The Red (Creeping and Crawling Inside)

by elementalist12963

Red lyrium grows and grows and never stops. Cullen knows this if he knows nothing else. A short little ficlet in which the Inquisitor has failed, Coreypheus has won, and Cullen's worst nightmare is crawling through his veins. Disclaimer: Dragon Age and it's characters belong to Bioware

He can feel it growing. Even now, after all this time, he can feel it growing. Its burn and tug so familiar now as it pulls on all that he is, unravels his threads like he's a fraying tapestry, maybe soon he'll just be a pile of broken thread, and still it grows. It won't ever stop growing, even when it's finally consumed him, finally ended his macabre mockery of life. It's relentless, he's the soil and it's a weed, its roots all tangled in his soul, draining all that he is, and it's inescapable. How long has he been here? It has been an eternity, all that he is ebbing into it, feeding it, nurturing it, but oh how he hates it, hates it with all he has left. If the Maker does exist, He is cruel, cruel like the demons that torture, and whisper, and lie. He has abandoned him. There is no hope, hope shone a soft green from the palm of a hand, beautiful, still, gone. The herald is dead, still so still, like the statues of Andraste, just as beautiful, just as unreachable. They're all dead, dead, and red, and torn asunder, it bursts from them, grows from them, becomes them. There's nothing left, nothing, nothing, nothing. There is no Maker, cruel as the red crawling inside him, wriggling like worms, and there is no salvation, soft green glowing, sharp green bursting, sharp is stronger, blots out the glow, consumes it. He was something better once, tall, proud, lion, Commander, "Ser, what do we do, what do we do!?",

"Nothing." He whispers. There's no one or thing to hear him, but the red, red, red, like iron in his bed and monsters in his head. What he is now, empty inside, the redness is hollow, a darkness eating away, is broken, shattered worse than the demons made him, because at least they had to ask to get inside, the red needs no permission, no prelude to invasion. There is darkness in the Maker's light, there is no light at all, the Chant is a lie, a sweet nothing to help those with hope sleep at night, those with life. He is a lie, twisted, broken, not even a man anymore, a monster, a grotesque creature. He would welcome the Void, sweet nothing, sweet sweet nothing, better than the red inside, tearing him up. Let him die, please, please let him find oblivion, let him find death.

There are footsteps, are there or does he hear the memories, the breaking of the silence is strange, it interrupts the red song, but he's heard it so long now it's lost to him anyways. A door creaks on its hinges, but what does that matter, why should he care? There is nothing but the red, he can feel it growing.