The Face of Iron Chapter 4: Nightmares, a soul eater fanfic

Guys, I sincerely apologize for the month-long (or was it longer) wait that you have completed to write this chapter of the story. School has been torture for me (straight As can be hard to keep), and other stuff has been keeping my schedule full. I hope to pop the next chapter out as quickly as I can. Thank you for your patience.

Chapter 4: Nightmares

He was walking down a dirt path. The music led him further into the forest. It was nice, a bright day. The music was cheerful, joyous. He smelled the sweet breeze as it wafted by him, blowing his hair out of his face. His face. He reached up, felt it. Whole and complete. Huh. No metal there. Nothing cold or hard. He smiled. Could it be he was being forgiven? Sighing, he sat down on a tree trunk by the path. Surely he could stop for a moment.

Suddenly, pain. Screaming, searing pain, running through his head. The music stopped as he grabbed the area around his ears in a desperate hope of stopping the agony. The pain centered on the side of his face. He felt a sharp edge. Something was cutting down the side of his cheek. He closed his eyes, prayed for it to stop. And then, tearing. The same something was ripping his face clean from his head.

He panicked, and

Blithe's eyes snapped open. He was sitting cross-legged on a water tower in Death City. He felt no pain. Feeling his face, he saw that one side was solid iron. Back to normal. It was still night time, judging from the stars shining brightly down at him, a crescent moon smiling from the sky. Blithe relaxed. Surely he could get some rest, not being disturbed. Closing his eyes, he continued his meditation.

A ballroom. A completely empty ballroom. The boy stood in the middle of the room, looking around for a dance partner. Soft music was coming from nowhere to be seen. No one else was around. Blithe sighed, saddened by his lonesomeness. A voice whispered from somewhere.

"Come find me. I'll help the pain stop."

Looking up, the boy smiled bravely. Someone to help? Really? Maybe if he followed the voice, he would find someone to dance with. That would be nice. The boy walked through a set of open doors, the only doors leading out of the ballroom.

Upon looking back, the boy realized that the doors were gone. No doors, no ballroom. This gave Blithe mixed feelings. No place to dance? That's sad. Turning back to the corridor he was walking down, he saw a trio of red eyes staring straight at him

and woke up again.Kishin. The word resounded in his head. He had a Kishin in his vision. Blithe frowned, rubbing his temples. Obviously this was not to be a quick night. He decided to stay in the real world for a while. Blithe lay on the tower on his back, looking up at the stars. The constellations brought back memories. Good memories of a past time.

She was the only one he ever spent time with before. She was a weapon. He was not. They made a great team, working together to rid the world of all things unholy to the cause of the Shinigami. Though they were not technically students at the DWMA, they still worked hard to be just like them. When night came, they used to camp out under the stars, naming the constellations they saw. It was a good time, while it lasted. They loved to dance.

Good memories. Too bad they had to end. Opening his eyes, he stared blankly up towards the moon. God, it sure looked like it was grinning. This world is so welcoming for such a dreary place. So much bad stuff happens to people, and they can let it go for a while. Why do I have to carry on this burden like I have been for so long?

Immediately, Blithe felt guilty. Forget everything that had happened? Impossible. That would simply be insulting his duties as himself. Blithe sat up, rubbing his head. The cold metal of the right side of his face brushed against his hand, and he flinched. He still remembered the pain he had experienced that day.

NO! The boy ran down a seemingly endless hallway, chasing a drifting slice of hope that was rapidly escaping his grasp. It floated just outside of his reach, jumping away from him when he lunged at it. There was no way he could catch it. No hope...

What a dumb metaphor. Blithe snapped back into reality with that thought in his head. But I can't let it go. These feelings, these imprints of the past, are what keep me alive, keep me sane.

The moon was setting over Death City. It was tinged in red as it set, as if blood was dripping down its face. Goodness, everything is so morbid for me. Blithe lay back down on the roof of the water tower.

What a night. Barely any rest. Maybe I should go for some real sleep one of these days. I remember that the dreams were not half as vivid in sleep as they are in meditation. Maybe...

Maka noted that Blithe seemed more tired than usual in the past couple of days. He did tell me that he never slept; only meditated. Could it be that he doesn't get enough rest from meditation?

Dr. Stein asked Blithe to stay after class that day. Goodness, he really must need to talk to him. Either that or he's just itching to dissect the poor kid. Maka, though she knew it might be a bad idea, decided to stay outside the door to listen in on the conversation.

The class went by pretty smoothly. Stein had set up the year's 5th biology unit that day, and they all worked at dissection labs for the most of the day. Maka was partnered up with both Soul and Blithe, who was paired up with her by Stein, as nobody else had wanted to work with him.

After class was over and everybody but Blithe had left the room, Maka leaned on the classroom door from the outside, listening to what was happening on the other side.

She first heard the voice of the professor: "Has anything been bothering you recently? You seem slightly disturbed by something these days. There is something unsettling about you. Well, actually, the cloak might add to that. Might I ask you why you wear it?"

Blithe's cold, deep voice resounded next: "None of that is any of your concern, professor. I think that it is important for me to keep these things to myself. Please respect that. Have a nice day."

The door flew open, pushing Maka back. Blithe stared at her for a couple of seconds, as if probing her for something, then swept past her down the hallway. Dr. Stein looked out at Maka. "What a creepy fellow," he remarked before shutting the door.

Blithe stalked the streets of Death City. All around him, he felt eyes boring into his mind, his soul. Those eyes of people, who feel pity, who feel anger, who feel fear. Directed at him, a well of negative emotions. How can I continue to live like this, a paranoid fool who causes those around him to wither? He stormed down his alley, climbed up to his spot on the water tower.

Looking out on the city, he felt only hatred towards those who pitied him. Only hatred towards those who saw him as a twisted being, unlike everyone else. If only it were not true. If only...

Maka's view

After the incident with Stein, Blithe seems more and more miserable. He hides from people's view during class, slouches. He even stopped glaring at everyone. Man, the boy is an emotional fountain. How strange.