"Twinkle, twinkle, little star... how I wonder what you are... up above the world so high… like a diamond in the sky… twinkle, twinkle, little star… how I wonder what you are…"
The fair, high voice echoes from the thick walls of the dugout. His footsteps aren't audible at all, the black leather boots don't make a sound as he sets one foot in front of the other. His index finger traces a line across the wall as he walks along, leaving cracks in the concrete, causing it to splinter.
He hears the hounded breathing of the man running a couple of feet ahead of him. A man running for his life. He loves the sight. An ugly smirk spreads across his face, tugging at the puerile features.
"When the blazing sun is gone… when there's nothing he shines upon… then you show your little light… twinkle, twinkle through the night… twinkle, twinkle, little star… how I wonder what you are…"
The man trips and falls, rushing down on all fours now until he can't get any further. The massive wall is blocking his way, he cannot get out.
"Don't! Don't come any closer! You monster!"
"Monster?"
The boy chuckles. His huge brown eyes look bemused yet empty. The traumatized child that he is, gone a little mental.
"But you wanted me to be like this, didn't you? That's why you made me that way. And that's why you will die a slow and violent death now."
"We… we didn't make anybody that way! The General did! Kill the General!"
"Someone else is taking care of that right now. It's just you and me here. Isn't that splendid?"
The boy raises his hand, glaring at the man from under thick dark bangs of hair. His skin is pale, the dark school uniform already stained with blood.
"Don't!"
The loud cracking sound makes him shudder with pleasure.
The man's arm breaks in various places, deforming it, making it useless. His scream is reflected in the artificial light that covers the narrow corridor. His other arm is lifted wondrously and breaks as well, snapping and scrunching like a thick branch.
"Now then… shall I perforate your stomach? Your lungs? Shall I break your ribs and cause internal bleeding? I guess you'd be the first person ever to be stabbed with their own ribs. Wouldn't that be quite exciting?"
The dark eyes gleam with a passion, the emptiness from before slowly fading. Those are the only times when he still feels truly alive.
"I would love that."
The man's ribcage breaks like porcelain. He starts spitting blood as his lung is riddled.
"Isn't this fun?"
The maniac smile grows wider with every cracking sound coming from the screaming man curled up against the wall.
"You know what you did wrong, right? You should've never supported them."
He glances at the Rosenkreuz emblem on the man's chest that slowly darkens with his own blood.
"They're bad people. People that kill and torture and turn others into freaks like... me."
The spine snatches. The body arches up in an odd angle, bends and then falls to the ground, twitching and spluttering as he coughs up more and more blood. The eyes are wide open, eyeballs slowly rolling inside the back of his head.
The boys arm skyrockets and the mans chest bursts open, revealing the cracked ribs, blood everywhere and an awful reek of copper. He spreads his fingers and a faintly beating heart rises into the air by itself, glistening in a dark, wet red.
"You had it coming, you know?"
He watches the heart slowly turning in mid air like an exposé at a museum.
"You were one of the bad guys… right, Farfarello?"
A silhouette appears from the dark behind him, chucking something across the corridor right into the dead mans lap. It's the head of the General, eyes wide open in shock and horror. The skin on his neck is ripped, not cut.
"Farfarello?"
"Huh?"
The taller man steps beside him, towering above him like a guardian soaked in blood. The white hair glistens dimly in the light, the yellow eye roams the scenery in front of them.
"Are we monsters?"
"Did he say that?"
"Yes."
He smiles as he hears the thick Irish patois in the taller man's voice. It sounds like home. Like safety. Like this place where nobody can harm him because he will surely protect him.
"Hm… I wonder."
"We are, aren't we?"
The lunacy in the dark eyes is gone. Only emptiness remains. His voice sounds a little slurry, a little thin possibly. He suddenly feels drenched and weak, as if all life had been sucked out of him at once.
"But we're not like them, right?"
"No, we're not."
"They're unjust. They torture. Not us."
He looks down at the boy by his side.
He's protected this child ever since he met him for the first time. He had put his life on the line for him. He loves this child in an odd, sick way. He wouldn't harm him. He hates seeing him decay slowly.
The boy's soul, his heart, his mind, everything is rotten. Rotten to the bone. He's sick and twisted. He knows it. They all are after all.
"Farfarello?"
"Yeah?"
The boy suddenly wraps his thin arms around the other man's abdomen, not able to reach any higher. He leans his heated cheek against the bloodstained waistcoat, burying his face in the warm cloth.
"You're my monster, right?"
"Yeah. All yours."
"And you won't ever abandon me, right?"
"Never."
He's only thirteen. He doesn't know about the hardships waiting for him in the future. He believes that everything he needs is here with him. The Irish berserk standing next to him. His monster, his pet, his family, protecting him from all the harm in the world. Because the world is a horrible place. He's learned that much already.
