My flask is empty, they are upon me. The legion of hollows, mindless and dull, brandishing shattered blades and worn armor. Dozens, perhaps tens of dozens, cutting, slashing, hacking into me. My skin, pulled and tight like dried meat, is ripped from my bones, and what little blood is left spills out onto the stone of the High Wall. My sight fades, the castle of Lothric is the last I see. I have died, again.

I have died again, and again, and again, and again. I've lost count of how man times I've died, it's well into the hundreds, thousands even. It never stops hurting. I've run out of tears. Once I was a respected warrior, I think. It's fuzzy now, like a distant memory fading into a dream I had as a child. That's how it feels, at least. I think I was a warrior, once.

I awake in Firelink. My back on the ground, the Firekeeper sits on her knees, hands neatly folded in her lap to my side. She watches over me, but is careful to never touch.

"Ashen One..." Her words are soft, like a lover's, yet distant, like a lover's. I've often pondered whether or not she, and the other keepers, truly care for we undead. Her words, her devotion, they seem genuine, heartfelt, yet there is something underlying. Cold, like the dark, and old, like the serpents. It has crossed my mind that perhaps there is something not quite right with her, her order, the way they carry on, protecting, watching, keeping the flame. Why not just let it die? I think, Wouldn't it be easier than… This?

I pull myself to sit, upright more or less. After confirmation that I am still myself, the Firekeeper stands and moves away from me, as if fleeing a rabid dog. Gently, but with purpose. I watch her. She is beautiful, it's true, as they always are. Perhaps in her life before she been a priestess of Carim, or even Astora nobility. I wonder if even she remembers. Does it even matter?

"No, it doesn't." I mutter this under my breath, foul like the stench of the Settlement. That place was hell, I think, the Settlement. Helpless undead strung from the rafters, forced into cages, burned and chopped the bits. The butchers, now undead themselves, roaming with those cleavers of theirs, gigantic, bigger than myself. I wonder how many times they cut me down, it had to be at least twenty. Then there was the demon, oh god the demon. I couldn't bring myself to even face it, I ran for my life, for what little value it still had. I've never run so quickly, even in this bulky, suffocating armor, oh gods did I run.

The banging of Andre's hammer brings me back, I glance around. Everything is as it should be. I look down at my hands, the ring wrapped tightly around my right middle finger has crumbled, turned to dust and drifted away into the breeze. My souls are intact. Standing now, I feel the warmth of the fire even through my cold steel armor, it seems a sin to walk away, yet I must. It is my duty. Slowly, and without any vigor or vitality I stride to the keeper, she notices my approach, blind as she may be, and stands. I kneel at her feet and offer up a single hand, a dark light shines and I feel my body gaining. Strength, dexterity, endurance, I am becoming more than myself and even though it feels good, so good, I must admit that it's a feeling I've grown weary of. Like stale ale, what once brought such fervent desire and lust now brings naught but a reminder of my grief.

Once the process is complete the keeper, as softly as she stood, sits now on the steps of the shrine. She says nothing, and I feel as if she is mourning. What is wrong, my dearest? The words are on my tongue, and a younger, more confident version of myself might have said them. It seems as though she sees something, something sad and not worth noticing, something pathetic like a broken spider, desperately trying weave a web upon upon a tapestry with which a great artiste can not decide whether it is his masterpiece, or his worst work yet. I turn and return to the fire.

Sitting now, again, I feel the warmth. It echoes deep into me, beyond my armor, beyond my very bones, it is one with my soul and fills me with such a warmth it seems a sin to ever leave its side. I think ahead, shall I truly return once again to the High Wall? Shall I again run, sprint to my own death only to be returned once more? Must I, an old warrior who can't even remember his own name, once again return to the fray of battle? Don't I deserve to rest? To feel my muscles, my bones? To allow them a respite at the flame? Don't I?

I decide to rest. I lean back, I allow the flames to overcome me, for the first time in ages my muscles stretch and unfold, their ceaseless clenching has ceased and I am at peace. The soft murmurs and pops of the fire fill my mind. It's so sweet, not like that damned estus, that thing I've been forced to swallow for so long. How many times have I emptied that gods damned flask? There was a time, it's true, when the taste of estus was something I had never been able to even imagine. Each and every time it touched my tongue I felt renewed, refreshed, ready to take on the next battle. It was fleeting, as I could never carry enough. It seemed no matter how many times it refilled, no matter how often I forged new shards into my flask, there was never enough, never enough to quench the thirst granted to me by this eternally dying world.

"Eternally dying..."The words hang all around me, in the air, on my tongue, inside my mind, I feel them, they shutter within my core. It comes to me for the first time. How many times has this world died? How many lords have burned themselves to preserve this "flame?" This world and I, we share the same fate. Dying, over and over, again and again, and for what? For this age? This age of hell, of hollows and the stench of death? Let this world rot! Had I spoken these word it would be counted as blasphemy, it's true, yet so too are they. Who's to say this world doesn't want to die? I do, I want to die. I want to die and never come back. I want to sleep and rest and never look at another sword. That's fair, isn't it? Who would want this? Who would dream of this? It's hell! It's my hell! My own personal hell. I want to die, is it so blasphemous to think that so too does this world?

I feel repulsed, as though I've stumbled upon a secret known to all. My thoughts begin to darken, even farther know they become an abyss. I am broken. My rest becomes a waiting, days pass and I move very little. Each day, and by inches only, I separate myself from the flame, the bonfire. That word begins to sicken me, and weeks pass. Now I am against the wall, my back aching, wanting, begging me to stand and stretch and pick up a sword, I ignore it. I'm as far as I can get from that dim, growing ever dimmer flame. I look at it with sickened eyes, I've grown sour, my spit has come to taste like lemon and I despise even that, even myself.

I dare not look at the Firekeeper. Even without eyes, as blind as she is, that girl sees things. She sees right through you, right through me. I can only imagine her face. Twisted, warped in a half disgust, half sadness. Looking, even a glance, would likely break me even more, shatter me. I'd go hollow, I just know it, I'd lose every last shred of humanity I have left and I'd stand, and I'd walk to the bonfire, and I'd return to that damned Wall and I'd die again, and again, and again until even I, who was once a renowned warrior, would join the legion of hollows. I would not allow that to come to pass. I would not look.

I don't know how long its been, how long I've been here, back against the wall, eyes fixated on that flame. It's been weeks, at least. Months, perhaps. My mind rots inside its shell and I feel hollow, yet clinging to last of myself. What have I become? Nothing, though I never really was anything worth mentioning. I think I was a warrior once, a long time ago. Someone special, proud, strong. I think I was, at least. I might be wrong. Looking down now, looking at my tattered armor, dull blade, I am pathetic, a being not worth your notice, not even worth the title Ashen One. I can't even die, the simplest of things, I can't even die. Why can't I die? I want to cry, but there's no more tears, they've all gone away.

Then, I hear it. The footsteps. Heavy. Armor clad. Someone new is coming, not Andre, not the keeper, someone is walking into the shrine. I tear my eyes away from the fire, its imprint still burned into my sight I look, blinking at the hallway connecting the shrine to the outside world. The footsteps grow louder and louder, heavy, confident. They're coming. Then, there he is. A knight, clad in a silvery armor, with a brown cloak wrapped just around his neck. His shoulders are high, his face is hidden, and he grips his sword, not even bothering to sheath it in the safety of the shrine. Gentle embers blow from his self, and he looks around. He sees the Keeper, he sees the bonfire, and then he sees me. Our eyes lock, and he faces me. My helmet sits aside, covered in dust, and it seems, although just for a moment, as though this knight looked right through me, saw right through me. He sized me up, he knew what I was, it was a word I had neglected but now was forced to face. He said it softly, barely under his breath, so gently that it was a miracle that I could hear it, even from this distance, and it shook me, shattered the last shreds of humanity I had left.

"Crestfallen..."