One step, ash crunching softly below.
One second, and with it insurmountable, inequitable agony.
A tide of darkness swept through his vision, the cavernous room spinning at an increasingly disorienting rate, but he did not falter before the kiln that threatened to consume him. At the end of the world, his mind did not stray from his final task. Thinking as of now was irrelevant – a mere hindrance – and so he would trust his only remaining friend in this accursed world; the instinctual drive to survive. And with armor in shambles, body and sword alike soaked with blood, he felt the very image of an insane predator on the hunt for a prey very much beyond him.
So he paid little heed to the rivers of red oozing from the long running rivulets and deep gouges in his borrowed armour, and none whatsoever to the growing pool of blood that lay beneath his feet. His smoldering gaze– nay, his entire being was locked onto the grotesque humanoid that towered above, walking towards him unabated by grievous injury. He watched the creature, and knew instinctively that those blackened eye sockets were doing the exact same, practically boring into his soul.
A hollow and sightless gaze that did not betray the primal, monstrous power the soulless being still wielded with unfortunate ease.
For what the husk lacked in mental awareness and the benefit of conscious action, it made up for with ruthless tenacity and an unmatched brutality. An aggressiveness certainly befitting the former God of Sunlight, he thought idly, beginning to shift his stance in preparation for the giant's next offensive.
Only to freeze as Gwyn's ponderous gait instantly and unexpectedly transformed into a forward lunge, closing the vast distance between them in a flash – it was faster than anything he'd ever seen, too swift for him to offer anything but a blink of the eyes before a massive arm had already passed his guard, shooting towards his head.
His mind flared as the giant's fist collided with the lower portion of his face, compressing it and his jaw into a gory mess of fragmented bones and shards of teeth with a single sickening crunch – he could smell poignant aroma of fresh blood, feel the hot ichor dribbling down the ruin that was once his mouth, and through his dulled senses could hear the faint sound of someone's garbled screaming. He dared not even breathe for fear of what might happen, of losing his composure and giving in to the soul crushing anguish that threatened to consume him.
In those precious milliseconds he could feel every spasmodic instance of pain with an almost impossible clarity – pieces of shattered ribs burrowing into precious organs, broken bones grinding together and sawing through flesh, lungs filling with viscous blood and bile.
Pathetic, whispered the wraith-like echoes from the coldest depths of his soul. And those haunting voices – always the myriad voices – only echoed his own innermost thoughts, try as he might to ignore them.
It was only then that he heard it over the din of jumbling thoughts, the subtle grumbling and soft whispering of cloth reminding him of the mindless beast now looming over his immobile form. And even as the first surge of adrenaline flooded his veins, mind and heart screaming for him to move, instinct kept him rooted firmly – blade in hand rising smoothly, body moving mechanically, quaking legs tensed in anticipation.
Only then did his mind embrace true lucidity, sole eye's gaze drawn towards the weapon the colossus held skyward, holding his attention just long enough for the telltale signs of a kick to register from the corner of his vision at the last moment.
He only held the strength to halt one of the two attacks the giant lashed out with from above and below.
The steel poleyne stood no chance against such force, metal screeching horrifically as it crumpled inwards and destroyed the kneecap beneath nearly instantaneously. It was brutal, unexpected, but he still was prepared to intercept the hulking mass of the god's flame enveloped weapon, uninjured leg locking up instinctively to bear the immeasurable weight of the coming strike. And it took every ounce of his dwindling strength to stop the gargantuan blade from vertically bisecting him, a shower of sparks and droplets of molten metal raining down as their weapons made contact mere inches above him – once more he knew agony, flames lapping hungrily at the skin of his arms, blood and sweat boiling upon his burning flesh.
But there was no casting aside the tremulous surge of confidence that welled within him at the sight of Gwyn's blade being forced back, inch by inch. It was a sensation that muted the world itself, a candle of hope that melted doubt like wax to an open flame. The ashen ground which rumbled below, the roaring of a god lost to madness, the destructive pain beyond anything one mere mortal should ever bear – in an instant, it had all fallen to the void. Power surged through his broken form, a strength that beckoned him, an urge to survive that consumed everything.
He didn't know if it would matter, couldn't comprehend if it would make any difference, but he pushed with everything he had regardless.
With the weight of the world upon his trembling shoulders, he took another agonizing step forward, ignoring the groans of warping metal as heat and pressure both began taking their toll on his already splintering sword.
And with it, one step closer to the finality of death's sweet embrace.
AN: If you enjoyed this little oneshot, thank cojapar for his initial criticisms and urging for me to publish it. What I wanted to write was something that fit the true brutality of Dark Souls, a realistic edge that showed the grittiness of what we've seen. I hope that I've captured that feeling well enough, but I will go back and edit/extend this regularly, if not write an entire story based around this at some point. I'll go ahead and apologize for the anticlimactic end as well whilst I'm doing thing.
Any criticism is welcome, by the by. Say what you like, say what you hate, or just do what you do.