Title: Checkmate
Words: 445
Summary: They're gone. Everything's gone. It's cold. Why did this have to happen?
Warning: Character Death(s)
[Tragedy]
A/N: I felt like writing something dark. I don't think my mind was perfectly clear when I wrote this. If anyone feels like making a prequel or sequel to this, feel free! I'd love to know what you think what happened. To be honest, after rereading this again in the morning, it's quite open-ended, isn't it? Dudly-sama's birthday was a few days ago... so... happy belated birthday Dudly! Here is this Atobe-centric fic!
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Checkmate.
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It's red.
It had always been there, soaked in the ground
The color invades his vision and it frightens him. Why? His mind blunders. Why, why, why?
Your mind is no longer coherent anymore
He doesn't know what he's asking. He doesn't know where he is. Everything is cold. The rusted bars are closing in and he feels suffocated. It's dark and he can only hear his breathing come out harsher by each breath. Each dying breath.
The frosted edges of a rose, deep, luscious red sharply turns to white
It wasn't supposed to be this way, he shudders, grasping the peeling walls. His hands and feet are numb, and his shirt is clinging to his body from cold sweat. Shivering. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The floor is dirty and the freezing metal is touching his skin. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
No rose can bear the pain
He forces himself up, stumbling, and he leans on the wall. It's dark.
The taste is bitter, it's below zero
The twisted feel in his stomach almost sends him over the point. It knots up inside his chest and it feels too heavy to hold.
Empty eyes come your way
He should've known, the way everyone was acting so different today. It was strikingly obvious.
Agonizing pains, the rose wilts under the touch
He tried to put one foot in front of the other, it was a simple task, but he stayed where he was. Still cold. The blood-brushed ground presses against the soles of his sore bare feet. The burden, yes, it was because of that. But what burden? All what's left of him is nothing.
A dying delicate flower, you don't want to be like that, do you
If only had he done something sooner… this wouldn't have happened. The blood. The blank gazes that meet up at his eyes. Blank, vacant, yet horrifyingly mocking.
Their smiles are beautifully cruel, their expression mirrors yours
Shattered. That was what he had become. Broken into pieces. They bite into his skin, stinging the cuts that swept across his battered hands that still clutched the red-stained wall. It was his fault, wasn't it? Why? Why?
Never ending like a circle, but you want it to be all over
They shouldn't have died. They shouldn't. Yet he thinks that he deserved the pain, that he deserved the haunting images pressed in his mind. Of blood. Of screams. Of bodies ripped in half.
Roses never survive in the winter
He falls back to his knees, looking down at the ground. Down at his hands.
Checkmate, Atobe Keigo
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
-end-