TOTAL TIME SPENT: 20 Minutes

In this dark room presiding, there was but meager candle light spilling across the walls, faded from their original brilliance of pomegranate red to a rustic maroon, thus signaling the dying prestige of the dweller’s status, long since tarnished by water, smothered in earth, and felled by air. The air was tinged with the musk of incense; it hung below the vaulted ceiling like a cloud.

Shining mahogany chests and a tall dresser stood like stones against the sides of the room. Great medals and swords – some blue with recent birth, and others chipped by use (like trophies of rougher times, consecrated in blood) – were but a few of the priceless fortunes hung on the walls.

A long mirror was tapered to the door. Seemingly innocent, there were no qualms about its use, save but for some days, when the servants had idle time to gossip, and wondered how there came to be faint glue lines, splintering all throughout. And if there ever was, by some extraordinary measure, a personage with so much of a perspicacious acuity as to glance upon this anomaly; he would imagine that its owner would have had paused at exiting, only to look beyond the reflection and fearfully examine his own character, searching for hints of treachery, and thus being satisfied, proceed to greet the world with wary arms.

As such, that person did not exist. And so, the theory had never existed.

Centered on the far end of the door was a very large and ornate bed. The sheets were presently twisted around a convulsing figure. His face was indiscernible from all angles, hidden in the shadows of the draperies.

The man was a king.

“No, great grandfather! Hold on just a little longer!” cried out distant voices. Little children’s hands went to touch him, praying for a miracle that would not come.

The king did not stir.

Like a blanket, a thick darkness descended on him. One by one, his senses shut down. His sense of smell was the first to go. Then taste. Sight. Touch. Hearing.

Finally, his heart stopped beating altogether.

The children screamed. They felt it. They felt it in their innocent little cores, the icy departing of soul from meaty flesh. Their dear grandfather was no longer with them.