Title: Stray

Chapter: --

Fandom: -man
Rating: T
Pairing: Kanda x Allen

A/N: ….hahaha.

This is what I get for procrastinating =w=;;

NOT ONLY was I supposed to have this done YESTERDAY…

…but it's not even a full chapter 8,D –shot-

Well, I needed to get an update in plus an important announcement regarding the next update of Stray, so I needed SOMETHING to add to the story and I knew I wouldn't have a full chapter done by the end of today.

Said message will be announced at the end of this pre-chapter. Hahaha.

Anyway.

This is AU. Don't like, don't read.

This is also shounen-ai. Again, don't read if you don't like.

Andandand, please dun kill me for the extremely short pre-chapter 8,D Chapter five will be amazing, I promise.

Enjoy…or not xD –shot again-

xxxxx

Voices.

All he could hear were echoing sounds and thoughts and noises and static. He couldn't identify the source of the voices, nor whom they belonged to – it was all background music in the dark expanse of his mind that he was confined to. He let the sound surround him, envelop him, to whisper in his ears and tell him 'Everything will be alright…'

Even if he knew that it was a lie.

He lifted his deformed hand to reach out into the never ending sea of black above him, hoping to somehow catch the voices between his fingers and hold them close to him – something precious he could keep safe and true to him in this suffocating space. But the sound taunted him, just out of reach, dancing away from his hand and almost laughing at his pitiful attempts to soothe himself.

Alone in the dark.

Completely alone.

The fingers on his left hand twitched slightly and he brought them down to hover in front of his eyes, red appendages with dead skin that pushed so many people away from him. He turned his palm to the sky so he could spy the blackened fingernails and cross-shaped scar adorning the back of his hand, a feeling akin to self-pity bubbling in his chest – but before it could surface he beat it down, the echoing voice of Mana now droning out the other sounds spiraling in the darkness; 'Keep walking.'

He had nowhere to go.

'Keep walking.'

There was no one waiting for him.

'Keep walking.'

Was he expected to keep going down a path with no end?

'Keep walking.'

But he had nowhere to go.

-Idiot bean sprout, you're going to kill yourself.-

A jolt sparked his eyes open and he gasped, bolting upright as the tendrils of a long-ago conversation threaded into his mind.

-No, I won't! And my Name is Allen!-

-You will if you continue to get no nourishment! Eat your fucking soup!-

-I don't want to!-

He almost laughed at himself then, other memories surfacing, one by one, to float by his eyes and brighten his darkness. Where had they gone? Why hadn't he seen them before? But the minute he desperately reached to grab hold of these thoughts then shattered into pinpricks of light that were swallowed by the shadows of his ravaged mind, leaving him alone in the dark again.

He almost felt like falling down and crying. Again.

Already a hot tear had escaping from his eye and had fallen down to break the monotony of black and send ripples through his head.

True, he had no where to go.

But Allen had never liked going along with a plan anyway.

He could make up his destination as he went along.

And so, armed with the memories or the memories that had drifted just beyond his reach, he stepped a foot forward just as, back in the realm of flesh and blood, a finger on his cursed left hand twitched as his marred body was carried through the night-shrouded streets of the city by a long-haired man with hair the color of his darkened mind.

'Keep walking.'

xxxxx

A/N: And now for my pathetic excuse as to why this isn't an actual chapter, like I promised. The answer is that, frankly, Yullen Week is just around the corner and don't the time at the moment to update with a full-on chapter. I'm so sorry!

Anyway, when will you see the next installment of Stray, you may ask?

….sometime after Christmas 8,D –prepares for incoming missiles-

But, for serious, I swear Chapter Five will be fifty bajillion times better than its predecessors, and if it isn't I hereby give you permission to throw me into a ditch and light me on fire. Hahahaha.

Well, until next time….

27

(Oh, but make sure you tune into my one-shots for the upcoming Yullen Week, the first of which will be submitted on the 18th. I hope that's enough to keep you satisfied until the next installment of Stray.)