It wasn't Long Now

"It's so cold out here." he said to himself. His inner dialog slowing fading, his will was losing its grip, giving way to the reality that surrounded him now. Face down in the pale white snow; he knew this could be the end. The wounds he had sustained had never healed. His fate now quickly upon him.

He never saw it coming that day. He never thought that the man had it in him. He had blindly trusted…naively believed…unknowingly dropped his guard. That's when it happened. In a split second, the icy chill of that blade plunged into his flesh. Gouging and ripping his skin each time it violently entered and exited. As sudden as it had happened, the man was gone and all that was left was the bloody carcass.

He awoke, bandaged himself together the best he could, pulled his body slowly up to the sky and against his better judgment decided to seek retribution. For three days he searched. Three long, cold, bitter days. Three days filled with frustration, hatred and regret. At the end of the third day he had finally made it. He had finally found the man. He was knee deep, in a snow bank when he first caught a glimpse of the man through the somewhat frosted window pane. To his shock and disbelief he also saw the man's accomplices. "How could this be?" he thought. "How could I be so stupid?" "why…why…wh…"

The wounds were too great, the blood loss too severe, the pain too crushing. He felt his footing collapse, his knees buckle and then his battered body crash into the ground under the weight of the soon to be fatal wounds he had endured.

"It's so cold out here" he said to himself as a stream of crimson stained the snow around him. It wasn't long now. His will slipping…his body dying…his heart forever broken. All he could do now was lie there and await his fate. The vision of what he saw through the window, seared in his shattered heart. The heart that now was beating slower, growing fainter by the minute. It wasn't long now. Death had surrounded him now like a vicious pack of wolves waiting to devour their kill.

He had stopped fighting. He knew it wasn't long now. He embraced his demise. He embraced it because it was the only way to stop the pain. The pain that was surging through his body from all of those wounds. The pain of being utterly betrayed. The pain of a heart that had been destroyed. Death was close now, his breath was slowing, heart beat fading. "It's so cold out here…so..cold…"