"Well. That was a bloody disaster."
I muttered these words.
The metallic smell of blood mixed with earth permeated my nasal cavities as I lay on the crimson ground with a spear driven through my torso.
So this is how the animals I cooked in my travels felt when I rammed a stick into their bodies over the fire.
"Sorry, little guys", I muttered as the vengeful spirits of rabbits and small deer glared at me from the animal afterlife.
Wow. Didn't know that being close to death can make one see strange stuff.
Oh, wait! I haven't introduced myself. How unbecoming of a knight!
I am Sir Mordred, a Knight of the Round Table and the illegitimate son of High King Arthur Pendragon.
My mother was Morgause, the queen of Orkney, who was later found out to be my father's half-sister.
Yeah. Ew indeed.
Even I was horrified when I heard it.
I have many other names as well.
Bastard.
Traitor.
Treacherous Knight.
The False King.
These were among my many colorful monikers.
As you can see. I am quite infamous.
Oh, and I was the vile villain who destroyed Arthur's kingdom as prophesied by the wizard Merlin.
Yeah.
I still wish I could drop-kick the old wizard and strangle him with his beard. But alas, he was taken out by a Lady of the Lake.
If it weren't for his stupid future sight. Things wouldn't have been this messy.
A sigh escaped my bloody lips. What's the point now, anyway?
There is no way of undoing the past.
A tear flowed down my face, mixing with the blood to form a crimson stream as the events of my life and my actions suddenly crashed into me.
The only thing I ever wanted was to be acknowledged by my father. I wanted to be seen as a son in his eyes.
I wanted to see if there was a meaning to my wretched life.
Every human has a purpose, and I never fully understood mine, apart from being the fruit of a forbidden relationship.
I tried very hard to be acknowledged by Arthur. I became a knight and climbed up the ranks, and even became a part of The Round Table.
But even then, Arthur saw me as a good knight, not as a son.
So I tried harder and even did things I was not proud of.
But they always led to disaster. This formed a rift between me, my father, and everyone else, and that rift grew into a huge chasm over time.
I made it even worse when I revealed my relation to the king. Everyone was repulsed, and they avoided me.
They looked at me with fear and disgust in their eyes, unable to see me as a fellow human.
And my father?
He ignored me.
No matter what I did or said, to him, I simply didn't exist.
This eventually caused hatred and bitterness to bud in me.
I came to hate my father and the people.
So, my desire for Arthur's acknowledgment transformed into an obsession for the throne on which he sat.
I thought if I became High King, I would finally find meaning in my life.
And I succeeded in that. While the High King was far away at war, I forged a letter by the 'dying' Arthur, naming me the heir.
I ascended the throne, turned the people to my side, and got a taste of being a king.
Of being loved.
Everyone loved me. Such that even when my still-alive father returned with his army, my people, the very people who looked at me with disgust and fear, stood in his path and fought for me.
It led to many bloody confrontations, and all of them culminated on this day in Camlann.
Our armies clashed in a tidal wave of people. I fought my best against Arthur and showed him what I had become.
The sun hid away behind the dark, heavy clouds that formed over the battlefield, unable to witness the clash between father and child.
Lightning illuminated the dark clouds with every clash of our weapons, and the earth was soaked in the blood of the fallen, trembling beneath the stomping of metal boots.
My father and I fought like demons, our weapons became instruments of bloody death and destruction.
Surely he would acknowledge me as his son. Surely he would apologize for his wrongdoing against me.
That is what I thought as we fought.
But Fate was cruel, and it deemed my defeat.
Even when he drove the spear into my body, my father saw the Traitor, not his son.
He left me to die on the crimson ground, soaked with the blood of thousands, as he staggered away without even looking back at the son he killed.
That act. His turning his back on me was the final straw, and I finally broke.
Grief, anger, disgust.
These emotions overwhelmed me, and I cursed my father and my wretched life.
I despised him and despised myself for feeling that way.
If I had made a different choice or done things differently, none of this would've happened.
Unfortunately, it is too late now.
Oh well. At least I did what that senile wizard warned the King years ago.
Arthur Pendragon is mortally wounded and will no doubt die from his injuries; his queen abandoned him, his best knight, Lancelot, betrayed him, and his kingdom is now in chaos.
"Hahaha."
I know I shouldn't be laughing in my current condition, but I can't help it. Besides, does it really matter? I am going to die, anyway.
And so I laughed loudly like the vile monster I had become.
My deranged laughter echoed across the battlefield filled with the bodies of soldiers, both Arthur's and mine. I laughed and laughed until blood exploded out of my mouth.
Ow!
Yep, it was a bad idea.
I felt my life fading from my body. I am quite positive I will be going to hell for the heinous deeds I've committed.
I've heard it is a lovely place of eternal torment.
Looks like death is the only peace I will receive before an eternity of pain and suffering.
My vision started to fade, and my breathing slowed. I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
And standing in it was a young man.
Hold up. A young man standing at the end of the tunnel? That is not your standard last-moment stuff.
Oh, wait. He is standing over me.
Using the last of my willpower, I cleared my vision to look at the strange man.
Beautiful.
That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the tall man.
He was quite young, in his early twenties, and had a slim frame. He wore a simple gray shirt and black pants underneath a gray cloak with glowing runes that constantly shifted across the fabric.
He looked like an angel. I didn't know the angel of death was so handsome.
But he also looked like a wizard.
"Merlin?" I asked. The young man reminded me of the stories I'd heard of the old wizard.
He smiled warmly, but his ocean-blue eyes were tinged with sadness. "It appears that you still haven't passed on. Unfortunately, I am not Merlin. But he was my student."
Merlin had a teacher? There was never any mention of that.
Just who is this guy?
But my voice failed me. I am at my end.
A wave of peace washed over me as the mysterious person placed his hand gently on my forehead.
His long white hair, which almost glowed, swayed in the wind as he spoke.
"Have a good rest, Mordred. Things might get weird when you wake up."
What does he mean by that? I am literally dying in front of him! There is no 'waking up' for me.
My eyelids became heavy. Oh well. Does it matter?
I closed my eyes and breathed my last.
Darkness enveloped me. I felt weightless as I floated in the dark and peaceful void. I tried to move my limbs only to find out that I didn't have any.
I've become formless. The only thing that I can sense is my consciousness floating in the darkness.
I sighed from my nonexistent mouth.
This feels nice. So this is the peacefulness of death. I should fully utilize this calm before the storm of eternal torment in hell.
Hours, days, months, and years have passed. Or it seemed like that.
I frowned and wondered.
Is this it? Just floating aimlessly in the dark void of nothingness?
I am quite surprised that my consciousness is still intact.
Helloooo.
Did someone forget to open the gates of hell?
Don't tell me. Is this my punishment? Just being formless in the void for all eternity?
Oh, no. Oh no no no.
This is scary and boring. I don't like to be bored. I tried to shout, but my voice failed to come out. I tried to move, but unfortunately, being something similar to air made it a little hard to move around.
I eventually gave up and decided to take a small nap. Even without a body, I still became tired.
How strange was that?
Hm? What is that weird beeping sound? I stirred from my very short slumber and looked around. The weird sound was coming from beside me, but I saw nothing.
How strange.
I tried to get back to sleep, but the sound got louder and louder until I was surrounded by the infernal beeping noise.
First, the scary and unending void. Now this? Will I never get a peaceful rest? Just as the noise became unbearable, I'd had enough.
"BY MERLIN'S BEARD! SHUT UP!" I yelled and slammed my fist on a solid object. With the sound of shattering glass, the noise finally died.
Wait? I have a fist? Last I checked, I was formless.
Also.
Ouch! My hand!
But now I feel like I have a physical body. I opened my eyes and was immediately blinded by sunlight. Being in the dark for a very long time can do that to someone.
Ow! My eyes! They are burning! Oh, the agony!
Just what is happening?
Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the light, and I could finally see.
And what I saw surprised me.
I found myself sitting on a comfortable bed, the sheets strewn across my legs. I was in a spacious room with a huge glass window instead of a wall on my right.
Thick crimson curtains were tied to the side and allowed the light of the rising sun to fall on my room.
The room was moderately furnished. There were two desks arranged in an L-shape near the corner on my left, one having books and some tubular things that somehow reminded me of quills used for writing.
The second desk had a thin black contraption that looked like a huge clamshell. A strange thin box, having raised buttons and what looked like a toy mouse, was connected to the clamshell by some string.
A rather strange-looking chair with small wheels was positioned between the two desks. Near the second desk was a door that led somewhere beyond the room.
The main doors of the room near the first desk were closed.
There was a big shelf lined with many books near the huge window. There is a comfortable-looking sofa, a round dining table for two people between my bed and the shelf,
A huge mirror was attached to the wall opposite my bed, next to the shelf, and what looked like the doors of a wardrobe that was built into the wall.
Now that I look closely, beyond the huge window is a balcony with a few chairs. I noticed two small tables on both sides of my bed.
My clenched left fist was on one of them, and it was bloody. Looks like I smashed something that was made of glass and metal.
Ow. That hurt.
I held my bleeding hand and carefully pulled out the shards of glass from what used to be my alarm clock.
Wait. Alarm clock?
What the heck is an alarm clock? And how do I know what it is?
"What the hell?" I spoke and then immediately covered my mouth.
Why do I sound so young?
Before I could find answers to these questions, a crippling headache caused me to double over in pain.
And then the memories rushed in.