Chapter Text
Rain poured down the dark skies to extinguish the flames, only for it to return twice as strong. It was silent in the pitch black abyss, adrift in the ruins of her world; broken apart by gloom and ravenous ambition.
Once upon a time, there was a young wolf with hollow eyes and emptier thoughts laid on the desert. She waited. Waited for herself to be washed by the howling winds and freezing sand.
Warm hands found her. Warm hands tucked and wrapped the missing blue scarf around her neck, and warm hands gave her family.
Once upon a time, that wolf that gained everything now in a blink of an eye had lost everything. The cycle repeated as she now laid, older than before, but she still waited the same wait. For death that she cheated to finally take its long awaited prize.
She closed her eyes, and let Death’s cold hands brush her hair and tucked her in.
Yet, when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t Death.
Instead of Death finding her, something else did. The moon watched over her before it expanded, bursting into a kaleidoscope, and eventually devoured her whole.
Death hadn’t grazed her, it became her, and she became it, an avatar borne from the same horrible cycle as her empty eyes stared to the horizon. She stood in the muck of blackened blood and dry sand, and slowly, she brought the ending of the story.
Death marched through the depths of hell, and crawled up to the mountains of corpses and shattered haloes. She aimed. She fired. And she moved on again and again.
She felt nothing.
She burned bridges, tore down the heavens, and delivered the immortal to their destined death in the name of a distant hungering entity none could describe.
She felt no shame. No pity.
Death’s crusade reached its zenith. Her eyes gazed upon the last one standing in her way and her purpose.; the shattered form of the last person that had remained within her pitch black hole where her heart was. The herald of death raised her judgement, the smoking steel aiming for the heart. She squeezed. One twitch. One tug, and everything would be over. Silencing the screams—the voices—the crushing weight of the depths.
Only the song, guiding her steps and sword hand.
Death aimed, and death simply couldn’t. Her infernal sword fell from her hand and clattered uselessly. She was too much of a coward, too much of a pathetic sniffling child to finish what she started, and too much of a person—still holding to the pieces of her heart.
Hot fat tears trickled from Death’s pale face as she fell down to her knees. Cracked fingernails dug into the dirt and mud. She sobbed and begged—staring at the corpse looking back at her with those brilliant eyes—still grasping to the tether of life.
Her apologies fell flat, the ash falling like snow, and the foul ichor staining her hands. The peering eye of the jealous, hungering deity stared down at her, and its followers sang their distorted chorus.
Death couldn’t bring the end of her world. Death couldn't guide the last person to the light above, to walk in the fertile soil around the River Nile.
So HE made the choice for her.
“SENSEI!”
Death raised her hand, and as the all seeing eye was ripped apart—all she knew was a white hot light burning her retinas.
Silence. The silence was loud.
Light. The light was burning.
Your heart drummed, beating a million miles per-second as you opened your eyes to see the world—scorched by how bright it was. Only for you to harshly snap it close again before your veins became ash and shadow.
You were not in the pitch black hell of your making, you were bathed in an invading light that made your stomach churn and brainmatter spinning.
You hold your beating heart as you hyperventilate, before reaching the lock of filthy snow white hair that felt alien to you. You gripped it, tugging until your hair left their roots—holding your pounding skull as you kept your cowardly eyes shielded from the interfering brilliance.
You wanted nothing more but to curl into yourself to make it go away; to beg, to shout, to kill. Anything to stop the painful scorch, the red of your eyelids of your blood pushing away the shadow.
You stopped and took a deep long breath; anchoring yourself, reminding yourself of the shining pale beyond. You counted to three, and stopped at two.
You braved yourself, and opened your eyes slowly and painfully. The invasive sun didn’t care for your still throbbing head and ringing ears. Your eyes flickered like a broken camera, before it came into focus.
You turned to your right and your fingers hit something. Your counterweight spun and creaked, a spinning sculpture of a glass dolphin balancing itself to replace the broken one. That day in the aquarium felt worlds away, a memory of a different person.
A better person.
Your gun, your partner sat nearby. It was perfectly white, perfectly maintained meticulously for your own brand of combat where the strong was the leader of the pack before you forgot it all and knew only how much blood was coating your hands and painted your footsteps.
You blinked again and rubbed the edges of your eyelids. The sun was less painful now as your eyes had adapted to the pale light again—no longer the dark that was your life for what felt like eons.
It was your bedroom. Your house that you had left behind to ruin when everything fell apart, and when your home became the bleakness of your mind, and the right-hand corner of the Foreclosure Task Force’s meeting room.
Curled into a fetus, gasping for air, and holding your head as you cried yourself to sleep before waking up screaming. Sleep couldn’t find you then, and it couldn’t now. Not anymore.
You look to the side, the familiar colors of your uniform meet your eyes. It was freshly ironed along with the azure scarf. Her scarf that accompanied you for two years before you lost it forever, never to be found again. Your despair had taken over by then. You didn’t even care that it flew away. You didn’t even see it.
You let her gift be whisked away, and swallowed by the world because just like that scarf, you had given up all hope for a miracle that would never come.
Your hands balled into fists, gripping the freshly laundered sheets as your heart drummed again, your mind slipping enough to fabricate this past you didn’t deserve. You choked as a pit grew within the deepest parts of your empty, stirring stomach.
You clenched your lips before you heaved a dry heave, slapping it close with an iron grip on your mouth. Yet it barely did anything as you coughed, choked, and you threw your head aside down to the bedside trashcan filled by tissues and empty bottles of your favorite energy drink.
You vomited thick and vile saliva, followed by pieces of sludge your body refused to digest, heaving as your world spun, yet you refused to fall into bed’s embrace.
The sun still shined, peeking through the windows.
The warm indifferent sun blinded your eyes.
The warm mocking sun mocked your despair.
The golden eye that kept on watching like a particularly interesting microbe under the microscope. An unfeeling lens that cared not for your actions, worshipped because of indifference and the unfathomable want.
The same colors, the same horrors, and you convinced yourself this was only just a figment of that eternal torture of your own making.
You growled and yanked the sheet away. You didn’t even bother to pick your gun as you simply walked and ripped a hole in the hideous simulacrum of the world around you. A fake. A figment of your past buried and locked away with chains and ropes.
Even if it had your memories, it couldn’t recreate the soul of a person. You already know what would happen next, what strings the formless entity would tug.
You never felt more angrier than now.
You didn’t even need to look at the mirror.
───✧𓆩⟡𓆪✧───
The tear between worlds was a comfort, a feeling that she knew well. What she had become and what she had loathed.
Her heart thundering in her chest—her breathing uneven. Everything was like those many moons ago before it all came down crashing. The stairs, the glass, the sandy hallways. Every detail was untouched, as if she never happened—like she hadn’t condemned the world and left it to rot.
Death walked to the familiar fake hallways. Her eyes darkened as she clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms. The sand underneath her heels parted and the withering floorboards creaked. Just noise, just meaningless feelings that weren't even real.
As if the God of the Dead hadn’t raised her slender fingers and led the souls to the other side of river Nile. She swallowed a lump in her throat, and pushed away the memories down to just this empty hollow.
Perhaps—a part of her wished that it wouldn’t do anything such. Wouldn’t tug the wound up strings of pain. Yet she heard it. Hushed conversations, a phone ringing and left to a voicemail worlds away. The hushed conversation turned into panic, and the panic grew into a small argument.
Her raised fingers trembled again before she clenched it into a fist hovering above the door handle. She took one last leap, and grasped the pull as if it would crumble to dust and sand with that very gesture.
She yanked it open as hard as she could, it slid, and made that familiar-unfamiliar crack as it met the end of its rails. Familiar faces. Familiar ghosts.
The faces of the people you had lost. The eyes of those you had failed.
The ghosts of the past that she murdered, staring back into her black and white pupils.
“ —senpai?!” The Lie wearing the face of her bespectacled junior said.
“ —senpai! Where were you?!” The Mirage wearing the face of her feisty junior followed.
“—chan? Are you okay?” The Illusion wearing the kind senior's face said with that same look long forgotten. “We tried calling you, and you didn’t answer! Where’s your uniform?”
“ —chan? Uhe? Did something happen?” Lastly, The Specter wearing the face of her leader said last as she rose from the table. “You look like… you’ve seen a ghost.”
Her anger flared up again as she remained rooted, her empty dull eyes glared with such malignant hate—it plummeted the temperature of the room into the chill of the grave.
“A mockery.” She whispered. “A dream.”
“D-Dream?” The Lie said as she took a step forward. “ —senpai we—”
Death’s glare stopped her in her tracks. The Specter slowly rose from her sleeping position, feeling the charged atmosphere and the emptiness behind those eyes. Every concern etched on their faces, every wrinkle, and every frown. Death saw it all and found it wanting.
“ —chan.” The Specter said softly, but it was clear she knew within her mind—something was terribly wrong. “Are you—”
“Stop.” Death said coldly before The Specter finished her words. “You don’t get to pretend… you don’t get to torture me in this—this limbo.”
Even with your heart aching, you still could form a vicious snarl upon your emotionless visage. Just enough to plummet the already deathly chill to rival even the coldest winters in the frozen north.
“You don’t get to think you were innocent in all of this.” Death tried to take a step forward, through trembling legs and shaking hands.
“ —chan...? What are you talking—" The Illusion took her brave step forward to reach for her shoulders—
SMACK! CRASH!
The slap might be as loud as a gunshot as a bright red mark formed on the hands of The Illusion. She tumbled and fell into the nearby boxes of bullets and snacks.
“HEY! WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA —SENPAI?!” The Mirage shouted at the top of her lungs as she rose from her seat with enough force to send the chair stumbling, and the table shaking.
“N -senpai!” Screamed The Lie as she went to help The Mirage, her eyes wide with shock and horror.
The Spectre remained silent, but her gaze pierced through her body and into her soul; assessing and observing. Yet there was hesitation, there was worry, and there was the same horror in their collective gaze.
In her eyes something—you—had gone through something terrible. Something so terribly awful that your entire character had changed for the worse.
But in your eyes, it was them who were wrong.
You couldn’t even fathom their faces. They were scribbles, meaningless lines and shapes of pitch black that your brain refused to comprehend.
“ —chan.” The Spectre talked again softly. She didn’t approach Death, but she simply raised her hand in the universal gesture of peace. I’m unarmed. I’m not going to touch you. I’m going to stay here.
“Let’s—let’s call Sensei okay? He should be—”
“I KILLED HIM! HE’S DEAD!”
Death shouted at the top of her lungs as she hyperventilated once more—fists digging deeper, breaking skin as small blots of crimson trail down her palm; and dripped into the freshly mopped floor.
“DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME OTHERWISE! DO YOU THINK I DIDN’T KNOW?!”
Crack.
Death took her steps forward.
“IT WAS ME! ALL ME! LIARS! FAKES! ILLUSIONS! ALL OF YOU!”
Crack.
Death gave them no chance to speak.
Crack.
“Sh i-S k r o—chan. Y-Your… your halo…” TNhoe Inlolmuision sobbed as she pointed with a trembling finger.
Death’s rage lay forgotten as her breath hitched. The room didn’t speak, the room didn’t judge. They stared at her with profound horror, eyes that truly saw her, eyes that were alive as the veil laid over her mind steadily gave away.
They were right there.
And you couldn’t take it anymore.
You felt nauseous as your empty stomach raised the viscous bile again—the sharp taste of stomach acid reached your throat as you took a step back, and another, before you burst into speed.
You burnt your energy, you held your mouth as their voices screamed your name.
You didn’t look back.
You couldn’t.
So you ran away as fast as you could, as if you could outrun yourself. You stumbled on a piece of rock, and before you fell you tore open another rift in the world.
Everything dissolved and you came back to your prison—falling face and hands first as you couldn’t hold your stomach for a second longer.
Only your retching, your coughs, your painful sobs filled your ears as you filled the stuffed steel trashcan.
Your hands slipped and your head crashed on the cold floor with a thud as vertigo claimed you once more. You didn’t register at how it hurt, nor at how foul the stench of rot and bile was filling your bleeding nose. Everything was spinning again, and again, and again.
The sun stung your eyes.
You curled into a fetal position and your world dissolved into that welcoming void you cursed yourself in.
It was your only home.
The only thing that accepted what you had become.
───✧𓆩⟡𓆪✧───
