There were four walls around him, very tight, pressing against him from all sides. It was cold. He ached. His chest felt uncomfortably still, uncomfortably empty.
He moaned, quietly, and opened his eyes.
It was pitch black, but strangely he could see shapes and lines perfectly clearly. He was in a box.
He was in a coffin.
He heard his breathing grow faster and harder and more ragged. Get out. Get out. He had to get out. His arm raised and the side of his fist slammed against the ceiling of the coffin, weakly at first, then harder, then both arms. The lid bounced, clattered, things were falling off from outside above him, and finally the black solidness over his head fell back and he was looking up at another solidness, a higher ceiling with texture to it.
He grabbed at the edge of the coffin and pulled himself up, groaning again as his stiff muscles moved for what felt like the first time in a million years. He mildly felt that his head seemed slightly heavier than usual - whatever that meant - and suddenly everything swam and his brain seemed be floating the wrong way in his skull, and he leaned forward and scrunched his eyes shut until it stopped.
When it passed, he opened his eyes again and looked around.
The room was small. The place was a mess, and not just from his escape a few seconds earlier that had sent boards and objects flying everywhere. Stacks of garbage were piled around the room.
He braced his arms against the edge of the coffin and got up, stepping gingerly out onto the mat of the floor. His toe brushed against something on the ground, and after a pause he bent down, onto his knees, and picked it up.
It was a picture frame, slightly chipped at the edges but not cracked. Inside was a photo of a young man, a boy really, his dark hair slicked back and looking over his shoulder with the unprepared half-expression of someone who wasn't expecting to have his picture taken.
"-oh …"
His ear perked and he turned his head towards the faint sound.
There was a click and the low squeal of a door from somewhere outside of this room. Uneven footsteps. "Why … Yu … suke …"
He stood back up, slowly, feeling drawn to the voice, and the wafting, sharp scent of alcohol began to fill his nose.
"What am I even going to …"
The door of the room opened. In the doorway stood a mumbling figure, unsteady, leaning heavily against the frame. Taller than him. Female. Long hair. Light from the hallway outside fell against her back, casting most of her features in shadow. Her presence, her look and her scent, were very familiar, very close to him.
He took a step towards her, then stopped and waited. For some reason, he hesitated to move any further.
She raised her head, and he could see her face was stained with dried tear trails. Her gaze seemed clouded, unfocused. She blinked, slowly, and her eyes widened as she finally saw him standing in the dark.
She screamed. It was a scream of fear mixed with rage.
"Who the hell are you?" she shrieked. His empty chest jumped sharply and tightened and he dropped the frame. "How did you get in here? Get away from the coffin!"
He began to back away, stumbling slightly as his bare feet grazed some of the debris around the room.
The woman grabbed things from around her, from the floor, and started throwing them clumsily yet viciously in his direction. A plate, some food still on it. A book. A shoe.
"Get the fuck out of my house!" Scissors. "I'll kill you!" A half-empty bottle. The bottle smacked the side of his face, fell against the edge of the coffin and shattered.
He turned and ran for the window. It was partly open already, and he punched at it, breaking the frame and shattering the glass to make a larger opening, diving out. He fell against the pavement, picked himself up and ran, the woman's screams echoing behind him.
He ran blindly, with no sense of the passage of time or the direction in which he was running, or his cuts and bruises or things digging into the soles of his feet, until he finally tripped on something or perhaps nothing. He fell, flailing, rolling down a small hill, scraping against patches of grass and rough earth and dirt and rocks and sand, until he hit the bottom of a ravine.
He lay there in a crumpled heap, dust stilling around him from his landing, his breathing loud in his ears. His heart was pounding -
But there was no pounding. His heart was eerily quiet.
He slowly rolled onto his side and shakily folded his arms and legs close to his body.
It was very dark and very still. There wasn't even the sound of crickets. A breeze brushed against his skin through his torn clothes, ruffled the grass and debris around him.
He shivered, but not from the wind. His arms, so close to his face now, made him finally notice that through the ripped fabric of his sleeves they were covered, strange tattoos of alien marks, ink-like swirls and lines. And he realized his hair was longer, much longer than before - whatever before was - as he saw and touched the thick strands falling against his chest and shoulders, around his face. He lifted an arm slightly and reached around to feel the mane against the side of his head, his back.
He folded his arms back against his chest. He lay there, fetal, shaking, staring out at nothing. His chest was very empty. He was very scared.
Author's Notes: An exercise in disorientation. Basically, the idea is an AU where we ignore everything they tell us about Mazoku atavism, and Yusuke's first death kicks off the reaction. I have mild thoughts of continuing this in some fashion but I'm horrible when it comes to that yeahhhh