A Death At Hand

"Blood Of A Rose"

By Nozomi

He dreamed.

He stood in a great hall. Around him, wood of the finest caliber formed beautiful walls. Lavish decorations were scattered all the way down the magnificent hallway.

Where was he? This wasn't home.

"Mother…?" his voice sounded odd; the sound seemed to be sucked from his very breath. There was no echo where there should have been one. No sound.

"Hello?" no answer.

Tentatively, he made his way down the hallway, as there seemed no other way to go; when he looked behind him, there was a nothing but a blank wall. It seemed to stare at him, to urge him forward.

So he went. Twenty steps down the hall, he almost hit his head on one of the wooden dips that came down from the ceiling. How could that be? When he had started out, the structure had been at least five feet over his head! Now it seemed to be shrinking!

He looked back- and stared. That blank wall was following him! He couldn't go back any farther than when he hadn't moved. This should have scared him to no end- he had heard enough ghost stories from Stephan, the cook, to have a glimmer of what this might be. But the eerie calm that had taken hold of him wasn't shaken so easily.

Reaching out, he tried to open one of the many doors lining both sides of the hallway; it wouldn't open. A few steps further; the next door wouldn't open either. Odd. Another glance behind showed that the wall had advanced yet again; he was as far from it as he'd always been, but now he had to almost stoop to prevent himself from banging his head.

"Open the doors…" a child's voice, from all around him and nowhere at all.

What was that? He was sure someone had just whispered something to him. 'Open the doors'? But he had already tried; they wouldn't budge!

"The walls, boy, the walls…"

The walls? The walls were the doors?

He gently pushed on the wall next to the door he had just tried; yep, it opened. Inside was a regular sized bedroom, complete with regular furnishings. He poked his head in a bit, looking around.

"Hello?"

Wait. What was that-? Ugh, that awful stench? Disgusting.

He had no time to react or protect himself as, without even a breath of wind as warning, an unholy gust of wind burst forth from the inside of the room, reeking of that unbearable smell, and threw him violently across the hall and into the adjacent wall. The camouflaged door slammed shut with a threatening bang. [1]

Well, so much for that door. Now what?

The hallway around him suddenly began to dissolve, faster and faster until there was no trace of it left. At least that obstacle was over. What next?

He stood up and glanced around, eyes locating the only other thing here; a single, red rose. It was… beautiful, almost glowing with an unearthly light. He leaned down and snatched it up from the obsidian floor, bringing it up to his face for closer inspection. Seemed normal enough…

He ran his other hand across its velvet soft petal, pulling back suddenly as he felt something drip onto his fingers. Upon a closer look, he saw a fluid that look uncannily like blood dripping over his outstretched hand. Blood? Roses didn't bleed! Especially not red blood!

A hissing invaded his ears, and his gaze snapped over to his other hand, which still held the rose. It… the rose was melting! How-?

Green and red spilled thickly over his hand, running a lazing path. It burned! Oh, it hurt! He tried to shake it off, but the liquid substance clung to his hand like a leech, unwilling to let go. He could only watch in horror as the stuff began to pulse, to grow, beginning to engulf his arm. He felt like he was melting, himself! Through the pain, he felt as the liquid reached his neck, then finally his face, beginning to pour into his wide-open mouth and-

-----

Zero jerked awake, crying out from the phantom pain induced by the dream. He clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to keep the nausea from overtaking his senses. Next to him, Clay slipped from the bed and fell with a *clunk* to the floor, the blond boy's head popping up to glare balefully at him soon afterwards.

Waitaminute- what was Clay doing in his bed?

"Hey, what the-" It seemed Clay wasn't quite aware of what he was doing there himself. Zero guessed it was taking him longer than usual to get things straight because he didn't have his glasses to help him. The blonde boy really couldn't see a thing without his glasses.

"…Zero…?"

"Mm?"

"…How are you feeling?"

"About wha-"

Oh. Oh, yeah.

The past day's events flashed trough his mind's eye in a flurry of motion, and Zero brought his hand to his mouth again, as if to block anything that might dare to come out, jumping off the bed and sprinting to find a place where he could- well, you know. Through fuzzy eyesight, Clay watched his friend's actions in something akin to amazement, or maybe pity. He reached to push up his glasses and mutter a breathy "Very interesting…"- when he realized he still didn't have his glasses, instead settling for scratching his head at Zero. Clay was relieved he hadn't really seen a whole lot last night- mainly just a shadowed form lying, unmoving, on the floor with a glimmering dagger stuck in what he supposed was it's chest, though he didn't get close enough to tell.

Clay noticed Zero had settled for the window, and was- well, for lack of a better term, 'barfing his guts out', or maybe 'blowing chunks', or maybe-

Oh, that was quite enough, Clay vehemently admonished his rampant mind. He really needed to stop before he was over there next to Zero.

A knock came at the door, and the muffled sound of a young girl's voice carried through the thick wood to them.

"Lord Rei? Are you in there? Is Lord Clay in there with you, per chance? Or do you know where he could be found? He is not in his room this morning. …Lord Rei?"

But Zero was too busy- er… at the window to answer her. The door was pushed open, and the puzzled and confused visage of the servant Clay recognized as one of the ones that had been at the party peered in. He reckoned she was in for a surprise- the picture that she was confronted with was quite unusual. Here he, Clay, lay, still in his bedclothes, on the floor, tangled in a bed sheet obviously belonging to the bed of his best friend, while Zero was hanging out of the window as far as he dared without the chance of falling out, making the most- urgh… horrible noises.

Clay smiled sheepishly at the servant girl- Kizuna, he remembered from last night. If his memory served him correctly, she was the servant of Hiead Gner- or rather, the whole of the remaining Gner line, which wasn't much. "Yes, miss? Was there something you wanted?"

The pink-haired girl blinked and stared at him for a moment, as if she'd forgotten what she'd come for. Then remembrance crossed her features, and she smiled at him. "Oh. That's right. My Lord Hiead wishes to request your presence and that of Lord Rei in his chambers as soon as possible. He said he had something urgent to discuss with the two of you in private." Hiead's family had been given a large wing in the manor to stay in; Milan Enna and Douglas Gner had had some business to discuss over the next few days.

Clay nodded, effectively dismissing her back to her regular duties. "Yes, thank you, miss. We'll be there."

With one last lingering glance at Zero's back, Kizuna nodded slightly and shut the door behind her as she left.

The sound of the door being closed seemed to imply something final in Clay's mind, and he sighed and rested his head back against the bed, even as Zero continued his- er, well, continued on, though Clay had to wonder if the boy had anything left to- well, continue with.

What were they going to do?

Clay didn't realize he had asked that question out loud until Zero finally turned from the window and set himself down on the bed, feet barely missing Clay's head as they began to swing from side to side. "Do about what?"

"Hm? …Oh, nothing, just thinking aloud. Hiead wants to talk to us. More specifically, you, I suspect."

"Okay… Clay?"

"Yeah?"

"What… what happened last night?"

"I don't know, really. But I've been thinking, and I'm pretty sure Hiead had something to do with it."

"Why's that?"

"Just intuition, I guess. And a little detective work." He smirked up at his friend, pushed the feet that were getting dangerously close to smacking him in the head up onto the bed, and stood- promptly tripping over his blanket-trapped feet and crashing face-first to the ground.

"Ow."

-----

It was too late to go to Hiead's chambers by the time Clay had finished getting dressed for the day; the two young noblemen had breakfast to attend to, after all. It was decided that they would go together after the morning meal.

Zero was being more annoyingly hyperactive and even more talkative than usual. Clay wasn't a psychologist, but he guessed that the chocolate-haired boy's unusual behavior was due to trying to block out the traumatic experiences of yesterday; and in most circumstances, it appeared Zero was fine. If one happened to dig deeper, however, one would spot the vague haunted look shining, almost completely hidden, in the depths of those brown eyes. Clay predicted that his best friend could not hold up this false personality for long, for no matter how much inner strength the boy had, it would eventually wear him down.

It was already beginning to wear Clay down. He sighed in frustration and caught hold of Zero's collar, forcibly dragging him away from the noble he had about to get into a fight with, Force, or something of the like. Zero was picking fights with anyone that bothered to notice him. Thankfully, most of these instances never went beyond a few curt words, before the other participant would give up on Zero's inability to follow simple logic and stalk away.

The two finally made it to the dining room without getting into any really serious fights, and the blonde boy let out a sigh of relief. Thank God. They took their usual spots at the long table, and, to their surprise, spotted Hiead there as well, not far from where they were seated. The young Gner usually took his meals in his room, preferring to be as reclusive as possible, so this was quite a change from the norm.

Not a change, however, was the fact that Hiead uttered not one syllable during the entire course of the meal. Zero had expected at least something- some derogatory remark, maybe an accusation- aimed at his person, but apparently the silver-haired youth wasn't up to being his usual nasty self at the moment. Huh. Knowing him, though, Hiead would make up for the loss- and much more- during their little get-together later that morning.

With Clay wrapped up his own thoughts, and no one else interesting to talk to, Zero found his mind wandering into the realms of the memories of last night. No matter how hard he tried, how gigantic an effort he put forth, Zero could not force himself to force that horrible night. Every time he blinked, the scene in that dark room played for him on the back of his eyelids, if only for that one short instant, and he found he could not prevent it, no matter what he told his mind to focus on. It was going to drive him insane.

Next to him, Clay jerked out of his thoughts, sending a worried glance Zero's way.

"Hey Zero?"

"Yeah?"

"This morning… did you dream?"

Zero's eyes widened a bit, and he turned to stare at Clay, as blurred images of still frames from his dream the previous night flashed before his vision. "Yeah… I dreamed… of a long hallway with no sound… that suddenly got smaller and a child's voice… and a room with wind… and…"

"And what?"

At this, Zero's face procured a puzzled expression. "A rose… I think."

"A rose? … Interesting. What colour was it, may I ask?"

He blinked, staring at his friend in incomprehension for a moment, before the question seemed to dawn on him, "Oh… Red."

"Red?" Clay confirmed, pushing up his glasses. "Very interesting…"

"What's interesting?" he stared suspiciously at Clay, as if he suspected the youth of deliberately hiding something from him.

"Well… normally, roses can signify many different things. White roses mean to forget something, and red normally indicate remembrance."

"Remembering…?" his voice trailed off into something akin to wonder.

"Mm-hmm." Clay turned back to his meal, seeming to contemplate something.

-----

Breakfast was soon over, and Zero and Clay found themselves standing nervously outside the doors to Hiead and his father's chambers. They knew Douglas Gner was not in at the moment; they had seen him talking earnestly with Zero's father not ten minutes before, when the two had taken their leave of the dining room for the morning.

They were nervous because they had overheard yelling and shouting coming from inside the doors. One voice was obviously male; the other sounded female. Tentatively, Clay reached out and knocked sharply on the door- and the overbearing noise died down instantly. Not long after, Kizuna opened the doors for them, flashing a forced polite smile that did not quite cover her current annoyance.

"Master Hiead will see you now." She announced, showing them in. Hiead stood at a small table, literally glaring at them both- as if he hadn't been the one to ask them there in the first place!

"Zero Enna." He stated, as if Clay were not even there. And, to Hiead, it was probably that way. Clay didn't seem to even exist in the nobleman's mind.

So why request his presence, as well as Zero's? That was a mystery unto itself.

"So we meet again!" Zero exclaimed- as if they had met by chance in the hallway or something, and not been asked to Hiead's own chambers. Clay sighed and pushed up his glasses in agitation. Typical Zero. The boy was way too high-stung.

"What do you want from me, Hiead!?" the brown-haired pilot demanded. Clay found a comfortable chair to view the proceedings from, so as to be alert in case Zero decided to start a fight. So impatient.

The blonde boy started a bit as Hiead began to smirk at Zero, ruby eyes glittering with an intensity not unlike Zero's own. "To strike a deal."

---

[1] Okay, I admit, most of that was from the ABC original series 'Rose Red', by Stephen King. However, I just thought it sort of fit here! That mini series was kinda cool, actually. One of my favorite ghost movies, right next to 'The Haunting'. ^.^

Comments? Criticism? Cookies? I'll take all three! ^.^

Nozomi