N/A: I wanted to try horror, something I've never done, so I did horror. I know that this OoC as fuck and the possibilities to this happen are as low as me winning lottery, but coherence with what is shown in the manga be damned. I regret nothing except the clumsiness this damn fic has. I wanted to try a different style too, ok.
Tell me any error the story has so I can fix it!
I can't say to enjoy, therefore I'll go with 'Thanks for reading!'
Summary: The shortest straw is always painted in red.
Warning: Characters' deaths and a lame try of psychological horror.
Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and its characters are not mine. They belong to Hiro Mashima.
Palette
At first, the world is a blur.
It has become something strange actually, because it seems like all the colors of the world have blended in one chaotic painting.
A painting made of fear and hopelessness and really sad ends that make the children cry. Where the prince never comes and the monster from the shadows always wins. It devours itself, until there is nothing left except forgotten bones and lost memories. Never a happy ending.
Why should there be a happy ending when the devil can eat the fairies?
There is a one thing in the middle of the canvas, ever unchanging, ever harming, swallowing whatever it finds. The black hole that consumes everything in its path, full of contained hatred and blizzards in the middle of the night. Yet, it hides behind masks of light snowfalls that are in fact a trap, waiting to the moment it unleashes the avalanche.
It's diabolic. As all demons are. (Why does exist something that shouldn't?)
And they are persecuted by that, like in a wicked game of the cat and the mouse.
And like sad little pigs avoiding slaughter, they run and run and run, feet stomping on the floors of the corridors, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel that never arrives.
And so, they don't see the incoming downfall ahead them.
It's only going to make the crash harder, and so painful it will break their hearts in a billion pieces. The pain is going to kill them, so very slowly, and they will scream with all the sadness of their souls.
Death haunts each step they take.
He takes a sharp breath, tugging from the smaller hand covered by his own. They need to run faster and faster and faster, until their feet bleed and the breaths cause pain in the chest. They need to get away. They need to live a tomorrow.
It's the only hope they have.
Echoes sound, formed by tired pants and threats of brutal ending reaching their ears. She chokes an audible cry. (He's behind, so near of them, his breath chilling their backs.)
All they can see is the mix of the sickening browns of the endless walls and the hurtful yellows of the torches shining in the dark. There is not life ahead them and only promises of demise if they dare to stop.
There is no hope in the distance.
Keep running.
They are two fairies in the nest of demons. Trapped and caged and transformed into preys to terrific creatures that seek the taste of iron above anything else.
He hates them with the passion he thought forgotten, buried back in the time, within torn icebergs and sacrifices that never should have been. But it has resurfaced with all the power of the past, and when he hears her tired huffs behind, his hatred multiplies.
He grabs her hand tighter, until her skin is bruised and he knows she is real and alive.
They go through halls that are actually a maze, changing and confusing, traps inside traps, not letting its invaders find their so desired exit. They pass locked rooms of wooden doors, moving through an eternity of corridors and still seeking the green of outside.
And it is cold. (So, so very cold, it reaches their hearts.)
They shudder for the frigid air, for the fear that is taking a toll on them and for everything else gone wrong. There are so many things gone wrong; with sorrowful ends that shouldn't have happened in the first place.
He holds her tight, because the only thing keeping them alive is the adrenaline and the fear striking their souls, endless races under the sight of death's ghost
Their personal demon is still behind, getting closer and closer and closer, freezing whatever it touches.
And hell is about to arrive.
Keep running.
In the beginning, there was a lamia of white scales too, fighting an impossible cause. But he is not more in the end, as he has met yet another more terrible fate.
It's a tragic story, as all the tragic stories are. They fought for everything that was right, thought that was right, and still little help they had.
It's a pitiful tale of soon deaths, and it's sadder because it could have been avoided. They could have won, defeat the devils and send them back to their home of ardent flames, where they would have stayed for the rest of their eternal lives, and not know about the loss of a friend.
That was the supposed happy ending. The promised one. But in the end, when it mattered, wasn't.
Because in the beginning, magic was, and then, in a blink, wasn't anymore.
It's dying by the passing second, going and coming to disappear again, helping them for an instant to abandon them in the next. It's fading little by little into obscurity, to be forgotten in the face of the more powerful beings and leaving them alone in a world that won't show mercy ever again.
And as all tales do, magic is the center of the miracle to come and without it, they are lost. They are solitary pieces of the bigger game, powerless with their magic tore off, and all alone to face the wrath of a demon that can turn fire into frost. (He is made of ice and hate and spilled blood).
There are tears that can't be shed, from pain that harms souls and from dread that fogs minds, leaving hearts broken. But they can't mourn over the past and the fallen lives in the path; it would mean to stop and they haven't the pleasure to do so.
It only hurts them more.
The only thing they can do when dreams are vanishing to become the most grotesque nightmares is run. And run and run and run until their sight is nothing more than disturbing images in the corner of their eyes or they are eaten by the cat.
A turn to the left.
Suddenly, there is light in the end, so very blinding and so very full of possible afters. The heavens have blessed upon them.
Keep runNing.
There is the white of the future before them and so, they run, searching for their nightmare's end.
.
.
[They dream for the happy tale, like the sad little pigs they are.]
.
.
He makes a mistake. They made the mistake.
They let themselves to have hope when they shouldn't have.
And it crashes like a thousand thunders in the moment they discover there wasn't any hope from the start.
He wants to yell as never before when he reaches the whiteness that held words of future and it reveals to be a room of nauseous silvers, composed with weapons so sharps that could cut through life. He wants to cry at the unfairness he is obliged to live with angry roars and desperate sobs. He wants to scream because it is not right.
It's not right what they are living and what he knows they are going to live, dark promises said between whispers. He doesn't want to see her falling with him. Yet, he sees her crumbling down, eyes wide in fear, as she looks at their surroundings and his heart clenches in response.
They are prisoners in a prison with an exit guarded by vows of death.
And he only can choke at the fact, trembling from head to toe and the only sanity remaining in their interlaced hands.
She shakes, tears filling her eyes while he watches her with all the desperation of his breaking dreams.
"Gray-sama?" Her voice is so tiny and so full of incomparable fear, waving with sloppiness; it almost makes him want to cry as well.
He looks at her, hair disheveled and clothes torn, and he cannot do anything but grin at her even as painful as it is. He smirks with all the uneasiness he has and brings her closer to him. There is nothing else he can do.
"We'll make through this. We're Fairy Tail. We will." His voice is broken. (It doesn't hold any kind of truth.)
They are empty words, contrasting with the harsh reality of the coming steps, and he knows that she knows. They are just words after all, there is nothing anyone can do when the evil's personification is against them. They can only be pleads of clemency.
She smiles with visible uncertainty nevertheless, and for a moment, the dark, dark room lightens its colors and his hearts swells with warmth.
But it's a lIe.
It's a dramatic entrance, so similar to the cruel witches of old tales where they would come in with devious smiles adorning their faces.
In his case, is the ice what makes the scene so terrifying. It creeps in, through the floor and the walls and the roof, and it so like a blooming flower meant to eat whatever lands in its petals that it makes them to step back once and twice and then, they hit stone.
They had a monster ahead and a death end behind.
The mice have been trapped.
So the demon chuckles with the mightiness he can afford and they can't, giving a step into the room and transforming it with ghostly whites that reminds them so much of drowned people's skin. He sucks a breath and she shivers in the growing coldness.
They bring each other closer, looking for the heat almost forgotten.
Then, the demon speaks. Sultry voice hiding a viper soul, tongue as deadly as any other arm. It speaks about old forgotten stories, claiming as the main character him and them. It speaks about unbearable past stained in carmine that makes no sense because of impossible connections between demons and fairies. (The devil tells truths that they cannot admit.)
She shakes her head disbelievingly, short gasp of denial puffing out of her mouth, hand clutching at his, and he roars 'lies!'.
The monster smiles.
Anger fills up his stomach, clawing with fury and bile rising to his mouth, and he growls in menace.
Faster than he has ever acted, he takes one of the weapons shining with glitters of violence and throws himself to the embrace of evilness.
There isn't any chance for him, neither for her, but he tries.
It's the only he thing can do now.
ALl of theM are lies.
They are desperate to find an opening to run away. Not win, just flee. They are not as idiots as to search a victory when it would be futile.
Still, the devil plays with them as if they were his personal toys. With a sadistic smile in lips and mad happiness in eyes, he counters each attack they made with learned easiness and taunts them between wild laugh and words that cut deeper than any sword at their hands.
The two of them fight like animals fighting an impossible enemy. They use the strength of hopelessness, the one which masks the predicted defeat. They fight and attack and defend and fight again. But they are so tired, and more tired by each passing second.
In the end, there is no more fun in the sickening game.
Soon, the demon has had enough.
He doesn't see the blow coming, and when he does, is too late.
There is a feminine scream, a shushing sound of an object coming in his direction and a coldness that chills his bones.
He turns right, mouth opened ready to shout and in an instant, his worst nightmare comes true.
It's a spare made of sharp ice, so close to him that he only can distinguish the faint glow of its edges. It's flashing silver what he will see last.
Suddenly, the world turns blue, like clear skies, so beautiful in its simplicity, and then…
Then…
A splash of red.
He doesn't believe what he sees. (It's the first time he sees a red rain.)
.
.
[She shatters, like a withering rose, never to come back.]
.
.
Kill hIm.
He screams her name, a long anguish howl resonating between walls, like a wounded animal who has seen his delusion meet an end.
He watches her falling before his fearful eyes, and falling and falling until her body hits floor and her blood is splayed on the stones and in his hands and his face and everywhere where his sight lands. He even savors the iron in his tongue.
He calls her again and again, searching for any sign of life in her motionless body and his eyes flood with unshed tears. Kneeling down, he draws out a trembling hand, leaving it above her face and he can feel the warmth that has so many times wrap around him leave her, a deadly stillness only remaining behind.
He says her name once more, cracked and drowned between his sadness, in a desperate attempt.
She doesn't move, ice piercing her chest.
And it's then, when he takes in her sight of pale skin, lifeless open eyes and dripping red that it comes to him she is not more. She will never smile again to him, her eyes won't shine with excitement and she will not try one of those crazy plans to gain his attention ever again. (She is never going to be with him.)
And all the opportunities that won't be crack his heart painfully, or what is left of it, and he whines like he has been stabbed in reply.
She will not be alive the next day.
And throughout all his yelling and pleads and tears she lays still.
Are you goiNg to Let this haPpen agAin?
"Such a pitiful soul." He is able to hear between the sounds of his own sobs.
It drags a heaviness only found in indifference, followed by armored steps. He almost feels the smirk on a wide mouth, smugness transmitted by heartless eyes and the happiness his sorrows cause. He looks up, tears running down his cheeks, and all predictions are right.
He seethes, venomous expression giving away his fury. She is limp in his arms, her azure hair damp in her own fluids and he can't feel the rises and the downs of her chest. He holds her, whispering begs for her awakening and how dares that demon to come close to them.
How dares that demon to destroy what is precious to him.
But it doesn't matter how much anger he shows, because with a few second the devil's shadow lungs above them.
"She was a fool," the demon of ice says, tone unwavering and it makes him boil. "But I can concede her wish and kill both of you together."
It's the condescending smile and the spiteful shine in his eyes. It's the careless motion when forming ice and snow out of thin air. It's the look he gives at her, what is left of her; that look of desired destruction and the knowing of how much her fall is going to break him into insanity and the wish of ripping her apart bone by bone and flesh by flesh, to see him wearing her blood as final suit before he, too, dies.
Every it drills in him and brings him mad. (Feels like a nailing sensation, scratching till his body reacts with quivering wildness.)
And so, with craziness taking over every corner of his mind, he snaps.
kIlL Him bEFoRe hE tAKeS heR aWaY!
He sees a blinding white for a second. Rage and fear and broken dreams filling his body.
For a second, magic resonates within his veins, cold and hard and malicious, and he feels power through his hands.
Then, darkness falls.
And the only sound he hears before the shadows swallow everything is a scream that resembles a monster seeking blood.
And a whisper in the growing blackness.
kill him
.
.
[He has gone mad, like a hatter, tells the chant.]
.
.
Drip, drip, drop.
The first sound reaching his ears when sanity is settling again. It's familiar, bringing memories of days buried in time.
(Drip, drip, drop.)
The fog of his vision disperses, clearing the edges of the object around him and the colors, brown and white and yellow and red, come back little by little, destroying the blackness that has ruled his actions for so long and for so short of a time.
When his mind clears at last, it takes whole minutes to understand where he is. It' so different from what he remembers.
There is so, so much red. In the floor and in the walls and in the roof and in him, everything dyed in lively crimson, and dripping in little drops that echo through the room. He is in the middle, weapon at hand stained in blood.
And everything is just red.
He sucks a powerful breath, seeing a figure before him. Gaping and wounded deadly, eyes full of the fear they had before when he was the hungry cat following the little mice.
They are covered in red, of her, of him and of the demon lying in the stone. Dying, the demon is dying. Slowly, very slowly.
He grins at the image, teeth showing and eyes wrinkling in joy. A chocked laugh slips through his lips.
He is alive and the monster is not.
YOou havE wooN
It's then, when a wide smile disfigures his face and the tiny mirth nesting in his chest explodes, that an ache as strong as a strike shoots him. He kneels, becoming as small and insignificant as he could, and laments his luck.
There is pain and pain and pain, lighting in his legs up to his thorax, swelling in his head and back to the heart. It destroys him from inside out and he wants to pass out so he can forget; forget how to feel and what he has done.
He wants to forget so he doesn't turn and remember once again what he has behind.
But he does, nevertheless, and he stands there, watching her from so far and from so close.
She is dyed in brown now, blood long dried, ice still crossing her lifeless body. He can distinguish little glints of blue of her once beautiful hair, now so gloom and dull, and he cries when he spots her eyes, black as the moonless nights. They don't hold nothing but breathtaking emptiness. (It only pains him more to watch a dead corpse.)
He crawls near her, standing above her unmoving self. Stoic expression in place and broken eyes in sight and he shudders before speaking from the first time since.
"Wake up."
She doesn't respond to it. So he repeats the command again, cradling her in his arms.
"Please, Juvia. Wake up. Please." His voice is hoarse, too loud in the silence, and it break into tears when the last word is spoken.
And even then, when he has ordered and begged her, she doesn't answer back.
"Please."
shHe iSs NoOt waAakinNg uUp
He stands there, embracing her body that has become colder than any ice, for a time longer than eternity.
There is blood in her face and eyes still wide open, haunting every thought he has left. He tries to scrub the red out of her, too ugly even in her white skin, and he only manages to spread it more.
He stops.
Then, hysteria comes, with a bouquet of black flowers in hand and a wicked sad smile and he laughs.
He laughs while he cries, fat angry tears rolling down from his red cheeks to her pale face.
He hates the demon dying behind him, for daring to kill his dearest; he hates death for taking away another person from his side, it should have had enough but it never does; and he hates himself, for everything and yet a bit more.
And he curses the very fate he is living with, the one that makes him suffer again and again and again; and laughs at the irony that all his life has come to be, composed by a chain of preceding sacrifices, one after another and no end in the distance. (It will never stop.)
So he laughs and cries and laughs a bit more until his throat goes dry and the voice holding incomplete promises fades.
.
.
[The world is sad.]
.
.
It's much, much later when the others find him and what was left of her. Too late to do anything and too late to save anyone.
He hears steps coming and worried whispers filling the silence of his ears, and when they arrive, they see him bathing in her blood.
There are gasp of surprise first, to continue with sobs of terror when they take in the transcended massacre.
He is found with screams in his lips and a name in his mind. She dead in his arms.
Or so he is told. He only recalls the pain in his soul that reminds he is alive.
They come closer, so very wary of everything, of him, and he looks up to them with hurt plastered all over him. They flinch.
He knows there should be pink and yellow and scarlet and even white before him, all of them with horror painted in their eyes, but he can't tell through his tear, blurring the world and the colors and his life. (There is not blue of the sky.)
In the end, what is left is a dull gray and wounds that won't close.
And broken hearts that will never heal.
.
.
[The end has come.]