I dislike the acrid taste of death. Like charcoal, the scorched and crumbling edges of my soul are bitter as they pass over my tongue, washing away with every failing breath. I did not plan to die today – but so little of my life has gone as I intended, or even as I wished.

The pain is nothing—truly. A single moment whisked that sense from me many years ago, and nothing – no torture, no fire, no sharp and acuminous rending of flesh – has brought on the feeling since. Perhaps I should feel relieved. Perhaps it is the hopeless knowledge that there is no magic in existence powerful enough to save me now.

My blood stains the wooden floor, melting to black amid the decay. Appropriate, some might say, if they recalled the events of my life one by one. I have not been the best of men – and yet, I have done all that I can. Such a story is hardly worth the retelling; I am not the hero, but I would happily use my last to speak of the heroine.

Her fire no man can contain; it consumes all things, as it stole the air from my lungs and the heart from my chest. Her sweetness not even an island of sugar cane could produce; it calms the burning soul and cleanses like the rain. But if I were to have a final say – a eulogy of my own devising that shall be my mark upon the memory of the world – I would speak of verdant fields.

They were the bed beneath us as children, where we let time drift insignificantly by. They were the sloping lawns of our youth, which proved to be our home. They were her final resting place – and now, I find, that they too shall be mine.

A venom glides through me now; I recognize the slowly creeping cold. Another day I might have been fascinated by the silken web it spins across my chest, tightening ever so slowly, inch by pressing inch, with indomitable strength. But tonight I find that there shall be no more days, no more thoughts and no more concerns with the struggle of the accursed soul. Verdant fields have outlived us both, the heroine and I – though how long they shall persevere is no longer my burden to bear.

It comes on like sleep. My limbs are ungratefully heavy, and my eyelids are beginning to close. Were I outside myself, as some have falsely hypothesized we will be—are—at this moment, I would think the blackness of my eyes to seem hollow, an open window to an empty room. There has never been much light in me. I find it too telling, too explicative of all that lives beneath to have much use for it. Now even that faint flicker has been cast out.

There it is—a brief shimmer in the air, a deep but brilliant red—and with it my last breath.

…but why not the mordant flavour on my tongue? Why not my thoughts and sense of self? What wretched torment! The red spark lingers there – a shadow of my former life, condensed to a single light. If I am to be witness to my own end, I shall see it clearly.

Willing the failing power of my mind to its final act, my vision sharpens and the red – once hazy and distorted – takes shape. It is too bright for blood, and runs in rivers from the sky, ending in soft and misty curls. Someone – a memory – lingers at my side.

A sweet, youthful face is slowly coming into view. Rosy cheeks and wide, sweet brown eyes watch me closely.

"Are you awake?" Her voice is gentle, but juvenile. I can hear my own curiosity in its young and innocent tone.

"Yes." I answer, startled by the air present in my mouth and lungs.

"Mummy says pancakes are ready."

Pancakes.

Lily might be the most brilliant woman I've ever met, but if there was one thing my wife simply can't do it's cook. The fact that the repugnant odour of burning breakfast foods has pervaded my nightmares is testament to that fact.

"Define ready," I reply as I slowly roll out of bed, scooping up our red-haired, brown-eyed daughter and carrying her down the stairs to the kitchen and the heroine of my life.