The pain was getting worse.
With each toll of the bell from the dilapidated garrison he felt it burrow deeper, felt them crawl down into all the little spaces inside him.
They had come from the basement, of this he was sure. There in the dark they had risen as shadows, creeping from their tiny, broken corpses.
The blows had struck the glim from their eyes and made them empty, soulless things, no longer did he see them watching from the shadows.
Perhaps they had come at night, when he had finally thought to give in to sleep. They had crawled within his chest and made their bed there, a writhing mass of teeth and leathery tails entwined into one great monarch. He would not sleep beneath their watch, he could not risk the devouring court and all it's lords and ladies. His heart beat to the Rat King's drum.
