How many years had it been since the deal had been made? How many since his soul had been torn from his chest, his body left as a bloody mess for someone more fortunate than he to find? His original estimated life span had been several centuries, but with new eyes, new ideas the ideas that he would be immortal made his view on life, on time ... different. Every day blurred with every week and every year until it all became one long, continuous moment in time. Day, night, it didn't matter anymore. Why mark the passage of time when he knew he would live forever?
It must have been only a few years, for she still looked the same: fire in the eyes, a bold stance that accused him of everything and yet nothing. He swallowed thickly, dropped the bloodied weapon that had been clutched in one hand it clattered to the ground ungracefully and stared at her uneasily. Before his feet, a dark, ensanguined pile of meat for after his work, that was what it was; the hellish hound that had been gifted to him had torn into the man with ferbvor arose from the ground, a ghoulish remnant of someone who had once been a man. Cupid lips pursed. Deep down, he hoped that her appearance was simply yet another vision conjured by the self-loathing and guilt that had wrecked him ever since the deal had been made. He hoped that she was simply a ghastly spectre, and not the real thing.
But he knew better than that she was too real to be another hallucination.
❝ This is not real. You ... you are dreaming. ❞
Of course she's not dreaming, but he's got to lie, at least hope that she'll take his words at face value. He had dropped off the radar for a reason never did he want to see any of his crew again, for he feared that the very appearance of him (hellish eyes, the clenched jaw that accompanied the tense, wary muscles of a broken man) would drive them to madness. His family was meant to never see him again.
❝ It cannot be real, you know this. I died years ago. ❞