Ever Present Voices

by Military Mechanic

He hears them, every time that he closes his eyes. The screaming, the howling, the cries for help and vengenance and for others to suffer. There is no one to protect him now. Just those voices, that echo constantly in Ryou's mind. Crying for him to take action, threatening him if he refuses, and they are always there. So he doesn't sleep and slowly, very slowly, he breaks.

3. Chapter 3

A/N: First off, I want to thank everyone for the wonderful reviews. Then, I want to let you all know that I'm still open for suggestions when it comes to pairings. :D

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"Help us," plead the voices, all hoarse and low and terrifying. Threatening like nothing else that Ryou has ever heard before, except that he hears these same words every time his eyes close.

Are his eyes closed?

Maybe. Maybe not.

He doesn't know. Just like he doesn't know who is talking or where he is. Just that it's dark, so dark, completely dark. Dark enough that, in his mind, a different word should be used to describe the chasm that he suddenly finds himself in.

Black is better, because that is the only color that Ryou can see.

Just black.

"Help us get free." hisses another voice, and this time it's right in the young boy's ear - only, in that moment, he feels very old instead of his meager sixteen years.

Or maybe he isn't sixteen any more, but sixty. Six hundred. Six thousand. Numbers fill his mind, and with them come years and memories that aren't his.

Houses burning; bright flames licking at a black sky.

People screaming; loud and pained and ever-present.

Pain everywhere; lacing through his limbs, his heart, his very mind.

Ryou cannot tell if those visions are real or not. If they are his or not. If that hand resting heavily on his shoulder, even though it's all bones and blood and grizzly looking tendons, if that is actually there or just false.

Last time, it was all bones after all, so maybe, maybe, the rest is fake.

That doesn't stop him from screaming and running. Trying too, at least.

Ryou finds very quickly that his feet are rooted to the not-there-floor. Words stolen and voice gone, perhaps given to the creatures haunting him.

All of a sudden, the voices raise into a loud crescendo of noise. They are no longers whispers and hisses, but screams for help and vengenace and death - and when did he start crying?

Ryou doesn't know.

Just knows that the tears running down his face are red, red, red.

That the hand on his shoulder is digging, digging, digging in.

Then he knows nothing, nothing, nothing but those voices.