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Pale figure of a man is laying down on the floor, no colour present on his usually tan skin except bruises of various hues and shapes. Iron deficiency made the body grey and purple, dehydration pitched in to deepen the eyebags and sunk the cheekbones. If someone walked into his apartment they would probably think he’s either having a very elaborate cult funeral or that he was a god in human form, his grotesque vulnerability made to look poetic. Room smells like vomit, flowers, blood and sweat.
Last weeks were terrifying, yes. Feeling how his own lungs were giving up on him, opening mouth to talk only to see blood coming out, not knowing if he will wake up in the morning. Now, as he is sure he will very soon die, he finds this self-inflicted anguish a very ironic, tragic comedy of dying in a sea of life and withering at every stage of the cycle. Sunrise started slowly creeping up the window and illuminating the home. It’s okay, Kim has maybe one sunrise left, two if he is lucky. Stubbornness is literally the end of him. Once again, he is reassuring god knows who, that he truly does not mind that. He won’t be seventy. Whatever. He is holding up the ideal of self sufficiency, never letting emotions out and he will go down with the ship. He will not confess. Never, even if it kills him. He decided long ago that anyone who loves him will suffer a terrible fate as he is the god of death. That was why he was so accepting of his sickness, it was karma for letting all those people who he let himself to love end up like they did. However he can’t remember the last time he loved someone as much as he loved Harry. That is still terrifying. He can’t let someone have that much power over him. Any thought of him makes Kim’s body fill up with flowers, choking him. In a way, he still was jealous of the way the man was brave enough to pull a gun in his own mouth. He never had the courage to directly end himself but now, refusing help, dying on the cold wooden floor quietly feels like a good alternative.
Deep quickly inhaled breaths making ribs go up and down, like sea waves. One can almost see the lungs. They are open, welcome to the taking. Anyone can adore the body buried in flowers. All sorts of plants dying all around him, some rotting. Cycle of life begins once again. New colourful silky wet rags of new organic matter slide out of permanently blood stained chapped lips. Area around the nose freckled with maroon speckles of dried nosebleeds gets flooded with the metallic liquid once again. Coughing fit that echoes throughout the whole empty room sounds cruel. Once again everyone is laughing at him, even the walls. The zombie laying on the floor finds that incredibly ironic and lets out a laugh too. In a very odd way it is an honest smile. He wants to do one last thing - to have a fucking cigarette. He might faint or his lungs might refuse to be hugged with another dose of toxin. When was the last time he ate or drank anything? All he wants now is to get rid of that metallic taste from his mouth by lighting a cigarette that will taste like roses and blood. His hands shake almost too much and for a second he doesn't believe he will be able to light the end without dropping the heavy lighter on the pile of dry petals. Dying in the fire would not be ideal since he does not want his death to interrupt or endanger anyone else. Not the happy marriage downstairs, not the older lady next to him, not the young group of students who smoke weed every night, not giving a shit that a cop lives right below them.
He will go quietly, only sounds will be coughs and vomiting bouncing off the empty, bare walls of his new apartment and will be buried in the bathtub full of poison ivy. Poison ivy and thorns are the last state of the illness, most of the people don’t even get to it, dying before. The first inhale of the smoke tastes good and hurts good. He can’t even tell how long it took him to finish it, his head spinning and fingers deciding to extinguish the butt on his knee before he even realises he is doing that. The last act of feeling something before he faints. He does not feel or know his body is struggling for breath just a few minutes later. His soul is already melting in the sun. Pale loves him. Pale accepts him. He is the Pale and the Pale is him now.
In two or three days of not picking up the phone calls from the station they will receive a distressed message from the woman living next door, despite her husband telling her to not bother the cops with the sweet-rotten smell coming from apartment number 4. No one will want to go. Every cop in the precinct will be standing still in fear and looking either under their feet or at the lieutenant double yefritor Du Bois, begging him to say something and to break the silence. He will already know what happened. After ten minutes he will assign the case to the junior officers and go out to have a drink, breaking the three months sobriety streak. Then he will wake up behind the local Fritte and go inside once again. And again. And again. Then he will meet with the local corrupt shrink just to pathetically beg for some benzodiazepines. That will be all. No one will interrupt him when he fills up the bathtub and gets enough of pills and booze to not realise he is in fact drowning. It will be okay. The Pale loves all its children and Harry was living on borrowed time anyways.