Re: Downtown Repose: Alex/Kratos &c
Alex grimaced as the pain washed through him like a wave, advancing and receding like the world's worst tide. Sometimes, when he'd died, it was quick and relatively painless: a gunshot, a snapped neck, decapitation. Those had hurt, and his body and his mind remembered the pain, but it hadn't lingered. Others had been relatively painless, but lingering, a slow slide into oblivion, like dying of hypothermia. This had the misfortune of both being extremely painful while also being excruciatingly slow. He raised his hand to touch the boy's briefly, relaxing at the touch. "I forgive you," he said, wheezing more bloody spittle.
It was getting harder to focus, though, and he really had to struggle to make out the man's words, but it was easy to hone in on that one question. You want me to end pain? Yes. Yes. Please. He didn't have the strength to plead, or even to agree with the boy now, to tell both of them that this was just how it worked, they'd forget in the morning. Everyone always forgot; everyone moved on with their lives, the universe resetting itself to erase the reality of Alex's death, for everyone but Alex. There wouldn't be blood on the pavement, come morning. No scar where the arrow had taken him, not even a spot of blood on the shirt. This was just how it worked, and even a year of exploration by military scientists couldn't crack the reasons why.
Not that they'd shared their results with Alex, anyway.
Finally, flatly, he found the right words. "End it."