Alive

I was able to get my legs to function, for what little it was worth. They still ached and burned with every step, but at the very least I was able to walk back down the corridor, though not at all easily. My every step echoed in my throbbing head, my migraine reaching debilitating heights as I trudged back to the lift.

Bolgrim’s far off, impotent bellows of rage occasionally shook the tunnel, reminding me why it was so imperative that I continued on, despite the pain. I had survived him; I could bear a little pain.

It took me a good long while to drag myself out of that tunnel, and it felt like an eternity to me, peering into the endless darkness, telling myself I would reach the lift sooner or later.

Eventually, a dim red haze became visible off in the distance, and it was at that sight that my spirits soared. The elevator was within reach, the red emergency lights outside the lift casting a dim glow on the crumpled, now extinguished corpse of the mechanical golem that had greeted us on the way in. I increased the pace of my hobble, despite my body’s protests. Waves of shooting pain coursed through me, but I didn’t care anymore.

All I could think of was getting home, back to Stormwind, back to my dorm. I had wanted all of this, and even now I don’t regret my choice to dig deeper, to follow Ida to the bunker, but in that moment, all I wanted to do was collapse onto my bed in exhaustion.

To say I was a broken man, was an understatement.

I trudged past the smoldering wreck of the mechanical sentry, smashing my gauntleted fist into the side of the elevator, where the button was. The thin metal housing the recall button crumpled inwards instantly, and it began to spark and sputter as I withdrew my fist. Gears and weights whirred and pistoned, the elevator beginning its descent.

It didn’t take long for it to reach me, in truth, but seeing as I was barely keeping myself on my feet, it felt agonizingly slow. When the doors to the cramped lift finally pried themselves apart, I practically collapsed forward into a heap, slouching against the back of the metal box.

I reached up weakly, lightly tapping the topmost of two buttons, and within a few moments the lift was moving upwards. My hand dragged down towards the floor. I was too weak to even bother moving anymore, and the thought of having to limp all the way back to Stormwind made me shudder.

For the time being, I chose to focus on the relative bliss of being able to sit, safely, listening to the hum and whir of the elevator as I ascended. My eyes drifted shut for a moment as I breathed in the sweet, musty air. Even through it all, the pain, the betrayal, the battle, I was just glad to be alive, to have air flowing through my lungs.

Even  now, as I sit here in this hidden field, recounting my experiences for posterity’s sake in the few, blank back pages of Bolgrim’s Journal, I cannot dismiss just how good it feels to breathe fresh air, despite the pain, the weakness slowly taking me. Now, just as back then, in the lift, I am so very happy to taste fresh air.

Still, I can feel the life ebbing me from me, my vision darkening, my senses dulling, and yet, I am no longer afraid, as I was down in the safehouse, with Bolgrim. I’m over the worst of it now; I do not fear death, it’s the dying part that really scares me, and seeing as I’m nearly done with that, I consider myself lucky, in a sick, twisted way.

I’ve got an anti-magic dagger stuck in my chest, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Trying to remove it means I bleed to death faster; leaving it in means I can’t heal myself, even if I had the strength to. At least this way, I buy myself a little more time to finish my entries. Reaper be damned, I promised my mentor Tirion I would keep a journal recounting my time in Stormwind, and by the Light, I’m going to keep that promise. There’s not much else I can do …

… I know it’s over. I can barely move my hand enough to write this, much less hobble all the way back to Stormwind with a blade lodged in me.

Every so often, I look up from the page, glancing over to Ida’s motionless form a few paces from where I sit propped up against a tree, entirely unable to move. I can hear her shallow, ragged breathing, but I know she doesn’t have very long. I should be angry at her – furious and foaming at the mouth with rage for what she did.

But I’m not. Life is too short to harbor feelings of hate, too fleeting to let vengeance control your actions. I can’t bring myself to kill her.

In a way, I almost pity her, not because she’s undead, not because she died before her time, but because she’s just like me. She wasn’t strong enough to believe me , to take my word that things would be alright, that she didn’t have to kill me to cover her tracks, and in the same way, I wasn’t, and still am not strong enough to bring things to a close, to get the Defias plans back to Stormwind myself.

After everything we’ve been through, everything she put me through, I can’t help but feel like this is a somewhat fitting end – dying side by side, neither one able to do anything about the inevitable.

What was that word I used to describe her when I first met her? I think it fits rather nicely here, in regards to the specifics of our deaths. Ah yes …

Perfect.