How I died

(Author's note : an unfinished meant-to-be short tale. More also like an experiment that was written in a more first person perspective. Written around 2013, continuing and finishing somewhere in the near future.)


*** That day, the very moment ***

Invisible and unseen as always the chilling fingers of the nordic wind brushed each surface they could reach, most likely raising goosebumps on those of the living.

That didn’t apply to me, not anymore.

A body, laying on its back, eyes wide open, as if in unbelief, facing the stars, emitting weak plumes of water vapor every ten seconds, the small and fuzzy cloud each time captured and carried away with a breeze, disintegrating and then fading into the night sky.

Just like me...

Whilst the body remained motionless, this process went on for...

I have no idea, and frankly it didn’t matter anymore as this is me, and very soon... was me. This is it, this is the moment everyone who’s still walking the earth would finally have to face.
Right now I am wondering how this could have happened. If I could, I would chuckle with this thought, ... as if one was able to track down all the choices he or she had made during his life that led to a certain disaster.

Reviewing your life... it happens when you are near death they said, at least according to those who lived to tell. Well, they were right...
Whilst I am clinging to life and embracing the air in my lungs from what would be one of my last breath, my past is flashing before my eyes.

And I also realize I would not live to tell...

*** Four months before death ***

The man opened the door, as he was drawn to it by the sounds on the other side.


And as he opened the dark wooden door a breeze of warm air permeated with sultry scents hit him in the face ... the composition seemed a mixture of body oils, ritual aroma sticks and body moisture... but also something else...

He blinked and his eyes needed to adapt, ... and to confirm the suggestion of what he thought he had seen behind the door he just had opened.

A room of unknown dimensions which was bathing in a warm glowing and gentle flickering red light, emitted by smoldering fires in cauldrons spread over the room. The walls itself didn’t reflect any light as they were painted black. He walked in, clearly fascinated by what his eyes captured while his hand closed the door behind him, the action of doing that rather absently performed.

The first thing that had captured his eyes were movements in this reddish darkness, next were slowly flashing and evanescent surfaces rather close to where the floor was supposed to be.

A few moments later the truth dawned on him.

The floor of the room was filled with squirming bodies, lying on huge cushions... and not just any bodies. Nude bodies, most of them female, in perfect shape, and the earlier moving ‘surfaces’ he had seen was the reflection of the reddish light on their oiled skin. Some of them pushed themselves off on others to glide over to another body, crawling, twisting, like a nest of snakes... while others just seemed satisfied with whatever piece of smooth skin they could get hold off, touching, stroking and caressing it without paying any attention at the newcomer, ... unabashedly or unaware, he couldn’t tell.

The atmosphere was loaded with passion, hungriness and there was an appetite for even more... for sure.


If I would have died there, I would have at least died happily ever after...

Let me first explain how I ended up there, and perhaps that was once one of those bad choices I’ve made.

In the first few days in Cear I met these two guys at some tavern. Somehow and for some unknown reason we became friends pretty soon, ... probably because we took care of a few jobs together. Things worked out pretty fine between us and almost every time after a job we went out for a few drinks.


I quickly learned my two new friends shared a passion, music. I also learned they lived together in some fancy house in the Empress district which one of them had inherited from his father a few years ago.

They also shared a few other passions, which I only discovered later at their house. There they loved using intoxicating and stimulating agents, well, and soon I was experimenting too. Still don’t know why, but frankly, that doesn’t matter anymore.

It was one of those nights again, rather close to dawn. I was clearly under influence but nevertheless I felt bored or rather... unsatisfied. I couldn’t explain it myself. My two friends, both somewhat delirious too, somehow noticed my... ‘condition’.

Then it happened, one of them came over to my couch, leaned over and kissed me on the lips. The hells, they were friends, but I’m not gay. And besides they formed a pair, that..., I already knew. My friend smirked as he saw my reaction and noticed how I gently pushed him away.

He took place next to me and whispered in my ear, “In that case, you might want to check out our basement.”

I remembered giving him an odd look but probably due the effects of the drugs I must have shown interest as he pulled me up and led me to the door of the hallway.

“Down the hall, last door to your left and take the stairs down. We’ll join you soon.” And then he winked to me.


Well, that is how I ‘discovered’ this most fascinating gathering. Intoxicated or not, I realised pretty soon that I had stepped into some private Teshalian ‘session’. Frankly, it didn’t matter to me at the time who these people were... but they sure knew how to worship the human body.

I remembered how a smile appeared on my face as I started to find my way between the crawling and sliding tangle of limbs and bodies.

Why the hell did I have to do that?! I could have taken any girl, and as many as I wanted... but nooo, I just needed to be picky...


It is so clear to recall her how she looked like that first time, my first impressions of her.

Suddenly my gaze got captured by this young woman whoms eyes were on me, as if she just had assessed me. She was laying on a higher pile of pillows, her torso leaning into them. I also remember my eyes couldn’t look anywhere else anymore. She had this magnificent pale skin, the smoothest I have ever seen, ... and she had this long dark hair, actually, afterwards it turned out being ravenblack, the contrast with her skin surely couldn’t have been any bigger.

I remember how I saw her licking her lips, how I became hypnotized, and whilst her left hand was caressing another woman’s head, whom’s face I couldn’t see ... , her right forefinger called me, her eyes hungry.

How the hell could I resist that! Heck, I am a man, well... not for much longer now.

It didn’t take me five seconds to get to her, only to feel her hand suddenly touching mine and motioning me to lie down next to her. And all that without wondering how it was possible that I found any space to lay my body there. This floor was loaded with willing nymphs, and this one just had to be the queen of faeries.

I remember how easily she seduced me, bringing my hand onto her body, escorting it towards places where she desired it to be. It didn’t take too long for my body to respond on her obvious sexual innuendo’s.

Suddenly she looked at the ceiling and then to her left in the direction of the door. She rose up faster than my dreamy eyes could follow, and left me and the other woman on the floor while she picked up her dress.

Her eyes turned towards me, a slight apologizing look into them and without a word she set course towards the door.

And me? I already knew I wouldn’t stay for much longer...

Why in the name of the gods did I had to enter that basement in the first place?

The hells, ... it was a free entrance!

*** Still four months before death ... ***

Of course that wasn’t enough, I also had to run into an old friend...

A few days after that ‘basement adventure’ I was wandering around on the market when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.


“Jim, that you?!” I said when I looked in and recognized the face of a man about ten years older than me. And I think it was about the same number of years ago since the last time I had seen him. His face had changed, but only a little. A small furrow here, a crease there, some wrinkles. And the hair on his head and beard was turning a bit silvery, in contrast with his grass-like black hair.

He laughed and we embraced each other like old buddies while I briefly slapped him on the back.

I had known Jim for almost four years before our paths parted. In that time we had been working closely together, until the day Jim had decided it was enough for him. And honestly, I couldn’t blame him back then, still can’t.

When he invited me over for a dinner planned on the next day, I remembered he and his family were about to move to Cear. Of course I accepted the invitation as I was curious what my old friend had been up to in the past ten years.


My series of decisions that had made me end up here, my body on the cold stones clinging to life with my lunges embracing the last cubic inches of air, seemed endlessly.


Jim had been doing well it seemed as I entered the Empress district. I knew a few people around here and most of them were rather wealthy. When I stopped in front of my friend’s house I was even more amazed. His house was pretty big judging from the number of windows I could count. There were three stories and probably an attic on top. For a moment I wondered why he needed such an impressive residence but then it struck me lots of things could have changed in all those years.

The welcoming was warm. As soon as I had entered their impressive hall, led in by a servant, I was not only greeted by my friend, but also by his wife who I vaguely remembered. We exchanged some pleasantries and already on our way to the dining room we had started talking about the past.

*deep sigh*

It was a voice coming from the top of the staircase that had made me stop in the doorway connecting the hall with the diningroom.

“Father, I heard someone at the do....”

With her sentence still unfinished a girl with beautiful jet black hair was staring at me, her lips parting and closing, the breathtaking pale skin of her face turning even more pale.

My friend, who was standing next to me, turned around and looked up at the girl, he smiled but only a little. “Eh, Isabella... its okay sweetheart. Its just my old friend visiting us. Now, go back up to your room, you still have to rest...”


I didn’t understand the rest of what my friend was saying on that moment.
After all... there she was, ... and her name... was Isabella.


“... my daughter.” Jim smiled a bit to me as he motioned me towards the diningroom. “However, she has been seriously ill and can’t join us this evening.”

I really couldn’t believe my eyes that day. I remember Isabella still being a child and had seen her a few times when visiting my friend’s place back in the good ol’ days.

Well, the little girl had clearly grown up...

*** Two and a half months before ***

A few weeks went by and between me and Isabella things couldn’t have been any better. Except… no one knew, and especially not my buddy, Jim, her father…

As of that first moment she and I had shared the bed, I knew exactly when she would be home alone during the day. At night she just slipped out of the house, through the window, down the drainpipe… smoothly like as if she had done it a million times and as if gravity had no power over her at all.

I really should have known by then.

But hey, tell you what! I was slowly falling in love and you know what they say… love blinds all those who are in it.

Man… and if you could only have seen what she was wearing. Heck, if I could whistle right now, I’d do it.
Unfortunately, I need the air in my lungs for something else at the moment…



Well… it had to come out one day I guess, Isabella and me. Only, it wasn’t her father who found out.


“Isabella? Is that you?” A female voice sounded.

Gods… caught red-handed… making out in the darkest back alley you can imagine, with my hands in her pants and all over her butt. I turned my head to my left and saw her… Isabella’s aunt. But she looked weird. Surprise on her face, but her skin looked so pale now. She was shrouded in black clothes, a color in which I had never seen her before as she usually wore rather colorful and fashionable dresses.
But right now, she looked as if she was dressed up to go to some funeral. Perhaps she was…


Funny, she and in that outfit really would have suited in these last moments of mine…


At first, Isabella quickly pushed herself off me with a strength that was surprising… or not….
I bet if I would have tried to hold her, I wouldn’t have managed.

“I… I can explain…” she started looking at her aunt.

My hand went for my adamantine rapier cause I knew exactly what time it was. Isabella saw it though and her hand gripped my wrist, squeezing so hard that I had but no choice then to let go off the handle.

“NO! Let me explain…” Isabelle said.

I recall myself smirking… she sure had a lot to explain…

Her aunt remained calm and looked between us with her arms crossed.
“Isabella, save it. You know what has to happen now.”

“NO! Over my dead body!”

And I smirked once more…

“If Jurgen finds out, it will happen anyways…,” her aunt said, shaking her head.

“He won’t!”

I raised a brow,” Jurgen?”

Isabella’s aunt looked me cold in the eyes,”The boyfriend she forgot to tell you about.” She looked back at Isabella,” … and when he does…” her voice lingered, her sentence remaining unfinished.

Isabella hung her head, and didn’t even dare to look at me for a moment. I recall it was too much for me. I knew what she was and I was even prepared to let it be. In the %$*&#(* name of love! But she also had to be cheating on me…

“I don’t love him anymore…” she started weak.

And there the hell it was… just when I was about to say goodbye to this life here, she turned to me and looked at me with those puppy eyes… and with the look of a girl who needed to be saved.
Blast it… and blast another one of my choices…

Isabella’s aunt Lucinda approached us. “He will kill him… let him go. I will let it pass for now and won’t tell anyone anything.”

I recall me putting my arm around Isabella and saying,” Forget it, she is mine now. Let her go and I will let it pass for now… not telling anyone about you.”

Gods I dared, knowing she could have ripped of my head like that. But she didn’t… all what she said was,” As you wish…” before vanishing in the darkness and leaving me with Isabella in my arms.

Dammit!