To The Last

To The Last


This was it; the day the end would come. It came as no surprise to Kane, couldn't have, if anything the surprise was that it hadn't come sooner. He dropped his sword in the grass that stretched out like a purple sea around him, and walked. He didn't know why, it seemed like the only thing to do for now.

Soon he came to where the land broke, where jagged clumps of dirt and rock stretched down to the still waters below. Kane sat, swung his legs over the drop. Out there, over the sea, were dozens of broken islands suspended over cloudy water. On some of them were distant figures he couldn't quite make out, but it seemed as though they were staring up toward the sun. What else was there to do? Kane looked upward as well, where a half dark star crackled in the heavens, bits and pieces of it going out like so many candles.

He took this sight in, the last sight he expected to see, when he heard a rustling beside him -- a woman. She wore the heavy silver armor of one of his enemies, colored a light lavender in the reflection of the grass. There was a splash when her boots hit the waters below, two more as she dropped her sword and shield, then she turned to face him, revealing a worn and battered face.

He looked away for a moment and then looked back; she was smiling, and missing a front tooth. He smiled back though his smile was rough, forced. How many of her kind had he killed in the past few years? Twenty? Thirty? How many lives did she end? In this time only warriors lived; she had to have been just as savage as he was.

It didn't matter any more; now he could barely see her face and the sun was almost gone. For the first time in years tears welled in his eyes, and without thinking he slid his gauntlet off and took her hand in his. Years of killing, and this was the only one of his enemies he had ever touched. The thought of her pulling away was terrifying but she didn't, instead she squeezed hard, so hard it hurt.

Now the air was cold, the sun only a glowing ember. He couldn't see her anymore, there were only seconds left.

“My name is Kane.” He said.

A pause.

“Ada.”

Her reply was a wheeze, forced due to what he could only assume were injuries one of his fellows had caused her, but to him it was the sweetest – and the last – sound in the whole world.

And then it was dark.