Opening his eyes, Wulfstan stared listlessly at the cave ceiling above him. While he did not sleep, he could at least pretend to now, so far below the surface of the earth that nothing but the occasional dripping of moisture from the ceiling could be heard. Not even burrowing animals dared tread within the cavern, steering clear of its black maw. All alone he remained, buried alive by his own choice.
Alive.
What an amusing word to use. Inaccurate, yet there was no true replacement for it. To be alive, wouldn't that be wonderful – how unfortunate he couldn't experience what it really meant. At least there was an end to being alive.
It had been a long time since he'd ignored the last tether tied around his heart, enduring the insistent call digging into his bones until it had ceased. Even that was many years ago at the time of him finally opening his eyes again. Wulfstan had only stepped foot out of his cave once since the day Leofric died, in the dead of night, to collect all he needed from the now abandoned Smythe house. He wondered if it still stood there, inhabited by a new family that knew nothing of who had once lived there. Of what had once stayed there. He wondered if it had been demolished in the time gone by.
Wulfstan couldn't tell if that idea hurt him more or less. His feelings didn't mean anything, though.
Over one hundred years had passed, and he barely knew anything more from the writings on the stone tablets and scrolls than he did when he had first found them in the stone bed where he now lay. Over one hundred years ago, when he had been but a clueless child, he thought he had found the answer to everything. It was laughable how naïve he had been.
Little did Wulfstan know all those moons ago.
He had not managed to learn anything new because he was useless. All this time had passed and, while he had translated all but the very oldest stone, nothing of consequence had been found. Only misery plagued him as he read of the many lives that the person he had once been had lived with his soulmate. Uncountable, unfathomable and so unfairly happy. So many joyous lifetimes in comparison to those miserable ones – perhaps they had not been written down, but there were, so far, very few discrepancies in the timeline. Even if his theory was correct, only a handful of those lives had been so torturous to have not been recorded compared to the hundreds of little memories he'd collected from the cavern. There had been so many more stuffed in hidden nooks and crannies that he'd discovered through the years. The carvings had not just been for the purpose of art and visual memory – they secretly held the very lives of the soulmate and the man Wulfstan once was, waiting for someone to find them.
Wulfstan had not been given the liberty of a happy life for long at all. Less than five years, really, before he became swamped with the terror of his true nature and the reality of twisted feelings. Only a dozen before he'd allowed Leofric to die as he did – Wulfstan's heart ached at the mere thought of the man. It had taken a long time before that man, his soulmate, didn't plague his ever-waking mind every second of every dark day. He couldn't help but be poisoned by jealousy every time he reread one of the old pieces of writing.
Why couldn't he have done better by Leofric? Was he that much of a monster, despicable, incapable and undeserving of any joy? Long had he thrown the translated writings to the wayside in an attempt to maintain some sanity.
They had lain in the furthest corner of the cavern, steeped in shadows. Hopefully, they would rot and rid him of the pain he felt every time he glanced at those accursed writings. The only one he clung to was the one rock slate still outside of his understanding, tucked safely in the hidden compartment in wall of the coffin-like bed.
For what purpose, even Wulfstan wasn't sure. Those drawings were a language long forgotten by time, humanity and him – there was no world in which he could imagine its contents being made clear. He'd decided he would die but, even after a century, nothing about him had changed, no hint of the end coming to him.
It seemed death from attrition would not be possible. It wasn't like he could starve himself or slit his wrists and bleed to death. Suffocation was impossible.
That left having to go out, finding people and provoking them. Force them to kill him, like his nameless self – how he hated that person he couldn't remember being – had died before, half a millennia ago. Pierced with arrows like a pincushion; it would be slow and agonising, he knew that much from his past self's testimony. Hopefully, he could find a nobleman or knight with a sword who could remove his head from his neck with little pain. Wulfstan felt as if he'd suffered enough. A peaceful death wasn't too much to ask for, he didn't think.
He wondered how much the world had changed since he'd left it. It was a whole other century now – really, thinking about it, he was probably on the cusp of the second century after Leofric's passing. Wulfstan wondered if there was a chance for him to be happy the next time his soulmate came back. That would be soon, wouldn't it?
Shaking his head, he knocked loose the ridiculous thought. Wulfstan had vowed to never interact with the soul that was connected to his – there was no life where he could forgive himself or allow himself the indulgence of affection and love.
Still, if he intended to perish, once and for all, he would need to go outside. He would have to come in contact with humanity and, in turn, run the risk that that humanity would be his soul's other half.
Closing his eyes in contemplation, Wulfstan lay back down in the stone bed and waited until he settled on a decision; it didn't matter if it took a day or another hundred years, he knew he'd be there, perfectly the same, either way. At the least, he'd save his soul's other half of the suffering of knowing him.
Time didn't want to take something like him.