadows, rich and dark like velvet. They seem to throb and shift before your gaze.
And Ellen's doll, sat on a dresser, watching you with empty eyes.
You smell only blood. Yours, you're sure. As your skin seems to burn and your eyes weep, you feel something in your chest - a sloughing sensation, ineffably wrong. The coughing follows and your vision goes black as you hack and convulse, until your throat burns along with everything else. Blood flecks your chest, along with shreds of flesh that you will not permit yourself to identify. You must have thrashed the cover away.
The certainty of your impending death washes over you like a brief and blessedly cool wind.
The house is dark and silent; the spire of a church two streets over is cast through the window, keeping off what weak Winter sunlight might find its way in. Outside the sounds of the mob are muffled but not gone. Not over. They seem to move away and then return, never entirely leaving your awareness. Like a dream that hasn't quite had time to fade from memory.
Soft creaks of settling boards sound closer, more real. The drip of water from somewhere just out of sight. In the guttering candlelight you can see only rafters, vague shapes of hanging clothes, furniture, the end table where a basin of water had sat when Ellen tended your burning fever. The shadows, rich and dark like velvet. They seem to throb and shift before your gaze.
And Ellen's doll, sat on a dresser, watching you with empty eyes.
You smell only blood. Yours, you're sure. As your skin seems to burn and your eyes weep, you feel something in your chest - a sloughing sensation, ineffably wrong. The coughing follows and your vision goes black as you hack and convulse, until your throat burns along with everything else. Blood flecks your chest, along with shreds of flesh that you will not permit yourself to identify. You must have thrashed the cover away.
The certainty of your impending death washes over you like a brief and blessedly cool wind.
