Dear Retvik,
Right now, I hurt all over. To the point that I cannot remember your contact details. Or anyone’s contact details really.
…
This note will probably never find you. The same way I will probably never be found. What has happened to me over the last week has been soul-destroying. I am no longer the powerful, elegant being I used to be. I am a chittering monster with holes in my memory and blood on my hands.
…
I have been sat here for an hour now. I do not know what to put in this message. My dying words, my will, my past have already been dolled out. As far as the Rethan Union, the empire I spent my whole life building, is concerned, I died weeks ago. In the claws of the Allbirther and the Thantophor.
I suppose I should count that as a blessing in disguise. If you were to see me now…
I…
I…
…
I am still sitting here. A small shelter in the middle of northern Hertany territories, surrounded by rain and trees. It would be wrong of me to say that I have been planning a daring escape. No, I am just hiding away, crying to myself. My body is no longer mine to control and my mind is slowly slipping away. I am not dying but I am certainly turning into something… someone else. A monster. A damned monster. Mindless, hungry and unkillable.
Emphasis is required on that last word. Multiple times I have attempted to end my own life. I thought I was above suicide, but all I feel now is pain and hunger, gnawing at my insides, clawing at my mind. Had I made it to Portalia City, maybe I could have been salvaged. But no, here I am, still breathing, but not myself. Four times I attempted to stab myself through the heart. Four times the wound healed itself. I threw myself from a cliff and woke up, alive and in pain but otherwise well, sitting at the bottom. I tried to drown myself and grew gills.
It is horrible. A fate I cannot bare. Endless, eternal pain.
Now though, I have given up. I can feel myself slipping away. What will replace me, I do not want to know, but it cannot be good. I fear, in my attempts to end myself, I have only made it stronger… I initially wanted to believe that this other was just that – an other. No. It is just the feral, animalistic side of me. And it is hungry. I am hungry.
…
I tried to fight this. I want everyone to know that. I tried so hard to contain myself. But it did not work. I lashed out. I maimed, injured and killed. And I will only get worse.
Why? Because I am not one of you any more. I lost my link. My connection. I cannot feel you all any more.
A Rethan who cannot feel other Rethans is not a true Rethan. I am not a true Rethan. Not any more.
…
It hurts to talk now. Everything hurts. I just want to sleep. But I fear, if I do, I will not wake up as Elkay Theanon. I will wake up as something else.
Words are blunt instruments now.
…
There is nothing I can do. I have given up. I was supposed to be above giving up. I was supposed to be powerful and proud and strong. I never was strong. Not as strong as you all thought I was.
I am going to go to sleep now. The pain has worn me down.
You will all forget me. I want you all to forget me. I just want you all to preserve what I made for you.
…
I suppose this is it.
I wish… I wish it could have been… so much better…