Memento mori. I’ve heard that phrase before. Multiple times, though I’ve never found occasion to ask what it means. It was a common phrase in my hometown; wherever one were to travel they would be surrounded by it. Carved into the side of buildings, engraved into the pavement, graffitied on the vast sandstone walls encasing the town. If one were to spend an afternoon on the poorer side of the town – deep in amongst the grimy alleyways where only the lowest would be forced to live – they may hear the soft muttering of those foul ponies close to death. Memento mori, memento mori, memento mori. Their last words.
Cold. It was cold. The coldest it had ever been. Each breath drawn chilled one’s throat and twisted their lungs, each exhalation leaving a ghosted frozen cloud in its wake. I shivered violently for a moment at the sudden feeling of the frosted sandstone against my back and the blade at my throat. I wasn’t taken by surprise, however. What else can I do after poor Twilight…? This is how everyone ended. Everyone who didn’t die in the shadows muttering memento mori to no one. My only regret was that it was so cold. The cold would only make it more painful.
This is blade is colder than the air. Much colder. It bites into the skin at my throat. Warm; a thin stream of warmth coursing down my throat and pooling at my collarbone. The tip of the blade is flicked upwards suddenly. Another shiver. Another stream. The taste of iron. Drip. Drip.
Stab.
“Memento mori.”