Lys
Should warn everyone right off that this is a very dark story, and contains detailed descriptions of gore and psychological issues. It's based off the quote included further down, and the overall morbid feel of the King of Swords arc. If you came looking for my usual dose of Tsuzuki and Hisoka fluff, I'm sorry, but there's none of that here.
Well, now that I'm sure that I've cleared out over half of my usual audience... :)
All the thanks in the world go out to Sephy and Amet for this one; from their awesome beta-reads to all the support :) All my gushing can't even cover how great you are. This probably would still be sitting half-finished on my hard drive if Sephy didn't take interest. The title was blatently stolen from Amet, because the most obvious solutions are often the best.
This is my first adventure out of the fluff I usually write, so I am rather attatched to this story :) I don't really expect much feedback, but I just want to thank everyone reading for giving this obscurity a chance.
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"Even you've probably seen it? The children sold by their parents for even just a small amount of money?
"To keep us from escaping, they cut off our arms and legs...
To keep us from screaming, they sewed together our mouths and tongues...
In order to always offer fresh organs, lost organs were replaced by artificial ones...
Forced to continue living..."
-Eileen/Tsubaki - King of Swords
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Despair. Insanity. A never-ending pain.
How long you've been down here you can't tell - days, weeks, months… Time means nothing in this hellhole. Down here the air is laced with a constant chill, not even needing a breeze or stirring of air to penetrate your uncovered body. There is nothing to be seen through your eyes, sewn shut against the world. So long have you been in this inky darkness, that when that door opens, and the lights come on, the glow that plays upon the inside of your lids makes your eyes burn and your head ache. The room smells of sterilizing wash and old blood. Of sweat and of excrements and of rotting flesh. Isolated, you breath in the stale air. There is nothing. Nothing but the pain and the tears and the bitter agony. The vacant stares and that light breathing.
Oh, what you would give for that breathing to stop.
You want to die. That's all you live for now. Kind of funny, in the sense that it's not really funny at all. Living for death.
But you do. To die, to end this… it's what you cling to. The thought that one day it will be over. You don't really care if there's a heaven. You could care even less if you go to hell. Even complete and utter nothingness would be embraced. Heh… embraced… like your mother embraced you as she sent you away, tears in her eyes. Those false tears, that empty embrace…
You'd let your hands embrace her neck if you ever saw her again.
…If you had any hands, that is.
You sound vaguely crazy - you realize this. You just don't care. They'd all be crazy too, if they were in your place. They'd all be crazy too, if they were sold by their own families, sent away to this ship… They'd be crazy too, if they were put into the hands of the devil himself. All of you down here must be more than a little crazy by now… but maybe it's better that way.
There is no escape; not even through death. You should be dead. You should be dead ten times over and your body rotting at the bottom of the sea. But no, you are not allowed to die. That right has been stripped away from you like everything else.
Stripped of your clothes, your limbs, your organs and your blood. Stripped of yourself. Ha… stripped of yourself. You like that. Doesn't make much sense, but you like it all the same.
They cut off your arms. Cut off your legs. The sickening sound of cracking bones, the bitter scent of blood in the air. They're gone… God, you wish you were gone. But you hang here, strapped to the wall, unable to move. The scars still ache - poorly done stitches and careless operations have left you a mutilated shell of what you once were. Pain… it's all you know now. Makes you want to scream and cry and wail of your anguish into the night.
No! No, can't scream. Can't make a sound, must be silent… you're a secret, a secret hidden in a world of darkness and pain. When they cut into you with that knife, when they steal you bit by bit, you try to cry out in pain. You feel the rough edges of stitches cutting into your lips, your mouth sealed and bound with crude threads of black. They slice your tongue, the copper taste of blood filling your mouth. Your lips are eternally sealed, and the rich red liquid has nowhere to go. You swallow it down, making the bile raise in your throat, burning you as it tries to escape with the help of your useless gagging.
There is no help down here. Only the pain and the silence that's as heavy as death.
Death… oh god, you wish for death.
But you know that it won't come. Not for now.
The cold air nips at your bare skin and shallow gasping breaths echo harshly in your head. The scent of blood and rotten flesh, of neglect, twists your stomach into knots. The darkness encompasses everything around you and -
Oh god, it hurts…
Your mind freezes, light explodes behind your eyes and you hear it. Footsteps. Your ears, sharpened by the loss of other senses, can pick them up easily, that soft, leisurely step coming close. Much too close. The rustling of a coat, a whisper of exhaled air across your sensitive skin.
He is here.
That smooth, drawling voice murmurs in your ear; words that have long since ceased to make sense. Sometimes, in those brief snatches of clarity, you can almost remember what he looked like that day he led you into hell.
White flashes before your eyes as the cold bite of metal caresses your skin.
'Death comes for us all, little one. We can't stop it, but we can hold it back for awhile…'
Maybe it will come tonight.
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Locked all alone, hidden in the dark,
With bloody lips sealed you cannot talk.
Eyes sewn shut against the light,
Limbs ripped away to stop your flight.
Alone in pain you wish for death -
You're ready for It, but It's not ready yet.
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End.