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+---- Thread: all hallows (/showthread.php?tid=12084)
all hallows - Warringkingdoms - 06-13-2020
/tw: blood and graphic burn injuries, hallucinations, flashbacks, and general emotional breakdown stuff throughout + death by car crash in first italicized section, some additional descriptions of violent death in second italicized section
/this takes place in the middle of Rin's recovery, so don't worry too much about responding to it
Two weeks had passed.
Her face was healing well, she’d been told. There wasn’t any sign or smell of infection. The eye was probably damaged beyond repair, but at least it wouldn’t take the rest of her with it. If only that were enough comfort to lull her to sleep.
Instead she stared, her remaining eye half-lidded in a half-restless half-exhausted stupor, at the ceiling. Cooper had said everything was alright. Caesar was gone. The clan wasn’t barging down her door to blame her for the incident. Everything should have been okay.
The concrete that comprised the ceiling, hypnotic in its boring patterns, gently eased her eye into closing its lids.
She lay awake, flat on her back, the fabric digging into her skin.
Through the gaps in the blinds, she could see the patterns of moonlight framing the wall. Her eyes, ringed with shadows, traced the shapes in a repetitive ritual. She had little better to do, with sleep as elusive as it was that night.
The ceiling fan hadn’t functioned since the third day after she’d arrived. A small part of her deeply wished for white noise, underneath the majority of her brain that was convinced she wasn’t at all disturbed by the silence.
“Monolith City.”
The words buzzed in her head, in the voice she recognized all too well, and just then she wished for silence once more.
She scrambled to her feet and sprinted out the door, through the corridors, down the stairs, into the grass- all along, the madness of his words scratching at the walls of her mind. “I am no longer capable to look after you.” The rocks underfoot dug into her paw pads. “I am leaving you in the hands of-”
The voice cut out, static overwhelming her brain. She staggered and almost fell, but she pushed herself further- to the limit, PAST the limit, she couldn’t stop now. Dread swirled within the pit of her stomach.
“I love you all with all my heart.”
He was there, on the road, five feet away- but too close, she couldn’t save him, she COULDN’T-
The screech of car tires drowned out her screams, his body flung like a ragdoll into the grass. Numbness gripped her as she ran to his side, desperately searching for signs of life.
His eyes snapped up to hers, a grin splitting his bloodied face. As she jolted back, he disjointedly stumbled to his feet, shambling towards her. His lower jaw hung from its broken hinges, his fangs dripping with venom. He lurched forward, tumbling downwards-
-his paws grabbing onto her front legs, dragging her into the rupturing ground beneath them, fire spitting from the fissure to surround and swallow them. The blazes ripped at her skin, tore at her like prey, uncontrollable, agonizing-
Her eye snapped open, the shriek of pain dying in her throat.
Every inch of her skin burned. The stench of smoke clung to her, clogging up her nose and mouth. Sucking in a breath, she pulled herself up to a sitting position, biting back a hiss at the stinging in every muscle she thought she had. Staring down at her limbs, she saw the blistering, festering red of burned tissue underneath her bandages, embers flickering into the air from the gaps in the fabric. Char marks lined the blankets beneath her.
The boils on her skin stared back at her like eyes, sunken in yet flaring red-
-red as a raging inferno, swallowing the hospital- no, the observatory?- no, BOTH consumed by the flames.
“Your records aren’t going to bring them back.” Words spat by the accidental arsonist, copper eyes boiling with bitterness. The intentional instigators phased in and out of view, the blinding light of a falling star behind them.
“You have no one to blame but yourself.”
Surreal shapes of shadows twisted around her paws, restraining her in place. “Why?” they chanted, their voices weaving in a hypnotic pattern of hatred. Crimson stains on her claws faded to obsidian, gripping, forcing her to relive it. Bodies on pikes. Sliced up, butchered. Sun-bleached bones and rotting flesh, demanding answers.
“No,” she rasped, struggling to stay standing. The burning within her grew too much to bear- grief welling up in rage’s wake. Green eyes bore down on her, mocking her. Desperately willing it to stop, she feels the barriers rupture, feels herself give in.
“NO!” she screams-
-and the floodgates burst, fire and water gushing out into the air. Smoke and water vapor clouded the room as fury clouded her vision. Overtaken, possessed, she watched helpless yet vindictive as the waves of heat and cold roared out from within her. Her bed, her drawer, the bookshelves, the walls, every object crafted with wood caught on fire and was extinguished within the blink of an eye.
As the air hissed with dying flame and evaporating water, Rin staggered back and slumped down against the wall. The damage… was the damage that bad? It couldn’t be that bad. She couldn’t… she couldn’t quite see it yet, her eye struggling to discern light and dark.
She blinked, once, twice, the smoke shifting back and forth in continuous parallax within her dizzied vision. A strange energy seared within her paws, a rage, a hatred- burning for the memories she felt, burning for her foes and for herself. Power, at the price of pain.
Of course that would be the key. Nausea stirred in her insides at the thought, anguish stinging behind her eye. It couldn’t be worth ripping her scars open again and again, but- the writing was on the floor, stained in blood. She couldn’t wash her memories out, no matter how hard she scrubbed. The stains would never leave.
She reached into the fog, into the crowd of writhing souls, and her chains were torn free.
His green eyes bore down on her as she flung her paw outwards, fire bursting forth to consume the fuel laid at its feet. I will kill you. With a howl, she staggered to the edge of the bed, smoke pouring from her jaws as condensation showered from the ceiling. You were supposed to be
better.
I chose you because I thought you could actually do it.
“Well, you were wrong!” she snarled, flame erupting from the floor in a column before her, rising to meet the rain.
Why must you ruin everything for me?
“Why did you put it all on me?” she screamed, spiraling and slicing her claws directly through his eyes- empty air. Slipping on unsteady ground- the opening gates of hell- she felt herself falling, plummeting into nothing, nothing, nothing…
Ashes, disturbed by the impact, grasped her throat. Wheezing, hacking, she got to her feet, spinning around wildly to face- where was he?- nothing. All that remained was…
...was nothing.
Her room was empty barring her. The furniture, charred black from the dying flames, loomed over her. Breathing in the smoke, she cast her gaze across the floor. Incinerated fabric, curled-up wood, mildew already beginning to grow…
So much destruction, with her at the center. Eye of the hurricane. Always invincible. Never touched.
Sinking to the floor, she curled up in a defensive ball, as though the monsters would simply go away.