Dark.
Bloody.
Desperate.
The face that looked back at me blinked, teeth grit in pain, jaw set, sweat falling off the brow. bits of exposed bone and raw flesh ran in intricate patterns through the matted viscera of buzzed hair.
Blood ran like crimson rivers down the face, pooling in the eyes, turning their fuschia beauty into nightmarish mixes of pain and agony. Hot lances of mind-bending pain raced up from the chest, the face in the mirror only became more enraptured in burning torture.
The knife did not stop.
The knife would not stop.The knife Could not stop.The pain was nothing compared to the sheer want, the need, to do this, the instinctual urge to rend open, tear out and replace.
The knife traveled up the sternum, muscle, flesh and bone parted with their own screams of pops and snaps. Blood careened out, pooling under the sink, before running out the crack under the door.
"Amir? Are you okay?"
The knife snagged on the bone, a quick jerk upward and the bone shattered into splinters that sunk into the flesh.
Amir's chest now laid open, with all of his organs exposed to the stinging air of the dorm's bathroom. Shining lungs pulsed and shrank with every haggard breath, blood and gore falling off them in red stringy ropes, before falling into the ever- growing puddle of filth under his feet, before flowing out.
The door was now shaking, bowing in the middle as someone tried to get in.
"AMIR!?! PLEASE, ANSWER ME! ARE YOU OKAY? WHAT IS GOING ON?!"
Amir's right hand plunged into his chest, clawing around inside before gripping what he wanted so badly to remove.
Amir's hand pumped slightly with every frantic beat. There was a slight moment of hesitation, as he strangled his own heart, but that notion was washed away like a pebble trying to hold back an ocean of unnatural instinct.
He ripped it out.
The feeling was horrid, like being plunged into an icy lake, while being burned alive.
He looked to his hand, watched his heart shed gore with every powerful beat.
" SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE! WE NEED A DOCTOR NOW!"
His breath hitched in his throat, his lungs were hollow, and refused to flex.
There wasn't much time.
He grabbed the object that rested on the sink's counter, squeezing it in his fist, before slamming it deep into his chest.
The effect was immediate.
It burned. It hurt. It froze him cold, like something crushed and stretched his body at the same time.
It felt wonderful.
He gasped, his lungs inflating as he took the largest breath in his life. His lungs were aflame with new vigor and he could feel his chest knitting back together, new and living flesh closing over the old and ruined.
He turned his attention to his heart in his hands, and popped it in his mouth.
He chewed, felt the flesh break between his teeth, until it was little more than muscle and sinew. Then he swallowed.
CRASHThe door finally broke inward, and he could hear sobbing. He felt his body lift up, and someone hold him before darkness claimed him.
Ozpin pinched the bridge of his nose, the stress and horrid nature of what transpired this nature getting to him.
"Ms Paine, has Mr Kaiser been acting strange lately, anything at all?"
Sadie Paine, a first year student, wiped away her tears.
She wore a red Victorian dress, and her once pristine high- heeled boots were now covered in her teammates life. Long Pink hair flowed down her body, ending just below her knees.
Her voice was barely above a whisper, and shook with every word.
"Yes, very much so."
"How so?"
Ozpin pushed the question, one of his students just performed self mutilation in the extreme, and he wanted to know why.
"He would get this look on his face, like he was paying attention to someone who wasn't there, like he couldn't look away."
"And what else?"
"He would stay up at night, and stare into the corner of the room. We chalked it up to battle stress, or bad good, but then stuff started happening."
Ozpin was now intrigued and by the look Glynda gave him, she was too.
"What stuff?"
Sadie curled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself.
"Freaky stuff. The normal stuff like him staying up at night was weird, but understandable. This was next level creepy."
Glynda took a step forward, losing patience.
"What happened Ms paine?"
Sadie wiped more tears from her face, her makeup running in black streaks down Her cheeks.
"He said he could hear something, coming from somewhere, a high pitched static sound, and sometimes it would call his name. Then he would whisper names in his sleep, Salem, Poltava, Akaviah, and Priscilla. Sometimes it sounded like gibberish, when he spoke."
Sweat broke out from the two teacher's brows.
"We told him to stop, to tell us what was wrong, he begged us to believe him, to just listen. We called him crazy."
Sadie remembered the look on Amir's face, desperate and broken, his bloodshot eyes begging for someone to believe him.
"Then we started hearing the voices too."
The room suddenly got colder, like someone dropped it in the arctic.
Ozpin spoke.
"What happened then?"
"We were asleep, but I had gotten up to use the bathroom, and when I came back..."
She slammed her eyes shut and held her face in her hands, tears and fear etched in her face.
"There was someone standing over him."Glynda visibly shuttered.
"They wore a long white dress, and they were tall, with white hair almost as long as mine. They had their hand on his chest, and were just standing there, touching him.
When I blinked, they were gone."
"Then the next morning, Amir woke up with a nasty cough, complaining how his heart hurt. I didn't tell him what happened, I didn't think it was real, I wanted it to not be real."
Ozpin put his arms on his desk, thumbs pressing together as he took in this new information.
Sadie continued speaking.
"Amir would have nightmare's, would wake up in a cold sweat, and he would leave the dorm, and head to the forge to work the stress away, I would watch him leave through the window, but I quickly stopped when I saw that I was being watched too."
"Who was watching you? The woman in white?"
"No, she was about as tall as that Yang girl, but that's where the similarities end. She was pale, deathly so, but all I remember was her eyes, like burning coals, like rubies of pure hate."
Ozpin unconsciously gripped his cane, and loosened the collar of his shirt.
"The night's when he was asleep, sometimes there would be a knock on the door, and it would open. No one would be outside, but I could hear them walk in. Their footsteps were heavy, like they wore a massive suit of armor."
"In missions, Amir grew angrier, more cruel, more hateful towards his enemies, I had to restrain him from pursuing the enemy farther out in the wild. When I would ask him why, he always said the same thing."
Ozpin cast a quick glance to Glynda, who readied a pen and a notepad.
"She tells me to, She tells me to prove my worth.""I don't know why he says that, or who was telling him to prove himself. But it all started when we got separated on our last mission, and when we regrouped, he had something with him."
Ozpin leaned forward, curiosity written on his face. "What was it?"
"A black stone, as big as his fist, and in the shape of a heart."
So what do you guys think? I had this here idea bouncing around in my head for a little while, please review!