(Authors's Note: This story is a product of insomnia and a need to exercise my demons. I doubt it is enjoyable but it is necessary, for me anyway)
Kerin stood atop the hill, gripping is sword tightly. His thick shield was heavy in his hands, and his armor protected him as much as it weighed him down.
The pair of Evangelists were still down there, pacing around the rotted well. They wouldn't get the drop on him this time. He did not fear them.
He walked down the hill, and he saw one of the women's wide brimmed hats turn to him. She hefted up her spiked mace, a malicious look on her rotting face.
Surprisingly light on her feet, she rushed him down, swinging the mace in a massive arc meant to take off his head. He ducked beneath it, landing a sword strike of his own. Unfazed, she swong again.
It cracked against his shield as he knocked it out wide, staggering her backwards. He needed to finish this quickly; he could hear her partner singing, wrething herself in profane fire.
He ramed his long sword into her stomach. She doubled over, and he tore it out the side, before chopping the blade into her neck. She fell to the ground, just as the fireball sailed toward him, exploding into the ground at his feet.
He ran through the heat, and lept into the air, bringing his blade down through her collarbone, cleaving into her stomach. With a kick he dislodged his sword.
He caught his breath, feeling her souls enter his body, soothing like the warm fires he missed so much. He had defeated them, even though they killed him before. Reveling in his victory, he did not hear the hollow creeping up behind him. He barely felt the axe smash between his shoulder blades. He almost felt himself die one more time.
He remembered the first time he died. The Hollows had come to his village, in search of souls and death. To be undead was to hunt souls. They started doing so to remember who they were, and stop going Hollow. They ended forgetting who they were and used to be, and devouring souls out of instinct. Once Hollow, mercy did not exist.
The knights of his order defended the village to the last man while the innocents escaped. He fell beneath the hoard. When he awoke, he was branded with the dark sign. The ring of fire smoked on the back of his hand. He was branded with the curse.
He stood from the bonefire. Every time he died, he felt his memories waning. The earliest went first; childhood, his parents, his home town. The others started to go fuzzy. He looked at the small slice of murror he stowed in his pack. His left eye was encompassed by black rot, that eye a milky white.
He took his shoulder guard off, dropping it to the ground. His helmet came next. Both encumbered him only. With the weapons and creatures he faced, they did practically nothing anyway. He began to walk. He needed souls. He needed to remember.
He missed what had been taken from him. He missed his Elsif. He missed how she felt for him. He missed her warm flesh and scent of lilacs. It was all just a faded dream now, that a fog had begun to surround.
After his first death, he had found her after she evacuated. She was his wife after all. He walked through the door, and was not met with love or warmth as he once was. Rejection. Revulsion. She had seen the dead look in his eyes, the grey rot staring from the corner of his eye.
"Monster," her shrill voice called. "Your not my husband. My husband is dead!" It echoed in his head like thunder. No love. Not here. He tried to beg, to plead. Every Undead went Hollow eventually. He wanted to spend his last days with her.
As he left the house, shame weighed upon his shoulders like a cross. He shouldn't have come here. He shouldn't have seen her. He should have just forgotten like all Hollows do. As the guards came for him, to put him down, their spear was the second to pierce his heart. The first was far more painful.
He ducked as the red phantom swong at his head. It jumped back as he returned with a swing of his own, hitting only a malformed tree in the poisen woods. He swong again, sweeping at his legs. The glowing invader dodged aside, and the club smashed down onto Kerin's head, caving his skull in.
Outside the Firelink shrine, he saw the man from a distance. He stood nearly naked and fully Hollowed, his body rotten like an old corpse. He carried a black katana, the sharpest of the sharp.
Kerin walked forward. The Hollow turned to him and started padding towards him, katana high. Kerin saw the swing coming a mile away. He shield knocked it out wide, and his sword cut through it's neck, lopping off his head.
He beant down, picking up the uchigatana. Perfect. Thst would help him. He left behind his old blade. He thought it may have been a symbol of something... some order. It didn't matter. He couldn't remember anyway.
He awoke at the bonfire after yet another death. He looked into his mirror. His face was sunken, the rot poking holes in his cheeks. As he opened his mouth, a tooth dropped to the ground. It didn't matter. He didn't eat anyway. As he fell the last time, something was on his mind, but he couldn't remember what. Someone he missed... now just a phantom in his minds eye. A women... who? He could almost make out her face. He needed souls. To remember. To go on.
He dodged aside as the crystal magic flew passed him. The sage was strong; a skeleton dressed in robes and a giant hat. He charged the caster, his black sword carving flesh in his wake. The caster meted into the floor, popping up behind him.
He threw up his shield as the giant crystal arrow smashed into it. He flew back, landing hard on the floor. He stood pain rippling through his limbs. He was bleeding. He had to finish this. Now.
A clone of the sage appeared, trying to confuse him. He saw though the illusion cutting it down, it's feeble form disappearing. Another mass shot forth from the sage, but Kerin was faster. He rolled beneath it, closing the distance in the same, stabbing his blace into it's stomach. It fell to it's knees, and he followed with a stab through its neck.
As it fell, it's own soul, and those of all it killed flooded into him, along with them his memories. He fell to his knees.
"Monster! My husband is dead!" Elsif yelled at him. That killed him more than any other death. Tears formed in his white, dead eyes.
She didn't love him, she never would. Maybe she never did. That was when he saw Hollowing for what it truly was; a blessing, not a curse. It took away to good memories, yes, but it stole the bad ones. He didn't need to feel it. Not any more. He didn't need to feel lost and alone.
He took his sword in his hands, and held it out far. Self annihilation was the answer. The curse wasn't stealing who he was. It was taking away his pain. It was making him whole.
He turned it over, and and slid it slowly into himself. He hardly felt it, so he twisted it. It was still not to be compared to her and her words. As he fell, the life blood drained from him, as did his memories of someone he used to love, and a man who no longer existed.
When he awoke, a smile came to his face. He could remember nearly nothing, and it was bliss. He disgarded his mirror shard into the fire. His old self didn't matter. Neither did his future. Nothing did.
Nothing except his hunger. He needed souls, but he couldn't say why.