The sky was red.
Was the sky supposed to be red? She couldn't really remember. What color did the sky used to be, anyway? Had there always been a sky? Some logical part of her brain was whispering Something's Wrong, but she didn't know what.
Where was she? She glanced around, trying to take in her surroundings, trying to name this place. A field of dead grass stretched out in every direction for miles. A dry, brittle breeze swept through, raking across her body and down over the grass, making the blades dance and bow and crackle softly. She shuddered. There was something terribly, terribly wrong.
She looked up at the bloody sky. There were a few gray clouds speckled here and there, and there was no sun. But that wasn't it.
It was the horizon.
Or rather, the lack of one.
It reminded her of a landscape that a toddler would color. Between the ending of the field and the beginning of the sky, there was a gaping, ragged space. It wasn't white or black or anything in between. It was just... there.
Her skin bristled with goosebumps and she looked down at herself for the first time. All she was wearing was a simple white gown. Nothing intricate or elegant in any sense of the words. Simple. Shapeless. It billowed and whipped around her ankles with the breeze. She wore nothing else.
Her hair felt heavy over her scalp, and she reached up, twisting dark strands between her fingers. It went down to her back. She frowned and tried to remember why it felt wrong and finally managed to. Her hair had burned off, hadn't it, when she sacrificed herself to defeat the Level 3? Or tried to sacrifice herself, at any rate. She felt silly, thinking back on it now, thinking about how she'd had so much trouble destroying Eshi when not so long ago, she'd fought on par with a Level 4. But then again, she'd had Allen's help.
Wait.
Who was Allen?
The cautious fingers in her hair turned to harsh fists as she tugged at it, trying to remember. Allen, Allen... the name sounded so familiar, felt so familiar on her tongue. There was something missing, there was something off, there was Something Wrong.
Her feet were bare.
Were her feet supposed to be bare? They'd always felt so heavy, so cold to her. A burden and a blessing. She stared down at them numbly.
What was her name again?
"..."
She froze, straining her ears. She'd heard something. A murmur.
"Lena... Lena..."
The voice faded at the ends, and she began to look around wildly, searching for it. It sounded terribly familiar.
"Lena... lee..." Her eyes widened. That was her name, wasn't it? Small pieces of memory began flooding back to her.
The Dark Order. Her brother. Her family, her family that she loved dearly.
She fought for the God she hated.
"Lenalee..."
And that voice. That was Allen's voice, wasn't it? She broke free of her trance, sprinting toward the general direction of it. She opened her mouth and called for him.
Nothing came out.
For a moment, she paused, her hands at her throat now, trying to force sounds past her lips. She felt her throat flex, and she mouthed words, trying to grasp at them and mold them and have them be heard, but all she could reach was silence. She grit her teeth in frustration, but she could hear Allen again and she took off again.
He continuted to call for her, and in the distance, she could make out a figure standing, swaying with the grass. Lenalee ran towards it eagerly, her heart heavy with relief and with dread.
Allen-kun? she breathed, slowing to a walk and catching her breath. She flung her arms around him and buried her face in his chest.
Thank goodness, she mouthed. Thank goodness.
They stood that way for a while, her arms around his back, his shoulder blades pressing into her arms. She calmed down, breathing in his scent. And there was something else. A smell that stung at her throat.
He felt cold.
Her eyes opened against him, but she didn't let go. She couldn't.
His face. She couldn't look at his face.
Slowly, slowly, she drew away, keeping her gaze on his feet. Her eyes travelled upward, and she trembled.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream.
It was Allen, all right, but it was a grotesque, mangled version of him. Blood ran down his face, his arms, his legs, it stained his uniform and his ivory hair. The smell of it clotted her nose and made her eyes water. His limbs were twisting at unnatural angles, his ears had been torn off, and his eyes. His eyes had been gouged out.
"Lena...lee." The gurgle rose from his throat, and a bubble of blood formed at the corner of his mouth and popped.
Tears ran down her cheeks and she felt sick and oh God she was going to be sick and she stumbled away and wretched into the grass, doubled over on her hands and knees. There was nothing in her stomach, though, so she dry-heaved several times before staggering to her feet.
Allen? she whispered. No sound.
"Lena... lee..." And as she watched, his flesh began to melt off his body and she tried to scream and she fell backward on her bottom, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight. She kept trying to scream.
She turned the other way and curled into a ball and shut her eyes tight and clasped her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth, choking on her sobs. A dream, a dream, it's a dream, there isn't no sun, the sky isn't red, there isn't no horizon. And yet she could still hear Allen's raw, strangled voice, dragging out her name, over and over and over.
She opened her eyes.
All around her, the bodies of her comrades, her friends, her family, her world. Reever, Johnny, Lavi, Kanda, Crowley, Miranda, even Timothy, even tiny, helpless Timothy, just a child and already cursed with the wretched gift of Innocence.
And worst of all, Komui, her brother, her brother, her brother, lying there at her feet, his eyes all open and glassy and reflecting her own face.
She doubled over until her forhead touched the ground, her toes curled and wave after wave of pure agony slamming into her. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't speak, she was dying, she was dying, she was dying.
But she wasn't.
She was unmarked.
She wasn't scared of death. She Didn't Care about Death.
She was scared of being left alone in this not-world.
The sky shattered into a million pieces and came raining down around her, but it couldn't drown the sound of her name coming from Allen.
She couldn't cry and she couldn't scream and she couldn't sob, and the red sky landed all around her and her world came down, down, down.
The horizon swallowed her whole.
"Lenalee."
"Lenalee."
"Lenalee."
The voices of her beloved.
A scream ripped its way out of her throat.
"INNOCENCE!"
With a soul-wrenching shriek, she finally jerked awake.