The fire is warm.
It eats away at the pitiful remains piled on top of each other, warmly swarming around the sword etched into those who came before me and couldn't take the next step forward. The rusted metal should have fallen long ago, devoured by those unnatural flames, yet it stands tall, crooked perhaps, but it stands nonetheless, as a testament to the efforts that failed to come to any fruition.
The sight would be a sad one, if not for the fire. Its embraces the old weapon, beaconing hope to the traveler that hasn't grown too weary to press forward still - to me. As I watch the flames lazily licking their vessel, I find myself hypnotized: the thought that I might succeed in my quest suddenly doesn't sound so far-fetched anymore, despite that my objectives lack any sort of clarity to my own cognition, outside of the simple, animalistic purpose that has so stubbornly latched onto my dreadful coils.
To keep on living, undeterred by the paradox of death having already claimed me so many times I've lost count.
The fire is bright.
It casts a subdued luster over the pieces of an armor I managed to scrape together from the remains of those I slayed, painting suggestive movements that the unpolished steel mostly dampens into a pretty nonsense. The light has an easier time shining over the surface of the blade that rests against my shoulder, its round pommel scraping the dirty tiles with my every breath. It is a big hunk of iron, most of its sharpness lost to the dozens I've already cut down, a sword that has achieved more by itself than thousand more of its ilk. I clutch it with my arm as if it were an old friend, and perhaps that is as close I'll ever be to meeting one in this nightmarish purgatory.
All I have met here is the haunting shadow cast by death, and the whispers of a few whom I don't know whether I can trust or not. Few who, like me, have refused to lose themselves to the throes of a hollow existence, submitted to the whims of feral vocations and a thirst to consume another's life.
The fire flickers briefly.
I awaken from my spell of self-absorbed attempts at recalling memories that might just have rotted away centuries ago, along with the places where their seeds blossomed, and subconsciously I shiver. My hands seek each other over the knees they were resting upon, skin touches skin in search of the reassurance that flesh hasn't dried to the bone, that I am still in possession of that glimmer of purity that this world wishes nothing more than to take from me. I know that only within those flames I can find what I need to keep going. I know that nothing can come to be without sacrifices being made. Silently, I shift my position and kneel in front of it like a knight awaiting its christening, brushing my fingers against the burning sword.
As a part of myself is fed to the bonfire, I see it grow lively in front of me, and with it so does my peace of mind. I sit back with confidence equally rekindled, despite feeling that the void within me has gained the slightest bit of leverage on my existence.
The fire burns lazily, for it does not fear the passage of time.
I was someone, before, when before had a meaning to me. I gaze at my limbs, covered by chainmail and battered plating, and see no warrior. Every now and then, if I focus really hard, I believe I can see speckles of my past flash in front of me, before the fire inevitably turns it to insubstantial ashes. I see mounds of fresh parchment and so much ink one could drown in its murky blackness, and my hand clutching a quill to bring them together. I was a scribe, a chronicler perhaps: the truth of my past bearings eludes me like whatever the future has in store, my only certainty lying in the cruelty of a hellish present. Nostalgia has not taken dwelling among my thoughts: maybe, once I'll be sure that there is a before worth remembering, I'll learn how to feel such a sentiment. I wonder if that is the key requirement to make mine that specter called "hope".
The fire burns but doesn't hurt, for that task is mine alone to take.
I let my blade hover above the flame and look within me. The screams of thousands are slowly quelled as I wordlessly sacrifice them to the benefit of my tool, brushing off the signs that time and usage have dirtied it with while refining its form to better serve its purpose. I briefly wonder if the person I was would have spared a thought for a single one of those souls I quench without remorse. I wonder if I would accept going back to being one such person, if that were to be the case.
I stand up and sling the blade over my shoulder, the shield strung against my other arm at the ready. I cannot help casting one last glance at the bonfire before taking my first of many steps away from it, wondering how long it will take for it to vomit my remains back into this mockery of life I'm conducting, once the unknowable horrors out there will have slain me for the hundredth time.
The fire keeps on burning without me, left behind like my very self from a time immemorial. I drag myself forward, along with the a single scrap of knowledge. That my name is Hatate, and I do not belong here.