Author's Note: Hello all! Thank you for your patience! My moods are fairly well managed, but I had a bit of a downward dip these past few weeks. I have pulled out of it and am posting this the night I finished it! So please excuse any typos. To the question about how I wright my characters, the answer is yes and no. I observe people and their responses to different situations, then I try to put myself in their shoes and understand that response. So when I write I am writing me, but me's that respond differently than I do, if that makes any sense. The response is something I've either experienced or observed in someone else, but all the rationalizing and thinking is from my perspective. Anyway, interesting questions! Happy to answer any more and please do enjoy! Fair warning, this chapter is a little graphic.


Crona was dreaming again. That's what this had to be, at any rate, a strange, realistic sort of dream. A pleasant change from the blackness and the sounds of a body distorting. From the Crona inside that blackness and his unending insistence at the blackness of his own blood. Now instead of darkness he was in his room- Crona's room. They'd stayed out after his incident with the Madness, talking more about Kishin and order and how Crona had struggled with these concepts. It was suddenly very relevant, this struggle, the experiments detailed in the little black journals more real. He understood why; he'd felt the fear that consumed his mind and drove him to become… something else. Crona's friends were very supportive; they knew it was frightening, felt sympathy for him. Some of them had even touched Madness themselves. It felt nice to finally be honest about it, to know what they meant when they said it had to be stopped. It felt nice to speak person to person, rather than person to oddity. He wasn't admitting he was Crona, just that, maybe, they shared problems. He'd returned to the apartment with Maka and Soul after dark, speaking of Kishin and battle, and they'd had the most interactive dinner of his short existence. The cat Blair had even come out to investigate, poking her paw into Crona's milk.

Then he'd gone to bed, he thought, but in this peculiar dream he hadn't made it there. He was standing barefoot in the black robe next to the bed. Sodium lamp light leaked through the window, casting long, stagnate shadows. There was an odd tingling in his groin and armpits, in his neck, almost a burn but not quite. It had pressed into him, moved through him, melting into his veins and concentrating in his head. Bright but cold, like the light off a distant star. Not dissolving him like the Madness, but suppressing him, tucking him into a shadow while the light took control of his body. It stood by his bed for a long time, this thing in his skin, waiting for the sounds of activity to fade into stillness as the city went to sleep. It reviewed his memories, reliving the sensations of the Black Blood mobilizing and hardening. The magic that had empowered it, a form of magic distinct from the kind this entity used. It ran tests inside his blood, seeking to duplicate the hardness without moving or making any sound at all.

"It's linked to the Madness, this power of the Black Blood," the presence mused in his skull. His own thoughts were silent like the streets outside. "Yet at its core what it desires it power, which I can supply. It is not the Madness of the Pull; this is an acceptable compromise to complete the conversion."

The presence paused its monologue, contemplating. Crona, unable to do anything else, waited in the void. It seemed right that he should wait, it seemed natural that this thing should be speaking in his mind. This light. The dark figure from his other dreams peered at him from a place far away, through the cold brightness, and whispered something different. But Crona could barely hear it, more than that, he didn't want to. There was no pain in the light, unlike the squelching shadows and seething Madness. Somewhere inside he knew it was the shadows, not this, that was native to his existence, but he rejected that knowledge in favor of this new reality. The light had created him; he needed to listen and obey its commands.

"Come to me now. I will deliver the prototype. It is time to begin testing."

There was an odd compressing feeling and suddenly he was not in Crona's room anymore. He was out on the street. Then down the street. At the base of the DWMA and down into its torchlight innards. The sound of bare feet on stone steps once his was inside, where there were wards against magic. Alarms he wouldn't risk tripping with something as intensive as teleportation. Down into the depths, past where he had been found by the woman Mrs. Marie. Deep into a place with tall stone pillars and a tiled floor. A place illuminated by an ethereal white glow. There was a fleshy mound at the center, glowing a blinding white and distorting the air around it with shimmers of magic. He approached it willingly, the soft sounds of bare feet on stone whispering through the charged air. And it reached out for him.

A tendril maybe the diameter of a quarter extended from the body, shining with a thin layer of mucus. It made an intentional move for his mouth and Crona felt a sharp jolt of fear; he knew what it sought and was not inclined to cooperate. This light, this pressure, tried to hold him still through sheer will, but there was a shadow in his mind. The Madness of the Black Blood, a powerful shadow, that fought the light. Fought control. He stepped back, unable to run but obstinate none the less, turning his face from the light. His eyes, reflecting that same ethereal glow, stayed open and transfixed on the fungal mound. The tendril hesitated as if shocked, then sped towards him, coiling around his neck, sliding easily over his skin. Before his hands could even think to respond two more tendrils extended, wrapping around his wrists and pulling him down onto his knees.

"Do not fight me," the presence commanded, it's desire like a cold weight in his head, suppressing his own and brightening the dark place that had thought to resist. "We share a goal, to eliminate the Pull, and in that you have consented to my will. Accept the prototype; we must begin testing."

The tip of the tentacle around his neck pressed into his lips and this time, without hesitation, Crona parted them and allowed it access. Its slimy mass moved across his tongue and down his throat, wedging itself in the sphincter that separated his esophagus from his stomach. He could breathe, but just barely. The light held the choaking panic at bay, the fear as his magic-bright eyes locked onto a lump moving through the tendril towards him. He felt is slide around his neck and push his mouth open even wider. The skin over his Adams apple stretched as it went down his throat, his organs made room for it to pass, heavy and cold, into his stomach. The prototype. The tentacle withdrew, remaining connected to his lips for a long moment by a string of mucus and saliva. His body coughed and gagged, unable to stay conscious and not respond in some way. The darkness inside him wanted to run, to get away, but the tendrils around his wrists held fast. The light spoke directly into his mind.

"Find another with Black Blood and deposit this into their body. It will activate the Black Blood and use it to conduct my magical wavelength, a wavelength without the Pull. You will need to employ violence; I have no sway over those without magic. Deliver the prototype and we will proceed from there."

The glowing, fungal mound did not wait for his confirmation. It did not need confirmation from him; he would do as he was instructed. The cold lump in his stomach dissolved into his blood, humming through his body and collecting back in his neck, groin, and armpits. In the lymph nodes, Crona realized, where no blood test would find them. He was released and, without a word or backward glance, the light returned his body to Crona's room. It wiped the mucus from his neck and face and, just as suddenly as it had taken possession of his lithe form, it was gone.

Crona woke up standing next to his bed, which struck him as odd but not insurmountably so. He'd been dreaming, a strange dream about wondering the streets. Details that had seemed so clear moments ago were fading with every breath and the reality of his situation was starting to set in. He was cold, ice cold, and his arms and throat hurt. They were sore… Suddenly he felt very nauseous and he strode quickly to the bathroom. Kneeling next to the toilet bowl he felt his body heave, but nothing came out. He brushed hair from his face and spat, aching and sick, then tried again. His whole body lurched, demanding something be exercised, but again nothing responded. On the third try a mouthful of sour, acidic bile came up and he spat that too into the water. It scorched his sore throat on the way up and Crona let out a moan of misery.

"Hey," Maka's low voice came from the door, but Crona felt too tired to look up and confirm she was there. "Is it something we ate?"

"I don't think so," he sighed, leaning his cheek onto a balled fist. "I don't know what it is, but I think it's done."

"Crona was sick before," she said, kneeling next to him. Without asking she reached for his neck, turning him towards her and probing the clammy flesh with her warm fingers. Her green eyes avoided his, watching her own work as she frowned. "Your lymph nodes are swollen. We should go see Professor Stein when he gets up."

Crona brought up a hand to cover hers, running his fingertips over the wrinkled skin of her knuckles and wondering at how soft it felt. Even her fingers, calloused from fighting, felt so soft to him. He felt he could tell her anything and he would still be absolutely safe. In fact, he felt he should tell her anything, anything she wanted to know, anything that would make that frown go away.

"I had a dream," he started, then he wondered what he was doing. His hand was lingering over hers, keeping their skin in contact. She didn't pull away; their eyes finally locked and he pressed on. "I was… choaking… in the school, down the stairs where I came from…"

"We'll go see Professor Stein," she repeated. "You used the Black Blood on your own yesterday, it's probably just a lot for your body to handle. But for now, if you're sick, you need to rest."

"What time is it?"

"Early, maybe 2:00 am. You can get a few hours in. Maybe you'll feel better when you wake up."

"I…" he trailed off, looking down. He wanted her to stay with him, to keep away the nightmares. But she wouldn't, because he wasn't Crona. It was pointless to ask. Standing, he flushed the toilet and closed the lid. He still felt sick, but it was manageable. Maybe she was right and all he needed was some rest, though he doubted it. He felt this sickness in his bones. But she wanted to go back to bed, to get away from something that felt too familiar. So, reluctantly, knowing it was a lie, he nodded.

"You're probably right."


Vera stood in the grey fog, wondering how she'd gotten there and for how long she'd stood. It was endless, this fog, and dense, almost more solid than gas. A liquid suspended in the air. It had been so long since she'd been here, this in-between place, that she didn't recognize it at first. It struck her as odd, an odd sort of dream. Then memory came back and she felt fear. This was the gateway, the preamble to the astral plane, and the last time she'd been here she'd gotten lost. It was not pleasing to be here again.

"Fuck," she sighed, running her fingers through her coal black hair in a vain effort to push it from her face. The strands fell back into place and she sighed again. "What is it now?"

Stupid question. She knew what had brought her here, what always pulled her to this opaque place. Magic. Somewhere close by, something powerful was using magic. Or Madness. But she was scared, her stomach was twisted into painful knots and a shudder crawled through her body. It was unnerving to be pulled out of her body like this, especially now that she knew there was a chance she wouldn't come back. She found herself wishing dearly that Soul was with her, like he'd been those first times, to anchor her to reality. Now the whispering water beckoned her from just inside the fog and she was going to have to seek it alone.

"It's important," she told herself knowing full well that there were plenty of times when it hadn't been important at all. Times when she'd just been drawn into Soul's dreams by his Black Blood. Or at least, that's what she told herself. "Whatever it is, it has to be important. You're not going far, just to look. It'll be okay."

Her head bobbed in affirmation but her body stayed in place. Her heart pounded in her astral chest and the fear crept across her astral skin. Biting into her lower lip, Vera balled her fists and swore again.

"Fuck. Okay, move."

This time her will triumphed and she took a reluctant step. Then another, passing through the dense fog. She didn't have far to go to reach the fluttering edge of the pool, the water that let her glimpse into another's reality, but it felt like an eternity before she got there. Her teeth ground against each other and her breath came in pants through her nose. The water rippled as she knelt by it, keeping her fingers away from the edge, as if her mere presence caused a disturbance. Then darkness gave way to a bright, cold light. She'd never seen anything quite like it before… no, wait, that wasn't true. The Panacea fragment in Crona's lab had shone like this, white tendrils of light that had reached into his mind. But the Panacea had been destroyed; what was this doing here now? Biting her lip, she leaned in closer, placing her hands on the oscillating edge and bringing her nose to the liquid surface. It smoothed and became glassy in response, hardening and glowing with that white light.

"Do not fight me."

It wasn't a voice so much as a sensation, demanding, like someone's fingers pressing directly into her brain. From inside her skull. And she recognized it; this was the voice that had come from Crona's lips in her lost dream when he'd turned to her. His body was in his lab, the stone on his desk like coral, glowing and cold. His eyes had been alight with that same glow and she'd known it wasn't Crona speaking, but something in his skin. Something using him as it seemed everything tried to, making his thoughts quiet while imposing its own will. That had been the important thing she'd seen; why was she only just now remembering? Would she continue to remember when she woke? If she woke?

"You have consented to my will."

"No he hasn't," Vera yelled, but the fog consumed her voice and her words didn't make it past the water. Even in her own ears they sounded muted, far away and dull. She brought her face in closer to the mirrored surface and screamed: "Don't use him! Leave him alone!"

Crona stood in the light, a lone, ridged figure with a blank face and limp hands. His pupils were glowing with that same white light and as she watched tendrils of that light coiled around his body. He didn't fight them, as the voice had commanded, and when one pushed against his lips he parted them willingly. A bulge traveled the length of the tendril and into his mouth, stretching the skin as it passed down his throat. Inside him. Vera gagged and turned away, pressing a hand over her own mouth as if that could contain the sickening disgust that was churning her stomach. He was so passive, this Crona, completely subjugated to the will of the Panacea, because that's what it had to be. That's what she'd seen in the desert, the information from her wondering. This Panacea controlled him- more than that, it had put something inside him. The Panacea had done this, whatever this was, to him.

"Not like this," whispered a voice that seemed to come from all around her. Her eyes snapped open and her head jerked up.

The vision in the pool had gone black and in that blackness a figure was drifting as if asleep. He had pink hair that batted his angular face in the swirling darkness and a little upturned nose. His chest was narrow and his hips were wide; black fabric stretched smoothly across both and down into a swirl where his feet should've been. Like a specter. Crona. He opened black, unseeing eyes, blinked once. Then again, slowly. A tear of Black Blood broke loose and ran down his cheek, dripping off his jaw and dissolving into the dark.

"I didn't mean for it to be like this…" the voice came again from all around, though Crona's lips didn't move.

"Fight it! You have to fight back! You're not a tool anymore, don't let this thing use you like one!"

Vera shouted with such force her throat hurt, but it was useless. The words came out a faded echo and Crona did not hear them. The white light bloomed behind him, cold and hard and unrelenting, and his body took it in. His fingers stretched and his back arched, head thrown back and eyes wide. Crona let out a piercing, blood curdling scream. Darkness rushed away from the light like rats fleeing a flood, out of the pool and into the fog. Vera was thrown back.

She woke up with a scream, recoiling so violently from the dark force that she fell out of bed, thudding on the ground. For a moment she didn't know where she was, but the walls of her bedroom were familiar, the bookshelf packed with all her favorite nonfictions and a few secret historical fictions and the quilt her mother had bought her at that one farmer's market. This was her home, an apartment above the bookstore, reality. Downstairs there were boxes of Dreadnaught waiting to be unpacked and in the refrigerator there were a dozen eggs she'd bought the day before. She'd woken up, the fog was far away, and she was safe.

Crona, however, was not. Something was wrong with him- more than just a lost memory, and it had everything to do with the Panacea. That thing had gotten into his mind and now it was in his body too. She needed to go tell… someone- Professor Stein. Vera kicked off the sheets and started barefoot towards the door. Then she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the little mirror over the key rack and paused. She looked (rather like she felt) disheveled. Another memory came unbidden too her mind: Soul's fingers tracing up her spine as he zipped her dress at the party. The feeling of his warm, muscular chest on her cheek as he held her after a nightmare. Flushing with a mixture of shame and satisfaction, she inspected her reflection a little more closely. Ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to tame it.

"Stupid," she chastised herself after a moment of indulgent vanity. There was no time for this, she needed to go now. And yet… She grabbed a pair of pants and a hoodie from the floor, changed, and found a brush to run through the obstinate black strands. If Soul was there she'd look presentable and if he wasn't, well, she'd still look presentable. Not like she'd just gotten out of bed.


"How long have they been like this," Professor Stein probed Crona's lymph nodes with both his fingers and his questions. The pressure hurt, but Crona tolerated it. It didn't hurt that much more than just sitting there had with this much swelling.

"Early this morning, right Crona," Maka interjected from a safe distance. "They weren't like this when we went to bed."

"Yes, that's right," he confirmed, looking intently over the professor's shoulder. He didn't much care for this sort of clinical attention or the way this Franken Stein looked at him like a puzzle rather than a person. "I woke up feeling sick and they were like this."

"Interesting…"

"What is," asked Soul, placing a hand on Maka's battle tight shoulder and frowning at the Professor. He leaned back in his rolling chair, picked up a cigarette and placed it between his lips, staring into Crona's face. Crona looked down, pursing his lips and twisting his fingers in his lap. "What's interesting?"

"That this condition should've taken so long to develop. Assuming it is a response to the Madness. You had that experience yesterday, right?"

"Yes," confirmed Crona, still squirming. "After coffee, in the afternoon."

"You should've come to see me," chastised Stein, letting a hiss of smoke out the side of his mouth. "I would've liked to have run tests."

"What would you have hoped to find," Crona shot back. "The Black Blood hardened in a combat situation, Maka's blood kept the Madness from taking over, everything worked as expected."

"Did it? When I analyzed your blood I found evidence of magical proteins, but the wavelength was shifted from Crona's. You are alike in every other regard; I should've tested you to see how the Black Blood responded. Instead you went home and now your immune system is reacting violently to something."

"It has to be the Madness. Nothing else has happened."

Professor Stein opened his mouth to present what was no doubt a clever and compelling counterargument, but at that moment Marie's face poked in from the main house, smiling a strained, apologetic smile.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said through gritted teeth. She opened her mouth to finish when the source of her irritation became apparent.

"Oh for fuck's sake, they know who I am!"

Vera pushed her way into the room, her stout body worming easily past Marie's tall form. Her hoodie had a coffee stain just above the kangaroo pouch, her jeans were ripped at the inner thigh, and her hair had kinks in it that suggested she'd slept on it strangely. Her amber eyes glinted like opals in the sterile light and Soul felt his heart rate surge just a little at the sight of her. Crona's dark eyes slid sideways to inspect her, narrowing. Their first encounter had not been exactly pleasant and, as she met his stare with an accusatory ferocity, he expected this would be no better. Maka scowled at her.

"What do you want," she snapped, folding her arms across her chest. Vera opened her mouth, then closed it again. Maka had no patience this morning, least of all for Vera. "Well!?"

"I… um…" Vera broke eye contact with Crona and moved her gaze to Soul, imploringly. Now that she was here she didn't want to say it. "I saw something last night- remembered something."

"Something about Crona," Soul encouraged, keeping his place at Maka's side. She went rigid next to him and he reached out to her, grabbing her elbow. Vera nodded, raking her teeth across her lower lip.

"About the Panacea."

"We destroyed that thing," Maka scoffed. "We burnt it to ash."

"But it did something to him-" she gestured to Crona, who tucked his chin and shied away. "Something to Crona."

"We've been over this before," said Stein, taking her intrusion in stride. "You can't tell us details. What is so urgent now?"

"Last night I saw… something." She came into the room and busied herself with straightening the dissection instruments on one of the silver trays. "It was the Panacea and it did… something… to Crona."

Slime around his neck, pressing against his lips. A force on each wrist, constrictive, pulling him to his knees. He felt fear, but is was distant and dulled. All that mattered was the cold white light. The will that had displaced his own.

Crona closed his eyes and shuddered. No one noticed; their attention had moved to Vera.

"Something? That's very descriptive," mocked Maka, her emerald gaze hard and angry.

"It put something inside him, okay," Vera snapped, bringing her fist onto the tray and causing the shining implements to jump and clatter. "It pushed itself down his throat and put something inside him! I don't know what it was!"

The feeling of cold in his flesh, of choaking, barely being able to breathe. Skin stretched to accommodate the… what was it? It wasn't for him though; there was something he was supposed to do. He gagged around the intruder. He wanted to struggle but couldn't.

Crona stood up abruptly, refocusing the room's attention on him. He didn't care though. He needed to be out of there.

"Crona, what-"

"I don't want to hear this," he said, balling his fists. "You can listen if you want, but I don't want to hear this."

"It's okay," Marie interjected before they could respond, entering the room and placing her hands on Crona's shoulders. "You talk; I can watch Crona. I won't leave him alone, it's okay."

Crona didn't wait for confirmation but strode quickly from the room. On his way out he gave Vera a harsh, sideways look, as if she'd done something offensive. She narrowed her eyes at him silently, like she could tell he'd experienced something like memory. Like she knew with absolute certainty he was lying to himself about not being Crona, like she believed he knew what she was talking about and just pretended he didn't. Her accusations won out and he broke eye contact, inhaling deeply and trying to push the entire encounter from his mind. It didn't work; he still heard echoes inside his skull as Marie closed the lab door behind them and brought him into the kitchen.

"Would you like some tea," she offered, smiling that warm, maternal smile. He still didn't understand her affection for him; nevertheless, as he looked into her one golden eye he found himself softening.

"Yes, I would."

"What kind? I have Earl Grey, Chamomile, Peppermint, and, what is it, something with lemon."

"I don't know," answered Crona hesitantly. "I haven't tried tea yet, only coffee."

"We'll do the Chamomile then," she said brightly. "It's supposed to be soothing."

"Do you think I need soothing?"

He hadn't meant to bite and flushed immediately after, though she didn't seem to take offense. She turned her back on him and filled the kettle. Crona looked at her back, at her black and yellow dress and long, honey hair. He remembered the way she'd held him when they first met, with a fierce and desperate love he hadn't experienced anywhere else. And as he looked at her, working quietly in the kitchen, another feeling almost like a memory bubbled in his chest. He looked away quickly, refocusing his attention on a vase at the center of the table.

"Isn't it beautiful," Marie asked, looking over her shoulder and noticing his distraction. "Franken got it for me; red roses are so romantic. I prefer them in full bloom though, but I won't tell him that. It's nice enough just to get noticed, especially with so much happening. Really it's what you would expect from a husband, but that isn't always what happens."

Crona looked at the rose, with its petals still pressed tightly together, then up at Marie. At Mrs. Marie. Then he approached the table and pressed his fingers to the stem. A thorn pricked his flesh, but not enough to cause him to bleed, and with a thought he made the petals open. Marie put the kettle on the stove slowly and turned to him, giving him a concerned sort of quizzical look. He looked back at her, almost defiant, even though he'd meant the gesture to please her.

"Crona never did anything like that," she said after a moment, wiping water from her hands with a dish towel. "I didn't even know it was possible."

"Crona was afraid of magic," he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. He laced his fingers on the tabletop and looked at the rose. "He was afraid of the Pull, of Madness."

"You can't blame him for that," Marie chastised gently, keeping her distance.

"No, no he was right to be afraid. I don't like the Madness; it's like getting lost inside yourself. I understand now why he was so desperate to be free of it."

"Is that something you… remember?"

"Remember? No, I've read it in Crona's journals. And I've gathered as much from talking with his friends."

"Don't you think about him at all? Don't you wonder?"

There was a long moment where Marie looked at Crona and Crona looked at the rose. What he had done meant it would die sooner. The petals would wither and fall, but in the meantime it was, indeed, beautiful.

"I try not to," he finally confessed. "When I think about Crona I feel… sadness. More than that, there's loss, something important."

"Crona lost his partner recently-"

"I don't want to hear about it," he cut her off, pulling his hands into his lap and tightening them into fists. "It doesn't concern me."

"But it does," she insisted, pulling out the chair across from him and sitting down. "You can't study the Black Blood without Crona. Even if you're not him, as you claim, he was the original. Ultimately it's his emotions that control it."

"What if…" his eyes left the rose to meet her imploring, golden orb for just a second before falling back into his lap. "What if there was something else that could? Control the Black Blood I mean."

"Like Maka's Anti-Magic wavelength?"

"That stops it from… getting out of hand, but I mean control it, like Crona did."

"Control isn't the word I would use," she snorted disapprovingly. "More like the Madness controlled him; he was desperate to find a solution."

"The Panacea. That's the solution. It's in his journal."

"The Panacea… isn't what we'd hoped. It attacked Crona when they found it. It killed Ragnarok."

"But it is the solution to Madness. That's why it was made, to find a solution to the Pull. So witches could use magic without succumbing to Madness."

"Crona wished for that," Marie's voice was passive, her gaze drifting over his shoulder and back towards the lab. "But magic is like the Black Blood; it can only be contained."

"And yet there are witches who don't experience the Pull," insisted Crona. "You have one at this school. Their magical wavelengths are shifted and don't induce Madness; isn't it possible to do the same thing with the Black Blood?"

"Now you really do sound like Crona. The truth is I don't know. But I'm afraid you can't. For all this science that both Crona and my husband so adore, I think there are certain unpleasant realities that make us who we are. For Crona, and for most witches, Madness is one of them."

"Other people have Black Blood and they're fine. Why am I different?"

"Yes, Soul, Vera, those people in the Death City psychiatric hospital, they all have Black Blood. But their blood isn't black, yours is, and they don't control it either."

"But what if they could?"


Eric sat in his "room" silently, on the edge of the bed with his fingers interlaced. There was no moon tonight and the city polluted most of the stars. Yet Death City Hospital was tucked in a dark corner of the city, and the psychiatric ward faced outward towards the desert, so the orange lamp light didn't filter onto his pillow like it had at home. Here there was just the dark night sky, flecked with stars too weak to make up constellations and the occasional planet. Cold lights far away from here, from him. Not that this was new; all light had seemed cold to him since that night. For over a year now starlight, sunlight, artificial light, it all felt so cold. Like he was the corps, not his brother, walking around waiting for a chance to die.

Joey… He'd been warm, stupidly so, smiles and shouts and toy robots. Or dinosaurs. Like any little boy, like Eric himself had been. Maybe he was a little old to be playing with toys, but no one really cared. Not really. At the end of the day they were just happy to have Joey, the happy child, the one who made everyone's day better. If Joey was the sun Eric had been the moon, glum, dark, prone to morbid thoughts about the nature of violent death even before tragedy had struck. He'd thought about the dinosaurs, but were Joey saw miraculous biodiversity Eric had thought mostly of their brutality. The massive jaws of predators orders of magnitude bigger than what was around today. Masses that clashed and crushed bones, sheared flesh. And their final, abrupt end which came with a swiftness that was vicious nevertheless. He'd grown out of dinosaurs quickly and Joey had inherited the models.

Next came the fascination with serial killers. Everyone likes serial killers, but not the way Eric did. Their total disregard for life, the ultimate act of control they savored when they took that life like plucking a flower from a field. Eric didn't think he could do it- didn't really want to do it, but he felt like he understood it. Not because people had no worth, but because they were so horrible. Ungrateful. Sometimes he hated people with a passion that couldn't be put into words, thought about hurting them, but then there was Joey who was so kind and good. His little brother diffused his rage and reminded him that there was such a thing as goodness. Then he was screaming in the flames and it was all over.

Eric had always been cruel, vicious, but controlled. He'd let it stay under his skin, the irrational, wishful fantasies of a person who was fundamentally normal. Viciousness, cruelty, these are things that are fundamentally normal, parts of every person. Urges we suppress because we're a social species that survives through cooperation. Because we have to. Because we have little lights in our lives that are worthy of kindness, that inspire us to rise above our wretched nature to be people instead of animals. Fixated with the shearing of flesh but not taking joy in it. Killing to survive, but not acting vindictive in doing so. Virtuous. Human. We all have a reason to be good, someone who gives us hope for a better world. Then in a single firestorm it can all be gone. Just like that the reason to not be cruel and vicious disappears and you're left with your base nature.

But the violence of it matters. To die normally, a regular, mundane death is to find peace. To depart from the chaos of this world. When you get ripped out of it, screaming in a fire, you get trapped. The part that is you can't leave, it gets stuck in a place where the violence that defined death shapes reality. Hell for people who died without peace. And you're alone, no one you love is with you in the suffering. That's what Eric knew had happened to Joey; that kind, stupid kid with his stupid plastic robots and dinosaurs was stuck in an eternity of hellfire, always screaming. The conclusion was obvious: Eric had to go in after him. Even if they both ended up damned, at least he wouldn't be alone.

If Joey had simply died in a fire it would've been easy. That wasn't the case though; Joey had been murdered. Someone had set that fire and that someone had been Crona. He could still see the silhouette, membraned wings of Black Blood spread wide across the sky, those vacant, ice blue eyes. He could hear his hollow voice, telling him he'd come back later to kill him. Only he never did. They talked about that a lot in therapy, about how fixated he was on being murdered by Crona. They said he manipulated the others with talk of vengeance, formed a suicide pact with them. And the rest of them agreed. They felt manipulated by Eric, that they wouldn't have come to their conclusions without him. Eric felt they were shifting the blame, that they never really wanted to bail their loved ones out of purgatory. They were never committed, but he didn't need them to be. He'd just needed them to get Crona. He had to be murdered violently by the same person that murdered Joey if he ever wanted to see his brother again, no one else had to die. They could if they wanted to, but they were also welcome to simple vengeance. It was more than that for Eric and he'd said as much in therapy. Neither the group leader nor his personal psychiatrist had taken kindly to that, to his insistence on the futility of existence and that now, without Joey, he was just a monster that needed to be put down. A monster with Black Blood at that; a parting gift from Crona.

His peers were "making progress" but he wasn't. This "room" wasn't a room at all, it was a cell. A place they kept him until they could either convert him or until he wasted away to nothing, whichever came first. Either way, his dream, his one reason for persisting, had left when Crona had gotten away. He would never save Joey. He would never be a person again.

There was a click at the end of the hall and Eric looked up from his sulking. It was late, 2:17 am according to the red characters on his digital clock, and everyone else was asleep. Drug induced sleep "to help with the nightmares and anxiety;" Eric would have no part of it. He was noncompliant, and thus awake to hear the click. He narrowed his eyes and wondered, was it more of a snap or a pop? It was a strange sound he'd never heard before. The LED light outside his cell flickered as a crackling electricity surged in its socket and he stood. There was silence outside. He got up and moved to the door to peer through the little window. The glass had a network of wire mesh imbedded in it, but it was clear enough for him to tell that, at the other end of the hallway, on the other side of that door there was someone peering back at him. Staring with eyes illuminated by the same cold light as the rest of the night.

The clicking sound came again and the eyes were closer, in a tall, lean figure wearing a robe. On this side of the door separating the resident's rooms from the common area. Eric's room was at the end of the hall such that only he could see this figure. This specter. Where were the security guards? Wasn't one of them supposed to be watching that door? Again the sound and then the figure was upon him, right on the other side of the door. Their eyes met through the glass, vibrant green against glowing white, and he jumped back, falling hard on the ground. Panic rushed through his veins and constricted his muscles, making him at once battle tight and completely immobilized. Once more the sound cracked through the air and then the figure was standing before him.

"C-Crona," Eric croaked, shaking his head and frowning. He was so shocked only stupid questions came to mind. "What are you doing? H- How did you get in here?"

Crona did not respond, or even acknowledge that he had spoken. At least not directly. His bright gaze shifted downwards, so brilliant it cast his angular face into shadow, and in a single, sharp motion. Eric was thrown back as if a strong wind had knocked him over. His back hit the tile floor with so much force he gasped for air. There was a compression on his chest like someone was sitting on it and no matter how hard he tried he could neither sit up nor move his hands to fight back. It was crushing. The sounds of Crona's footsteps seemed to echo over the pathetic noises of Eric trying to breathe. Then there was a rustle of cloth an Crona straddled his chest. Placed a hand on either side of his head and leaned downward.

"What are you-" Eric tried to yell, but two things prevented him: first, the prodigious weight on his lungs preventing them from filling with air and second, that same force that was compressing him into the ground grabbing his jaws and pulling them apart. The hinge joint sin his skull sprung loose and he let out a gurgling scream that no one could hear.

Crona leaned in, his face completely vacant like his glowing eyes, and stretched his mouth wide, holding it close to Erics. From it a tendril of fungal, off white mass extended, stretching the skin across Crona's throat as it exited. Lethargically, as if to savor his horror, it entered Eric's mouth, slimy and body-temperature warm. Eric let out a muffled scream before the tendril silenced his vocal cords, pushing its way into his body. Then Crona released him and he rolled over, coughing and sputtering. He felt wrong, sick, tingling and hot. The sensation of magic saturating his body, his cells, changing them. It was fast, whatever it was, and disorienting, preventing him from standing or even moving. His head was spinning and splitting and then something else inside him rose to meet the intruder. Thorns in his gut, in his blood. Pikes puncturing his skin. Eric screamed as best he could, but inside he felt like laughing. As the thorns tore him apart his last coherent thought was that he'd finally gotten what he wanted. A violent death at Crona's hands.