Deathless

Blood tasted sweet.

When it choked Victor from the inside out and every breath drowned him further, it tasted far different than any he’d tasted before. It didn’t taste like the rich surprise of childhood scrapes earned while scrambling through the broken skeletons of buried building where metal and earth fought and nearly always won against tiny bodies made of rusted steel and vulnerable flesh. It didn’t taste like the heat of stinging liquor on broken skin born from restless nights where fists and laughter where shared in equal measure. It didn’t taste like the rampage born of fury and impotence and hatred in a battle that would never end.

There was iron, that metallic tang that rang loudly and undeniably through the taste, but something about it being so final… something about it being the last taste his senses would ever experience…

It tasted sweet: more honey on the tongue then copper between teeth.

Pain tore through Victor’s abdomen where the honed blade of a rusted sword had been buried. The nerves of his fingers twitched helplessly at his sides. They tried in vain to clutch, to hold, to strangle, but the hilt of his blood-soaked axe nestled uselessly in his numbed palm. The sounds of the battlefield hummed in his ears; screams of agony and mania, the clanging of metal against metal, the wetness of steel slicing through flesh, the crows’ hungry calls. They buzzed and fizzled, and all became a distant background to the wheezing, croaking gasps at his side.

The flashes of movements, of ragged bodies, scarred machines, and maimed beasts, tickled the edges of his sight. It teased at the world around him soaked in restless rage and drenched in debilitating desperation. The battle tried to seduce his gaze its way, but Victor had spent too much of his life in its thrall. Bloodlust and glory had finally lost its sway.

It was a pity it had taken so long.

Victor let his vision instead turn upwards. The toxic cloud of rot that forever hung like a guillotine in the sky had fallen leaving unbruised blue in it’s wake. It was a beautiful day: unassuming in its delicate shades and satisfied in its hues.

Victor had known only a handful of these days in his youth and he had loved every second. The sky had promised adventure and freedom and hope in a desolate world. It had promised mornings on his father’s boat, the slowly fading sea still alive in the shine of his father’s crinkled gaze and salt, not sand, coating the edges of his proud grin. It had promised more afternoons running with his laughing siblings between patchwork clothes that were too thin at night and too light in the day but were perfect for them to hide between while his mother laughed without fear in her eyes. It had promised to give way to darkness sprinkled in starlight where the golden fire was reflected on his mother’s heart-shaped locket until it looked like she held a piece of the sun to her chest and his father’s lilting voice sounded like a sea breeze and moonlight all at once, until Victor believed that he would always be loved.

It had promised he was home.

Tears filled his eyes and threatened to blur the reminiscent blue. Victor let them fall, limbs too heavy to wipe them away and thoughts too heavy to force them back.

The wheezing at his side continued, growing wetter and more choked by the moment.

Victor wondered if the man dying at his side, the green of his uniform obscured by the ruby flowing from the jagged wound at his throat, was also looking at the sky. He wondered what memories it invoked in him. He wondered if it brought him a respite or if it shrouded him in grief.

Victor wondered what his name was.

His heart pounded at his chest growing weaker with each beat. Victor took a moment to appreciate its valiant effort. He took a moment to agree with his mother’s old sentiment; he had a strong heart.

It just wasn’t strong enough.

Like her cherished locket, his heart was nothing more than a pretty thing twisted and disfigured until it was unrecognizable.

Blood began to overwhelm his mouth. He coughed weakly and felt it tumble from the corners of his lips. Victor imagined with macabre serenity his death-blood mixing with his tears in a final swan song.

The wheezing at his side slowed and lowered to barely a whisper.

Then it slowed again.

It stuttered.

It stopped.

Victor’s heart began to tap where it had once pounded. His eyes grew heavy and it took every tick of his heart to force his stinging gaze wide.

Memory began to blur into reality. The ghost of fingers ran through his hair. He saw sunlight in gold. He smelled the sea. He heard laughter.

He tasted sweetness on his tongue and stared at promises of home.

Victor’s heart gave a final beat. His last breath was a sigh of contentment…

Burning ice crushed his chest and a voice made of broken wails and unrestrained laughter whispered in his ear: "Not yet."

Victor awoke with a scream.

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