I thought I knew what pain was once. Long ago. I had thought there was pain when I danced too slowly with a demon-beast and its claws kissed my skin. When bullets tour a path into my flesh and when my bones gave way to the pressure beneath the shackling grasps that binded across my arms.
I had thought there was pain when that clawed nail had caved its way down my eye and hot blood had burst out, in an attempt to gorge it out.
Now I realise that the claw biting into my flesh was nothing. Now I realise that the bone-shattering grasps and the bullets tearing through the air and the demons' carressing claws were all nothing. They are flea-bites, pinpricks, in comparrison to the agonising fire that sears through my veins and erupts from underneith my skin; changing me into something I am not.
My teeth are clenched shut; glued tightly together with nothing but the strength of willpower and my pride. I am a warrior and I will not scream or cry over physical pain. If I unclench my teeth then I will scream, and the strength of my stupid pride is threatening to choke me. That and the taste of hot salt and iron as it drips down my face and into my mouth - a cascade of blood.
My blood, I realise with a jolt. It streams from the holes ripped into my back as something sharp as a shark's tooth and cruel as a snake's venom drills its way from each chasm in my flesh. They explode from the deadly flames that scorch through my body and force their way from my burning skin, rising high into the night sky. Fresh blood and ruined flesh spray into the air before raining down again, discarded like a broken old doll.
Aiee, the stars see me! What have I done to deserve this fate, and where the hell are my knights?! My teeth are clenched shut so I cannot call for them - my precious and beautiful followers. I want them here with me; to hold them close and tell them just how much they mean to me. And to order them to plunge their blades into my heart and end these agonising flames. Nothing in life is worth the evil pain that ripples constantly throughout my veins. It ripples now; flowing from the drilling in my back to the upwards burrowing on my head. Flares of shooting pain and blood rise as an invisible hand slices chunks from my flesh and plunges deep inside me, pulling out something dripping scarlet and making the sobs of horror around me sound much clearer.
The same thing begins to happen on the other side of my head. The hot crimson ink pours down my face and drips onto my lips, staining my clenched teeth. But that is not why there is blood in my mouth.
The fire suddenly sears its way into my gums, shredding them to pieces to make way for new enormous fangs. The searing aggression of my fangs drilling through forces my mouth open and I am too weak with pain to prevent it. A scream from I don't know who blazes into existance as the agony of tearing fire continues to flow through me. Blood pours from my ruined and changing mouth and drips onto the ground. I lie almost motionless in a pool of my own crimson life-force as the never-ending flames burn and the screaming voice continues.
My voice, I realise, that scream is mine. I cannot help it. Even without words it is a scream for someone to kill me and end this unbearable pain. Through my mask of running blood I open one eye and raise a hand towards the people around me. Left by the throbbing effects of my agony I cannot recall their names, but that does not matter. All I want is for one of them to come to me and cut my throat; to come to me and cease this undying pain flowing into the very marrow of my bones.
Another flare of fire-fulled agony begins to flare into existance, and something hot and salty that is not blood begins to pour down my face.