A man named Gloom

[Eldred Morningtide]

With an audible crunch and pop his hand connects with the wall. Persisting through the pain, he continues the quick forceful jabs, bone and flesh connecting with blood stained brick. He bites his lip, not by choice, but from accident as the jagged lighting stab of agony shoots down his arm and spreads along his body. Spittle, dribbled precariously through broken lips, is flecked with bile and freshly drawn gore. Squinting and blinking away tears, his ragged voice barely a whisper, he intones words to his God. Each stanza he punctuates, with hammer like blows, on the unrelenting granite before him.

“I beg of you, The One Who Endures, keep safe those I have met.”
Crack. Crack. Crack.
“I take their suffering. I who am unwashed and unworthy.”
Crack. Crack. Crack.
“I am nothing. I am no one. Give to me their misery.”
Crack. Crack. Crack.
“So that I may finally have meaning and value.”
Crack. Crack. Crack.

He starts to stumble, his legs growing weak from fatigue and the agony running through him. Falling to his knees, he bashes his head again and again into the stone. Rage, misery and sadness pours out of him with hoarse screams. Wobbling, he leans his mashed forehead against the wall, his voice stilling as his hands desperately continue their weak and ineffective assault.

Crumpling with despair, he feels the cool floor beneath him. Curling into a ball he manages to close his eyes. As sleep finally takes him, he whispers the ending of his plea.

“I am nothing.”