𝖈𝖎𝖙𝖞 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖉 {|:𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑖𝑒𝑐𝑒:|}

𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖎𝖘 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖙;

❝ ᴀʟʟ ɪs ɴᴏᴛ ʟᴏsᴛ; ᴛʜᴇ ᴜɴᴄᴏɴǫᴜᴇʀᴀʙʟᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴜᴅʏ ᴏғ ʀᴇᴠᴇɴɢᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏᴜʀᴀɢᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴛᴏ sᴜʙᴍɪᴛ ᴏʀ ʏɪᴇʟᴅ. ❞
—𝒋𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒕𝒐𝒏; 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕

჻ ♰ ჻ — ჻ ♰ ჻ — ჻ ♰ ჻ 

The roar around him was defeaning. His exhales were quick but heavily weighted bursts, whooshing out of his lungs in a desperate attempt to usher in more air. Each inhale was acrid, the tang of death filling his mouth, nose, throat, lungs with its poison.

A shout resounded from somewhere in the closeness around him, some soldier calling for swords at the ready, packed together as they all were, and he realized then that his rest was cut short. They'd found him -- them -- and were swarming up the tower, the ancient stones once laid out with care turning to rubble beneath tooth and scrabbling claw. A single second passed, long and slow and almost terrifying in the reality he was forced to face with his comrades. The tower groaned under the duress, and even as ghastly skeletal faces breached the rim of the battlement, it tilted -- slowly, ever so slowly, and he thought it was perhaps one of the longest moments of his life --

Until the ground rushed up to meet him.

He might have been unconscious for a time, but then again, maybe not. He couldn't remember. He was dizzy, and nauseous and he couldn't see through a film of red. In his confusion he realized belated the last of his men were rallying around a pit of flame --

He stumbled to his feet, only to fall immediately, the impact sudden but not painful. In fact, he couldn't feel much of anything right now. His ears were ringing and his head was filled with cotton and the ground was spinning --

There was so much blood.

All he saw was red, red red and when he tried to breathe again it was like he was drowning and he tried, he tried so hard to cough and to clear his lungs but all he saw was red. He moved a bit, leaning his back gently upon the ruins of the tower. His legs wouldn't cooperate with him, he just couldn't understand why. Until he saw.

His legs were both ripped off just under the knee. The blood was everywhere, pumping out with a rhythm that reminded him of the beat of a drum, of festivals in his village, of summer nights filled with meat and ale and song, and he knew. He knew this was the end. His life was leaving him. In a fit of desperation, he ripped off his steel helm and threw his head back, crying out to Heaven, to his merciful God, to the Mother, to the Father, to the Holy Ghost, pleading and screaming but spewing more blood than words.

His eyelids were getting heavy.

He could swear -- he could swear -- everything was turning black. Everything. The blood, the poisonous sky of the city, everything. He felt like he was literally melting into the ground, unable to move but falling nonetheless. It was a good feeling, and if this was what dying was, he didn't mind it, not even a little. He had faithfully done God's work, hadn't he? He had nothing to fear, except for perhaps how to greet Saint Peter. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid.

He felt the blood in his mouth turning to ash, he tasted his very death and finally, finally he could scream. All of his men must be dead. Everything was ashes.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. 

The fields of rye and corn and potatoes and bright poppies fled his mind. Everything was ashes. Everything was dust and death and red and cold and hard as steel and he was cold. He was so, so cold, something in his core freezing as a vacancy was exposed, a lack that hadn't been there seconds before. And he screamed again, ash pouring from his mouth because he knew intrinsically that he had been abandoned, God had left him and taken His love, His grace, His forgiveness with Him.

He could almost feel it, the moment his soul seemed to abandon his body. He couldn't stop screaming.

(And still, everything was ashes.)

A/N:

I... I don't know. This was me trying to be a sophisticated writer but I'm tired from being at work for 11 hours, and I'm dizzy and iron deficient so I don't fucking know. I am not super proud of this but I did my best with my current energy levels.

https://www.wattpad.com/404197454-%E2%9C%8D-%F0%9D%95%A1%F0%9D%95%9D%F0%9D%95%A0%F0%9D%95%A5-%F0%9D%95%93%F0%9D%95%A6%F0%9D%95%9F%F0%9D%95%9F%F0%9D%95%9A%F0%9D%95%96%F0%9D%95%A4-%E2%9C%8D-%D1%94%E2%84%93%D1%94%CE%BD%D1%94%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BD-%CF%81%E2%84%93%CF%83%D1%82

^^^ copy and paste into your search bar for the lyrics.