20 February 2006, pencil, 29x20cm, some mirror reference.
Inspired by the album Come Clarity by In Flames, and the movie Blade Runner starring Rutger Hauer.

The wayfaerer stood atop the ridge, looking down at a sea of mist. The search, like some infinite struggle, was now over... Through the fog, he had been pacing death's trail for too long. It had finally brought him to a quiet place on this god-forsaken planet, where these new shores burned with the fires of Orc... And here he had found the truth - he now knew!

The fury took him, the rage engulfed him. In flames, he was tormented by his desires. He wanted to scream, he wanted to feel, he wanted to stay a while longer - he wanted more life! His heart reflected the storm around him now... How could they just take this life, like leeches?

With the subsidence of rage, like vanishing light, came clarity - a sweet shadow cloaking him... leaving nothing but a vacuum, a discovery of emptiness.

Clad in shadows, he was suddenly overcome by a colossal grief, a sadness for his fallen comrades - what humans might call "love"...? And he grieved for himself, for having lived a life of torment, only to be hunted down for what he was...

Like distant chimes of crystal through deep rolling thunder, thoughts came to him, clear in the night... What matters when all is said and done, when all is dead and gone? Would it truly be a dead eternity?

For a time he simply stood and thought about times passed, all those moments... And, like a fallen angel in dialogue with the stars, a greater sadness welled up inside, threatening to overwhelm him... All those moments, lost in time... He fought back the tears as it rained...

It was not yet time to die...