Title: Plague Rat
Character(s): Lui Hibiki
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
The same number; the same place; the same sound.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
If he wasn't already in a mental institute, it would have been enough to drive anyone insane.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
The straight jacket is beginning to chafe and the padded wall is pushing uncomfortably against his cheek. He shifts his weight slightly in a futile bid for comfort. It's only then that the noises stop and his heart drops. He tries his best to slot back into his original position, but the feeling of discomfort can't be perfectly replicated. Instead, it has simply moved somewhere else.
Now he is left alone: the one. two. three. four. five. has abandoned him back to the darkness and silence of his cell.
Of his mind.
He can see the faces again. They're smiling. Always smiling. It's not fair that every time they appear before him they're happy. In reality, they're not happy. There's no way that they can be happy.
Because death is sad and funerals are indulgent crap for the sake of the living.
Unfortunately for him, he wasn't given the choice of whether to indulge or not. Instead, the minute the fires died down, he was tied up and hauled away. A trial was not necessary; it was clear to everyone that he was unstable, unsafe, untrustworthy, unwelcome, and incurable. So he got a pretty new jacket to hold him close and a cloud filled room all to his own.
Now, all he can see is smiles, smiles, smiles, smiles, smiles.
Maybe he should cry?
If he scrunches up his face and lets the tears fall, maybe they'll do the same. Monkey see, monkey do is how he's attempted to fool them until now.
He knits together his eyebrows, scrunches up his face, sticks out his lips, makes his nose sniffle, and makes his lips quiver. It's motions that he's seen people initiate time and time again whenever they wanted to cry; he's managed to replicate it perfectly. But the illusion cannot last. The tears do not come. He is not crying.
Instead, he looks silly and the family inside his head grins wider and starts laughing.
Their laughter is worse than their smiles.
Such a human activity; such an alive activity.
So he stops his play at crying and holds still instead. Everything stops: movement, twitching, blinking, breathing, existing.
Now he is a part of the wall - the part wearing the hugging jacket and angry scars criss-crossing his bald skull. He can't even blend into the wall properly, his feverish yellow eyes easily give him away.
Maybe he can blend in with the animals instead. Particularly the rats. They're dirty, unwanted, plague-ridden, pests, and dangerous. He wishes they would start their one. two. three. four. five. again. Instead there's silence and smiling faces. Smiling human faces. They're not rats. He can't blend into them. They're too pretty, perfect, pleasant, pleasing, and precious.
All too human.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Suddenly it starts up again. The straightjacket is chaffing and his cheek is prickling, but he doesn't dare move. The noises continue and his heart lifts.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
If he wasn't already in a mental institute, it would have been enough to drive anyone insane.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
The same number; the same place; the same sound.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
It's only then that the faces start to frown and the tears start streaming down their faces. A second later, flames are licking greedily at their skin, stealing away everything that marked them as humans and leaving them as no more than crying, charred corpses.
All too dead.
But him, he's smiling.
"One. Two. Three. Four. Five."
A/N: Well hello there Vocaloid section, it's been a while. And my return is an odd little drabble. Somehow I find that fitting.
Sorry if you were looking for an update; I got swallowed by the Tales of Xillia section and it refused to release the vice it had on my heart. But anyways, today I went to a cafe and did some sort of stream-of-consciousness writing...and this is what I ended up with (after I went back and typed it/made corrections and altercations).
It may be difficult to tell, but this is kinda a spin-off of my other AU where Lui and Yuuma are mages. In this story, it's in an alternate setting, probably in that vaguely Victorian era that steampunk-ish stories love to take advantage of. For this reason, instead of being locked away in a hut, Lui is sent to the asylum in hopes of that somehow "curing" him. I think in this setting, Yuuma would be masquerading as an English gentleman who likes to buy children for his "collection" when in reality, he's finding the mages that have been locked away and sending them off to The Academy.
I also think in this setting, Lui's mental state would have deteriorated further by the time Yuuma finds him when compared to the original timeline of the other AU considering that "medical steps" would have been taken to cure him...I should probably stop developing this in my head or else I'm going to end up liking it more than the original setting.
On a completely unrelated note, time is running out for my contest! If you've still got interest in it, please keep that in mind!