Let This Be The Last Time…

Today we are burying the ring for the third time. I don’t know how much longer I can take this. My crew looks at me with hollow gazes; they’ve been stuck with me and I’ve been stuck with them for...

Gods, let this be the last time.

The shovel in my hands holds the weight of the land. The soil beneath my bare feet is made of pins and shards. The sun is lava against my face. But the worst of all? The fiend hovering just a few inches from my face. It smiles—it always smiles—rotten gums and wretched teeth, a stagnant stench of mold emanating from its pores. It never leaves. It doesn’t move. It looms over me, shackled by invisible chains; the chains of my doom.

Gods, let this be the last time…

I dig up a hole large enough to bury a baby dragon. My palms are sticky, my face drenched. They all stare at me with glassy eyes only the dead should have. I don’t blame them. It is I who got them into this mess. I thought I could beat it. Curses, after all, are easily broken by those raised by a witch. I was wrong. So wrong. For the wealth of a lifetime, we were condemned in misery.

The soil is marked with blood from the battle of Athehorne. Hundreds lie beneath, bones turned to dust. This is what it wants. I just hope that this time the bloodshed will be enough. This land is considered the unholiest place of our known world. It should be enough. It has to be…

I finish up and drop the shovel. My heart is racing. Another try… Another decade of waiting… We are all bound to the curse, as am I to the shadow. Our punishment? To feel nothing but emptiness. Hunger that’s never satiated. Thirst that’s never quenched.

It’s been thirty years…

I kneel and place the ring in the middle as if it’s made of snowflakes. Now it’s my crew’s turn to do the deed… The entity smiles a little wider. It’s pleased…

My feet get covered, then my knees. Once the dirt reaches my waist I can no longer move. The hardest part are the shoulders. I’ve experienced it before but it doesn’t get easier… I wheeze and cough but the more I struggle, the more my tongue feels like sandpaper, the more my lungs feel on fire. The sounds become a muffled buzzing. I see and then I do not.

It’s all black now… It should be over soon. If I’m right, then this is my last breath.

Gods, let this be the last time…