[PLEASE READ THIS FIRST]
This chapter will have some very dark themes , as well as graphic descriptions of death. Please be warned... I may boost the rating to M. I'm not quite certain yet. Anyway, I want you going into this chapter knowing what to expect.
That being said... Heyy... a new year... a new chapter... Yeah. Things got pretty grim last chapter. They won't get any less grim I'm afraid. Sorry.
Ryou feels his head throb painfully as he attempts to rise to his feet. He can't see anything, but he knows something is not right. What is happening? Where is Serenity? Is she okay? He hopes to whatever greater power is out there that she's okay. Unfortunately, the powers that be aren't feeling very generous and he can vaguely hear a familiar screech tear its way to him. It has to be nearby because the wind is too loud for it to have come from anywhere else. He feels something akin to ice water trickling down his abdomen just beneath his skin…
I told you to leave, Serenity! Why are you still here? He's even struggling to put words together in his head -the pulsing is so overwhelming; it just keeps pushing and pushing, almost as though there's a storm in his mind as well as the world around him.
"SERENITY!" he screams. He knows that he sounds hysterical, but it's the only way he'd be able to get his voice loud enough for her to hear while simultaneously managing to ignore the pain rippling behind his eyes with every move he makes.
He pants heavily, hands flat on the ground in front of him, knees quivering, as he tries to crawl in the direction of Serenity's voice. It's eerily quiet aside from the vehement moaning of the wind, making him feel almost like he's losing touch with reality. So long as he goes in a straight line, he can't lose her, right?
Each step is worse than the last. His knees burn as he scrapes them along the ground, the fabric of his jeans rubbing against his skin mercilessly. Everything hurts, but he tries to keep his thoughts singular: Find Serenity. Find her quickly -and make sure she's safe.
How much longer? He doesn't know how much longer he can take the pain. He wants to feel numb, to push it to the back of his mind. It always looks so much easier on TV and in books… They lie so they don't have to keep talking about it, but the pain doesn't go away, it just throbs insistently, begging for his attention. His body wants him to lie down and give in… it'll all be over if he just rests… Ryou feels a sob rise up in his chest and he chokes it out involuntarily.
"SERENITY!" he calls out again, ignoring the instant rush of agony that the vibration of his voice sends to the nerves in his temples.
Before he can choke on the last syllable, there is a strange hand on his shoulder. He still can't see anything. It could be Zorc himself for all he knows, but if it's company, he welcomes it.
"Easy there," a voice calls out. He knows this one. It's not Zorc… but it's also not Serenity.
"Malik?" he grumbles, trying to keep his arms from buckling under his weight.
Malik's hands wrap around Ryou's torso, pulling him upright. "Yes. Just hang in here. I'm gonna get you out of here."
If Ryou could chuckle, he would have. Well, stranger things have happened.
"Where's Serenity?" he asks. It's easier to get the words out now.
"I… left her over this way. She told me to come find you and then get back to her." Malik's larger silhouette points to the direction that Ryou had just been crawling in. "I think it's because Lorna's hurt." He doesn't even try to hide the toll that thought has been taking on his nerves.
"You… just… left her?" he grimaces, trying not to lose the words in the distressed moans he's been keeping down. He doesn't have the energy to care about the reason; all he can see is Serenity alone in this storm and in pain.
Ryou's vision is blurred but he can barely make out the outline of Malik's mouth, the only feature visible under the golden helmet, frowning slightly. He doesn't answer, interrupted by something neither of them expects. In an abrupt motion, almost like someone pressing stop on its remote control, the typhoon halts, causing all the suspended debris to be flung unceremoniously to the ground in the all the different directions that they had been flying.
"What's going on?" Ryou asks, grabbing the bottom of his dirty shirt and attempting to wipe his face with it.
Malik shrugs. "We need to get to Serenity. Can you walk?"
The pain has considerably dulled now, and while Ryou isn't entirely certain why this is, he doesn't intend to question it. Yet Ryou knows better than to lie about how he's feeling, especially in the Inbetween. "No," he mumbles in a voice so low it barely leaves his throat.
Malik simply nods, grabbing the other boy by his shoulders and hoisting one of his arms over his golden pauldrons. "C'mon. Let's go."
"It'll all be over soon… Everything…" a familiar voice coos softly, but there's a darkness to it; something isn't quite right. "If the universe wants to send me a sign… now would be a good time." Then silence for a moment. He doesn't even know why he's waiting. The time has passed, and now is the time for the ending of the most dull and unfulfilling tale in the universe. "Yeah… I wouldn't send me a sign either… I guess… This is it."
I'm sorry, Yoonie… You're on your own for now…
Lorna's eyes are torn open as she sits up in bed. She hesitantly looks around, pupils darting around nervously. This can't be. She wants to burst into tears, but her head is empty and numb.
That voice… It sounded just like-
She slides her legs around the side of her the bed and lets her feet touch the cold tile floor. She winces, reaching to touch the familiar black metal frame of the bed and pushing herself up slowly.
This is her room. Untouched. Unchanged. Exactly how she left it.
Well, except for one thing.
Hanging by his neck on a noose and swaying slowly before her, smack in the center of the room, is Zephyr. His eyes are wide open, red and bulging; by his mouth is a trail of spit that seems to have just now drizzled down from his gaping lips. He looks almost like he's staring at her, blaming her for something she can't even comprehend. Her heart leaps out of its chest as she wobbles back, falling into her bed again. He looks like he could wake up at any moment; the thought makes her entire body seize up.
She turns away from his gaze, shaking arms searching around her for her teddy bear -something to make her wake up from this nightmare. She can still hear the roof creaking under his weight… She doesn't want to think about it.
She feels the soft texture of the stuffed toy and brings it into her arms, squeezing it tightly as she shuts her eyes and attempts to get to her feet again. Allowing muscle memory to lead her around and away from the corpse, she slowly moves away from the bed.
Her breath comes out in short reluctant puffs, due in no small way to the fact that she can't stop her body from shaking vigorously. She nearly chokes on her own lungs when she feels something small and dry slither over the skin of her arm. Her eyes fly open and her arms spread, letting the bear drop to the ground in front of her. It's not the same -decaying almost like a human body and covered in worms and maggots. She can't even muster up enough oxygen to scream or cry. It's a dry and empty emotion. She takes in a huge gulp of the cold air in the room, inhaling the rotten stench of death and gagging violently.
Before she can stop herself, her body is twisting around to look back at Zephyr. He's still there, but somehow, his corpse has turned rotated to face her and he swings and sways, still looking at her. "Stop," she commands feebly, her voice coming out in a small croak. He doesn't say anything… but of course he doesn't. He's -
She shudders, rising to her tiptoes and jumping over the bear, trying to avoid the insects that have begun to completely cover the floor around her, their numbers gaining almost exponentially as they crawl out of the stuffed animal in almost impossible swarms. She runs uncomfortably on the tips of her toes through the hallway and towards the living room. "Mom? Dad?" She knows there won't be an answer. She's always alone in her nightmares.
"Let me out! Let me out!" she screeches, fidgeting, fighting the binds that hold her down. She can't see, and she can barely breathe. Nothing makes any sense anymore. Who's doing this? "I don't want to die like this! Don't let me die like this!"
The flames are close now, licking at her skin and eliciting inhuman wails from her bound neck. Almost like a feral animal that has enjoyed the first taste, it creeps further, consuming more and more of her body. "No! NO!"
Save me. Save me. Save me. Save me. Save me. Save me. Save -
Stepping into the living room is like stepping into a completely different world. She can still recognize the room's main features and its outline, which definitely haven't changed, but the entire room is covered in soot and smells like burnt meat. Can it really just be meat, though? She feels her stomach crumple up under her skin. She just knows there's something dead in this room, too…
The ashes in the room seem to converge around a certain point. It's like that one point was at the center of the inferno, and in that spot, she can see a large pile of ashes, black as anything else in the room, but more pungent than anything, and it's laying right where the coffee table would have been, surrounded by half-burnt wooden structures that must have been the couches. She doesn't come any closer, but she can just make out the outline of a human body. There are no distinctive features to tell her who this person was; everything is charred and black.
"Why am I seeing this?" she asks in a whisper. She doesn't know who's listening, but they don't seem keen on answering.
She's hesitant to keep walking, fidgeting nervously with her toes as she looks at all the soot on the floor. It's either get her feet dirty or stay in this room with Zephyr's corpse behind her and that burnt thing in front of her.
Letting her mind run on autopilot for a bit, she walks across the room, ignoring the dust that gets in between her toes and the splinters littering the ground. She turns her head towards the window, raising a hand to her mouth to stifle a weak cough, and opens it up, letting a cool spring breeze in and breathing in the clean air. She feels slightly less ill, but it the persistent feeling of gasses in her gut doesn't let up. She leans out the window and tries to cool off the sweat on her brow. Still, the scent of iron follows her.
She lets go of him midair and lets the both of them freefall into the congested sidewalk. She can feel her consciousness slip and it's a nice feeling.
She's been waiting her entire life to give in.
She doesn't even see it at first because her apartment is on the third floor, but in a pool of red on the ground, looking suspiciously like she's sleeping, is Sun. She's on her back, her legs twisted at unnatural angles and her arms flat by her side. Her eyes are shut and her face is peaceful. Lorna half-heartedly wonders if that's perhaps the calmest expression she's ever seen on that woman's face. It does nothing to ease her anxiety however. Had Sun fallen from one of the higher floors? She still doesn't want to think about it. She has to get out of here.
Her stiff unwilling legs are practically moving mechanically at this point, leading her towards the kitchen that opened up into the living room. It has been left mysteriously untouched by whatever had happened to the living room, and for that, Lorna is thankful, but she can't shake the feeling that there are still more horrors to come.
Her body takes her to the kitchen island, where her old laptop is sitting open on some game she stopped playing only a few months before she…
(...died - I'm dead.)
She almost ignores it, but something keeps blinking on the screen, distracting her momentarily.
DestroyerOfWorlds is now OFFLINE
She lets out a shuddering sigh. The game isn't supposed to do that -at least, she doesn't think so. She recalls that the game is more subtle about informing you that your chatting partner has disconnected.
DestroyerOfWorlds… DestroyerOfWorlds… Destroyer…
Her mind comes up blank. She knows she's supposed to remember something, and it nearly scratches the surface of her mind, but she can't… Something is deliberately halting her train of thought. And just like that, the screen goes black. She reaches out immediately to press the On button again, but flashing lights on the side of the machine tell her that it's out of battery. Her dread buries itself even deeper into her abdomen.
The ground disappears from beneath his feet and his hands race to find something to hold on to -something to make this stop happening. His hand feels the smooth polished wood of the railing, only to slip off and grasp desperately at the air.
This isn't supposed to happen. This isn't supposed to happen. This isn't supposed to happen.
"Malik!" a tiny voice screams, "No-"
It's the last thing he hears...
She exits the kitchen and heads for the front door, bracing herself before opening it. She doesn't want to… but she doesn't want to stay here, so just like tearing off a bandaid, she does it. She keeps her eyes to the ground cautiously and she comes face to face with another familiar pair of dry, bulging eyes. These ones belong to Malik, his handsome features now pale and starting to rot. His lower half was elevated on the steps of the stairs next to the front door, which left his head and torso laying on her welcome mat like a gift.
Some of the dread pooling in her stomach rises to her throat, making her gag for a moment before she realizes there's nothing inside her to come out, yet she gags anyway. Her knees feel weak and, not wanting to let it out on the dead boy, she lets herself stumble over him, feeling even weaker when the bare skin of her feet brushes up against his cold arm by accident.
She grabs the stair railing to steady herself, holding her gut with her free hand. She feels so woozy, unable to see straight, and her stomach is still leaping and heaving. She pushes against her stomach, forcing whatever is inside to just come out, and in a whirlwind, it does. Something black, sticky and dripping starts to come out of her mouth in a long and nearly solid straight pillar. It shot out of her quickly, like a faucet set to the highest setting, and evaporated into black smoke at the ends as it escaped into the atmosphere around her.
The only thing remaining is something very hard in her throat. She chokes on it, coughing desperately, unable to breathe, until she finally ejects it into her upturned hand. It glows dimly against her palm… the crystal fragment that Viola gave her.
"What?" she questions softly, her voice grating against her throat like a car with no tires.
Almost as though someone had given her a violent shove, she feels her body lurch again. In her dizziness, she manages to nearly catch herself, stumbling down a couple of the steps before she feels the battered and fragile stair railings slam into her -a familiar feeling. She sees the ground begin to close in, all a blur, but the clearest thing in her mind now. Her collision with the ground is blunt and unforgiving, but she's alive… at least she thinks she is. She can still think and feel intense pain; she can still reason and feel intense loathing.
Then she's out of her body, back flush against the wall, elevated and staring at her own vulnerable back. The dark hooded figure from her nightmare is back now as well, standing right beside her body. She knows it doesn't have a face; that's because it's not a person -it's something else. It points towards Lorna, at least the Lorna that can actually see it. She lets out a small gasp, unable to look away.
That vague scent of rotting eggs is coming back to her as her body descends slowly to the ground, until she's next to the strange being. The two of them are staring down at Lorna's own struggling body, one with morbid curiosity and the other with no emotion at all.
Lorna looks away for a moment, seeing two unfamiliar people outside, a small girl and someone who seems to be her father. They haven't noticed anything going on inside, yet they look to be alive -something that Lorna didn't think she'd get to see in here. She wants to call out to them, but she has a feeling they wouldn't be able to hear her even if she did.
She senses something forcing her to look back at her own dying body.
"You're not dying, Lorna," something says to her. She has a feeling she knows exactly who is speaking.
Then what? I must be dead or -
"The fall isn't what killed you," it clarifies, turning its faceless head towards the Lorna laying face-down on the ground.
So how did I die?
The thing doesn't look back at phantom Lorna when it speaks again. "It would be better… to show you."
What?
She gets a sense of whiplash once she finds that her sight has been limited again to the glass doors of her apartment building and the two people outside. She can barely move her head… she can barely move anything at all. She feels like a victim waiting for her killer to find her. She wants to move, but it's more than just the pain keeping her down. If she's not dead, then who kills her?
Her heart is heavy, but her mind is blank now. She gets the strange sensation that there are two consciousnesses at work in her head -one that knows precisely what's about to take place, and one that doesn't. Her arms move of their own accord, surprisingly unharmed and intact. Nothing is broken; there is only a slight ache in her joints. They press her hands down against the ground and push her onto her knees. Her legs aren't broken either. So why is she so afraid?
Sitting on her knees now, her eyes are scarcely focusing on the two people outside; she can't see the black figure anymore either. Her eyes drop down to the broken railing. With purpose, her hands grab onto one of the pillars, using her knees to keep the rest of the railing in place. The pull as hard as they can, and she can see the wood straining and splintering under the force until it eventually snaps. The burn in her arms is killing her now. Why isn't she dead yet?
If I do it now… it'll look like an accident. No premeditation… no guilt.
"No!" she tries to say, the jarring realization of what's about to happen hitting her like a ton of cement, unable to control her own body's movements. It must be a lie… It has to be a lie…
Lorna grips the broken rod in her hands, feeling the sharp splintered end and for the first time, her heart leaps, straining against her broken ribs. She wants to cry, but that would hurt too much.
It's a bit bigger than I thought, but thin enough… It'll go in very easily…
She places the sharp end gently against the place where she can sense her heart race.
It's right here… All I have to do is…
"Don't you remember? You thought about this very moment everyday for weeks…"
"No… No, no, no… You're wrong!" she can't speak, but nobody would have heard her if she did.
One… two… three…
It goes in way too easily, and just her luck, she misses her own heart by a hair… Just fucking perfect…
She eventually loses her balance, falling forward and thrusting the rest of the rod straight through her body. She's certain it's at least ruptured her lungs… so it won't be long now…
It hurts… IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HURT.
I'm such an idiot. Such a fucking idiot. I hate it. I hate myself. I deserve this.
But it hurts… I want it to stop. Please make it stop…
-lik, I'm sorry.
Looking up, weak and disoriented, she can still see the two people on the sidewalk. She's nearly dead; she shouldn't care, but…
The pair are laughing -not at her she hopes… The young girl jumps up and down and the father looks away for the briefest of moments. It happens so fast. One second the girl is on the sidewalk and the next she's dashing into the street. Her father barely makes it out after her before an oncoming truck rams into the both of them so quickly she wonders if it all really happened. One second later, and the street is completely empty with no evidence that anything had really occurred. Lorna knows they're dead… and in a few seconds… she'll join them…
Yami Marik grimaces at the creature he's dueling. Something seems off about it. He's just summoned his Winged Dragon of Ra (3100/3100) and yet the girl -the thing -is laughing. Maybe he just needs to teach it the true meaning of fear… The destruction of Black Pendant had taken it down a few life points but it's nowhere near enough if he wants any chance at beating this thing.
Yami Marik: 100
Lorna?: 3500
"Winged Dragon of Ra! Attack Dancing Fairy!" he commands. The golden dragon flexes and shifts in response, lazily raising its head to let out an ear-shattering roar, and emitting a white, blinding ray of light that completely envelops the three dancing fairies on Lorna's side of the field. Marik raises his free arm to shield his eyes, waiting for the light to recede, but lowering his hand only the slightest bit to see if the husk's expression has changed.
"Careful, Marik!" comes Ishizu's concerned voice, completely ruining the moment for him.
He shoots a glare in her direction. "Stay out of this, sister!" He can feel his head throb slightly out of mental exertion, but he immediately pushes it to the back of his consciousness. He glares at the five monsters still on Lorna's side of the field. He'll tear them down one by one if he has to. There is nothing on its side that can match Ra, even with its absurd power bonus.
The husk raises its head and shoots him a sickly grin. It then lets out a warped sound, perhaps meant to sound like a giggle, and challenges him. "Is that… all you've got?" He doesn't give it the privilege of an answer, opting for a steady scowl. "My move then."
Yami Marik: 100
Lorna?: 2600
The thing draws another card and grimaces slightly before shifting its face back into its finely tuned neutral expression; Marik still catches it though, and elates him to the point of ecstasy. It doesn't have any monsters to replace the one he's just destroyed, which means he's all but got the upper hand. He glances into his own hand and smirks.
Zephyr takes a step back, from where Lorna and the Warden are hovering. With her hand still wrapped around Lorna's neck, the Warden pulls her other hand out from inside Lorna's chest, pulling something out that Zephyr can't quite make out from where he's standing, but he doesn't need to as it starts to glow bright blue in the Warden's hand. Almost like… No, it probably is magic. The entire storm begins to recede, sucked into that tiny crystal and illuminating it even more than before.
Now, with nothing to obscure his vision, his eyes fixate on the small thing; it's almost mesmerizing, and from the back of his mind, something resurfaces.
Zorc's eyes narrow as he watches Lorna's companion perk up abruptly. The boy casts a nervous look in Lorna's direction before running off elsewhere. Wrong way if he wants to escape from this hellhole… He's only going deeper into the Solitude, which makes Zorc wonder if the boy's sense of direction is truly warped or whether he has something else to find.
When the storm is completely contained inside the small Orichalcos shard, the Warden closes her fist around it and thrusts it back into Lorna's body, right into her heart, where she found it. Just like the storm, small wisps of the Warden begin to flow into the girl through the hole in her chest like dirt to a vacuum cleaner. Once the entire being has disappeared, there's nothing in front of the two brothers aside from Lorna, whose tiny body still floats, in spite of the Warden's disappearance, in the bright light of the Orichalcos seal beneath her.
With wide eyes and a bemused smirk, Zorc watches Zaleon's handiwork unfold in front of him. He knows that, while Zaleon likes to front and act like an ass most of the time, he's lying about this turn of events furthering his cause. Containing the Warden within one small human soul is no small task, and even with the power of that Orichalcos shard, it should be impossible. It's like blowing too much air into a flimsy balloon. At this rate, the girl would be obliterated, with no trace of her existence left. She would be forgotten by all who knew her. A small price to pay for the Warden, of course. The girl is disposable -inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
"Look at me," Zaleon breathes, stepping forward. "Look at me. I want to see it happen."
Zorc grimaces and looks away from the image of his brother, who is beginning to look more like a troll stumbling upon a treasure; he's probably completely forgotten that he's not the only person in the clearing. Zorc watches the girl's body slowly rotate in mid-air, like something dormant inside of her had heard Zaleon's twisted request. Zorc almost feels sorry for her. She probably can't see, feel, or hear any of what's going on right now. She's quite literally a zombie bending to the Warden's will.
"Yes! Show me!" Zaleon cackles, his voice muffled slightly by the mask.
Lorna raises her head and her eyes open to reveal two dark openings where her eyeballs should be, leaking dark matter like smoke from a burning building. Are her eyes still there behind all that rot or have they eroded as well? Zorc asks nobody in particular. Her arms begin to rise slowly within the bounds of the seal of Orichalcos and as she does so, a single silver lance appears in the space between the brothers and the girl. The slender shaft gives off a dull reflection of the scenery around it before it shoots straight towards the girl, piercing right through her chest.
In the next moment, she is screaming, clearly in so much agony that her mind can scarcely comprehend it, and her voice is that same clear, high-pitched chirp that has become so familiar to him. The wind around her, within the bounds of the seal, has started to swirl and He wonders if she's even conscious. Can she see the two dark creatures standing idly by and making a spectacle of her suffering? He admits, while he never cared for her attitude, she certainly doesn't deserve this. She could have been useful to him even… There are still six others, though.
Through her gaping jaw, a giant black mass emerges, bubbling and morphing, living and breathing. It's no surprise to Zorc however; the Warden has to make room in Lorna's frail body somehow, though whether or not the Warden's essence has the same capability to keep Lorna's physical form from being destroyed, as the dark matter does, has yet to be seen, but he doubts it. The Warden may be leagues more powerful than a mortal like Lorna, but underneath the millennia of corruption, the Warden still has the essence of a human.
A hysterical "No!" is heard over Lorna's voice, drawing Zorc's attention to a group of newcomers: the host of his Millennium Ring as well as Lorna's anchor, but the one who cried out is neither of them. Malik is at the front of the group, dashing towards the girl, completely jilting his companions in favor of the one he considers his only friend.
It doesn't take him long to see the seal holding her captive, although it takes all of his energy to try and overlook the spear shooting out of her torso. He lets out a shuddering breath before taking a step back. Marik can you hear me?
He gets no response.
You can tell I'm a fan of Higurashi/Umineko tho, bc the fic starts out funny and lighthearted and then just slowly degrades into everyone being dead and nothing being happy anymore. None of this was intentional lmao
The end is near mwahaha... and as I'm sure you've noticed, I've completely stopped the 1st person chapters for the time being in favor of 3rd person limited -the reason for that should be quite clear judging by where the narrative has gone. I've also decided to make the sequel in the 3rd person limited POV since I've come to realize that 1st person is way too limiting when I'm building up a greater cast of characters. Though in the sequel I don't think I'll be sticking to the "Nox, Incendium, Lumen... etc" names -at least not completely.
What's happening to Lorna? Will we ever find out? Where does Zorc even fit into this strange mess of a plot that I pulled out of my ass? WILL LORZOR EVER BE CANON? Find out next time on: MARY-SUE-
No I'm not doing that.
(And yes there will be a sequel so I hope y'all didn't abandon me for good bc I'll need your support to keep motivated)