1097 Aga'Fet.

In the Inner Ring, the second portion of the Sheltered Lands outside the dominant influence of the Dormant Peak, a lone cabin nested the Free Woodlands near the village of Albir.

Snow fell without pause, burying the rich red soils under its bountiful might along with the sturdy roof of the three-roomed wooden construct that housed two individuals.

Or perhaps three.

The trees swayed without emitting much sound other than the creaks of old wood that had stories to tell as if giving the last mourns of empathetic sorrow to the personages shielded from the frost by stacked and familiar blocks of their fallen brethren.

Within the cabin, several tapestries were laid on the floor with thick weavings for the cold.

A warm blanket covered a large man who wheezed while being caressed by the heat from the snug fur-made knit.

Thick candles illuminated the room where one last meeting was taking place between a duo that had been bound by the mutual chain of marriage for twelve years.

A woman with long, sunflower blonde hair sat on a creaking wooden chair, her satin grey eyes that twinkled with tears looking over the figure covered by the thick brown blanket.

Her sandy skin was made golden by the candlelight coming from the table beside her, semi-moist trails of tears that outlined her cheeks being made visible.

Her soft, ideal lips were stretched thin as she tried to hold back an ugly grimace and grunts of gripping pain from seeing her beloved in his final moments while she was still brimming with life.

"Did I not say for you to not let out a peep, woman? I could have spent my last breath gouging out the innards of a beast in the Outer Ring but here I am. At least let me hear your words, not your groans..." the figure on the bed turned his piercing left eye to the woman who did her utmost to not break down.

She wiped away the tears and nodded her head furiously while trembling.

"Yes, my beloved," she said as she then held his hand that had jutted out of the cover of the blanket.

The man on the bed had a shaved head which previously held thick brown locks of hair that cascaded down his temples.

A stubble could be seen on his face as he breathed weakly, his toned facial muscles were marred with scars that sought to tell epic tales of how they came to be in several adventures.

He sucked in a deep breath as he withstood the pain that called from his right eye.

An odd eye that bled profusely, staining the right side of his face and the bed in red.

Voices called from deep within.

Not from his mind, but from the eye.

Or rather, from behind the eye.

His eyes turned to the woman beside him who couldn't stand to see her husband in so much pain.

They took in his curvaceous figure that he knew all too well from experience. Even looking at her now in a plain, grey dress, his hands twitched as they recalled the soft feeling of her skin when she was under his broad self.

His ears recalled one more time, the arousing tones of her voice when she moaned, responding erotically to his thrusts as he dug deep into her, her hands pulling on the bed covers.

Such a privilege was lost to him now as probably, some horny fool would claim what was his while he rotted in whatever the afterlife had in store.

Such was this cruel world.

Hngh!

The man grumbled.

His eyes scaled down to finally settle on the bulge on his wife's belly.

After so many years, he had finally managed to leave a seed within his wife. One that would last but with the same tragic tale.

"Why do you mourn me when I have given you what you've always sought from me? A son nests in your womb from me. You should be fleeing to the Blessed Lands by now to keep him safe!" the man said with a deep frown.

"Whatever child grows within me... I.."

"It's a boy! The Hollow never inhabits a female nor allows one to be borne from men like me!"

The woman shuddered from her husband's raised voice but continued to speak from where she had been cut off.

"I'll raise the child... the boy... in the very same lands that birthed you, my love. I'll honour you through him. I give you my word..."

"Keep your lies to yourself, woman! I care not for the wretch that will be born from my seed! Yet..." the man paused as his voice changed from that being a blaring siren to a soft call in a heartbeat.

Perhaps such an erratic change was normal for those at their end.

"It would be cruel even for me to not pass on this message that haunts me. Perhaps, at least, the final good I can do in this world is having him find whatever it is that the Hollow wanted me to find..."

The woman was bewildered.

In all her years she had never heard her husband speak in such a low, calm voice.

Despite how this man before her held himself, in speech and action, she had learned to read between the lines.

He did not enjoy showing any vulnerability and thus, even the most beautiful words he had said to her in my life, were not as flowery as one would expect.

Nevertheless, it was an undisputed fact that she was loved.

The man suddenly gripped the woman's hand that had been rubbing against his.

He raised his head and spoke, birthing a voice that was full of caution, warning and... love.

"Do not ever cease. Let not a day pass by without you telling the boy to find it. Even as you cradle his foetal form in the womb, tell him. Let these words be what he hears when he first tastes the light of the outside world..."

The woman trembled from these words. She wanted to speak, to tell her husband to calm himself and rest and preserve the remnants of his burning life but...

Seeing his right eye bleed, spurting blood furiously from the socket, she ground her teeth and finally emitted a loud cry of pain, against her husband's wish.

She couldn't hold it in anymore. She knew this day would come but she never prepared for it. She couldn't.

She knelt by her husband's bed as her throat conjured a loud roar of pain as she clutched her man tightly.

Yet... her husband did not cease to speak these words that held no meaning to her.

"Tell him, woman! Tell him every day! Tell him that he must find it! Tell him to find THE BRINGING! If he fails, he shall die a pathetic death, following after me into the depths of an unknown tale! TELL HIM FOR ME!"

The blonde-haired woman screamed while nodding her head. She had heard but this didn't stop tears, mucus and saliva from flowing from her orifices as her fair face was distorted in pain.

From the deepest wells of her heart, she then spoke softly...

"Please...please... don't leave me.... please...take me....take us... with you...."

The man gnashed his teeth that pounded against his gums and drew blood before saying his final words.

"Please, Reesa. Do not dishonour me. Let me.... perish alone and encounter what it is that awaits... like the accursed man that I am. I will... remember your face...yet... and find some semblance of joy.... in the times... you nursed my wounds...."

The man paused.

"Good...bye..."

Right when the man uttered those words, blood flooded outwards from his right eye socket, his odd eye digging itself out while still being attached to the stems that held it firmly within his head!

The man growled and screamed, guttural mourns of excruciating pain resounding from his being as the odd eye popped out and dropped to the floor!

The pregnant woman screeched and fell back, drawing to the walls in pure fright as her eyes opened wide, her face wrinkling from the shock she expressed with it!

She watched as three fingers emerged from her husband's empty and bleeding eye socket, soon turning into a full hand that somehow fit from the socket and clutched onto the man's face viciously!

Her husband continued to scream as the pain was unimaginably gruelling, his body trembling and emitting wastes that dyed the once fresh air with a horrid odour.

Another hand emerged from the eye socket, then another and another, all having black hues and dripping with blood as they clawed at the man's face, tearing away his flesh!

With his one remaining eye, the man gazed at his wife for the last time, seeing her horrified expression that hid none of her emotions.

He emitted a crooked groan before, like a whirlpool at sea, the hands that emerged from his socket pulled hard on all his flesh from the head to the toe and sucked it all into the Hollow of his skull!

On the bed where a large man with a bulky figure once lay, blood, semblances of guts and fluid remained.

Yet what captured the eye the most was the blood skeleton in the middle, gaping at the ceiling as if in awe and confusion over what had stolen its cover.