Dawn Breaks over Our Mistakes
Trigger warning (applies to first few chapters only): attempted suicide, drowning, depression. I've tried to describe it in a way that is not graphic so I think it still falls under the 'T' rating, but please let me know if you think I should change it to 'M'.
That makes it sound really dark but I promise it will get lighter!
The day he gave in.
He had been fighting temptation for so long, living by the water, everyday coming to sit at its edge, gazing out and wondering, waiting.
Every day he had to fight the pull, the siren's call telling him to wade into the water, slip under the surface; let it be over. He had lost so many loved ones to this lake – Lancelot, Freya, Arthur. Gwen and Gaius had joined them in time, as had his mother.
He had watched as each of them floated across the water on a makeshift woven raft, forced the power from his palms that would set their bodies aflame.
Cruel years had passed, and crueller years had followed.
And this was the day he gave in.
Over a thousand years after the death of Arthur, after watching more pain and destruction and evil than he thought mankind was capable, this was the day when he couldn't go on any longer.
It was almost ironic. A perfectly normal, calm, unremarkable day in 2014, the sun was shining although it was only early morning, the spring flowers swaying in a slight breeze. For England, it was a day of rare beauty.
Merlin stood, ankle deep in the water, looking out over the horizon. The lake was vast – he could not see the end from here.
He could feel the wetness soaking through his socks. He had taken his shoes of, that was all; they were sitting on the grassy bank, shoelaces tucked in, waiting to be returned to as the young man who stood in the water really was just going for a paddle.
The warlock took a tentative step forward, and then another.
Another step.
The water was up to his knees.
His thighs; his waist.
His chest.
Merlin stopped when the water reached his shoulders.
He stood there for a long time, still gazing into the distance. He wanted to savour this moment, this moment of relief and release. He hadn't felt as free as this in over a thousand years and now he felt giddy with it, high at the promise of the end of all the pain; soon to be warmly embraced by the sweet tranquillity of death.
He closed his eyes and fell back into the blue.
The world under water was beautiful, Merlin decided, opening his eyes slowly. He could see the warm colours of dawn breaking across the sky but they were refracted, impressions painted with broad strokes of pink and yellow.
He lay flat across the sandy bed of the lake, the stones in his pocket stopping him from rising back to the surface.
His lungs were beginning to burn from lack of oxygen but Merlin knew it was a good sign – it meant that this was working. He wasn't sure it would work, after all those rumours of immortality, and Merlin had never brought himself to try before.
He always decided he could hold out a little longer, wait for a while. Arthur could turn up tomorrow, Arthur could turn up tonight, he would tell himself. Time had laid to rest that old dream – the prince wasn't coming soon and Merlin was not going to sit around for another thousand years waiting. He was going to join Arthur instead.
The fire in his chest was burning, spreading.
The colours above him were shifting as the light wind skimmed across the water.
He wanted to take a breath in but something was telling him he shouldn't – he was on a pyre, and if he breathed in now he would take in a mouthful of smoke...
But it wasn't smoke that filled his lungs, though the black of it was curling around the corners of his vision...
The colours were gone.
For a moment all the boy could see was black, black surrounding him.
Then even that faded away and there was nothing.
Hello, I know I'm supposed to be working on other stories, but this suddenly appeared in my mind and I thought that while it was there I might as well write it, and then seeing as it was written I might as well post it. Please let me know if you think I should continue with this :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin. If I did, those films they hinted at would have come out :(