"Agro!"
He screamed the name, over and over again as he leaned over the crumbled ledge. His throat was raw. Each breath stung and each cry shattered his rusted voice all the more.
What little rationality he still retained told him to just give it up. The fall had been too deep. There were rocks, too, rocks that had fallen from the bridge. The stream at the bottom flowed bloodlessly, but her body had to be down there somewhere.
He couldn't see it though, even if it was. His eyes were too far gone, too flecked with indigo dots that clouded his vision and made him dizzy whenever he tried to focus on anything.
Coughing, He thrusted himself back from the ledge and dry heaved. A string of cloudy, smoking saliva dribbled from his lips and he groaned.
He tried not to look at his hands, his hands that were bulging purple and scabbed black like a leper's. The rest of him was like that too, cut and bleeding and tinged with ash.
Why do you linger?
The voices of Dormin rumbled across the sky and shook the decaying walls. Moss and lichen peeled off the ledges yet to climb and the man cringed and pressed his rotting hands to his ears.
Go! One last Colossi remains. Your journey is near an end.
Stumbling, the man got to his feet and clutched at his stomach. A wave of static fell over his eyes and he gasped, grabbing the hilt of his sword. For a small, terrible moment, he felt like he was dying.
In the back of his mind he could hear the faint lamentations of men echoing out, with a woman's voice buried beneath them. It was enough to drive him mad, or madder than he already was.
The man tried to ignore them as he trudged forward down the path. His feet dragged against the stone as he lurched towards the ledges.
Until now, he had not questioned his growing illness with each and every Colossi's death. He didn't question the black tendrils that seeped from their corpses and made for his chest. He didn't question the way that they would penetrate his skin and make smoke that tasted like flesh flow from his mouth.
He only kept going forward, and as his hair turned from red to purple he had kept a hand on Agro's side and rode out with just the same tenacity as before.
Perhaps, he wouldn't have been so driven had not the girl sprawled out on the altar kept improving with each killing. When the first Colossi had fallen, she no longer smelled like death. When the second had gone, her skin was no longer clammy and grey.
Even though the man was dying with each labored step and frazzled gasp for air. Even though his blood pumped congealing black phlegm and poisoned his innards. Even though he knew that he had been completely ostracized by his people. Even though he knew that the one creature that truly loved him was shattered in the stream below.
Even though he knew that his name would not be remembered for any stretch of time.
None of it mattered.
As the man took hold onto the thick mesh of vines that led to the temple's peak, he had to blink to keep the water out of his eyes. His tears only blinded him all the more, and there was still one Colossus left.