AntithesisOfASoul

The bedding rustles as the old king tries to find comfort in his aching joints during his last breaths. The courtiers all surround him, their hushed whispers and titters feel like the predation of vultures circling overhead as they wait for him to take his last breath. His blood shot eyes are deeply sunken in his sockets, they barely register as being there under his half cracked creped lids. His chest rattles fiercely with each sucking painful intake, a pale shadow of the hearty lungs he once used to cry out his rage across the battlefields to strike fear in his enemy's hearts. His hair lay thin and lifelessly lank about his pink, liver-spotted pate. He is far more bald than he was even three days ago, his broken strands coating his flat pillow instead of gracing his head. Once he had a head of hair to be envied, by man and woman alike, but now, even a newborn put him to shame with how brittle and sparsely fine it has become. The sheeting bunches in his gnarled hands, the arthritic