WARNING: Mention of Non-con, Nudity, and Murder. Not much detail, but wanted to warn ya.
He groaned, his head hurting like a bitch. Where was he again? Oh yeah, he had just had his hand go through a . . . GHOST! Alfred jolted awake to find himself in the large bed that he had seen when entering the room. The blankets were soft from lack of use, and the pillow felt freshly plumped.
"About time you bloody woke up you git. I've been here for at least ten minutes waiting for those childish eyes of yours to open," Arthur snapped from where he sat at the piano. He was looking at a few of the papers that lay scattered around the room.
"How?"
"Some big fellow told me he put you down in the bed after finding you passed out on the floor. Said he was the housekeeper until the sisters came to celebrate the holidays at their childhood home," the Brit explained, placing one of the papers aside.
Alfred blinked, "Big guy?"
"Yeah. He wore a tweed cap and a matching tweed coat that went down to his shins with leather cloves and this giant scarf that went down to the back of his knees. The guy was huge, easily over six feet, but the guy seemed friendly enough."
"Huh . . ." He stood up, shaking slightly, "What time is it?"
"Seven in the evening, which means the snow is freezing to ice and the sun has called it quits."
Alfred noticed his boots were taken off and laid neatly beside the bed. Odd. Even so, he put them on and stuffed his pants into them, "Then we best be heading home. What were you looking at by the way?"
Arthur held up a few pages, the writing was elegant and painstakingly placed to perfection, as though the writing was much more difficult than it would appear. One thing Alfred noticed was that there were no words crossed out, but deliberately placed. This was odd, since it was a small child writing music. Even Beethoven crossed the shit out of his papers that he'd need to fix it up on separate sheets. There were no scratch marks on any of the compositions. It was very odd. Taking the papers, he flipped through them until he saw one was of the songs Katyusha had sung the night before. What was it titled again? The Poet and the Pendulum.
The end
The songwriter's dead
The blade fell upon him
Taking him to the white land
of empathica, of innocence
empathica, innocence
The dreamer and the wine
Poet without a rhyme
A widowed writer, torn apart by chains of Hell
One last perfect verse
Is still the same old song
Oh Christ, how I hate what I have become
Take me home
Get away, run away, fly away
Lead me astray, to dreamer's hideaway
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die
Forgive me, I have but two faces
One for the world,
One for god, save me,
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die
My home was there and then, those meadows of heaven
Adventure-filled days,
one with every smiling face
Please, no more words
Those from a seventh hell
No more praise, tell me once my heart goes right
Take me home
Get away, run away, fly away
Lead me astray, to dreamer's hideaway
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die
Forgive me, I have but two faces
One for the world,
One for god, save me,
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die
Sparkle my scenery
with turquoise waterfalls
With beauty underneath
the ever free
Tuck me in
Beneath the blue
Beneath the pain
Beneath the rain
good night kiss for a child in time
swaying blade, my lullaby
On the shore we sat and hoped
Under the same pale moon
whose guiding light chose you
chose you all
Getaway, runaway, fly away
Lead me astray to dreamer's hideaway
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die
Forgive me
I have but two faces
One for the world
One for God
Save me
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die
Today, in the year of our Lord,
Tuomas was called from the cares of the world.
He stopped crying at the end of each beautiful day.
The music he wrote had too long been without silence.
Be still, my son
You're home
Oh when did you become so cold?
The blade will keep on descending
All you need is to feel my love
Search for beauty, find your shore
Try to save them all, bleed no more
You have such oceans within
In the end
I will always love you.
It was a depressing song that made him want to cry as he heard her beautiful voice in his mind once more. Suddenly he noticed indents in the paper. He turned it over to find hurried writing that slurred in half print, half cursive and frantic.
I'm afraid, I'm so afraid
He was in a dark hallway, there was no light except for gas lanterns, and some didn't burn. It was cold. Suddenly he found himself in a dark room with a small, barred window. Barbed wire decorated the steel. Still, a small boy with ashen hair gripped them tightly, the spines digging deep into his palms and black blood trailing down them in the night. It was cold. Colder than anything he had ever felt. The boy in front of him wore clothes that seemed to be falling apart. The only thing that was exceptionally taken car of was the long scarf that was wrapped around him snuggly. Ivan.
Being raped, again and again and again
The room turned to gray before him before he found himself somewhere, following this child through time. The child was no more than eight, but his hands were tied behind his back as someone in the shadows behind him performed absolute atrocities.
I know I will die alone, but loved
It changed once more, back in the little cell. The scarf around his neck and shoulders keeping him warm in the blizzard, and it was meant to be more than literal. He looked down to the carefully stitched pattern. His face reflected agony and melancholy, but not a tear left those beautiful, determined violet eyes.
You live long enough to hear the sound of guns,
long enough to find yourself screaming every night,
long enough to see your friends betray you.
Another boy, his hair was black in the moonless dark, perhaps brown in the light, conversed with Ivan. His dark hair reached his shoulders and his green eyes shined in determination. Beside him, there was a blonde with scared, timid emerald eyes. The two seemed to be close. He could see the defiant gleam in the two taller boys' eyes, but the blonde looked doubtful.
Ivan waited at the window intently. There was no moon yet again, and the stars were lost in the sea of clouds. Suddenly, from the outside of the window, the boy from before, with the long brown hair, appeared. He had gotten out. Ivan's face broke into a gleeful grin. Oddly, there were no barbed wires on these bars. Obviously the brunet had escaped and came back to free him. The blonde sat still beside the scarf-clad boy. Sweat rolling down his forehead. The brunet had a manual bar-cutter. Alfred felt himself cheering, though he was not the one being held captive. Suddenly something caught their attention. Ivan waved the other away from the window and fled to his bed. The blonde was too shocked to move.
DAMN IT
A guard in the shadows stepped forward and glowered at the smaller boy, a whip in his large hands. Immediately the boy began crying and talking really fast. He could see Ivan's body under the covers stiffen. They were being ratted out; by a friend no less. Ivan's violet eyes became dark and stormy. They searched every which way before they rested on something concealed in the shadows of the courner. The guard cracked his whip against the small boy's back who cried out. Alfred could read his lips
'I swear, I swear, I swear.'
Then Ivan was behind the guard. He had gotten much taller, he could have been a short thirteen or fourteen, but he still had the round face of a child that made him look like a really tall ten year old. In his hands: a lead pipe. He swung and it impacted the guard right at the base of his neck. He fell unceremoniously to the ground, but Ivan kept swinging until the man's skull was nothing but a meshed pool of bone, brain, and blood. The brunet reappeared in the window and finished cutting the bars off. Ivan pushed the blonde through before jumping through himself. They ran away from wherever it was they were held. They ran from Hell through the snow as it seemed to fall in congratulations.
As they seemed to be home free, the first sound Alfred heard through this entire transaction was the sound of a gunshot. He jumped just as Ivan fell to the ground, clutching his shin, blood pooling through his pale fingers. The two other boys stopped and went to pick them up. He could hear their voices now.
"No!" Ivan hissed as they headed back for him, "Keep going! I'll slow you down."
"But Ivan-," the brunet started
"Keep going you idiots! They'll be here soon. Two-out-of-three, remember that rule Toris? You were the one who came up with that one. Two-out-of-three is what we need to prove that this can be done."
"Ivan . . ."
"Come on Toris!" the blonde whined, pulling at the brunet's sleeve, "He's, like, going to pull a hero stunt, just let him! We can totally make it like this!"
The two taller boys shared gazes for a moment before Toris nodded, "Alright, We'll go in a different direction and you lead them off the best you can."
"Da. Go."
"Come one Feliks." And the two changed their direction to head off to the right while Ivan slowly struggled to his feet and made off in the direct opposite direction, his left leg dragging behind him painfully as blood dyed the snow red. Boots came from behind him and Alfred made to turn, but the image had faded. Ivan was captured.
For years I've been strapped unto this altar.
Now I only have 3 minutes and counting.
I just wish the tide would catch me first and give me a death I always longed for.
Ivan sat in the cell with the barbs over the steel bars. He was waiting to be executed. The door opened and a man in the shadows stood threateningly at the threshold. Ivan looked at the man, a broad smile on his face. Beside him was a small piece of paper with a piece of charcoal, pushed off to the side for the final time.
Everyone must bury their own
No pack to bury the heart of stone
Now he's home in hell, serves him well
Slain by the bell, tolling for his farewell
Save me
I cannot cry 'cause the shoulder cries more
I cannot die, I, a whore for the cold world
Save me!
Alfred felt a hand placed on his shoulder and sound was coming back.
"Alfred! Alfred, are you alright? What's wrong?" Arthur shouted, shaking him roughly to snap him out of the stupor he was in. His blue eyes blinked rapidly as he came back from the nightmare that wasn't his. His head throbbed painfully, and he groaned, burying it in his arms.
Arthur sighed, somewhat relaxed that he hadn't died on him or something, "You bloody git, you zoned out staring at the paper. You've been standing stiff as a statue for five minutes."
Five minutes! He had been bouncing back and forth in time all in five minutes! He had witnessed the agony of the boy he was looking for and the anguish of more all in five minutes! "Oh god. W-we need to stop by at the sisters' apartment. And show this to them. Like, now."
"Why?"
He handed the paper to his friend who read over it, his green eyes widening, "This-this is a note. It's not just a song. This is- . . ."
They exited the house, careful to lock the door of the house and jumped into the car before making their way down the street. "There is another concert tonight, so we'll head them off at the theatre."
"Alright, fine by me."
'Save me. He wrote this while imprisoned? How is that so? How- The paper? But his captors would never mail it out of the goodness of their heart. So . . . the ghost.'
"You still believe in ghosts, right Arthur?" Alfred asked, watching the town fly past as though he was stepping back in time.
"Yeah. And?"
"I think I saw Ivan. And I think he's dead."
A/N: Oh snap that was totally spoilerific. Still have mystery going people, like who did it? Heeheehee, you won't know that for a while, and Alfred still needs to get into contact with Ghost Ivan. And Arthur still has his ability to see ghosts whether they want him to or not. And the lyrics have been edited the hell out of. Sorry~. Fits, no?
Next Chapter: Alfred makes contact with the little ghost, who proves not to be so little.