Chapter 1: Before I Fall

"Arthur, how did we end up like this?"

The girl's lost voice cried deeply into the gaping darkness before her, slipping into the caverns and through the green fog ahead to swirl around the jagged stalagmites swiftly and with divine purpose. With every simple breath that left her lips, a flurry of mist fell away to avoid the winged words that fluttered through the cavern bravely, but the twists and turns of the path it travelled found her speech lost, never reaching the boy she called out so brokenly to. Her hands reached out for him if her words wouldn't, stretching as they always did, just as they had many times before. He did not hear or feel her, but if he had, he did not acknowledge it.

He didn't even turn around.

She felt her voice crack like kindling, raising it from a dry throat as fear began to grip her chest, a wicked hand trapping the dove within her beating chest, a snake coiled around a frightened mouse.

"Arthur, listen to me!"

Her words left dust to dance in what little light the cavern offered, and with his name called, the golden head turned to look at the girl through eyes green with envy, jealousy, greed, and a sick sense of pride. His skin was tainted with the hues of possession and desire, and beneath the mask of a companion, the girl found nothing but the flashing of bright eyes turning dark to match the cavern they resided in. Her legs were screaming at her to run, her head shouting that she needed to leave and protect herself, but something in the way the boy moved was familiar, something in the way he fought was brave. There was still an inkling of hope in the shards of her heart, and so she overlooked the tainted skin before her so that he might prove to her that he was still in there, that the boy she cared so deeply for was still alive within the abyss of a lost soul.

He was smiling wickedly, his head tilted ever so slightly as he began to approach without footsteps, floating in the mist like a phantom. His expression jerked every so often as the boy within tried to fight back, tried to regain control, but he was too far gone and held too much doubt in his fragile heart to truly make a stand. The girl grabbed onto this little act, her hope rising as she called out once again to the friend held captive behind the mask of green despair.

"Please, Arthur, you can stop this."

The monster lifted a hand to his face, freezing as the words left her mouth to grip at his face wildly. He looked down into a puddle on the floor with eyes wide and tearful, frowning and fighting with all the might the little lion could muster from within the jaws of the dragon, but his attempts were crushed by the jaws that locked him so powerfully behind their fangs. The grinning demon closed his eyes as he regained control quietly, expelling totally from his mind the futile struggles of the boy within. Again, he looked at the girl with a smile of true wickedness, and again he began to float towards her with fog billowing out from beneath him.

This was not Arthur anymore, not in the slightest sense.

"You don't understand him, Viv. You never did."

He finally spoke, the usually timid voice now loud and without stutter or fluctuation as it filled the cavern completely, sending a pulse throughout. His head had raised the slightest as the boy within began to struggle once more, showing upon his face the war between parasite and host with a smile and a frown, an eye of terror and an eye of delight, half content and half terrified. He was slowing down now, drawing closer but at less of a pace, and the girl took this to mean her friend was winning. Once more her voice rose up to greet the boy, and once again it reached the demon instead.

"I can try to understand, Arty, just give me another chance. Give us another chance."

This was the push the demon needed, spreading throughout the body with a flare of anger and passion. His speed was frightening, a wind whipping through the cavern and tugging at the girl, pushing him towards her as the fog swirled in confusion around its master. With every beat of her heart, the girl watched as her friend fluctuated fluidly between grimace and grin, pleading and pleasured, but to no avail: the demon still held control of the body, and as her companion's struggles grew more frantic and sporadic, the monster stopped just inches from the girl in blue. There was a deadly pause with nothing to be heard but the beating pulse of the courageous one, but as she lifted her chin bravely to defy the one so near her face, so dangerously close, she was pushed hard against the wall with a metal hand gripping her neck tightly. When she sputtered, the one holding her captive laughed quietly to himself, the grin of a demon spreading further and further across the gaunt face of the boy. With her struggles he tightened his grip around her soft skin, baring his teeth ferally at her with the pureness of hatred filling his eyes completely.

"You betrayed him, Viv. You raised this boy up then left him to fall," the girl blinked as the pressure entered her head, clawing at the metal hand that would not budge as her mind readied itself to burst. When her eyes opened again, she was no longer next to the stalagmites and fog, but above them, held precariously by the prosthetic limb over the edge of a tall cliff, "and for that, I will do what the boy doesn't have the nerve to. We will watch you fall."

Her feet dangled in the air, kicking as hard as they could as her eyes searched the ground below frantically for a safe escape. The Mary Janes that clung to her feet gave in, falling down to land noiselessly in the fog below, and the girl could feel herself growing fainter with every breath stolen from her. As she was beginning to feel cold, her arms fell away from the fingers clasping her throat and to her side in a last flag of defeat, the final show of giving up truly. The once bright blue eyes grew grey with faint sleep, and as she took her final gasping breath, Vivi's life flashed before her eyes.