PLEASE READ!
PLEASE READ!
Hello everyone! I haven't died!
I've been away somewhere amazing and will be returning shortly, so unfortunetly for you all, updates will not exist for a while.
On the bright side, I've written this entire 5-chapter story on my plane ride, so this will be finished shortly.
It's another experiment, four pieces that are connected to each other, but their connection is unknown until the end.
I have changed one thing in the series to create this fic, and you'll see it in this chapter.
NO POVs WILL BE STATED.
I'm working on characterization, so just bear with me while I play with my story.
As always, thank you for reading beloved readers!
~AxJfan
Limits
Chapter 1: Perhaps
Third Person POV
It started with a body on the floor.
Withered with the heavy weight of humanity, clothed within a coffin of newly shed dust and grime, it stirred, sending ripples in its wake, the rustling of its shredded clothing the only noise in its abyss—only that, and sirens. Its deeps eyes opened to a sky without sunlight, to a thick brown ozone churning with the promise of chaos. It blinked.
The body rose with the speed of the near dead, bruised, battered, and confused by more than just the impact of a crash. Its head turned from side to side slowly, coming to its senses from deep within. Its torso left an imprint on the ground. Beyond that it saw the D-Wheel upended between the only lively streets; it saw the scattered glass against the concrete, glittering like the twisted illusion of salvation.
And it saw the body on the floor.
Looking across at him, it blankly registered the cracked helm, the still mouth that had promised death, the pool of blood forming beneath his chest. And beyond that, in the reflected light of salvation, lay a broken metal rod.
It knew what it must do.
The first drop of rain fell.
And landed on the cheek of yet another making his way through the twisting allies like a man gone mad, calling a name that was hollow, for a soul that had long since vanished.
First Person POV
I paid no heed to the turmoil above, uncaring if the moisture on my cheek was heaven-sent or mortal. Decimated, gray, abandoned buildings rushed past, slamming in and out of focus as ghosts of lost owners gazed down into the streets, sad and lonely. With little hope, my eyes strayed into the hollow spaces, seeking the other two I had left behind in this wild pursuit.
The same sharp pain of dread that told me I wouldn't find them screamed that I had to find him, had to stop him, and had to somehow save the man who had saved me. Something akin to fate pushed me forward, driving my legs to speeds they had not yet achieved. I could feel it, fell him as strongly as I felt the black heart pummeling in my ribcage.
He was near, somewhere around the corner, somewhere in the ever approaching future, somewhere bound and caged by the powerful rage sweeping through him, somewhere dwarfed by the promise of rain and wind and torment, by the towering oppression of grime and disparity, and by the weight of a deteriorating sanity.
I whirled around a corner, pushing past garage and newspapers whose headlines smirked, 'Catastrophe.'
No, God, please no, I begged of a being I didn't believe in, twisting down my own soiled path, my birthright, the path that I had left him to stumble down alone, the path that would certainly lead to Hell. Haunted and guided by the terrible debt of a father who stole lives, I ran in his footsteps, praying for a different end to this never-ending cycle.
Does this make me insane?
If so, then perhaps it didn't matter. Perhaps we were all insane in this God-Forsaken Hell, perhaps there was no light guiding our way, perhaps there was no salvation. Please... please God...
His life was too precious, he was the only person I had ever leaned on, he had too pure a heart to fall now!
Why did I ever abandon him? Why did I forsake him? Why did I push him away? Why couldn't I see that behind his strong front he needed us? Why couldn't I see that pain, that uncertainty?
We were supposed to be nakama, brothers in spirit and heart, bound by love and drive, supporting and defending one another until death overcame us. Perhaps he was right—perhaps I had failed him. Perhaps we all had.
An empty bottle shattered below my feet, slicing into my soles with piercing precision. Ignoring the punishment I deserved, I pressed forward, and the glass dug in deeper, painting my footsteps red. I barely noticed. He was close—so close, this I knew from my heart to my gut.
Though darkness cloaked the walls around me and the tear of or for mortality still lingered on my face, light still shone through. I still found him. Blinded, I hobbled to a stop, the sole witness to the one remaining streak of sunlight sparkling across the surface of a broken mirror. It threw the alley into flecks of eerie light, shining off of windows, metal, garbage, and flashing across the surface of...
The weapon in his hands. Bathed in shades of gray fermenting quickly to black, wielding a weapon that would end his life, hovering over a body already fallen...
His name exploded off my lips. I dove. Caught him in my arms. We fell together, twisting to the ground, but he had always been stronger than me, quicker...
It began to rain.
Third Person POV
Its eyes opened to the rain, to its name, to its life no longer in the presence of danger, to itself. Shaking with mirth and irony, he stared down his fallen comrade, soaked in the shrapnel of metal gouged in the man's side, and threw his head back. No longer shaking, his chest heaved with laborious laughter, gasped with delirious cackles that echoed across the deserted streets, crashed into one another, and swamped the city in a symphony of demonic insanity. The two remaining were swallowed by the sound, swept away into the night, their please of his name left unheard.
The storm arrived.
It ended with a body on the floor.
So did this experiment work out? Likes? Dislikes?
Thanks for reading and I appreciate any feedback,
~AxJfan