Okay, this will be a running fic guys...
Main Character- Gilbert Beildeschmidt
Pairings- slight PrUk if you squint, HungaryAustria, maybe others if you give me some requests x
Warning- rating might go up later on.
Hands curled, serrated nails digging into waxen palms, sinfully clean lacerations weeping flavourless burgundy. A rush of satisfaction smothered a stagnant consciousness, fingertips humming with an odd sense appreciation at the discomfort that was quickly spreading through limbs deadened by the night time cold. Any kind of feeling was wholly welcomed after the centuries of detached, heartless screaming he had endured thus far.
It was just another night, he told himself. Just another night full of another few hundred people, all of whom would meet another form of death. Just another night, in which he would shout and scream, urging the silly, stupid bastards to save themselves, to raise a weapon, to fucking run.
But they never did. A damp, familiar scent would hang thick in the air (Sickly, bitter, foul), as different shades of red (crimson, vermillion, terracotta) would spatter against inanimate surfaces (windows, picture frames, peeling walls) and puddle beneath them (pavements, kitchen tiles, damp forest floors).
Sometimes it was murder, or rape, or maybe just sickness. Sometimes they would cry, beg for mercy; occasionally one would just shudder and go limp. Sometimes they did it themselves, perhaps for the sake of another, or to relieve themselves the hassle of life for selfish reasons of their own.
Those were always the worst, in his honest opinion.
It was almost comparable to mocking those who died of no fault of their own. The children who wailed and clutched to crying parent's hands as disease or illness took them. The women who screamed and begged as they were violated in dark, deserted alleyways. The men who went down fighting for a country that didn't care, a million bullet holes ripped through twitching bodies and mud caking crumpled uniforms. It was wrong; it violated God's final plans.
But then again, could he really say he believed in God after all these years?
Those once carefree, auburn eyes had witnessed countless executions carried out by numerous races, countless corpses riffled with disease littering poverty stricken countries, countless environmental disasters tearing apart land like a knife through butter.
Now they were just another shade red, reflecting the blood that had become a familiar, taunting sight over the past century.
(Century? Had it been that long? Was it longer than that? The deaths had begun to blend together, one was not distinguishable from the rest, save an exceptional few, could it have been decades? A millennium? God, he really couldn't tell, perhaps-)
A harsh, bitter laugh wrenched itself from his mouth. Once he had been a believer in the good of the world; after all, God would forgive the sin that hung around every single human's shoulders. The centuries old iron cross hanging from his neck was a clear sign of that. But after all those eyes had seen, could he really continue living with that childish notion created by a sheltered, silly little boy obscuring his mind from the truth? Where his hands not so stained with the blood of so many that he could just pass it off as an 'act of God'? Could he-
"…Shut up." He hissed, as if to smother that particular train of thought.
Those pale hands gripped the splintered bark of the tree nearest to him, and he hoisted his lifeless body to bare feet. No point wasting awesome time, 'soldier', a small voice quipped.
He almost chuckled at the naivety of his past self, but caught himself quickly and withdrew the half smile creeping onto dull lips. After all, a different voice, gruff and deep and not-at-all welcome whispered into his ear, smiling is just another waste of time.
Standing at full height, his feet disturbed the fresh winter snow, and those vivid red eyes widened a fraction. He hadn't realized that he'd been sitting there for so long; the thick blanket of white stretched across the dreary landscape, covering the rubble and dirt magnificently. The tree he'd been sleeping against was burnt and scorched, dark flakes of ash and brittle wood dusting the untouched surface.
It was still the best looking tree for miles.
The night in this part of the land was eerily quiet. Compared to the chaos and destruction not a kilometre away, this dark, cold forest was much more preferable. However, he felt something deep inside tugging, urging him to the west, pestering him to get his work done so he could finally sleep for more than an hour.
Beginning the walk with much more confidence in the ability than he knew he had, the man began to whistle an absentminded tune, brushing his bluish-tinted fingertips across the splintered tree barks, not caring to drag them away when it began to scratch at the hardened skin there; rather, he relished the feel, storing it deep within the recesses of his memory to assure himself that he was still living, was still able to feel something.
'Within my voice is the sound of bones
snapping, torsion of dry joints
grinding cupped sockets.'
A small smile finally broke free onto those cold lips, twisted as it may have been.
'A fine ear may hear the high pitch of tension
bent before the relieving snap,
or like dice against dice
nubs crushed in a jaw
where wet teeth crack
as the tarsals split.'
His feet continued to trudge through the snow, ruining that perfection, tarnishing it with all the maliciousness of a wild animal tearing apart its dinner. Something inside told him that his very existence did just this, ripped apart perfect human lives, destroyed families, crushed emotion and sentiment. Yet somehow seeing that blank, white canvas being trampled on so freely gave him such relief, such peace of mind that he found himself not able to care at all.
'A mere whisper flays skin
paper-thin from hot flesh.
In my voice is the sound of valves
clogged in thickening drubs
of blood; the drowning fight
to force the silt slugging
dense as lead in the heart.'
He remembered his first kill; it was a girl not much older than himself. She was as pretty as a picture, all curves and long, brown curly hair that she brushed every day. Her eyes were a deep bottle green with long thick eyelashes, skin flawless and pinked at the cheeks, face round and soft and oh so feminine. He remembered the way she walked, a careless swaying of the hips with the light pad of bare feet, and the swish of her long extravagant skirts that lightly dragged across the marble floors of a family home.
She was to be wed to a rich aristocrat, a tall, bookish man with fluttering tailcoats and pianist hands. From what he had gathered, their families had been strong friends for many generations; therefore it was only natural that the two be joined together once of an appropriate age. Her fate had been sealed even before she was even born.
But she did not seem to care. Her personality was that of a soldier, she was loud and confident and adventurous and all the things a lady should not be; no matter how many times her governess would scold her. Yet she was madly in love with the man all the same, and flocked to his piano rehearsals at any given chance. And this undying love, this fierce passion, is what brought about her untimely death.
She had been late for one of his monthly performances at the local theatre, and was too impatient to wait for the coachman to return with her mother from a trip to a nearby relative. So saddling up one of the servants horses, grace and poise be damned, the girl raced off to the town square in the pouring rain. Her hair was loose and flicked into her face every time the horse jolted. It distracted her enough to free one hand in order to brush it aside, and it was at that moment that they met a sharp turn in the road. The young horse had slipped on the track and stumbled into the forest, where the ground steeply descended into a normally shallow river. Yet the rain had flooded the banks, and at the time they fell in, it must have been well over nine foot deep. Now, for a strong swimmer, this would not have been a problem, but with the upbringing she had had, the poor girl stood no chance. Dark hands of reed grasped at her slender form, dragging her down into the deep indigo water. He remembered her screams, silent and water filled as they may have been, desperate and pleading and terrified at the idea of death, the unfamiliar liquid weighing down her chest, dress heavy like lead; no longer that twirling, dancing fabric her mother had picked out especially, but sluggish and rough, wrapping around her legs and catching on the sharp rocks that lined the river bed. Hazel eyes wide and scared, she screamed and screamed, and god she screamed.
They found Elizabeta Héderváry face first in the river the next day, her long caramel hair wrapped around her neck like a noose, a smudged and torn love confession clutched in her bloodied hands.
Roderich Edelstein would later marry an obedient, blue eyed girl with short blonde hair.
'My scream stops birds dead in midair.
Crows fall to the ground like stones.'
Back in the present, the cloaked figure sighed. It would be another long night. Staying in the past wasn't one of his favourite things, but he knew once he started, it was hard to stop.