mernatius
—« if you must die, sweetheart,
die knowing your life was my life’s best part »
B
y this time I was no stranger to heartbreak. Every waking moment Grief and I played a dangerous game, a constant push and pull, a give and take of woe and anguish that flowed into me like a river. For months I served cruel masters with the taste of freedom a fleeting flavor upon my parched tongue, a sweet memory forever out of my grasp. I knew cruelty and abuse and loss. Oh, but by Solis’ wretched light I knew loss, and I knew intimately the agony that came with surviving it.Death was unjust, but Life could be far more torturous and cruel than her macabre counterpart.
Something pulled me from my sickbed early that spring morning. I crossed the dusty streets of Solterra like a ghost in dawn’s early light, feeling for the life of me like a tourist in a dream. A heavy cloak rested around my shoulders, hiding my malnourished and wretched body from curious eyes and doing wonders to ward off the morning chill, but not even it’s wool warmth could thaw the chill that so mercilessly grasped my heart.
Honestly, I didn’t know what I had expected. After all this time I had no idea why I had gotten my hopes up, allowing myself to feel some semblance of paltry optimism. I stood akin to a feeble statue in front of a barren, empty cottage, its windows boarded and door nailed shut with scraps of driftwood from the summer monsoons. The white walls of my family cottage were dirty and unkempt and it was empty, so empty, forgotten and cast aside, the sole blemish to the otherwise pristine Ieshan property.
Staring at it now through wide eyes, my lips parted as I stood quivering in front of my home, I felt something inside of me shudder and snap. My lungs seemed to shrink. I couldn’t breathe. My insides twisted and churned. Tears burned hot in my eyes and suddenly I was moving, lurching forward on thin legs like an unsteady drunkard, summoning my weak magic to pull and tear at the wood barring me entry from my cottage.
“You will not!” I cursed vehemently at my sudden adversary, dual-colored eyes wild and rolling as I pulled with all of my sickly might, desperate to rid these oppressive wooden chains from my home. This was my home! It was mine and I would have it back! The gifted magic of this world was far too weak and the boards held firm, so I latched onto the wood with my teeth and pulled hard. One board came free with a squeal of metal on wood and I tossed it unceremoniously to the ground, surely looking mad and rabid.
Who knows? Perhaps I was.
I didn’t care.
Like a mongrel tugging on a bone I grabbed each plank of wood and pulled hard. I cared not for the splinters that dug into my lips or my tongue, the pain depressingly familiar. If anything it invigorated me, spurring my desire to reclaim the only thing that had ever truly been mine. This place had once been my life and I was desperate to reclaim it, hoping that by some twisted miracle should I reclaim this home, I could reclaim some semblance of the man I used to be.
A depressing joke, truly. Life would never be so kind to me.
It was a miracle in itself that a guard on patrol or a soldier passing by didn’t overhear my madness and come to arrest me. Between my heaving and grunting and general mad whisper-yelling at inanimate objects, the sound of wood cracking and hitting the ground in an disorderly pile, or the general ruckus I was making in this early morning silence, it would only be a matter of time until someone came looking. Again, however, I didn’t care. I had one goal, and right now that goal was ripping away every presented blockade from my life.
