*Death is the final critic, waiting to judge every creation.*
Cain stared at the words on the page before him, lamenting over his own writing. How stoic and existential it had become with time. He let the pen in his fingers fall into the pot beside him.
Heaving a sigh, he looked at the pages he had written. A short story of the life he had lived. A memoir, his own experiences, hopes and expiring mortality.
Yes, expiring mortality. Cain was due to die. Not from old age or illness but from his own sins.
When Cain was young, he had dreams of become a commander in the army. A hero who was gifted medals, a champion celebrated in parades and maybe immortalized in stories for generations to read.
His family did not share his enthusiasm, which led to many arguments as Cain grew up. Those arguments led to a letter left on the kitchen table on his 18th birthday, simply stating he had left to join the army.
Cain deserted his family, joining the army to try and realize his adolescent dreams.
Reality and dreams are separate for a reason and reality hit Cain like a flash flood. Training was grueling, the conditions were abysmal yet he perserved holding onto his fickle dream.
When he was first deployed though, his dream shattered and reality blotted the world grey. The battlefield he had foolishly romanticized was grisly, unrelenting and stained with death.
His training wasn't in vain, as Cain managed to survive despite the cruel conditions. His disposition changed daily from the naive rookie to the conditioned soldier he needed to be to survive.
He clasped onto his talents as a technician on the battlefield to survive and whilst he was lucky to escape death numerous times, his comrades fell around him like flies.
Was this really the life he wanted? He gave up his family, his relationships for this kind of life? Unfortunately for Cain this was all he had ever known now for years and returning home was out of the question in his mind.
He only ended up returning home when he was forced to. His final deployment, his camp was infiltrated by enemy soldiers. His entire encampment was routed, and whilst Cain was able to mistake after creating a shabby make-shift bomb to distract the pursuers, he was shot multiple times as he left with the remaining people in his camp.
Doctors managed to save Cain, but the damage was already done. His body was now a fragile clock, ticking towards an end that couldnt be estimated. The boy who dreamed of being a war hero was gone, replaced with a man hardened and hollowed out by reality.
He returned a broken man. He discovered whilst he was gone his parents had fallen ill and died. The only family he had left was his brother, Stan, who refused to acknowledge him as a brother after what he did.
When Cain told Stan that he was due to die in the coming years however, Stan's attitude changed. He still didnt acknowledge his brother, but he refused to let his brother die in solitude.
On his first visit, Stan brought his daughter Katie. She was a bright-eyed girl, full of innocent who looked up to Cain as a cool uncle, blissfully unaware of her father and uncles strained relationship.
Through Katie, Cain started to smile again from time to time. Guilt however filled his heart also, feeling as though he was undeserving of such adoration.
On a particular day Katie handed Cain a book. "Uncle, Uncle! You have to read this! Daddy reads it to me all the time, its my favourite!"
Cain grabbed the book and chuckled looking at the cover, filled with illustrations of wizards, witches and magical castles. It wasnt the kind of thing Cain would usually find himself reading however he was weak to his nieces innocent pleading eyes.
As he began to read the book however, he couldn't stop. He read the entire series over and over enraptured in the story. It was an escape from his own bleak reality, this fantasy world filled with wonder.
Reading the story, he gained a particular interest in the wands the witches and wizards used. Such tools were conduits of wonder and fascination. Children aged 11 would get these wands in the story and be fascinated by being paired with a partner for life.
His cold calloused hands began to itch again, something that he hadnt felt since he first enrolled in the army. Using up some of his funds, he bought the tools to carve wood, intending on learning how to craft wands himself.
Why did he want to craft wands? He himself didnt even know. It may have been a form of repentance deep down, or it was just another distraction from his looming fate.
Seasons passed as Cain lost himself in his work. His first creations were crude, but as time pressed on his adept hands worked their magic and began to make works that could be considered remarkable.
One of these wands, he gifted to his niece whose eyes glowed looking at the intricate carvings on the handle. "Daddy, Daddy! Look at what Uncle Cain made me!" She exclaimed, running to show her father.
Stan looked at the wand in his daughters hand, surprised by the delicate craftsmanship. "Cain, you made this?"
Cain's tone was as cold as ever' "It's just something I've been doing to pass the time, besides I thought the little one would like it..." he said, before coughing violently into his hand. His gaze went hazy for a moment as he looked at the palm of his hand, stained in blood.
Stan looked at his brother with a difficult expression. He had words he wanted to say but didn't know how to say them. After some silence, He finally spoke. "Its nearly time isn't it?".
Cain nodded. "I've been lucky to go this long. I've reached the max amount of time those doctors said I'd live for..."
Forcing himself to his feet, Cain leaned on his walking stick. Walking slowly over to his brother, he passed him a stack of papers. "This is for you, don't try to turn them down".
Stan looked at the papers in his hand, he could see that most of them were documents with Cain's signature signed all over, one of them however seemed to be his last words.
His lip quivered. He couldn't forgive his brother even after all this time but he didn't hate him enough to be happy about him dying.
Cain kneeled down next to Katie, who was still swishing her wand around happily. "You be a good girl for your dad Katie. If you aren't, your uncle will be angry!"
Katie nodded with a smile, promising her Uncle she would be good. Stan helped Cain back up to his feet and over to the chair in the corner of the shed. Sitting down, Cain looked up at his brothers expression.
"There's a lot I wish I could say now, but I could fall down at any moment. If you read my final words, you will understand your foolish brothers full story... I'm sorry Stan".
Stan didn't respond. He walked over to Katie grabbing her hand and went to the door of the shed. As he was about to leave, he turned his head. "You weren't a perfect brother, and you definitely weren't a perfect son but... you were a damn good uncle Cain".
Cain smiled wryly as he watched his brother and niece leave. A sigh escaped his lips as he leant back in his chair. "What to do now..."
He felt he didnt have long, but he couldn't judge the amount of time he had left. Looking at his desk in front of him he decided on what he wanted to do in his last moments.
Looking around the shed for wood, he realized that he had none left... none but one slab he had kept for years. It was not a material he had bought like any of the other wood he had used before, it was something from his army days.
A wooden split stained in blood he once used to set his broken leg in his first deployment. He kept it all this time as a memento.
"This is starting to feel a little too sentimental..." Cain mused. Mortality often made a man a philosopher in their own way.
Setting up his desk, Cain put the splint in front of him. It had rotted a bit, but the core of the wood was probably still decent enough to use. It wouldn't be his prettiest wand he had ever made, but it would be 'his' wand.
He began to carve carefully, fully enraptured in his work. With each carve, flashes of memories would play in his mind. With each chip falling off the wood, his regrets would surface and with the final details being added, his soul started to settle as he accepted his circumstances.
As he worked, he didn't notice that the candle next to him flickered randomly, as if influenced by a whisper in the wind. The air was heavy, and a chill breeze filled the shed. All of this Cain didn't notice, fully lost in his life's last task.
Carving the last part, He held the wand out in his hand, impressed with his final life's work. It was not a fancy statue, nor was it a painting with meaning but a wand from a book his niece gave him. Some may call it childish, but he didn't care.
He felt his body weaken as pain erupted from his chest. His eyes grew heavier by the moment, as if accepting after his work was done that all attachments to the world were now gone. Looking at the wand in his hand, he let out a wry smile as he welcomed death.
As his vision darkened further, Cain could have sworn he saw the tip of the wand glow before darkness overtook him completely.
An ethereal voice whispered. "In a world-line bereft of power, you have bridged the gap… how curious."