Um. Requested by Darci the Thespian. I don't know what to tell you...Jehan goes psychotic. Um. Yeah...kind of depressing and rather unfathomable, but yeah. Read on! And please do tell me if this is believable. Thanks!
-Marseillaise :)
When they took him, something inside him snapped. One second he was being thrust forward by the National Guard, the next he was free, running, running accross Paris. It wasn't that Jehan wasn't tough. But being forced accross a battlefield, doomed to die, made the poet receed. His mind went into survival mode, completely forgetting why he was fighting. He bolted, so fast and unexpectedly that no one could have predicted it. Running, running through Paris. A sewer. Inside. It was dark. The dark was welcoming, it didn't show the face. It hid people.
So Jehan hid, hid until he forgot what day it was.
And then he came out and he saw it, and saw the bodies, and the filth, and the blood, and everything, and the last shard of sanity shattered in an instant. All that was left was revenge, pure and red. There was almost guilt, too, but he didn't acknowledge that part.
He liked poetry. Sitting at a table, in a long abandoned café, he wrote poems. Blood poems. Using a knife to cut into himself, he used blood as ink, and wrote horrific poems, shattered memories.
And then he remembered what he wanted most.
Revenge.
Because Jehan had hated war. Fight fire with fire, blood with blood, it all made sense.
So he hid from everyone. And one day, when a lone guard approached the emanciated young man, he attacked.
It was easy, really, killing. All it took was a smooth slash, or a stab, or cold fingers around a neck. Jehan hated war, hated killing. So he killed, because they had killed Jehan's friends. He did it with a smile.
And then, he returned to the abandoned café, the one place he couldn't seem to leave, and cut. He cut and cut, until he was covered in scars and bloody poetry covered the walls. The only thing not covered up was a map of 1797 France. He didn't know why, but he couldn't cover it up.
Flowers, too. Bright colors, and he left them everywhere. When he killed, he left flowers in their hair, because Jehan loved flowers.
And he only wanted to be Jehan again.
Night after night. He became feared, and any National Guard always went out with a partner. He was known as Nightshade, the deadly flower.
And he always returned to the abandoned café.
One night, he couldn't remember why he was killing. He just knew he had to, for Jehan. Everything for Jehan. He wanted Jehan back, but he was just the shattered remains of a wasted Jehan.
And so he continued. Only National Guards, only at night, and each day he wrote poems of blood.
One night, he passed a celebration. A wedding. He heard the name Marius Pontmercy. It was familiar to Jehan. But he didn't know who Marius was.
So he continued on.
And then, at the abandoned café, a broken memory. Of an argument with a student. He didn't know why he was arguing, but the café became distasteful to him. He couldn't live there anymore, not after he remembered the face who the empty bottes stacked in the corner had belonged to, and after a word, Republique, had returned.
But he couldn't live anywhere else, either.
Rushing back, shards of memory that cut like the knives. Except these were more deadly.
And he remembered Jehan, and knew that Jehan would hate him. Because Jehan had wanted to be free. And nothing was free for him.
Republique.
France.
Vive la France. Long live France.
But there was no future.
XXXXX
Um. Depressing, yes. Sorry! But was it believable? Please, please tell me, guys, I have to know, because I am super unsure about this...thanks for reading, though!