A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 521 The Scent of The Grim Reaper - Part 3

More water would be good too. At once, he was freezing, and at the same time, it felt as though his blood was boiling.

He was torn between diving under his blankets and hiding there permanently, or jumping into an icy cold lake to try and take some of the edge of the heat off, and maybe narrow down the problems that he had to deal with to a singularity, rather than the multiplicity that currently assailed him.

A moment of lucidity. He saw his boots and his clothes all set up for the previous day. They were there waiting to be pulled on. He hailed the Oliver that had had the sense to put them out ready before going to bed – that Oliver had been a prophet, to foresee such things.

A sense of mission helped to dull the pain, somewhat, just barely. Enough to stay conscious whilst his brain urged him to simply curl up close his eyes and never awaken again. It was not tiredness that motivated him so, but the desire for death, he thought.

It was awfully tempting to merely lie down and go back to bed, to pretend that everything would be fine, but some part of him knew that to relax for a second would be to never wake up again. It wasn't sleep that his brain was guided towards, but some deeper and far more permanent.

He dragged his trousers down from the top of the chest at the end of his bed, and he pulled them to the floor with him. He didn't feel up to standing up straight, but nor was lying down particularly comfortable. He wrestled with the end of the trouser legs for what seemed like an eternity, before his feet eventually found the holes, and he managed to pull them halfway on.

He felt the urge to cough again, feeling something in his throat. Again, he was sure that it was blood, before he even got a look at what was on his hand. But the last few times it hadn't been, and so he dared to hope... But no, this time it was unmistakable. In the dark of his room, what he stared at on his hand was his own blackened blood.

He wiped it away on a discarded rag, fighting to keep his heart calm. It would be so much simpler if there was an enemy they could slay to overcome this, but he knew so little about what it even was that was happening to him. The only thing he could do was resist for merely the sake of resisting. To hold on, despite the pain, with the hopes that it would somehow work itself out.

It was something that he was practised in. With the failings of his mind, his body directed everything with its wants, with its small goals. First, it was to get the clothes – then survive those two bouts of pain – now it was to reach the door, and turn the lock.

Each of them felt like a quest worthy of legend, just the basic most mundane of tasks, when in the throngs of such pain, almost seemed as monumental as a battle with the Pandora Goblin. Stay tuned to empire

He followed the wall, his head dragging along it, feeling his sweat dripping onto his hand. One step, two step, three. He reached it. That solid wood, and the lattice iron that framed it. Good sensations, the sensations of victory.

He took a knee as the pain once more intensified. Worse than the last two. If not for his grip on the handle of the door, he would have fallen flat on his face. The urge to be sick built up as well, but he forcibly held it down.

A few seconds more, and he recovered. The pain was blinding. He could even feel pressure behind his eyeballs now, as though they too wished to implode. His ears rang, and when he murmured, he could barely hear himself anymore.