Michael is dying of tuberculosis.

He doesn't know it by that name yet, and no one will for another six-hundred years. In ancient Greece it was called phthisis and in a few hundred years it will be called the white plague in the German fiefdom which Michael left behind a few days ago. To Michael however, it's just a hacking cough, an ache in his body and a certainty of expiration.

Michael is dying of tuberculosis and he is sitting on a rock trying to imagine what death will feel like.

Michael has been alive for thirty-four years and has been a stubborn atheist for the last twenty-five. He was never quite a nihilist, partly because he'd never heard the word, and partly because he always found some purpose, even in a finite existence. Still, he had always known that priests were beacons of sterile wisdom for the unchanging masses. Religion was for peasants and idiots who would never rise above the miserable lives they were born into. A fairytale that helps tell right from wrong for those who don't seek a grander horizon in their lifetime, but an embarrassment for any respectable man. Michael's devout rejection of the divine had inspired revolution and founded new ways to live. It made him a leader and a hero, and herald of change. Now though, it lingers only as a stoic acceptance of harsh reality.

Right now, Michael is sitting on the rock shelf of a mossy knoll in the center of a forest which lies on the edge of what will one day be called Germany. He is about a hundred miles from the fiefdom in which he was born, raised, trained, and knighted. A principality where he had helped lead a revolution against those who ruled with “divine right”. A kingdom which he had seen rebuilt with the ideals that he believed in. A home in which he had married and raised children, in spite of religious law. Now, Michael is sitting on a flat boulder in the middle of the forest, methodically tracing the gold decorations of his helmet with his fingertips, trying to imagine what it will feel like to die.

Even when the image of a kinder universe would be more comforting than ever, he is still too proud of his dedication to the real. He knew of men who spent their entire lives scoffing at the church only to call for a priest in their final moments, giving in to the ultimate fear of the unknown and deluding themselves just to make their final few moments a bit less miserable. Spineless cowards.

At that thought his body is wracked with another fit of putrid coughing. He doubles over, spewing spittle and blood onto the forest floor. It feels like the edge of a knife is scraping along the inside of his lungs and throat. When the painful spell is finally over his eyes are red and filled with tears. He breathes shallow breaths, silently hoping that the next bout will be less painful.

He wipes his mouth with an already blood stained sleeve and attempts to regain his composure.

“Better to die now,” he thinks.

There's no good place for old men in this world. He always despised the impotent protectors of useless tradition, those aging warriors who serve no purpose but to reminisce on their days of strength. Those graying bastards who sit and imagine the ways they could have ruled the world. “I remember when I was young…”—God what a terrible way to start a story. “Yes,” Michael thinks, “better to die now.”

It had to come eventually anyway, as warrior and revolutionary thoughts of death had never left his mind. He refused to despair, only fearing that he would die before seeing the completion of his task. In all honesty, he often fantasized about dying after the success of his revolution. To die knowing that he had served his purpose perfectly, a slight smile crept across his face at this thought.

But now, he faced it in reality. He had seen a kingdom remade. He had watched two daughters and a son grow from children to—well, slightly larger children. He married a woman for which he would have never been allowed to love under the rule of the king he overthrew. When he left them all behind a few days ago to be sure he would not spread his affliction, and trudged off into the forest, he had been content with the legacy he left behind.

“There are certainly worse deaths than this,” he thinks.

Better than to grow old and unfulfilled, wasting away at the expense of one's family. Better than being forced to watch the city you worked to dignify be corrupted while one can do nothing but sit idly by.

Better than to watch your children live out fruitless lives.

For a moment Michael is surprised by the last thought, and he wonders whether he has not enough faith in his ilk, but then he is reminded that he will never have to face this question again. This is a worry that will outlive him.

Even still, his brow furrows at the notion and his countenance betrays a sour mood.

Another horrific spasm of convulsive expulsion interrupts his contemplation. This time, he is thrown to the forest floor in wracking pain and his helmet is sent bouncing into the undergrowth. When this fit finally comes to end, he is sitting on his hands and knees, a feeling of anger welling up inside of him. He is mad at the people who wasted his time in life and for the first time he is mad at the disease that infects him. The same feeling of injustice that inspired him to revolution swells in his chest. What an unfair fate this is. There are a thousand fraudulent preachers and unfit kings who should have to face this fate before him.

He stands to retrieve his helmet, but finds his legs too weak to hold him, and collapses back onto the forest floor.

“Fuck.”

Instantly, his anger dissipates into a feeble helplessness as he lays face down on the wet ground. Suddenly, he can no longer imagine standing on his own two feet. He claws at the dirt around him in vain, searching for something to hold onto, anything. He lets out a series of weak, sniveling cries, defeat creeping into his mind.

He reaches out for something, he's not sure what, but he's grasping at the air around him. He knows he just wants to be a little warmer. Now he's screaming, wailing at the forest around him, only pausing to gnaw his fingernails off one by one. He scrapes his bloody hands along the tearing cloth of his trousers letting out a series of half-sentence pleas for some kind mercy from the disease. “Wait…please….damn it…oh God…wait.” He presses his hands into the dirt below, trying to push himself up, but only manages to shove himself onto his back, the strength just isn't there. He kicks the air with his feet and beats his fists into the dirt with such force that one of his knuckles pops out of place. Still, his tantrum continues, using every ounce of energy he has left.

After what could have been an hour or a minute, Michael finally comes to a stop, staring up at the canopy above while taking long, heaving, grating breaths. His eyes are red and sore, his face is covered in blood and snot. He stays exactly as he is for a few moments, unmoving and unblinking, eyes focused on the clouds passing overhead. He notices that it's grown dark since the moment he first sat down on the rocky ledge only a few feet away. The moon shines down and the small clearing is lit with a gray glow. Michael's muscles relax and he feels himself sinking into the dirt beneath him.

Michael is dying.

It doesn't matter what of and he doesn't care how it came to be. In forty years a child will find his helmet, then his corpse. In another hundred, what's left of his skull will be carried away by a delighted bear cub and the rest of his skeleton will slowly submerge into the muck. In two-hundred-and-seventy years a new revolution and change of faith will have Michaels name stricken from history, and see his proudest achievements undone entirely. In about six-hundred years his helmet will make an excellent exhibit in a British museum.

Michael is dying of tuberculosis and he is lying on the forest floor, trying desperately to imagine what the sunrise will look like tomorrow.