Written for the Red vs Blue Review Crew forum challenge. Theme is 'memories.' Any RvB fan should know why I have picked what I have. Extremely graphic.
Enjoy.
Delirium
The last splinter of sanity slips from my grasp.
I watch it crumble away like sand falling from my fingers and scattering into the wind. As my mind is ripped to shreds I feel my senses heighten in a startling crescendo. Sounds, sights, feelings, noise; all become a screaming, bitter, rancid blur of pain...and of memory.
A taste flickers across my tongue. It is salty and metallic, the signature of blood. The red bubbles from my lips as they tremble. An automatic reflex, you see. I am dying with no visible wounds.
It's the calm before the storm. Death caresses my soul and invites me into its cold embrace. I teeter on the brink of sanity, hovering over a drop into destruction. And yet I feel no fear while I stare at the end rushing towards me. I harbour no emotion towards such a thing, for all my terror is devoted to an experience worse than death. I know what lies in wait for me. I have known for months.
The memories. The memories are too much for him to bear.
The silence shrieks and wails in my ears, all sound suddenly painful in volume. I fumble desperately with the clasps at my neck, undoing them and pulling my helmet off. I throw it away, not caring where it lands, and clutch out the grating screams as they hiss and spit out my name over and over and over...
Washington
My fingertips begin to burn as if they are being held over fire. Contained within this metal prison, my skin melts, moulding into the shape of my armoured suit. My home, my home, my place of torture. My place of rest.
The armour falls away in pieces as I tear it off, the half undone clasps slicing into my crawling flesh. The undersuit I struggle with momentarily, before finding release. Naked, I roll in the snow of winter, trying to quench the flames that lick at my body.
I am numb.
My limbs begin to lock in the frozen wastes I have cast myself into. I have moved from one cage to another. The smell of smoky decay engulfs me, and I look up with difficulty to
Washington
see the white stained with brown-red and black puddle. In the centre lies a corpse, their charred skin puckered at the cracks, rotting meat oozing out in thick, sludgy trails. Had I not fallen to the icy cold, it may well have been me, fat crackling, hair burning, skin peeling as the fires of insanity raged through me. The thing before me stirs.
Wa
It moves.
shhin-nn-nn
It looks at me.
nn-nnin-in-in-ing-g-g-g
It has my face.
Washington
Epsilon screams, his cry of terror piercing the night as my body arcs in agony. My fingers clutch at my contorted features as he screams and screams and screams and I drag my hands down. Rivets are left behind as meat collects beneath my nails. The blood runs free, spilling into my mouth, bubbling at my lips.
As the darkness consumes me, I realise the truth. Epsilon had long since died.
It was I that was screaming.