He was not sure how long he waited there staring in disbelief before finally leaning back, lips parted and quivering.
No.
Denial clouded over his mind.
Shiro wasn't dead. Shiro couldn't be dead.
He had just heard Shiro seconds before, calling him. Shiro wasn't dead.
But he couldn't force his eyes away from the corpse.
The body of his friend, his mentor, his leader.
His brother.
The Galra had found him.
The evidence was etched into the Black Paladin's armor, dirtied, dented, scraped almost beyond recognition. His cybernetic arm was twisted underneath him, the hand snapped back at the wrist.
His helmet was nowhere in sight, allowing the marred skin of his face to be seen, only the reddened lock of white hair slightly obscuring it from view.
The details grew sharper the longer his eyes lingered.
Shiro was dead.
And it was all his fault.
"Red Paladin."
The voice no longer sounded like Shiro's. It was a different voice all together.
It was thin, raspy, almost ghost-like as it floated across the room. And it seemed to push against him, a wind-like phantom sending chills down his spine.
Keith recoiled as he felt it press against the back of his neck like a sharp cold hand, biting into his flesh.
"You killed Shiro," it purred into his ear, sickeningly content in its tone.
"No! I-I didn't-" he gasped. "This-this never happened!" A wave of pain rippled its way through his head causing his eyes to well up as he spoke."He's not dead. He can't be dead!"
Patience yields focus! Patience yields focus! Patienceyieldsfocus!
He didn't even know what he was trying to say anymore, or what he thought.
Or if it even mattered anymore.
"You killed them all!"
"No," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut as the tears began to roll down his cheeks, his head burning with the barely suppressed emotions, still in denial.
But he knew it was true, somehow he could sense it.
If Shiro was gone, the rest of them were too.
"Cut off the head and the body falls," the voice chimed as if reading his thoughts.
The remains of the darkness drifted away like fog, revealing the rest of the floor before him, littered with bodies.
The bodies of his friends.
Keith nearly choked, his focus immediately jerking away from the carnage, afraid to move. But he could still see it through the corner of his eye.
It wasn't going to disappear.
No.
No.
NO!
He felt like screaming, but his mouth refused to cooperate, his tongue stuck and dry. He could only turn back towards it, and take it in.
The bloodied mess he was responsible for.
Pidge.
Hunk.
Lance.
He only recognized them by the little amount of color that was visible beneath the grime and blood.
Their forms were all wrong.
Limbs twisted in ways that were horrifically unnatural, gaping wounds carved into them like holes, and everything was stained with blood.
Everything was red.
His color.
A deep, piercing pain seemed to whelm up suddenly from inside his chest as it heaved up and down, trying to keep up with his frantic breaths.
His vision drifted across the room, and his stomach clenched.
They were dead.
He killed them all.
The ones who were supposed to be his friends.
The ones who had grown to consider him family.
They were all gone because of him.
He wanted to throw up, but he was stuck there, staring as the disembodied voice hissed out a strange sort of laughter around the room, echoing back into his ears, throbbing, twisting, ripping through his head.
He wondered if the same fate had taken Allura and Coran.
He wondered if he killed them too.
If, somewhere, their bodies were lying mutilated and unburied.
Drenched in his color.
His color!
The color of blood!
His color that was inking against the floor, devouring it entirely in a liquid form of blood.
The Lions were probably gone too. Zarkon probably had them.
"You would have been an excellent Galra," the voice purred, the sound sinking its way into the air like some sort of foul acidic substance.
No.
He wanted to deny it, beat it, kill it, get up and strangle whatever it was!
He could feel his jaw locking in place, his fists balled by his sides, his face heating up, the sweat dribbling down the side of his cheek and past his chin, mingling with his tears.
But it was all his fault.
He would be fighting himself.
"No," he hissed, squeezing his eyes shut once again. "I'm-I'm not one of them."
You know that's a lie.
"No!" His hands were shaking again. "I didn't do this! I never wanted this to happen!"
"...Here!...Now…. the Lion!"
It's your fault they're all dead. You knew we were going to find them. We were looking for you, Paladin. And you lead us right to them.
You.
Killed.
Them.
No.
NO.
NO.
"Stop," he sobbed, his hands flying up to grip the sides of his head, fingers ripping through his hair. His nails dug into his scalp, but he didn't care.
He ignored the pain.
"Just stop! I-I didn't do those things! I was trying to-to help! I wanted them to be safe!"
It was as if everything he'd ever done was suddenly thrust back into face.
Defying orders.
Keeping secrets.
Putting others in danger.
It was all for himself.
His damn selfish ego.
And now the universe was getting back at him, mocking him and laughing because Keith Kogane was a fool who thought he could be more. Thought he could be part of something else. Something better.
"You'll never be like Shiro," the voice whispered. "He would be so disappointed in you. You're never going to be anything more than that to him."
A disappointment.
You could never be a leader.
You're a disappointment… to him, to them.
"You are a monster. Embrace it!"
The cloud of darkness seemed to creep forwards, ready to engulf him, along with the words spinning within his mind.
Keith flickered his eyes open, expecting the dark horror of the room again.
Instead, he found himself face to face to with a glowing pair of eyes, the glimmer of jagged teeth snarling down at him in a twisted smile.
Everything in his body instantly screamed for him to get away. To run. Run like the coward he was. But he could feel the pressure of clawed fingers as they latched onto his shoulders, holding him in place.
They wouldn't let go.
Panic raced through him, but he couldn't move away. He couldn't escape. He couldn't move!
The claws sank their way into his flesh. He could feel lukewarm trickle of blood dripping down his arms.
"I know where you are."
The voice that purred from the jagged mouth was enough to freeze his blood.
"I know where you are, Paladin. I can find you anywhere."
No!
He just wanted to get away. Away from the thing, the monster, the dark.
Himself.
He struggled to get his arms to move, but they didn't respond, being stuck in the vice grip of the thing looming over him.
Trails of sweat dripped down his temples.
"Help!" he tried to scream, but his voice was hardly more than a hoarse croak stuck in his throat.
Help!
Help!
Please! Oh God! someone! Help!
The pleas were desperate inside his mind.
But help wasn't coming. And he knew it.
"We have more in common than you think, Red Paladin," the voice continued, pulling Keith closer to itself, its icy breath licking his cheek.
Everyone else was gone.
Because he had failed. He had killed them.
The figure in the dark just stared down at him, smiling like it knew… and it probably did. That was probably why it was there.
"Join us, Paladin."
Keith closed his eyes one last time, waiting, begging for an end he knew wasn't coming.