Chapter VIII – Broken Circle
They stood all around him in a circle—all of them. He stood in the center, revolving slowly so that he could see each and every one of them. Their smiling faces greeted him in the dark, like lost images from a time that had fallen away from the earth long ago. He felt himself smile upon seeing them, for they were faces he had not seen in countless years. When he tried to move towards them, though, his feet seemed anchored to the ground.
As one, their smiles fell away, replaced by solemn grey features, as if they were set in stone. He faltered, and a sound like a dying gasp escaped his throat. He stopped revolving and stared at the figure directly in front of him. It was his mother. Her beautiful face was high and noble and young, unmarked by the calluses of age. Though she was gorgeous, she was sad. He tried to focus on her face, to capture it for himself as he had not been able to since before he could remember. The harder he concentrated on her face, the fainter it seemed to become. Finally he could see only a pair of grey eyes, and then she vanished completely.
"Mother!" he cried in anguish, reaching towards the bare hole that she had left in the circle. A flash of quick pain seemed to strike his heart, and a splash of bright blood spattered the ground from an unseen wound. Gasping, he looked up to see that he was now facing a miniature army of men, men he had fought alongside with in hundreds of battles, men he had finally watched die on orc blades. He watched in horror as one by one they disappeared before his eyes, leaving an army-sized gap in his circle. Mablung…Damrod…Bergil…
"Oh, Eru, don't go! Don't go!" he screamed, clutching his head in both hands. Another trickle of blood trailed down to form a puddle beneath his feet, and the pain in the center of his heart intensified. His breath caught in his throat to see the next figure.
"Little brother," whispered the image of Boromir, reaching towards him with one longing hand before he drifted from the circle. Denethor's cold eyes stared him down as they became all that remained of his figure. The gaps in the broken circle grew larger. Twin bloodstains joined the others on the ground. He fell to his knees.
"Don't do this to me! Get out of my head! Get out!" He tore at his hair as if he could tear the images out of his mind if he tried hard enough.
Imrahil…
His littlest son, Adrahil…
Éowyn.
Agony turned his face bone-white. "Éowyn…Éowyn, don't…" He begged and pleaded, but only a single tear fell down her face, and she began to fade away. "No! No, please! Éowyn! I need you! Don't go! Don't go…" The silver gems around the collar of her midnight blue mantel glittered in the dark, and her blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She was the last one still standing in the circle. Her throat was gone…now her hair…now her lips…now only her eyes remained…
He choked on bile. "Éowyn…please… I cannot—"
The eyes vanished.
A gush of his own blood spilled from the open wound in his soul, spilling to his feet. He pulled his knees in to his chest and sobbed, shivering in the dark and surrounded by the brilliant red splashes of his own blood. "Oh, Eru! Oh, Eru! You're killing me!" His body convulsed, and he clutched his stomach, spitting up a mouthful of bile. "Oh, Eru! Alone! Why alone? Why alone?" He pulled his knees closer and rocked himself back and forth. "So much death… So much death…"