Death-Walker

The agony is overwhelming, obliterating consciousness, leaving nothing behind in its wake. Gradually it begins to recede, like a river retreating to its banks after a flood. Sheer agony retreats until only a dull throbbing ache remains. My mind slowly rises back to the surface. Memories and thoughts run about madly, and it is several minutes before I can get a thought through the morass.
I have died again... and just like every time before, it has not been permanent.

I don't understand why, I have never understood. I am weak, my body shrivelled, but I in the midst of my shattered memories I recall that it will pass. Given time my mind and body will recover, and I will continue my journey.

Some have called me a hero, blessed by the gods to do their work on this forsaken world. Others say I am not human, that I am a demon that wears a human skin. Some very few have the right notion I think, I am cursed. I am doomed to wander this world, unable to truly die. My memories stretch back what must be centuries, but with every death they are fragmented. Certain parts are clear, while others are but shadows and mist. But I do not remember being a child, the faces of parents or loved ones, My earliest memories are of pain, and nothing else.
Death is an indescribable agony, and life hardly better. I ever awaken from death's tormenting grip in a place I have seen before, but rarely the same place twice. There is ever a sword at my side, and I am usually clad in armor, but beyond that I cannot tell what may come. Sometimes there are strangers nearby, other times I am alone. I prefer to be alone, for more often than not the strangers attack me, my form hideous to them. I cannot blame them, but I fear the pain of death, and so I must fight them off, I must flee them. I do not wish to kill them, but I am offered little choice.

Death always walks beside me, and I seem to follow it in stride.
There were sages... long ago who said that I was the last of a dying race, that I was meant to save them from complete destruction. Unfortunately, I don't remember anything beyond that. They called me Death-walker, appropriately enough.

I push myself up off the ground. Despite my withered limbs my strength is not diminished, and I look around my surroundings. I am glad I did not try to stand earlier. I am in the middle of a massive cliff face, my body resting on a ledge barely wider than myself. The bottom of the cliff is shrouded in mist, and I cannot see any ground below. Above me the cliff extends for several hundred feet, and I know I must climb. I must have fallen off before, fallen to yet another death.

I turn to the cliff face before me, and I begin to climb. All I can do is press onward. Upward, forward, ever onward, seeking the final death that is denied me.

This scene in homage to Dark Souls 2, which has been consuming my life of late.