//------------------------------//
// Pain is Eternal  
// Story: The Pale Condition 
// by Lazy_ 
//------------------------------//

BONG
...
BONG
...
BONG

The sound of the great bell gonged out the marker, as meaningless as it had become. As the huge bell continued to shift, it's keeper held up a small ornate gold dial to catch the light. After a few seconds, the sound of the bell stopped, and the clock-faces began to rotate onto another rune before settling.

KACHUNK The faces locked together, signalling the end of the procedure. The keeper sighed, settling back down on her chair, the small table next to her holding only a small book and a chalice.

"Another year in this forsaken place, hmm?" She said quietly to herself. If it were not for the great clock, she would lose all track of time, not that it mattered though. By her blood she was so long lived some may consider her immortal, and in her prison time was irrelevant anyway. She spent a moment looking down at the object in her lap. Taking in it's sick glory for hopefully the last time. Maybe the ritual would work... maybe this time she could end it.

"Curse the fiends..." She grabbed the scabbard in her left hoof and she lifted herself from her seating to her full height. "and their children too. And their children forever, true..." She clasped the handle and slowly began to draw, until she continued the rite. "I call to the bloodless, wherever they may be." The object was drawn from it's scabbard, the shining metal sharpened to a razor's edge on on side and it's structure curving like a gentle wave. "So ignorant of the rotten secrets. Look and the only thing you'll see..." She rotated the blade around, carefully minding the cleaver-like dagger attached to the hilt. She raised it above her head, ready to plunge it deep into her own flesh. 

"Broken pieces, and painful misery."

She ran herself through with the blade mercilessly, like she had little care for her own life. Her body convulsed in pain as the weapon sank through her body as if it were butter. She growled in pain and her hoof went limp on the handle as she gritted her teeth in an attempt to stave off her flamed nerves. Suddenly she gripped the handle once more, and without further hesitation, ripped the blade from her abdomen, an arc of blood cascading from the metal. The sword's design incorporated an arcane effect which gathers blood at it's edge to form an extended blade of solidified and sharpened blood. Putting her pain to one side, she grabbed the stained chalice and pushed the hardened blood into it, grinding it off and allowing it to liquefy once more as it escaped the arcane effects.

As the chalice was filled with blood, she set it down on the table again and slumped heavily back into her chair. The messy blade no longer had it's grotesque extension but was stained an orange/red. As she felt the familiar faintness come upon her body, she gazed aside to the chalice and observed.

...

...

Nothing.

She let 'sleep' claim her once more, as she went back to waiting. Waiting for it all to end.