Ludwig ran, the black bag he was pulling behind feeling even heavier than before, but even so, he still pulled strong, not daring to slow. He peered behind him, looking for the ray of a flashlight, and listening, expecting to hear the sound of dog tags jingling, or shouting voices, but all he could hear was the roar of blood rushing in his ears, and his own heartbeat, which pounded vigorously from inside his chest. Ludwig looked down at the plastic bag, and began to think, as he kept on trudging over the leaf covered forest floor, brow creased in remembrance of what he'd done, and wanted to forget, but the scene continued to play out in his head, over, and over again,
'Oh god, why didn't I just take my medication this morning?!' he thought as the memory restarted itself yet again. He'd come home from work, tense and irritated from the annoying desk job he sported, prepared to pop a few aspirin and fall asleep, then hopefully have a better day tomorrow, but He, just Had to stop by. Ludwig had just closed the door, and taken off his jacket, as he headed for the kitchen, needing some sort of sustenance to accompany the aspirin he'd just ingested, when he heard a knock at the front door. He peered back with a look of pure confusion, walking over and opening it to inspect who had visited so late into the night. As he opened the door, it revealed his landlord, a tall silver haired man who went by the name of Ivan. He gave his visitor a questioning look before politely asking what he needed
"I was wondering if perhaps I could come in and talk with you," he responded, he spoke softly so you could barely hear the faint Russian accent that hung in his voice,
"Ah, yes, I suppose," Ludwig answered awkwardly, moving to the side, allowing his "guest" to come into the house. Without any guidance, he sat himself on one of the stools at Ludwig's counter, as if he was expecting utmost hospitality at this ungodly hour, Ludwig sensed this, and with an irritated look on his face, made his way to the kitchen to show his "guest" some respect. He opened up the door of his refrigerator and questioned what Ivan would like to drink
"If possible, Vodka please, if not, just some water would be fine," his Russian accented voice still carried kindness, but this time when he spoke, there was a hint of something else with it, regret maybe? No, sadness? Still no, mourn-
"Ludwig? Are you okay?" Ludwig quickly lifted his head, hitting his head on the freezer door in the process, he groaned in pain and looked at the man at the counter, nodding that he was in fact, okay. No Vodka had been found in the small fridge, so he poured Ivan a glass of water, and set it in front of him
"So, what was it that you needed to talk with me about this late at night?" Ivan looked at him regretfully, before placing his water on the counter and clearing his throat.
"I'm terribly sorry to inform you, Ludwig, but a family has recently been in contact with me, looking for a house in this area, and I have offered them this home, you will be evicted by next week," he nodded his head as he ended his speech, glancing away from Ludwig, afraid of the anger that was inevitably held in his crystal blue eyes. Little did he know however, that the anger he feared was about to boil over, and Ivan was going to get burned with it. Ludwig was absolutely seething with rage, but before he lost his temper, he was able to get out one coherent sentence that wasn't threatening his life
"But, I'm still paying my rent, you can't kick me out," Ivan shook his head, no fear evident on his face, for now
"Oh, but I can, according to the city council, as long as I own the land, I choose those whom I rent out to, and since they're paying me mo- … Ludwig? Ludwig, are you okay?" Ivan ventured, standing up from his seat to get a closer look at the heavily breathing German man. With a closer glance, Ivan could see that Ludwig's face was pure red, his shoulders heaving up and down
"Ludwig? Are you oka- "his question was cut short as Ludwig's hands found their way around his throat, squeezing harder than ever before. Ivan gasped for breath as his windpipe was quickly crushed by the force of the others hands. Ivan tried to stop Ludwig and rapped his hands around the blond's wrists, his fingertips leaving small bruises in their wake as he tried to pry the offending hands off of his throat
"This. Was. Your. Fault." He spoke rigid as he squeezed tighter. He loosened his grip after Ivan's face began to change purple and his eyes rolled back into his head, and completely let go when his hands went limp and fell to his sides. Ludwig dropped the man, trying to calm his breathing, not fully aware of what he'd just done.
When he looked down at Ivan, his eyes grew wide and he went to his knees, then onto all fours, placing his ear on the Russians chest, hoping, praying that he'd hear a faint beat. However, his prayers went unanswered that night, and not a beat could be heard. He stared at the body, he needed to get rid of it. He looked around the house, trying to find something, anything, that could contain the lifeless sack of flesh. He'd found a large black trash bag, as well as a few other items that would help him get rid of this, an old body of alcohol in the back of the fridge, a few matches, and some latex gloves he'd used for cleaning, and then he exited the back door with the supplies he had, and entered the forest.
And that's where the story lead up to, now, right as he was locating a place, far enough into the woods, that hopefully no one would ever have to find out about his ghastly crime. He opened up the bag, and pulled out the body, clearing out a small space on the ground so that no leaves would catch fire and cause more of a problem than what had already been done.
Ludwig then retrieved the alcohol, and began to carefully pour the liquid onto the body, taking extra care not to get it on his dress pants or any of the surrounding foliage. Finally, he pulled out a match, and with a shaky hand, struck it, setting the head on fire. He glanced at the body, backed up, and hesitantly, tossed the burning match, onto the body. Ludwig watched in shock and horror at how fast the body went up in flames. He began to walk backwards, tripping over a branch, and stared back at the burning corpse, a feeling of dread as looked at the body, its skin almost all gone, after only a few minutes.
He began to breathe heavily, and tears fell from his eyes, his shoulders shaking violently, as he stared intently at inferno of a body that once was. Ludwig didn't know how to react, so he just sat, his body continuing the automatic fear response he no longer knew how to use. He sat there for what felt like hours, until the very last bits of flesh were reduced to nothing but black ash and soot.
He needed to check the time, not sure how long he'd been there or how late it was. After all, he still had to go to work tomorrow, but then it hit him, he wouldn't be going to work tomorrow, he had to run away, he'd killed a man, and the repercussions were just now becoming apparent to his previously panicked mind. He sat back, and checked his watch, 11:09. He'd gotten home from work around 10:30
'Wow," he thought
'In the last 40 minutes, I killed a man, dragged his dead body into the woods, and burned it to nothing, eventful day,' Ludwig sat still for a moment, just listening to the sounds of the forest, the birds who remained awake cooed, small creatures scurried across the floor of the dark forest, and a stream ran at a constant rate. But then he heard it, a twig, close behind him, snapped in half. His eyes grew wide, and he turned his head around faster than ever before, and he stared in horror.
Standing behind him, was a thin man, whose hair, even in the blue shine of the moon light, was a fiery red, more so than he'd ever seen, there was a center part to his bangs, and a single stray hair that from his perspective, appeared on the right side of his head. The man's eyes were closed, yet he still gave Ludwig a look of confusion. Ludwig continued staring at him, not sure what else to do, he'd seen the body, and was probably going to turn him in to the authorities. He sunk his head down, and began to sob heavily into his arms.
The man seemed rather distressed by this and kneeled down to Ludwig's aid, attempting to comfort him. He placed a hand on Ludwig's shoulder, only to have Ludwig shift away from him, a surprised expression gracing his features
"W-what are you doing?!" he asked looking at the man intently
"Aren't you going to turn me in?! Why are you, why are you trying to comfort me!?" the man's confusion was once again apparent on his face, as he took a moment to comprehend the meaning of the sentence. When he realized what Ludwig had meant, his eyebrows raised and he began to laugh, now it was Ludwig's turn to be confused, as the ginger stranger practically rolled around the ground in his intense but quiet laughter
"What's so funny about that!?" the man sat back up and whipped his eyes as his laughter calmed and quieted
"Well, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be allowed to leave the police station myself," Ludwig's brow creased once again in confusion in response to the Italian accented man, but then he spotted it, behind the thin man, lay a bag, similar to the one currently laying somewhere near behind Ludwig. His eyes grew wide, he was face to face with a murderer (not that he wasn't, of course), who ironically, looked as though he couldn't hurt a fly.
Ludwig subconsciously backed away from said "threat" not sure what said man was capable of. He started to study the one who stood in front of him, but didn't get much time before he began to stand up, walking towards the black bag behind him, dragging it farther past Ludwig, to the small clearing in the leaves, in which a pile of ash and a burnt skeleton lay. He opened said bag, reached his arm in and gripped onto something. As the man pulled his arm out, it revealed a fist full of hair, obviously still connected to something.
The mystery man continued to pull, finally revealing the whole body. It was a woman, who appeared to be only slightly older than Ludwig, she had long blonde hair, much of which was caked thickly with partially dried blood, however, that wasn't to most gruesome portion of the corpse. The worst was the woman's left eyelid, which still dripped the dark red liquid, this was most likely related to the fact that it was caved in, probably from a forcible removable of said ocular muscle. Ludwig wanted to be sick as he saw the man drop the body in what appeared to be sadistic disgust. The man must've noticed Ludwig's wandering eyes and spoke
"It's a bit bloody, but these whores have to die," he ended the surprisingly violent sentence with a small smirk towards Ludwig
"Can you toss me that bottle and that box of matches?" he chimed, Ludwig responded quickly, handing them to the man, as to not anger him
"Thank you very much, umm, what's your name?" Ludwig peered up at him, considering responding truthfully, however, he decided to answer with a question of his own
"First tell me yours," the man looked back at him thoughtfully before smiling with a small giggle
"Feliciano Vargas, that's my name. Now Mr. Macho, what's yours?" Ludwig looked up at him, and answered
"Ludwig, Ludwig Beilschmidt," Feliciano looked at him before giving a response to the strange foreign name
"So you're quite obviously German," Ludwig nodded, his strictly slicked back bright blond hair, straight nose, and deep blue eyes did make him appear as such, it was also quite obvious on the account that they were on the edge of a small German town. That's when Feliciano looked down at the body with a smirk. He uncapped the bottle of alcohol and began to pour a generous amount on the woman, then without hesitation, struck a match and threw it on to the body.
Ludwig stared at Feliciano's sadistic smirk as he watched the corpse go up in flames, partially frightened by the reaction. He hated the feeling of looking at this little man in front of him and being intimidated, something we wasn't usually was, so he decided to gauge how much of a threat Feliciano really was
"I do hope you realize, Mr. Vargas, that you've given me your full name and I've witnessed you burn the body of a woman, so in short, I could turn you in, to the police to be exact," Ludwig wasn't lying either, his brother was on one of the international squads, the type of person who went after murderers, convicts, the kind of person who shut down the mafia in countries all around Europe. Feliciano gave him an odd look and giggled
"Well I suppose yes, you could, but there's no guarantee that you'd make it out of the station at this point, the police are most likely already on your tracks, there's almost no way that they wouldn't be," Ludwig's anxiety returned, he was right, the police were probably already on his track, his brother included. He began to panic internally, what would he do? As much as his moral compass begged to turn himself in, he didn't want to go to prison! He was only 23! The chime of Feliciano's voice suddenly brought him out of the daze he'd stuck himself in
"I could always help you y'know," Ludwig stared at him
"Why? What good am I?" Feliciano appeared to think for a moment before responding
"Well, you could be my bodyguard! And help me get money for us to travel around, you could even be my escort to places! It gets rather lonely without my brother, so you could act as his sort of replacement!" Ludwig continued to stare at him, he wasn't sure what to say, even though it wasn't that hard of a decision, he still took his time to think. Finally, after moments of awkward silence, he answered
"Yes, I'll go with you," Feliciano smiled brightly at the decision
"Well then, Luddy, we'd better get moving, or else we won't find somewhere to sleep tonight! Do you have any cash on you?" Ludwig stood up, searching in his pockets. He then located his wallet and opened it. Inside was 200 cash and his debit card, figuring that as enough he nodded in silently positivity, and Feliciano dragged him along by the arm