DEDAN ("I Won't," I Told Them Back)

Classification: Pre-Canon-to-RESTART, Canon-Timeline-to-RESTART, Pre-Canon-to-Original-OFF, Non-Canonical-to-Original-OFF

Time Frame: ? ? ?

Location: Not in RESTART

RATED: M

WARNING: Contains foul language, graphic depictions of murder, and mental instability. Reader Discretion is Advised.


Never forget your choices, Dedan. You are made up of your past, of the things you did.

"And you know what I said back, don't you? You know EVERYTHING, don't you?"

The man slowly shook his head, eyes locked to barrels of the guns. He tensed his legs, his eyes narrowing as he prepared himself to move. He would only have moments. The girl grasped his coat tighter, fear locking her limbs to stone. The man swallowed, his bared teeth clicking and unnerving the soldiers in front of him. They knew who he was, they knew what he could do. They did not want to fight him.

"No? Then I'll TELL you, fuckface."

The man shifted his leg back, readying himself. He…they…They would pay. Rush would pay for what they did to him. To Jericho, his sister, to Dedan, to everyone. And one of the warped pieces of the man's mind clicked back into place.

"'I won't,' I told them back."

The soldiers fired, and the man moved. Darting forward with startling speed, he jammed his pointed claws into the first soldier's throat, and ripped it out. He felt nothing as the man gurgled, wide eyes greying out. Bullets impacted into his body, and the man roared. It was not a human sound. For in that moment, the man changed. The red blood spilling from the bullet wounds on his body began to darken.

Giving a snarl, the man spun, snatching up the fallen soldier's gun and firing. Several more fell to the spray of bullets, the General amoung them. The man did not care as he bludgeoned a soldier to death, caving his head in like a ripe melon. And his blood got darker.

"Shut up shut up! You don't know anything!"

Soon, there was no one alive in the alley but the man. The girl had long since fled during the massacre. The man did not care. He needed more, his eyes clouded with the red of rage.

"HAHAHAHAHA! You think that this will break me, is that it?"

And so the man tore through the city, staining the snow red with the blood of the soldiers he had gotten in to the city. And the man laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed, the deep, shattering sound ringing through the now empty streets, the crackle of fire the only accompaniment to his mirth.

"Well, hate to tell you fuckface, but I got broke a long time ago! And you can't break what's already broken."

His blood was not red.

Falling to his knees in the crimson snow, the man kept laughing. He couldn't stop. Tears dripped from his eyes, eyes still clouded by hate. The man just knelt there in the snow, laughing, as the sun rose on the bloody scene. No one came.

"There was no one left TO come. I killed them all."

And, as the pink of dawn crawled over the snowy mountain tops, and snow began to cover the evidence of what had happened, the man felt the shattered pieces of his mind click together. But the pieces were warped and mangled, and the image they formed was grotesque. This was not the man who lived in Dedan, nor the man who fought for Rush. This could barely be called a man at all, a creature obsessed.

"Well, fuck you too."

Forcing himself to his feet, tar-like blood gushing out at the effort, the man ripped off his shirt and tore it into strips to wrap his wounds. He couldn't just stay there. They all had to pay, pay for what they had done to him.

So the man vowed to make them pay. And he did. It was the only purpose he had now, the warped form of his mind having left out everything else. The man began to forget again; he forgot about his sister. He forgot about Jericho. He forgot about Dedan. He forgot why he fought.

"Remembering burns, you know that? So I chose to forget… made sense at the time."

So he just fought. He fought everyone who crossed his path, slaughtered all in his way. He was there when Rush met Atul. He fought against both sides as the two Titans warred. He fought the survivors after they tore the world apart. But soon the world grew quieter, emptier. The monster that had taken the place of the man scoffed, and continued to fight those he encountered.

After all, what else was there for him to do? It was all he remembered.

"Is that why you're doing this? You want me to remember? I remember each and every one of the faces of the people I've fucking killed, filth."

.

.

.

.

.

It was bad. He had been ambushed, and badly wounded by a group of men near the plastic seas. He tore them to ribbons, and followed their trail back to their camp. He killed all those who were there too, and took what little supplies they had had.

"I killed a little girl. I fucking enjoyed it."

The monster who had taken the place of the man searched for a place to treat his wounds, to recuperate before continuing on. He searched and searched until there was nowhere left. He stood at the cliff at the end of the world, and there was a shack. The inside was barren of everything but a clock proudly stating the time.

He slunk into the ramshackle building and slid to the floor, black smearing down the wall. He treated his wounds, but did not get up to leave. He examined his hands, the claws formed by his melted bones. There was red staining the tip, which he scrubbed at idly. Glancing up, he leaped to his feet.

"You want me admit to the shit I've done? I did that a long fucking time ago."

Across the room stood a creature, a monster coated in red and black. He stood still, waiting to see what it would do. It stood as still as he, it's breathing faintly rustling the tattered military coat that it wore. He moved closer, and it did as well, mirroring his movements.

It was then he realized he was looking in a mirror.

He recoiled. The monster in the mirror did the same, its black eyes locked with his own. He examined the image. Tall and muscled, red splatter staining the pants and boots it wore. Black dripped down its chest through the makeshift bandages it wore, its face melted with bone and bared teeth. He looked down at the bandages he had just made.

It was his reflection.

"You want me to feel guilt for what I've done? That's what this is about?"

Both man and monster fell to their knees. This wasn't right. That wasn't him. IT WASN'T HIM. But it was, his claws stained red with blood and his appearance even more monstrous than he remembered. For his appearance had altered.

Hate changes a person.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Oh GOD that's good. You are far too late for that, you sick little fuck."

The man let out a broken sob, curling into himself. What had he done? That was not him. That couldn't be him. Lying there on the floor, the man let himself remember all that the monster had done, the warped pieces of his mind straightening out slowly.

He lay there and cried, scratching at his arms as he forced himself to see what he had become. And when he finally stopped, and stood up, he looked at the clock. It read nine o'clock. The man sat back down across the room from the mirror, with only his regrets and memories to whisper to him.

The clock stayed nine for a very long time and his wounds never seemed to heal.

"Why do you think I—"


Part two of the Dedan Memories series. As well can see, Dedan isn't stable, nor is he the best of men. The reactions he has about his own actions are based on accounts from soldiers about the PTSD they suffer after war, though Dedan is far less in the right than those men are.