Only What Is Left
Bryan curled up in a corner of his room, his head resting back in the corner as it grew heavy, black and white spots clouding his vision constantly in the dark room. Blood poured out of all the wounds that heavily littered his body, his skin red from seeping blood or black and blue from all the bruising that grew into it. He had tried, he promised the other's that he'd try to hold on long enough, that he'd try to help himself with whatever Boris threw at him, he tried his hardest but it seemed like it didn't work, it never did which made him even think back on his childhood.
---FlashBack---
Five year old Bryan sat in his room at the abbey, shredding up some of his old clothes and using them to bandage all his wounds. Why was he so unloved here? Why did his parents have to leave him? Why did that Boris hurt him so much? He silently cried in a corner, knowing that if he was heard by anyone than he would be hurt again.All he had done, was fallen over during training and this was what he got for it, he was a kid though, what did they expect to happen?
---EndFlashBack---
Now what he had done was far worse than falling over during training. He had lost his battle against Ray and now it seemed like Boris finally found enough time for him to beat him for his loss. Tala had came up to his room a couple of hours before his battle, when he was still locked in the cell and Boris hadn't got to him yet, Tala had told him that no matter what happened that he had to hold on long enough, long enough for them to come back in time from the tournament to rescue him.
---Flashback---
A ten year old Bryan trained with the other Demolition Boys, his face a mask of coldness and hate, no other emotion being caught anywhere near him. No one showed it to him, he never got it, and he never showed it to anyone else.
The scientists had said that he was coming along quite nicely, soon there would be no emotions to show, except hate. He was their experiment. Darkness was consuming him, he didn't know who he was anymore and he didn't know if he could possibly survive like that.
---EndFlashBack---
Bryan tried his best to move out of the corner he was in, feeling he was soaking the place too much in his blood. He tried to shift position but found he just almost fell into his own blood. The cloth he had tied tightly around his wrists where Boris had cut him had grown to be soaked in the crimson liquid and didn't seem to be absorbing the blood anymore. He got off the ground and tried his best to walk over to his bed where the rest of the cloth was. Collapsing just by the bed, he sat back up and rested his back against the bed while picking up the cloth and pressuring it against the cuts to stop the bleeding.
So clearly his friends had promised to be there soon, so where were they? Or at least, where was Tala? Had he lost his battle? Was Boris hurting him the same way he had hurt him? With thoughts like those in mind, his hope for being saved, for recovering died and he became weak, too weak to hold down the cloth anymore. He pushed himself back up, just enough to push himself up onto his bed and lie down. Even if he was going to die like this, he didn't mind, nor did he care. Years of this had brought him to be immune to it, partly at least. Part of him wanted to live, wishing to have a normal life but since a normal life was impossible while under the rule of Boris, he knew he wanted to die, get rid of the pain and disappear to a place where that kind of pain didn't exist.
The room was spinning, making him sick from all the movement that fell before his eyes constantly. He closed his eyes, anything in the room that he could barely have see before now slowly disappeared into the darkness and voices from some of the guards that walked down the hall way slowly faded with his exhaustion and all he could hear now where quiet whispers that got carried away by the wind that rushed outside the small window from where very little light shone in.
He completely faded out, floating for what felt like eternity in a soothing darkness where he felt nothing at all. Feeling as though pain didn't exist where he was, that's probably what he always wanted, not to be able to feel pain. Though now he wasn't too sure…he wished he could he see his friends again, wanting to feel human and not be someone's experiment for once and just be considered a person.
Unfortunately he felt himself being pulled out of the comforting darkness, his dead eyes trying to take in who was trying to wake him. Through his blurred vision he saw Tala and Kai standing over him, worry quite evident on both their faces. Kai seemed to be concentrating on slowing down the bleeding from his arms while Tala was still trying to get him to wake up properly. Though all Bryan could really do is stare up at them, not having enough strength to speak. All he was able to hear were some echoed words from Tala, saying they were leaving. He had given a small explanation but Bryan had lost Tala completely when it came to that.
Bryan carefully opened his eyes, an intense light shining through the sensitive layer. Being even more cautious, he attempted opening his eyes again, this time sitting up a bit startled in seeing where he was. Tala had been beside him and forced him back down again, silencing him before Bryan could protest to his surroundings. "Don't worry." Was all he needed to say, he knew it because he could visibly see Bryan relax.
Bryan looked down at himself, taking in how wrapped up in bed he was, that his arms had been cleaned up and not a drop of his own blood could be seen anywhere on him or his surroundings. He placed his hands hard down onto his bandaged arm and found that it wasn't that painful anymore. He looked up at Tala, looking on a bit confused before trying to speak, "How…long?" his voice came out far too broken for his liking and would have cursed if it weren't for the distraction of his burning throat.
Tala handed him a glass of water in between answering the fallen boy's question, "Four days now. The blood loss was too great, we weren't sure you were going to make it."
"We?" Bryan was confused at that before remembering back to that afternoon at the Abbey. "Kai?"
"And the rest of his team too." Tala included. He got more confused looks from Bryan and decided to continue, "We explained to them what's been happening, they seemed to have understood so they've been passing by here to see how you are but you were never awake." Clearly Bryan still needed to have a lot of things explained to him after missing out on so much in a few days so when he continued to look at Tala with a confused look Tala laughed a bit at it, "I'll explain later when you're feeling better. For now get some rest and don't worry too much, you've got all the time in the world for a recovery." He told him, giving Bryan's shoulder a light but supportive squeeze before turning to walk back to the corner of the room where he had been sitting before.
"Tala?!" Bryan called quickly.
"Yeah?" Tala turned back to him in case he needed anything.
Instead Bryan just tried a small smile for the first time in years, most likely, "Thanks for coming back for me."
"That's what friends are for." Tala reminded with a smile of his own.
A/N: Alright I just wrote this after I posted the recent chapter of cats and dogs since I had nothing to do. I don't even know how this one shot actually turned out, it didn't even pan out the way I had expected it to. Originally I was just going to end it at Bryan dieing but then I thought, I gave that Tala one shot a sad ending so I thought this would be different and my theme these past few weeks has been friendship. I've made AMVs on friendship, I wrote that Tala/Kai friendship story that had a nice ending too so I wanted to try out the same for this one.
Well, please review and tell me what you think of this!
Arigato!