A Dead Knight's Tale
“How fucking pitiful,” thought an old rugged man, firmly being pressed down on his knees, and shackled by numerous silver locks and chains encasing his naked body. The silver burned him strongly, like fire, and smoke blew off from scorching chains binding his entire figure. Whoever committed this definitely didn't want him to escape and definitely knew no one would ever come looking for him on this desolate peak of the world. The old man's knees were buried in the cold snow of a mountaintop and wet clouds constantly drifted past him, but he wasn’t grimacing from the freezing cold atmosphere, nor from the lack of oxygen, only from the unbearable and scorching pain of silver digging under his skin.
He was an ancient and wrinkled man, decades past his prime, and though much of his strength had faded, handsome traces were still left on his gaunt expression. His messy and unkempt black hair was grayed from the decades of worshiping his deity, his skin was no longer tan, but pale in unhealthy palette, and instead of two gleaming green eyes, they were both replaced by a full discoloration of conflict between red and gold; the left eye was full of celestial light and the other was corrupted by an oozing demonic crimson. A feud in the blood between two antagonistic realms was taking place inside his body.
The old man was considerably tired and weak. His breathing was pacing at an irregular rate, his face was extremely contorted through the constant pain and suffering, and his was body riddled with old scars and fresh wounds. The most noticeable laceration was two deep gaping holes on the nape of his neck, likely caused by his recent encounter.
One could tell that he regretted everything. His eyes shown that he was deep in thought and his lips moved silently as if he were insane.
He spit on the snowy ground and frowned.
He sighed longingly. “All these years… I’ve been following you blindly, obeying your every request, living a life entirely based on the path of light, and what has all of that brought me? Prestige? Honor?” he asked constantly in his perplexed mind.
After a long minute of thinking, the old man smiled and laughed hysterically at his thoughts for a few minutes, but suddenly looked up to glare at the empty sky and screamed furiously, “I am but a senile old man my Lord! I have been alone for my entire life for you! I have gained nothing for you! I have lost everything for you! I have fought only for you since the day I was born! I heard your culling, and I followed you, fighting with tooth and nail just for you! And for what?”
"...For what...?"
He was bitter, angry, and vengeful. Both his eyes suddenly began to turn blood red and his fangs grew larger as he bared them like a beast’s. As he struggled, the silver began to burn into his skin even more, exponentially increasing in pain, and yet he didn’t stop, he didn't care.
He grimaced and continued to scream in lunacy, “I’ll kill you! I’ll become drunk on your holy blood! Spit on your cold, drained corpse! And then I’ll maim that damn vampire, slice him up, cut his heart out, dump his minced flesh in the ocean!”
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Hours spanned as he continued screaming maniacally and his sensation to pain became completely dull, but strangely, his skin slowly started to stop burning from the silver.
“I’ll… I’ll…” He calmed down as the pain ceased and grew limp like a corpse. His expression sank, his fangs shrunk, and both his eyes slowly switched to celestial gold.
He pondered for a moment, remembering his God’s last words, and tears rolled down his cheeks in enlightenment. He fully remembered every single curse he spout out and he realized that maybe he was a monster, a monster that should be put down before chaos ensues in his survival.
“‘You became an abomination!’ God said. ‘You are now no more than a blight on this world, and I will not stain myself with your now cursed blood, so I implore you, my old, faithful knight, die for me, and you will sit with me in the next realm for eternity.’"
“Perhaps… He was right to leave me, because now I’m nothing more than an abomination of this world…” he murmured solemnly in instant realization. “If he wishes me to die, then so be it… I will ascend to be his heavenly retainer.”
Peace and silence followed promptly as he stared into the horizon, and the ebony sky and its clouds turned slightly orange as a bright light peaked through the edge of the world. He closed his eyes peacefully as the sun rose and awaited his concluding fate. But oddly, his unease steadily grew as the light drew ever so closer, and nearing his death, his calmness was interrupted with a sudden and desirable thought, “I don’t want to die.”
His brows furrowed and repeated the words in his mind.
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die."
He was no coward, but these thoughts flooded his head and he couldn't resist thinking about it as death was coming straight at him.
“I want to live,” he whispered out loud in accident. No one heard his confession in that desolate place, but he was shamefully embarrassed at his cowardice nonetheless.
He attempted to cease his thinking about such gutless thoughts, and struggled with his conflicting desires until he finally noticed that the sunlight was quickly rushing up to him. He shut his eyelids as it enveloped his pale skin in its glorious, purifying illumination, and began screaming in agony and pain. Strangely after a few seconds, his skin didn't burn and he didn't turn to ash, and as seconds passed, absolutely nothing happened to him, but he continued to scream, oblivious of one single possibility.
His suspenseful screaming slowly and awkwardly dissipated into silence as his skin grew warm to touch, and he finally peaked his eyes open in confusion. The sun was shining in the distance, glaring into his eyes, and he gasped,
“I’m… not… dead?”
Both his eyes changed: irises and pupils gleamed with golden light, and scleras filled in with blood crimson.