Aidan (_aidan_) wrote in low_tide, @ 2009-11-14 19:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | aidan revere |
Dead Man Walking
Dusk.
He liked to watch the sunset over the water, wading through the waves up to his ankles, deeper to his knees on the warm nights. With no one left to call family - disowned by a disinterested bunch, who might even think him dead now, like their fallen daughter - and only a few friendly acquaintances on the island, Aidan felt a kinship with the fading sun. It was the last constant, the one unchanging thing in the life he had never expected.
Tending bar wasn't bad. Tips were good. Steady stream of tourists kept things interesting. And he had his work, carving the ancient runes into his own skin, calling up the powers they controlled and spilling blood to stain the ground and seal the promise of the strength the symbols carried. But it was a routine, just as the evening treks into the surf had become.
And then everything changed.
A world of memories came rushing back, dropping the man to his knees in the gentle evening waves as another life overpowered all that he had known in this place, this world. With the memories came pain, shots of physical pain to remind him of everything that had happened before: burning ache in his chest, a thousand bumps to the head on a counter he had built with his own hands and the sharp stab of fangs into his throat.
Those memories were the clearest, lying in the dirt, growing cold and weak and his blood rushed out to stain the ground, taking the last of his life away with it.
He was dead. Aidan remembered that best of all. He had died and somewhere, in another world, the body he had left behind was rotting in a grave.
Was this a gift, or a punishment?