I was walking with my blade in hand. Not one to stick to the path, I made my own little shortcut through the weeds, branches, and trees.
"Cry..." I purred, cutting down anything and everything that was in my way, walking and not stopping. Soon, I could sense him. He smelled of blood, and somehow I had grown fond of that. More than my normal self would like me to be.
I stuck the knife into a nearby tree, climbing it with ease, and relaxing against one of its thick branches. How far had I gone away from home?
Mad!Raven didn't care. All she wanted now was the one she was influenced by. Infected by.
The one she desired with every ounce of her strength. She would find him, or he would find her. But she'd see to it that the reunion be soon.
I waited and listened. I could feel the light footsteps of his feet, one after the other. "Raven." I heard him say, though I never saw him. The footsteps I felt suddenly came to a halt.
"Raven..." I heard him say again. "I can see you, you know." It's true. He could.
Because when I jumped down, he was right behind me.
He grabbed me by the waist, and I didn't yelp. No, not at all. "You've been obedient. Submissive. Why is that..?"
I could feel his warm breath by my ear, and soon I pulled away from him, in shock.
What?
My normal self was surfacing.
"Rian?" he immediately said. He's not one to say a simple 'hello' when Rian is the one who's calling.
"Sora," and she greeted him in the same way. Instantly feeling a little better."Sora, I... Raven's gone. She left."
There was a silence on the other end.
"Who took her?"
She took a deep breath nervously, hoping he'd believe her. Then again, she trusted him with everything. Had they not known each other for nearly 10 years?
"She wasn't taken... she was influenced by-" She hesitated, but she could practically hear his worry and want through the phone. She finally let her deep breath out slowly, calming further, ever so slightly. "... Cry," Rian finished. "She was influenced," another deep breath.. "by Cry."
As Sora could hear her exhale; he, too, relaxed. His shoulders were tense, after clearly hearing the uneasy tone in her voice. What was he supposed to-?
"I'll come right over," he said with no hesitation whatsoever.
"You mean... you believe me..?" She was biting her lower lip out of anxiety, but that soon faded.
Sora sighed, a happy sigh. "Of course I do, Rian. If you called me and were as worried as you sounded, I would believe every word you'd say. No one I have ever known could possibly feign the worry I heard in your voice." You could hear him smiling. "I'll be over soon, Rian. We'll go look for Raven together, I promise."
A pause.
"Good-bye..."
Rian nodded slowly. "Good-bye."
The call ended, and she swallowed the lump that formed in her throat after leaving the comfort of his voice. "I love you.." she whispered, sighing.
Cry tilted his head. "You're different. Did I jinx your duteous behavior?" he smiled sweetly, feigning innocence.
"Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. I'm not one to know."
"Now what is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're acting as if I'm you."
"You're not making sense, Raven."
"Do I care?"
Cry thought for a bit. "...I'm not one to know."
I smiled, the moonlight surrounded this area to where there were beautiful shadows all to surround us. The gray-blue light illuminating the night.. "Are you going to surrender? Or does it absolutely have to be forced?" Something about Mad!Raven gave me strength. But this was me speaking.
It was me. Wanting the Cry I've always known and love to surface."You're in there. I know you are, Ryan."
He shook his head, his smile was faint, but it was still present. "I don't know what you're talking about," he lied.
Now it was my turn to shake my head. "You're lying," was all I said. The smile that was on his face merely 5 seconds ago faded into a nervous line. His mouth showed no emotion now, and his mask concealed any evidence if he even had an emotion to show.
"What do you mean?" I asked, almost as a test for him, because I knew exactly what he meant.
His voice nearly shook with an eagerness I had never noticed before. "I'm not lying." His voice was normal. Was this him? Was he not just Mad?
"I mean, Raven. I'm not lying to you. Mad!Cry is."
I, involuntarily, took a step back. "Cry. It's.. it's you, isn't it?" I asked cautiously. He studied me. Who I was, what I looked like, what he thought I was feeling. And after about a minute of searching, he nodded. "Yep. All me.." he replied.
I swallowed. There was a long silence, one of which I wasn't comfortable with. "Cry.." I spoke up.
"Hm?" He seemed perfectly normal. Calmer than I had expected.
"Where is your 'other side,' so to speak?" I took a step forward, and he took a step back.
He thought for a moment. "You mean the narcissistic bastard? Yeah, I don't know. Nor do I care. And, may I ask, why are we here?"
I blinked. So this really was him. "You influenced me..." I mused quietly, ignoring his question, "didn't you?" I looked up at him, waiting for an answer as if I'd get one immediately.
I did.
"No. Look, sweetheart, Mad!Cry and myself are two entirely different personalities. Hm? Get it? So whatever he's done to you, I guarantee it's none of my doing."
While he was completely serious, I snickered. He looked at me, and if I could see his face, I'm sure it would have the look of annoyance. "I'm sorry," I smiled slightly, not bothering to hide it this time, "it's just hard to take you seriously with such an evil-looking mask. Not only that, but it's hard to tell anything, really. Being as there is a mask concealing almost all of your features."
His visible mouth showed a slight smile. "So what, you want me to take it off, then?"
I tilted my head, curious. "You'd do that?"
His smile widened. "You haven't known me long enough to know the answer to that, have you?"
I gave a false look of sadness and disappointment. "No. No, I know. I should've known in the first place- I'm terribly sorry, my friend." There was a smirk under my sarcastic expression, in which he saw right through. "Good girl," he smiled. "I'm proud of you."
If there was a word for extreme, overloading, carefree, floating happiness that existed in all the words in the English language, I'd use it. Sadly, there isn't enough expression in a few groups of mere letters that could accurately express how happy I was at that moment.
But that feeling disappeared in a painful blow as soon as a terrifying thought came to mind.
"How much time do we have until they take over again..?" I frowned.
Immediately, his smile disappeared as well. "There's really no way to tell as far as I'm concerned. I apologize."
"No need to," I said quickly. "I don't want you feeling upset. Not now, anyway. Being as we don't know who will become Mad first, nor do we know how much time it'll be before-" Some instinct cut me off. I stood there, staring into the distance. At nothing.
"Raven," Cry said my name sternly.
No reply.
"Raven," he said again, louder this time.
Still. No answer.
My eyes narrowed, and there was a hint of a smile on my face, though Cry hadn't noticed. Otherwise, he would've realized the exact reason I was acting so strange.
I moved, with a purpose, to the knife I had jammed into the tree I was sitting on before. I pulled it out with a force that Cry didn't think I had in me, and at that moment, he knew that I had turned again.
"Raven!" he yelled after me. But right then and there, he gave up on the spot. Knowing I wouldn't be answering back anytime soon, he shook his head and walked off without another word.