Heat coursing through his veins.
Pulsating. Ebbing and flowing in a fiery turmoil.
Completely consuming. As if, on it's present course, it will reduce him to ash.
And yet there is no pain. Not any definition of pain that he's aware of.
Awareness. This is what would frighten him, if he could only feel it.
His awareness of self is receding. His awareness of everything grows.
Self fades. Instinct grows. It pushes at him. Gnaws at his insides.
He's always been strong. Defiant even. But this...
This is force. Primal force. Overcome. Overwhelmed. These are not words he likes.
He can't lie. It's happened before. But only acknowledged for an instant. Before the fight takes over.
Before he surfaces his head above the torrent and frees himself from the undertow.
But with the instinct... this new awareness, he knows.
This recently birthed and raw consciousness will takeover. It's only a matter of time.
He sees it in her, with his new eyes, when she comes. When she tries to comfort and ease. She shouldn't be here. She doesn't understand. This isn't something dark and dreaded creeping on it's way while they scrabble to beat it back upon it's arrival. It's here. Now.
The fight is not against an entity inside him. The fight is to keep himself inside what he's already become.
But it's futile. It's not defeat. It just is.
With his last coherent words and thoughts he tries to make her face this. If you cannot help me, then end it. Better for the both of us. He has almost disappeared by now. If she, if they, attempt to hang on to his physical body, there will be even more loss. And he prays with everything left of him that that will not be his legacy.