A Fresh Coat of Paint

[Air 911]

---

 

“This body wanes . . .”

 

Deep within the depths of a place long forgotten, a crimson elf stared at an old tank coated in dust. Within it laid a body nigh identical to the elf who stared into its home, one that has only known slumber in its time ‘living’.

 

Ante’ahern lifted a green flask from off the nearby tabletop, his hand shook with uncertainty.

 

“This one deserves to rest, a long rest. It has served me exceptionally.”

 

Still his hand shook as he lifted that green flask into view, that grotesque looking slime that sloshed anxiously in its container. He was afraid.

 

"Coward."

"Silence, thing."

 

The man sat across the room from the tank, staring at it as he contemplated his next action. Should he? Would he? What if it failed and he was cast into the soulstream?

 

"If I had this knowledge whilst I roamed I-"

 

Before that other voice could finish that cork was ripped from the maw of the flask, quicker than he could reason himself out of it. Down slime went, funneling into his throat. Though he’d not make it through the entire elixir for his body would already begin to stiffen and lose control, the bottle fell to the ground, smashing against the hard floor.

 

The elf’s golden eyes fearfully shifted shut as his body crumpled and contorted into the fetal position. The soul sent away.

 

He was gone.

 

---

 

Across the room, within the tank, the thing that only seemed to slumber now woke. Its eyes crept open, a cold blue that pierced the darkness yet barely able to see through the fluid, and dust that caked upon the glass of its enclosure.

 

It wanted out.

 

And so it banged and banged on that glass with as much strength as it could muster, its scream muffled by liquid yet, even if it weren’t no one would be present to hear it. The very liquid that fueled its birth now suffocated it, attempting to staunch the very life it was given. Desperately, that thing clawed at the glass, punching, kicking, scratching- whatever it could manage.

 

You’re going to die.

"You’re going to die."

You’re going to die.

"You’re going to die."

 

Over and over 2 voices chanted one thought, pounded it fervently into its mind. On and on and on . . . until.

 

The glass broke.

 

Everything within was now out, spread over the ground. The thing flopped like a fish as it gasped for breath, ejecting the contents of its stomach and the fluid too as it tried to breathe. And as the air it so desperately craved finally flowed into its lungs, it laughed.

 

For he lived.

 

[lemonke 6014]

A certain scholar wondered on how their teacher was fairing...