[WP] No one can imagine the pain I felt when those 2 men walked up to my door

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writer's note: I know this was likely intended as a Military/Officer tragedy story, but I really needed to end this arc before someone flipped a cliff-hanging lid at me.

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No one can imagine the pain I felt when those two finally walked up to the door.

In all seriousness, I'm willing to lay that sort of blanket statement and throw down the infamous absolute. There's only one condition I'll put to clarify: Unless you happen to have been been stabbed before, I can tell you firsthand- you don't have a single damn clue about the pain that comes with it.

Seriously, nobody has any idea until they've felt that sort of thing up close and personal. You can see combat, you can taste the fear and the madness of it until you're looking to hurl, you can watch someone go down right in front of you under a pile of merciless goblins. That's all fine n' good, but you've got no clue how bad getting stabbed is until it happens to you.

"Thud."

That's how it starts, The only thing that lets you know you've just bought death a coffee, and you're both flirting at the table.

You've been hit somehow. A knife, a sword, an arrow has gone in- maybe even out the other side, and it's like a punch. A burning shove that doesn't obey normal boundaries. Not like a fire, but more similar to a bit of coal heating from the inside out: the pain starts slow and gets worse. See, that real agony doesn't even really come in just yet, your body doesn't have a single clue what just happened. You'll probably go though the god-damn tooth-grinding gambit in a moment or two (saying you live long enough) but for now it's just: "Thud."

Then comes the fall, a creative second portion to the routine.

You can get as dramatic as you want with this one. See, I'm something of a professional at it now myself, but I guess in my current line of work it's inevitable. Personally, I'd really recommend a noble sort of slow-fall. If you think death is absolutely certain, just try your best and look as cool as possible- really lock it up so rigor mortis does you a bit of justice. Death grip a sword or some sort of weapon, take a knee or casual lean. Don't end up like me, slumped like a drunk against a watchtower parapet without much fight left. Try to be cool, maybe with some zen-warrior seated stance.

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Again, just a personal opinion. In my eyes, I see this more as a silver lining. Recently, I've had to see a lot of good soldiers die, and I can say that only one or two of them made the bitter end look rewarding. It's a tough gig. Leading people into battle and fighting monsters isn't the kind of career a lot of folk make it through to reach old age. Probably, again- just my opinion, on account of getting stabbed, or torn apart, eaten, beheaded, killed by traps, destroyed by freaky magics, etc, etc... Really, I think that particular list will keep on going just about as long as you want it to.

Just the wait it tends to go: in the business of killing things, there happen to be a lot of ways to die. Getting stabbed is still towards the top of the list, but only half the time. It's a pretty shit way to go, but there's a blessing and a curse to the circumstances. It either takes way too long, and you end up slumped against a battlement with the few other survivors lucky enough to not be dead from the previous skirmish- or you're already dead, and have been for quite some time, laying cold-turkey on the stone somewhere.

Way too long, or no time at all. It's a mixed bag.

See, the third thing you should be expecting after getting stabbed (if you're not about to start making-out with death at the metaphorical coffee table) is the pain.

The first three times the deed went and happened to me, it was by one really overly ambitious Orc with a big ol' spear. Almost died- should have died, apparently. Everyone who happened to be there when it went down seems to stick by the story that I should have had the grave dug-out somewhere out in the Western Wastelands right there and then, but somehow I got pulled back from the brink. Bandaged, laying in fever for a few days, more magic and healer attention thrown at me than most men have any right, and eventually I got back up- still breathing.

Breathing, sure- and cursing the day I was born.

Let me tell you something clear though: it was still awful. Those damn wounds hurt so bad afterwards I couldn't even see straight, and in a world without any real pain medication- repeating the procedure of foreign objects getting lodged in my body under lethal intent was not what I originally had planned with my life. Fate's a cruel bitch though.

I mean, just imagine there's a crude bit of iron n on the weapon that did the gruesome deed, and imagine that the damn arrow shaft is still wedged in your side because you're not inclined to take the thing out and spurt blood like a garden-hose.

The most I was willing to do was push it though, and pray to god it wasn't a fucking broad-head.

It's just terrible.

So, anyways, with that in mind: when those two finally made it through the freaking door- I might have had a bit of a temper. Honestly, in that instant I might have wanted to do and say somethings I really shouldn't do or say. Now, I know, I know- nowadays I've always got rank and prestige to consider here: The famous Captain most certainly an expected code of conduct that I should be acting within, but on account of blood-loss and a whole lot of pain I settled on shouting.

A lot of shouting.

"What the HELL took you so long?!"