"I'm not gonna have control for much longer! I don't know what to do!"
"Shhh…. It's okay…."
"Wait, what are you-"
"Remember that I love you…"
"No! Come back, don't do this!"
Natsu came back to consciousness with an agonized cry, sitting up in his bed with his hand outstretched as if he was reaching for the girl in his dreams. He stared at his hand, not even bothering to steady his breathing or his racing heart as he slowly made a fist. He had been having these nightmares every night for the last couple of weeks now, but whenever he tried to recall the girl in his dream all that came to mind was a flash of gold and a blinding white light that contained so much emotion that it could drop you to your knees.
"Oi… You just had that dream again, didn't you? A lazy voice floated over to him.
Natsu finally dropped his hand to look over to where his fellow guild member Gray Fullbuster was leaning against the wall in his apartment. As usual he was only dressed in his usual pair of dark jeans, arms crossed just under the blue Fairy Tail mark stamped on his chest.
"Ya, even now the dream still doesn't make- HEY! What the hell are you doing in my apartment?" Natsu yelled suddenly, jumping out of bed to face him angrily.
Gray merely rolled his eyes, completely unfazed by his sudden outburst. "Erza sent me to wake your lazy ass up. Everyone is meeting at the guild for breakfast, we're probably going to be looking for a job to go on today as well." He informed him, waving his hand as if for added emphasise.
Natsu glared at him in annoyance. "And this was all so urgent that you didn't even have time to knock, so you just decided to lean against the wall and watch me sleep?"
Gray looked like he was ready to punch him. "Shut it, Flame Brain, I wasn't watching you sleep. Besides, you were the one who was constantly breaking in to this place before-" And just like that he was quiet, a flash of panic going through his eye so swiftly that Natsu almost missed it. "Che, whatever, just hurry the hell up and get to this guild." Then he was gone, making a hasty escape out the door.
Natsu watched blankly while Gray made his escape. What the actual hell was that about? That wasn't even the first time he had caught one of his friends in something as strange as that. He turned a bit to look over his shoulder at the sudden ruffling of the sheets. When he looked down he met the big eyes of his partner, Happy, who was staring right back up at him.
"Morning, Natsu. How are you feelin today?" He asked in that over hyper voice he usually had nowadays.
"Fine as usual." He responded, already feeling distracted. He reached over into his dresser and pulled out his favorite open shirt and pulls it on over his shoulders, missing the look Happy got in his eyes when he inspected the room.
"So you cleaned the apartment again...? It wasn't even that messy…" He said quietly.
Natsu looked down at him in surprise. The way the little blue exceed was looking around the room made him feel bad for cleaning the place again. Happy looked sad when he scanned the room.
Natsu simply shrugged, walking towards the window. "This place needs to stay clean. Don't ask me why, it just does."
"I know why…" Happy whispered, but Natsu didn't pay any mind to it.
"I'll meet you at the guild when you're ready." He said quickly, jumping out the window.
Natsu and Happy had moved into this apartment about a year ago, though Natsu never understood why it was so important to Happy at the time. Natsu had completely refused to move into such a small place, claiming that they didn't need to buy an apartment when they had a perfectly good house that they didn't need to pay for, but then Happy had started crying. He has sobbed and begged Natsu, the agony in his voice so painful that Natsu had finally caved, and even to this day Natsu had no idea why it was just so damn important to his partner. He lifted his arms and leisurely put his hands behind his head as he continued his trek to the guild, becoming completely lost in thought. This past year had been the most peaceful year that Fiore has seen in a very long time. After Fairy Tail had come together and used Lumen Histoire to defeat Zeref, there hasn't been a single thing to go wrong in his life. Natsu stopped dead in front of the guild, his eyes going unfocused as a flash of gold crossed his vision and a soft voice whispered in his ears.
"Remember that I love you…"
"Who loves me…" He said in a quiet voice, looking down at the back of his right palm, a habit he had gotten over the past year.
The battle with Zeref had left him with multiple scars, but it was the pink scar on the back of his hand that had made such an impact on his life. Every time he found himself looking at it he would become overwhelmed with emotions that didn't make sense to him. H would feel sadness, anger, emptiness, and an emotion he couldn't quite put his finger on, but it filled him with warmth no fire could match. Natsu found himself frowning. The more he thought about things that didn't make sense, the more he realized that this entire past year had been a complete mystery to him, and not a single person had been willing to fil in the blanks or answer any of his questions. Shaking his head as if trying to physically clear it he tore his gaze away from the scar and finished his short walk into the guild, pushing open the doors and walking inside. As usual the normally boisterous guild became a fraction quieter and it filled with an air of poorly contained anxiousness. This was also something that had become a constant in the past year. Everyone treated him differently, ranging from being nervous, sad, slightly upset or even just avoiding him altogether. He ignored the atmosphere before it started putting him in a bad mood, walking to sit at the bar and quickly being greeted by Fairy Tails' Mirajane, former s-class mage turned friendly bartender. She was one of the people who treated him almost the same as before, but every once and a while he could sense sadness coming from her, mostly when she was looking at a certain door. As if they had read his thoughts, he heard said door click shut and looked up quickly to see Levy and Cana exiting the basement. Both girls looked completely worn out, pale complexions and puffy eyes as if they had been crying. Levy looked up as if sensing his gaze, offering a tired small and a small wave as Cana walked over to Mirajane and handed her the key to the door.
Did he mention that he was forbidden from just looking at the door, let alone going in the basement? To begin with, technically no one should have been allowed to go into the basement, but when Natsu, Gray and Wendy had discovered that Lumen Histoire was actually Mavis Vermillion, the cat kinda got out of the bag and soon the entire guild knew. It was only a few days after the war that Erza and Gramps had told him he was never to go into the basement. Of course he had thrown his world famous temper tantrum until Erza had threatened to kill him and feed his body to Happy, then he had calmed down and let it go for a while. Even to this day Erza would whack him over the head if she caught him staring at it. Natsu looked down at the table in attempt to hide his growing smirk of mischief. Tonight was the one year anniversary of Fairy Tail ending the war, so everyone would be in the streets celebrating, including everyone in the guild. Tonight was the night that he finally got to do what he has been wanting for a year now, even though he knew he was going to pay for this with his life. It was finally the night that he would find out what they were hiding from him in the basement.