Spoiler! :
Spoiler! :
The icy chill clung to his skin like a living creature, permeating the thick wool of his coat and wrapping its fingers around his very bones. The world spun around him as his boots made contact with the rapidly-dampening earth and the distant thunder rang dimly in his ears as he pushed himself onwards one unsteady step at a time. Crimson stained the fingers that were clutched to his chest, his heart still pounding on within and pushing forth more blood with each and every beat. He may have been a vampire of many decades but now, with his heart shuddering in his breast and his wounds from weeks past still very much present, even he knew he came closer to death with each and every stumbling stride.
Rain began to fall in torrents around him, soaking him and diluting the liberal amounts of blood that still flowed from his injury. The sounds of pursuit had long since died behind him, or perhaps he was merely too disoriented and in pain to hear them--after all, even the roaring thunder that shook the very ground at his feet barely seemed to be conscious anymore. All he knew was the dreadful cold, the pit of fear that hung in his stomach, and, most of all, the mind-numbing pain that lanced through him with every movement and each pounding contraction of his heart.
The mud fell away beneath his feet. The sky spun around him and the trees flashed before the agony jarred through his body as he made contact with the wet ground. His breath came in short, shaking breaths as his fingers clawed at the earth for something, anything, that would get him back to his feet. He couldn't stop. Not now. Not unless he wanted Azrael to become his god once again. Not unless he wanted his son to pay the price.
They couldn't find him. They had to think him dead.
For Gunther.
His arm shook as he pushed himself back to his feet and fell heavily against the nearest tree trunk, squinting through the gray tempest's torrential downpour as his muddled mind tried to make something--anything--out that could mean respite from this living nightmare. There, somewhere through the water, the clouds, the shadows: a light.
Had he been more present, he might've noticed the lack of people or shelter, but at the moment, he was too in pain to care.
Der Silberfuchs stumbled onwards as everything around him faded into a dim buzz. He couldn't count the moments or the steps. He knew only that, as he began to lose his grip on reality and as the static gray began to obscure his already-blurred vision, his feet were no longer on mud but on soaked grass, and that when he finally fell, it was underneath flickering candles suspended somewhere above him in jars. Floating lights shimmering like stars.
That was the last thing he saw before it all slipped away into oblivion.
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