Work Text:
A man stands on piece of land bought by blood spilt, and stares blindly at the world around him. He sees but he does not see; he thinks but he does not think. It is strange: the clarity that one achieves at the very end, clarity in the midst of the utter blank confusion. Chaos in his mind; and his heart, fit to skip all of its beats in an explosion of terror. And yet, underlying it all, the steady certainty of a decision made.
He has always found security in decisions made.
His feet move across the soil as he circles the tree, dust rising fitfully between his toes and against his ankles – move the earth beneath him as he circles the tree and puts a rough hand against the bark and shakes it gently, feels that it does not move; knows, with the keen eye of a craftsman, that it is stable, sure.
He is a man awake in the midst of a nightmare and his life has stopped even though the world moves on around him. He is already a dead man walking and he welcomes the coming embrace of nothingness, darkness, for he has become that which he cannot live with. He does not think of it. He cannot think of anything else. He is that which all must despise.
The bigger picture, should there even be one, is utterly, entirely, overwhelmingly unimportant. Kings and messiahs, priests and prophets, what does any of that matter?
He was a friend.
And he betrayed him.
He ties the rope and knots it firmly and embraces the bulge-eyed darkness of death.