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It’s impossible to judge time here. For one thing, the pain makes every second stretch beyond reason. For another, the recovery periods often mean he loses whole days—perhaps weeks—to shock. His human mind simply cannot process what the fuck is happening to him. His nerves don’t speak that language.
But, if he were to guess conservatively, it’s been four years. Not so long, maybe. Except he’s seen what stress like this does to a body. Watched boys fresh out of school go gray under their helmets, seen the lines grow stark on their faces in a matter of months.
His reflection, though, hasn’t changed. He often doesn’t recognize the man looking back at him, but when he does, it’s like staring at an old photograph; the chestnut hair and smooth cheeks belong to another version of him, one who existed long, long ago. One who thought he knew suffering. One who had the world.
He only asks the King in Yellow once.
“How long’s it been, anyway?” And, unsaid but surely heard: Please, god, just let it fucking end. There is nothing left for you to take of me.
The King in Yellow turns that awful plateau face toward him. He doesn’t shut his eyes against it; there is no deeper pit of madness in which to fall.
“A single grain of sand,” the King in Yellow says, “in the hourglass of infinity.”