When he awoke, he gasped for breath, but his lungs could only come up with the metallic tinged smoke of the small room. This blackened, thick smog filled his every cell, and he crumpled to the floor, the smell of fire and blood overwhelming him.
He squeezed his eyes shut; they burned from the air. It wasn't only the pain he was avoiding, though; he never wanted to lay eyes on what was sure to be a scene straight out of a horror film. He felt long cuts all over his body ooze, and his palms were sticky with the blood of many. He felt nauseous.
Finally, the smoke dissipated enough for him to breath, and he opened his eyes warily. His green eyes fell upon the bloodstains that marred to mosaic floors, the mangled corpses and cackling fires. He choked back his stomach with pain and searched franticly for a survivor among his own.
Slowly, he pushed himself off of the floor to look for a living soul. Limping, he stepped over the bodies of friend and foe alike, smearing their mingled blood. What did it even matter? He swore aloud as he stepped on a smoldering ember, but continued forward.
Suddenly, among the corpses of his friends and enemies, he spotted a familiar swath of blond ringlets. His stomach jumped in his throat as he pushed forward, tears stinging the corners of his eyes.
Sure enough, she lay there, her shirt stained crimson, torn, with deep, hideous wounds beneath them. Her legs were twisted beneath her unnaturally. The sight was perhaps even grislier than the entirety of the room; everything, save her face.
The pale skin was unmarred and soft, albeit cool to the touch. A small scratch ran down her cheek, just below her earlobe, but it was small and easy to look past. Her gray eyes, staring lifelessly out into the world, however, were not.
He wept at this sight, sinking to the ground and emitting guttural sobs filled with longing and despair. How could it be that the love of his life, so innocent and pure, lay on the ground lifeless, while he was still alive? It wasn't fair! None of it! His sobs wracked the weakened frame he could call a body, and he shook with anger and sorrow.
When he had tired himself, he sank against the wall, staring at her with the glassy eyes of a troubled soul. He wracked his brain for a solution, anything! Where were the Gods, now that he truly needed them? Their own children were dead, for Pete's sake! Didn't they care?
Suddenly, he reached a hand forward to close her eyes. To give her that much peace seemed to be the least he could do, if not to protect her when she needed it. His heart felt heavy, and he was sure of his inability to move forward. Everyone he knew was dead, and he would live out his miserable life with the guilt of their deaths on his conscience, their suffering his own.
Gasping for breath as he released a batch of fresh tears, he saw her knife resting on the tiles mere feet from her body. A cursed blade for a cursed soul. He grabbed for it, grasping it with a firm but shaking hand.
He gave one last, tear-filled prayer to the gods and lifted the tip on the blade to his throat, locating the strong vein and cutting it evenly.
Blood, sticky and crimson, poured from the wound quickly as the celestial bronze clattered to the tile. His hands flew to his throat, and he made animalistic, horrifying sounds as the Fates ripped his life away from him. He sank forward on his knees, so close to her know, and pressed his clammy, pale cheek to the cool ground, collapsing in a puddle of their mixed blood. This morbid liquid came as relief and comfort to him, to his horribly messed up mind, and he closed his green eyes for the last time, in peace.
The choking sounds had stopped, and the only movement in the small, mosaic-tiled room was the consistent ebb of crimson from the mangled corpses; the only sound a light, crackling noise from the glowing embers. Deep within this morbid sanctuary, he found life with death, and mingled with the long forgotten spirits of ago.