Mmm, my feet are dragging, and then they're not as I collapse onto a pile of rubble. How conveniently placed. I've scraped by palms, and they bleed a little, oh wait, not anymore. The cuts have closed up already. One benefit, in a life... death full of losses. Losses of memories, and lives, sanity, and thank fuck not loves. I was too young then anyway I suppose, to have ever been really very serious about a girl. I haven't got a ring, not on that finger, so marriage (think I would have kept it if I had) can't have been a snapshot-occasion in my existence, pre-fangs. And I don't have one of those either, they crumbled just like the events my mind captured. Girlfriend, maybe boyfriend? Could have been. All conjecture--no memories of that time, like I've said.

So I guess I've reached the last phase. The Luka phase. Tired, and just sick. Sickness that can't go away, 'cos my body doesn't have the capacity to heal emotional scars, like it does everything else. So quickly too. We really aren't invincible.

And when the sun comes up today, like Luka did (the bastard), I'll only prove that point further. To no-one. Lost everyone that ever mattered, really, I'm just living for myself. And myself isn't worth it anymore.

Dope and drink drowned it out for a while; let me accept what I was--am--without someone else validating my existence. But rejecting desires when you are so Pissed. Off. Your. Head. that you can't deny an open-necked tee and deny the drop of your canines, and the surge of ambiguous blood about your body as tentative nibble becomes full-on chomp, is difficult, and accepting: very easy.

Those phases had come and gone like the tides, but had finally ended when I regarded the reflection of the moon in a particularly crimson puddle, coming to, and days afterwards in the same alley reflecting on the grassy stench I'd begun to associate permanently with my clothes and hair, weed sure enough, and the taste of bloody alcohol on my tongue / between my teeth. Hadn't bothered to move John Doe, and the stink of me smelled of that too.

Days after that, I'm here. Abandoned building of some sort, I don't pay attention to the details anymore; there's monotony even in that. And like they do a lot, my thoughts have wandered where I don't want them to go, and the only direction my legs can take is just please, please, into the sun. But, hey, now that I'm lying down, I can't be bothered to move. I'm entitled to be a lazy git: retirement should have come to me hell knows how long ago, but it never did. And death throes don't always have to be piss-acting-poor dramatic.

I won't move even when I hear the gravel crunching underfoot of a little urchin, barely worth the shifting of stones he's so skinny. My arm shoots out--I'm only moving when he thieves my gold watch with his eyes, and then tries to mimic the gesture with his hands. Well, fuck you kid, I lost my ring if I ever fucking had one, but I'm keeping my watch.

You can... have it when I'm done if you like. But I don't say it, because the sun is finally making an appearance, flickering little licks of flame all over my skin, curling it black, and all my nose and brain sing and scream now is burning. And I grit my teeth to stop from screaming too.

JUST, FUCK.

Fuck OFF, kid!

The pain is worse, so much worse than living with it. Got to be. And I growl in disbelief as those traitorous thoughts cross my haggard mind.

---

When the gravel crunches this time, it's because of my weight. Bundled in a blanket, filthy, in a barrow, a cart, or something, tugged by two skinny arms.

Relief, overwhelming, and I don't understand why. I could have sworn I died--and I don't hurt anymore.

Never one to believe in reincarnation--better start believing now. Just, please.

Please, please, please.