Disclaimer: This story contains violent and descriptive gore. Please do not read if you have trouble with graphic writing.
Author Note (1999 words!)
It's finally here! The final chapter. (I don't know whether I should laugh or cry...) I appologize for all the feels that have been harmed... it hurt my own as well ;-; Hope to see you all in the Epilogue, it will explain this whole jumble of a plot! (The poem was my own work, just btw...)
Love chu all~ Keep Reading :)
~Scar
Chapter 20:
The room Ib had stepped into was large and white, just like the one she had stepped out of. She seemed to be on the uppermost balcony of the tall structure, and was left looking down, the room was pristine, polished, and astonishingly WHITE. It hurt her eyes. A painting really caught her attention after a few minutes of looking around, it was HUGE, almost taking up an entire wall with it's embroidered canvas. She strained to make out the title, something Gates? It was rather beautiful. The room seemed to be deserted, except for a long reception desk, behind which was a woman dressed in the purest of white, almost camouflaged against the walls of the same pigment. She seemed to be talking to someone intently. Ib took a small step, her heel clicking down on the marble of the first step on the staircase; she had to get down there, to find out what the hell was going on. Who is she? The woman in white? She seems almost… familiar. She scurried downwards, her feet reaching the lower level fairly quickly. The two individuals both looked up instantaneously, directly at her.
"Garry?!" Ib questioned in shock, he looked the same as ever, long purplish hair, dark black tattered trenchcoat and all.
"Ib." Garry smiled, but shortly afterwards his face fell into a grim sort of severity, as though he were a doctor about to diagnose her with cancer or something. She took a weary step backwards. Is he thinking about hitting me again?
The woman in the white outfit turned to Garry, and asked him plainly, "Well? Are you planning to tell her?" Ib was confused, and a little scared. She took another step backwards.
Garry and the white woman fell into what seemed to be deep conversation. He shook his head a few times, and she hissed at each. Ib took advantage of the convenient situation, looking around for a way out. She stepped to the right, into partial shadow, preparing to run for the door. This shadow was strange though… it seemed too dark, as though blackness had sucked all color but its own from even the air particles.
Garry looked up, his face filling with shock and terror. "IB NO! DON'T-!" But it was too late. Sharp teeth pierced the skin of her neck, ripping into her jugular vein ferociously. Ib screamed, she screamed loud and long, her vocal chords straining in her throat. The teeth were persistent, crushing further and further in, she felt a tongue lap at the blood that was pouring from her neck wound like a waterfall; but then the crushing bite was over, and she fell to the floor in a pool of her own blood.
/\-*~*-*~*-*~*-/\
Mary licked her lips, savoring the sticky red blood that now sloshed down her throat and inside her stomach. It had tasted so good. The perfect balance of salty and sweet, harmonious. She laughed at the dying woman. She had been so stupid, actually trying to escape from the ones who would have saved her. She leaned over the bloody, raw, piece of flesh and licked at it, biting the ragged muscle and tearing it away viciously. It was so good. The flesh was squishy and slippery, and Mary savored the texture between her teeth. She leaned back and sighed with satisfaction, her eyes catching a short glimpse of Garry's face…
And in that moment, she knew she was dead.
/\-*~*-*~*-*~*-/\
The waves of anguish that ripped through Garry's body were worse than any pain he had ever felt before in his life. The first minute or so he had just been paralyzed, frozen in terror and disbelief. It was almost too sudden. Mary had sprung from the shadows and bit her, and that was it. Garry could see the puddle of color that spread in every direction from her body. Crimson, like her eyes and her rose. Crimson like her blood.
It didn't matter if she wasn't real.
Nothing White could say would change his mind.
He had loved her, with a passion best not described in words.
And she had been killed.
For the first time in his life, Garry was really ready to kill another creature in cold blood. Mary. Would. Die. The soul-ripping pain boiled and burned and turned into something new altogether. Hatred. Hatred in its most pure, wretched form. He ran at her, not stopping even at the request of White. Mary would die. He screamed, throwing himself at the twisted, demented figure that crawled around on the floor like a maggot. She was worse than a maggot. He stuck his fingers into a large cut that ran half the length of her body, one that had been badly stitched together, and he pulled. She ripped apart like paper, black blood pouring across his fingers and arms and splashing onto his face and legs.
He couldn't even feel it.
Rip. Mary was screaming. Mary was dying. Garry didn't stop. She was in four pieces by now, and he didn't stop at that. His fingers slipped around on her raw slippery muscle, and scratched themselves on her broken, exposed bone.
He didn't even care.
"You. BITCH!" And with that, he dropped his lighter on the remains, and watched her burn. With no emotion on his face but pure hatred.
/\-*~*-*~*-*~*-/\
Ib watched silently.
Not really daring to speak out, not really knowing if she could with her neck how it was. She watched the Garry she knew and loved wither and rot in front of her; she watched him fall off the edge. Surprisingly, she was okay with that. She was okay with everything. This was it, the end; she thought back over her life, and reflected to herself that it was a good one. She closed her eyes and listened to Mary's screams, and the never ending tearing sounds.
And she found it almost...
Peaceful.
/\-*~*-*~*-*~*-/\
Garry watched the flames for a few seconds more, before turning his attention to Ib. She was dying, extremely close to it. Garry plucked her rose from the edge of the large, roaring fire, and placed it lightly on her chest. It was covered in black. "Ib," he murmured, sitting next to her and resting her head in his lap gently, careful to avoid the wound. "It's okay, it's all going to be fine."
Ib's eyes opened slowly, and she stared up at him. When she said the words, she whispered them so softly that even Garry who was less than one foot away had to strain to hear them. "Tell me a story."
Garry smiled sadly, his eyes filling with tears. "How about a poem instead?"
Ib laughed lightly, the sound caught in her throat. "Garry... I'm scared." He kissed her forehead lightly. "I don't want to die. Not yet-"
Garry silenced her with a soft kiss, he could taste her blood, salty and sweet, with a light rosy texture to it. "It's okay. You're okay." And even though all four of those words were extremely false, they did wonders to calm her down.
"Tell me your poem." She wheezed, coughing up a small amount of blood, but still managing to grip his hand with hers.
"It's called Petals," Garry cleared his throat, pushing down the sobs that had started to force their way out of his mouth,
"The falling twisting petals.
They glide through the air.
Softly falling settling, always settling.
Always wanting more.
"The dripping red blood,
it seeps through the petals.
Showing them what it means to settle.
What it means, to be gone.
"The falling twisting petals,
Innocent in their weakness.
Always. Always and forever, settling.
Because they believed they deserved something more.
"The dripping red blood.
It tears with its agony.
Telling of its pain, it's anguish, it's longing...
The songs it sings, the stories it tells, and whispers, and dances to...
"The falling twisting petals.
They hear the songs.
They watch the dances; they SEE the story.
Their innocence falters as they learn, but they keep falling. Falling, and falling.
"Always turning, never faltering-"
Garry choked back a sob as Ib's eyelids fluttered closed, and her grip relaxed on his fingers, her breathing was ragged and slow.
"Until they reach the floor, until they themselves settle.
"Settling. Because it's all they ever knew of.
"Settling. Because it's all they have left-"
Ib exhaled slowly, and her chest stopped the rise and fall of life.
"Always settling."
Garry lightly brushed the hair out of her face and kissed her forehead once more.
"I love you," he murmured, and stayed there, with her dead body in his arms for a while. The tears spilling over his face, the tears that hit the floor and hissed against the wood with their dark color. "White," He looked up at her, "Tell me how to kill myself."
/\-*~*-*~*-*~*-/\
Mary was in unbelievable pain. As every fiber of her body was shredded into microscopic pieces by the burning flames, she was also losing her mind. It was worse than any torture, or depression, sickness, or sadness. She screamed. Oh you'd better believe she screamed. Loud, terrible, blood-curdling screams that would've made even Garry feel sorry for her.
The fire ate away. Slowly ripping her very soul from her mind and body.
She closed her eyes, and waited for the pain to subside. Welcoming death, with open arms.
/\-*~*-*~*-*~*-/\
Garry looked down at the blue rose in his hands. It made sense. It all made sense. Too much sense, he thought as he pulled the first petal loose. But none of it mattered. None of ANYTHING mattered. Ib was dead. And that was it. Garry tore out another petal, letting it fall. The falling, twisting petals... he tore out another few. They glide through the air. He could feel his energy and life being sucked away, leaving a blank canvas. Softly falling settling. The first few hit the floor. Settling, always settling. A few more showered down. He closed his settling.
The rose fell from his fingers and to the floor; not a single petal left on the stem.
/\-*~*-*~*-*~*-/\
White bent over the dead couple and retrieved Garry's rose, placing the stem on his chest. She heard the rest of the gallery breaking and disappearing in the distance, the iron rivets groaning with pressure, the lights shattering into billions of fragments.
"Too late," A garbled voice mumbled. White wasn't at all surprised to see Black at the opposite side of the room. She agreed with a silent nod. It was too late. She crawled over to black, and rest a hand tenderly on her shoulder.
"Sister?"
"Yes, we should do it together." They both nodded thoughtfully, making their way over to the corpse of their creator.
"Guertena Weiss Rose. I bid you farewell, from the land of the living," Black grumbled.
"And may you live on, for many years, through history and through Heaven."
Then the color took over. White turned to ash fairly quickly, she was already pretty gray, the blackness made short work of corrupting her skin. With one final sigh, she disappeared, and drifted away.
Black listened to the shuddering metal, the smashing glass, the screams of fellow Guertena creatures; and she couldn't help but smile.
Because in the end, Black had won.