Part VIII, Fade To Black

"So I walk upon high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down

Cause it’s the world I know
The world I know.”
-David Cook, The World I Know (Collective Soul cover)

Fate smiled on him for a brief moment.

A panther girl found his bleeding and broken body. Why she hid him in a cave near her camp so no animals or her sister would find him...he'd never know. Why she spent the endless hours setting his bones, cleaning his cuts and stitching his wounds...he'd never know. Why she risked her life and freedom tending to a stranger, and a man at that....he'd never know. All he knew is that he woke up one day, healed.

The panther never offered him an explanation. He never asked. She came dutifully every day, offering him a bite of food and a story. Then after a few hours, she would leave. She never demanded anything from him; she never asked him any questions about who he was or why he was in her forest. It was surprising: a person with seemingly no ambition or angle. He was not used to that. The time in the cave gave him time to think, though. He reflected on everything he had done, both bad and good. He had disgraced his family, he had ruined lives, he had cost thousands of men their lives because of a war he started. And yet...the Priest Kings still allowed him to live. They gave him a guardian angel in the form of this panther girl. His mission in life was still not done. There was something he still needed to accomplish. Perhaps once he discovered what that was, he would finally receive peace and eternal rest.

So when he was finally fit to move on his own, he slipped out of the cave in the cover of darkness. Feeling with his hands, he advanced through the thickness of a forest and down the mountainside.

And poof. Just like that, he was gone.