A Look Through the Doll's Eyes: Across the city, another man is running. He isn't running to find something, but find it he will. He is running from something, but with every step he draws closer to it. He is chasing and chased. He is haunted by a ghost with red eyes, a ghost far too real. The sky burns for him, but it does not lead the way. The stars will collide as they run headlong at each other, and over Hell's Gate they will fall.

The world was a wheeling drumbeat. Blood pulsed behind his eyes and all he could feel were his feet against the pavement. Street corners rose and fell in front of him as he turned, whirled, crashed through the dormant city like a tidal wave. It had been days since Ludwig had slept and through his tired eyes each street looked the same. Same old filth. Same empty-eyed buildings, vacant and horrified, watching as he sped through the derelict alleyways. It was like he had never left.

Everything dredged up memories, like the broken hull of a ship resurfacing through the crash of waves. The bones of a past life rose above the tide of his pounding heart with every step. The memories came in flashes. With the distant sound of a slamming door came the tired footsteps of his father, as a small boy watched through the keyhole. It brought forth the skittering of his father's badge across the table, the tired sigh of the couch, the clanking of beer bottles in the fridge. It brought forth his brother's hand on his shoulder, gently turning him away from the door and steering him back to bed. The crash of a garbage can in some shadowed alley dredged up the sound of laughter racing across fire escapes. It brought forth skinned knees and stick swords, gap-toothed smiles and bright red eyes. It brought with it stories, stories of heroes and monsters whispered to him on the dark nights when his father didn't come home, when the house was dark and empty except for his brother's voice. The images and sounds sank again under his racing pulse and labored breath.

He was running again, like always. He couldn't tell anymore where he was heading; he was just trying to outrun the memories which raced behind him through this city of his childhood like a flood of water. He wouldn't let them take him under again. He would leave them all behind. But a wailing siren a few streets away conjured more images: the breaking of glass, the slamming of a door and the screeching of tires. They brought forth the stories again, whispered more like a prayer than anything else as the boys huddled together in their room. The flashing red lights dragged with them the curt knocking at the door and the officer with the stern face and sad eyes who had patted him gently on the shoulder when the words didn't make sense. "He's gone." "Killed on duty." "We're so sorry." The lights of the siren summoned the anger and fear and disbelief in his brother's red eyes at those words. The words had fallen over him as he had reached out for a hand to hold, for his brother's voice to fill up the empty house, for stories and bright red eyes, but all he had found was an open window, a sky full of false stars, and a house full of silence.

Ludwig skidded around a corner and nearly slammed into a pile of rubble. The impact brought him back to the present as he surveyed the destruction around him. Most of the buildings in the shadow of the Wall had fallen into disrepair but this was far more than the decay of disuse. The street signs lay in a twisted heap at his feet. Metal pipes broke through the cracked sidewalk like grasping fingers. The asphalt had erupted around them as if they had been pushed up from the sewer system below. The city was dark in the Wall's shadow, but thin streaks of oily light from distant buildings trickled across the forest of pipes. Ludwig froze, suddenly tense, and reached slowly for the gun at his hip. He'd made too much noise; he shouldn't have come barreling through the city like this. A pebble skidded across the ground behind him.

"I didn't think you'd come." The voice breaking the silence was gruff, biting. Ludwig whirled around and was met with red eyes in the darkness. "I've been sending out invitations for a while now, didn't think it would take you this long." A pale form detached from the shadows of the surrounding buildings and glided forwards. Ludwig took a step back, instinctively squaring himself off and leveling the barrel of his gun at the man's chest. "You've gotten taller." Ludwig grunted and clicked off the safety.

"Stay in the light and keep your hands where I can see them." His voice sounded so small reverberating through the empty night. He was just a child again with those red eyes staring at him, a child lost and alone in the vast city.

"That's it? After all this time, we're still playing cops and robbers? I thought you'd have grown up a bit, little brother. Over ten years and nothing ever changes." The man stepped closer and raised his arms, pale hands outstretched. His long coat billowed over the rubble like smoke.

"No, there you're wrong. Everything's changed."

"Oh God, what do you want from me Ludwig?"

"An explanation would be a start." He kept the gun between them as the man—not his brother, not anymore—walked closer to the light.

"You want a pretty story, is that it? You want a happy ending, a just reason for all of this?" He waved his arms at the twisted rubble around them. "This is life, Ludwig. Wake up. This isn't a story. We aren't heroes. We just try to survive, and that's what I did, what I had to do, for both of us."

"He's dead. He died for this, protecting us from those monsters, and this is how you repay him."

"I had nothing to do with that," he growled. Static sparked through his white hair as two pinpricks of light ignited in his eyes.

"You ran away. You're just like the rest of them. My family died that night. All of them." Ludwig was screaming, and the more desperate his voice grew the tighter he clutched to the gun in his hands.

"I'm right here Ludwig." He pounded at his chest. His white hair whipped about his face. "All you do is chase ghosts, but there's nothing for you to find. He's gone. I left so that you'd have the choice, and look what you've done with it. You're so obsessed with fighting monsters that you've become one. We're the same, you and I. All we are is killers. You're just too blind to see it."

"Stop it." Ludwig screamed. His whole body was shaking.

"I don't want to hurt you, Ludwig. Really." The air was humming with electricity as they stared each other down through the forest of metal. The pipes themselves were groaning and creaking under the strain.

"You're too late for that. You made that choice."

"Then I hope you've made yours." The electric humming rose to an unbearable whine as light erupted around the man. Ludwig pulled the trigger. His brother raised one hand and the bullet burst apart like water against rock. The pipes around them began to twist, and with a shriek of metal they came to life. Ludwig barely dodged as they rushed towards him, crashing back through the pavement.

The pavement to his left exploded as another writhing metal snake darted towards him. The pipe crashed straight into his chest, sending him flying backwards and skidding across the pavement. More pipes speared the pavement, clawing their way closer to him as he scrambled to his feet. His brother advanced slowly, calmly, a white spark barely visible inside the thrashing mass of metal that now encircled him. Ludwig raised his gun again, firing into the midst of the shrieking metal. Sparks flew as the bullet bounced off of the pipes and Ludwig barely had a moment before the ground at his feet erupted in a shower of asphalt. The buildings around them groaned as iron supports were pulled towards the glowing figure. A street sign flew by him, slicing across his side as it crashed into the heaving mass of metal. Ludwig let out a cry and toppled forwards. All around him was the shriek of metal on metal, but in the midst of the chaos he heard a scream. Through the frenzy he saw his brother stretch his hand forward, eyes wide and panicked.

"Run Ludwig," his brother screamed over the cacophony.

Gilbert," Ludwig cried out. But the writhing mass swallowed his brother again. He could barely make out over the roar as one last time his brother screamed,

"Run."