THE DECAY

A flood of emotions had plagued the endless hours of the seemingly endless days since Jason’s escapades outside the cryptic walls that was his eternal prison. A prison he thought he had shed on the night of that full moon.

Jason opened his eyes, amidst the countless questions that were plaguing his mind. Thoughts that seemed to have lasted longer than time itself. The chains that held him had come unbound and so Jason pushed open the sarcophagus.

Jason looked around to see that a thick fog of cobwebs had engulfed the entire room. Aghast, Jason tore through the web on his way to the hallway. The webs clung hard unto his body to the extent that it felt like he wore an extra layer of clothing. Clothing made up of webs to further mask an eerie realization.

A realization that things had returned to the way they were before his daring escape. An escape that had brought the feeling of hunger, of smelling the rotting trees, of tasting the water he had cupped up with his hands. It seemed to Jason that he had once more returned to not having any sensation.

Jason calmed himself, gradually navigating through the halls of the castle. He touched the walls in the hallway but felt nothing. It felt like his escape had been a dream. This feeling of decay, of acceptance, of emptiness was real and was never going to leave.

Jason walked towards front door and attempted to open it but it didn't budge. He pushed harder and harder but could only hear creaking noises from other dark corners of the main hall. He didn’t feel tired, he didn't feel any sensation as always but somehow felt he could not go on pushing the door. Maybe his curse had been elevated to remove the only satisfaction he had in all his time here. The satisfaction of walking around the courtyard and seeing the stars and the moon.

Jason picked up an ivory lamp and lit it to search for an alternate route out of the building. He didn't search for long before seeing a window by the main parlour, it was broken and with curtains that moved up and down in a rhythm that indicated a cold night. He made his way through the window and into the courtyard.

Jason was surprised to see that the trees and vines surrounding the castle had somehow encroached further since he was forcefully returned and restrained in his sarcophagus...in his home, his prison. The compound looked like a jungle. Maybe it was just part of a new clause introduced to his curse to maybe punish me for escaping.

Jason made his way to the front door to find that a huge tree had grown in from of it. It must have been the weight of the tree that made opening the front door impossible. Wait! How long had he slept in the sarcophagus? How much time has passed? He tried to imagine the number of years that could have passed for a strong, huge tree to have grown, towering far above the castle walls.

Had his punishment this time been so vicious because he had finally stepped out of the castle?

Jason sat down as his memories continued to pour in. Memories of a life he had once lived. Of death, of his victims cries...of the witch wielding the fiery staff over his body as he dangled face down. He remembered the blood dripping down his face as his sight was blurred by a bright light, only to wake up bound by chains in a dark concrete cupboard, which he after stepping out of, found out to be a sarcophagus.

Jason suddenly remembered the female figure that swung the fiery totem pole over her head as she sent him back to the prison he had just escaped. Or did he remember her? It was all too hazy. She looked like the witch who had hung him while placing the curse on him in his past life. Someone he didn't remember he knew until after the encounter with the female stranger under the moonlight.

Maybe she was the same person. Living a thousand years just to be a bane on his existence. Jason didn't blame her. His evil had caused it.

With the memories came tears. Jason wept as he felt shame and anger and hate. Hate at his blind devotion to duty.

He gathered some wood to the centre of the courtyard and lit it up with a torch he had fashioned. The burning wood crackled as the burn fire grew till it touched the branches of the dense trees.

“Maybe it would work this time”, Jason whispered as he stepped into the the huge fire.

Jason could see the fire engulf him but he didn't feel anything. He saw his clothes peeling off along with the web that had adorned him earlier. His flesh didn't burn and his hope for a quick afterlife didn't come true.