Hi! Okay, so even with the pressures of studying for exams, you guys goaded me into putting up another chapter. Meanies… *//.^* -Lady PhoenixDagger
I don't own Gundam Wing. Everything else here, however, is alllllll MINE!!!!
Destroyed.
The word snapped like a burning brand over sensitive flesh as it hung shivering in the late afternoon sunshine before it died.
Destroyed. My world…my home…destroyed.
Quatre swallowed, feeling the sharply painful lump forming in his throat. He didn't know how, but he knew this mysterious woman known as Belle was telling the truth. Tears flooded his eyes, blurring the sceptical faces of his comrades. The sick feeling which had been gnawing at his stomach since he had come to this place worsened, causing him to almost double over in pain. A small dark spot appeared on the sheets before him as his wretchedly dammed tears began to fall. Frustrated, the Gentle Noble scrubbed a fist over his eyes.
Wufei snorted derisively from his bed, trying to sit up as well as he could with his bonds holding him back. "Quite a grand lie you're telling, woman."
The woman's eyes darkened dangerously. "I do not lie, boy," she said slowly. "Your world is naught."
Wufei's obsidian eyes slitted half-shut like those of a snake. "I don't believe you, woman."
"She's right."
All heads turned towards Quatre. "I felt the wrench when were brought here," he continued. "That horrible, sickening, tearing wrench. Lord, everything feels so different here. Can't you feel it?" His voice became thick with tears, but if he noticed, he didn't let on. "There's no Heart of Space out here. The universe is dead. I feel nothing…" He began to sob.
The other boy's faces froze in horror. They had learned to trust with their very lives their comrade's innate ability to read deep into the universe and drink deeply of her secrets while others simply looked on. Before the ex-pilots had drifted apart, Quatre had passed many a dull safehouse hour by pulling predictions out of his head and jokingly trying to guess what the other boys were thinking. But the joke quickly fell through as he always got the other boys' innermost thoughts dead on and eventually his predictions ceaselessly came true. Wufei's triumphant look melted into one of pure horror as he watched the blond Arab cry.
"And everyone else?" Quatre managed to choke out. "Did anyone else survive?" The others looked to Belle, afraid of the answer.
Belle's gaze dropped to her lap. Slowly, so slowly, she shook her head. "Only you."
Thoughts of the Manguanacs and of Quatre's sisters flashed unbidden like frightened children through his mind. Of childlike Iria, who had treated him when he was hurt. Of hulking Rasheed, who had always been his rock to lean on in times of need. Of slinky Achmed and his dark glasses that never, ever left his face.
Gone.
This time the tears began to fall in earnest. Gone. All gone. Vaguely through his tears he became aware of someone holding him close, stroking his hair. Holding the stricken youth within the circle of her arms, Belle murmured soothing sounds in his ear.
But Quatre knew they wouldn't help. All he could do was offer up a desperate prayer and hope that whatever it was that had massacred his homeland had killed his loved ones quickly and painlessly.
He's crying. Aunt Belle, why does he cry?
Quatre's eyes flew open. That voice… In his head…
I feel pain. I feel his pain. Such repulsive pain for someone so young…
A thudding, throbbing pain lowered itself on Quatre's chest, at once heavy and sharp. Confused, he pushed away Belle's embrace and lurched to his feet, grasping his chest, striving to breathe. I must…find him…Ease the pain… he thought muzzily. He fears…he is…he is in pain…
Please. Flee from here. The inner voice was thin, strained. The risk…
No…
Quatre moaned and staggered from the room, realising with peculiar detachment that he had been stripped while he was unconscious and was now clad in a knee-length night-shirt of undyed cotton. Barefoot, he stumbled into the hallway, daggers of agony tearing unseen beneath his clammy skin.
"It…burns," Quatre gasped, but pressed on. The flagstones were cool beneath his feet and worn smooth with years of being walked on. But no one was in the hallway now, save for Quatre and his shroud of pain.
Leave me, the voice begged once more.
No.
Another wave of agony forced him down on one knee to catch his breath. The slapping sounds of the others' bare feet on the stone floor forced Quatre to stand and go on.
It comes! The voice screamed. Flee! It will kill you!
"I don't care!" Quatre found himself shouting aloud. The pain grew with every step, but he didn't heed it as long as each step took him to his unknown goal. "You can't die!" Why did he care so for something –someone- he couldn't even see? Why this crippling sense of urgency? Somewhere inside himself, he could feel the sick feeling burst into full-blown nausea.
"Quatre!"
Th Gentle Noble moaned and forced himself into a weary half-sprint. The dull, blood-curdling pain made his limbs spasm, yet grimly he ran on, his mind on his purpose of finding this pain-wracked individual. He could already feel the pain intensifying. He was getting closer.
Get back! Please, if you value your very life, get away from here!
NO!
Quatre's hands twitched uncontrollably as he ran down the empty hallway. Already his feet were numbing from the slap-slapping his feet made on the cold stone floor. Rows of unremarkable doors flashed by as the pain grew, filling Quatre with a kind of grim satisfaction.
"Quatre, NO!!!" screamed Belle, her supple cloth slippers making no sound on the flagstones. Ahead of her, Duo, Trowa and Wufei -who had ripped himself free from his hempen bonds- were catching up.
The Gentle Noble looked down at his hand, which had the handle of one of the doors in a death grip. Panting, he rested his head against the cool wood. Muffled cries and moans came to him from the room beyond. The pain was exquisite, branding Quatre's body with a hellish agony. With a deep breath, he opened the door and charged in, the others hot on his heels.
Please child! As the Lord of this Keep, I beg you to leave me! the voice cried in a final desperate plea.
Quatre's eyes filled with tears as he saw the young man writhing in agony on a narrow bed soaked in sweat and freshly spilled blood. His fiery red hair was plastered to his head and his eyes, the colour of new daffodils, were bright with pain. The horrid agony overwhelmed Quatre then and he fell heavily to his knees, breaking down into tears. For although he had found the source of the voice, he had no idea what to do now that he was there. Moaning and crying out in pain, the young man twisted and contorted as the blond Arab sobbed. The three women and the black-haired man the boys had encountered were there, expressions of purest horror etched on their faces.
"Good lord…" Duo moaned.
It comes! the young man's inner voice sobbed. I can't hold it any longer!
The young man's back arched and through his own tears, Quatre could see thin black tentacles threading sinuously under his skin. Bravely, Quatre tried to look the man in the face, but his was an unseeing rictus of pain, bathed in sweat and christened in blood.
His scream was deafening as the claws tore through his chest from the inside.
Quatre's own scream was matched by Belle's own shrill keen as the man's pain exploded inside him. He felt keenly his own internal organs being cruelly shoved aside as the wickedly serrated claws ripped away strips of insulating muscle and fat to get to the outside. Skin tore apart, giving way to what could under special circumstances as a hand. Slimy with blood and seemingly stripped of all skin, it was twice again as large as a grown man's hand. Ribs cracked as it groped around the writhing man's torso. One of the women bolted from the room, screaming for someone.
In his red haze, Quatre could only watch in horror as the hand gave birth to an arm, all slick muscle covered in gore.
A flash of brown flew by Quatre then, but in its veil of fear and pain his brain could not discern what it was. His ears were filled with the sounds of screaming and the sickening squishishish of the putrid limb shoving aside vital organs. Behind him, he could hear Wufei retching and a voice –Duo's?- feverishly muttering in prayer.
And then, blessed, blessed darkness came and with all-enveloping arms swept him away.
That's all I've got for now. For an added Alaryan hit, check out "Motherless Children" in the original fiction section by me! It's the story that gave birth to both of the characters of Walker and Darien and thier circumstances. There are a few differences, but it's still a good read, so do take a look, won't you? –L.P.D.