This is my first time writing something like this, so tell me what you think. And if you don't like tragedy, don't read. If you don't like it and you're curious enough to read it, welcome to the emo corner.
The dust in the air hung, as if not settling in the slightest, and forced the visibility down to a hundred feet, blurring out the jagged pieces of rock and gore covering the ground before acting as a wall, blocking visibility to anything behind it. Everything was in the color scheme of brown and gray, not including the clothes scattered along with the corpses, the bodies of which, for once, not belonging to the enemies of DWMA, but the allies, comrades, staff, and students.
Soul Eater Evans alone lay breathing, panting from the exertion of the fight that had ended nineteen minutes prior. He didn't know how long he'd been laying there. He had no idea how long it had been, and not because there was no sun, or because he didn't have a watch, or a cell phone, or a timer. He didn't know because that's not what he'd been focusing on. To him, it could have been hours or seconds. He honestly did not care, although he probably should have. He was just fighting to stay conscious.
Finally, he wondered. Wondered if everyone was okay. Wondered if Maka and he had killed off the keishan for good, or if it had fled. Wondered if Black Star had had one of his crazy moments where he gets serious for once and can seem to beat anybody. Wondered if Tsubaki had pushed herself for Black Star again. Wondered if Kid's opponents had been symmetrical or not. Wondered about Patty and Liz, about whether they were worrying about a broken nail or a lost giraffe or something more serious. Wondered why Maka's hand was getting so cold in his. Wondered where the hell Stein was because damn, did he hurt.
Fourteen. Twenty-seven. Thirty-five. Forty-two. The minutes continued to pass, and Soul Eater Evans began to realize that if he wanted things to get better, he was going to have to move—something he really did not want to do. With the realization that Maka's hand felt as cold and stiff as if he were holding onto a stone pulled out of the freezer, he suddenly found the strength to move. Achingly, he sat up, every single muscle he moved protesting, but weakly, as if they, too, were exhausted. With a grimace, he slowly changed his position so that he was sitting cross-legged next to Maka, facing her.
To Soul's relief, it was just Maka. Normal Maka, with her pale skin and scratched knee. In fact, she only looked like she'd been pushing herself too hard at basketball. Her cheekbones, her pigtails, her skinny limbs and red miniskirt; They all seemed normal. But the imperfections started to seep in. Her cheekbones were too defined. Her pigtails were too sloppy. Her skinny limbs were covered in bumps and bruises and scratches and cuts and gashes. Her miniskirt was dirty and torn and even more mini than before.
And the facts started to force themselves through Soul Eater Evan's unwilling skull.
Maka was injured. Maka needed help. But Soul still didn't panic, because Stein had patched him up, and Soul believed that Stein could patch anyone up, no matter how dire the condition of the person. But Stein was dead, Soul realized. He'd been there. The enemy had thrown a lucky blow. ...That's what Soul wanted to believe.
The enemy had plainly been too difficult of an enemy. It was only a matter of time until it had managed to completely get the upper hand.
Well, shit. If Stein was dead, Soul thought, then what was going to happen to Maka? In fact, the enemy had aimed for Maka's vital organs. He'd missed, his fatal blade swinging and getting her legs instead. Maka had bled, a lot. Soul's eyes trailed down to the giant gashes going across her thighs and exposing her femur bones. For a moment, he wondered if the major effect had worn off, because she wasn't bleeding anymore. Dead people don't bleed.
And then it was open season.
Patty was dead. Liz was dead. Kid was dead. Tsubaki was dead. Black Star was dead. Everyone was fucking dead. But Maka wasn't dead. Maka just wasn't allowed to die. She defeated the first keishan when no one else could. He still worried, of course, but right now, he wanted to believe that she could do anything, and successfully. Maka was untouchable. Maka was invincible. Maka was immortal. Maka was alive.
Soul was wrong, of course. In shock. Delusional. Maka was, in fact, very dead. And when this fact sunk in, he found a stray gun in his hands from one of the lesser opponents. It wasn't the look of the gun that got him to realize that it was a gun. It was the feel of cold, dusty, clammy metal being pressed against his head and gripped harshly in his hand.
The pressure of his finger on the trigger seemed to do a little dance for a moment. If he just put a little more pressure on the tiny little switch, he would fall off of the thin line he was walking on, sending the bullet the instant order it was all too anxious to receive.
Just a little more pressure was all it took.
And another moment came. Everything seemed to freeze for Soul Eater Evans, as if his subconscious was refusing to give up, as if it were gripping onto the life it knew was slipping through its fingertips as easily as smoke. All of his memories came knocking, beating, pounding on the door he refused to open. So, they knocked the door down, and all of the memories came on him with all the force of a nuclear explosion.
Black Star, Patty, Tsubaki, and him playing basketball, Liz on the side to avoid a broken nail, and Maka reading a book next to her because she was dragged there in the first place.
Everyone over at his and Maka's apartment because Maka thought that they didn't hang out together enough.
Blair earning him so many Maka chops that they passed far beyond the hope of count.
All his hopes of cool days that started out with the opposite of a cool morning.
The many, many dissections he'd been too lazy to do well in Stein's class.
Soul realized that, if he wanted to, he could hold on to that moment forever. But it hurt. It hurt much more than he could handle. So he let it go.
And then Soul Eater Evans was dead.
The citizens of Death City came to investigate the battlefield. How could they not, when they had been forced to watch as the staff and students of DWMA fight for them? The only survivor was Crona, who they found shaking, curled up hiding behind a chunk of metal. When they tried to talk to Crona, he seemed not to hear, and when they touched him, he would let out rattling yells and screams. They left him alone, walking away until the screams were bearable. The screams did not stop.
Eventually, they came across Soul. At first, they wondered why the wound in his head was seemingly self-inflicted, but when they made note of his cold, dead, bloated hand clamped in Maka's own, they knew exactly why.
There was no time for mourning. They hadn't done it. They hadn't killed the keishan; as Soul had feared, the keishan had slipped away yet again. The students of DWMA deserved glory for all they'd done, all the times they'd saved Death City from complete destruction, all those thousands of years of keeping it at bay. With all of DWMA dead, there was no one to defend the attack, no one to stop the deaths, no one to prevent the complete invasion and take-over of Death City. With no one alive, there was no one to remember. The lives of all of DWMA and Death City were just a grain of sand that eventually got sucked up by the sea.
And then the memory of Soul Eater Evans was lost.
So how was it?