danganroleplay | Schuldig's Thoughts - The Endgame Days

[backstabbery]

To say that Schuldig's had a rough few days would be...an understatement.

Were he in a generally better and less agonized mood, he might almost appreciate the irony: he's spent so long being upset and anxious about things being too quiet and about being left alone, and then all of a sudden after he'd taken that shock to the head, being alone had been the only thing he'd wanted.

Of course he'd never been truly on his own, save for the times when he'd let Mienshao go out on his own, wearing his trusty suede backpack with the ESH tucked safely inside so he could get in and out as he pleased. No sense in keeping the battleweasel locked up just because he'd been having trouble getting his head back on straight.

The first day or so, he'd spent facedown in his pillows — hands alternating between clasped over his ears or buried in his hair, which were both asinine things to do because the noise he was recoiling from wasn't ever touching his ears and the hair-pulling was really only kind of making the headache worse. But even the noise wasn't so much the problem as it was he'd just kept getting...disoriented, and sometimes he'd remember experiences that he knows he's never had, and sometimes he'd go places he's never been, and sometimes he'd try to find his way back to a snowy hill that wasn't there and get lost in the attempt, able to picture it all so vividly without ever being able to trace his mental footsteps there again.

The first day he'd screamed and screamed, and ached for the solid soothing reassurance of amber eyes that were nowhere to be found.

The second day had felt like a battle: between the painkillers and the dark and the quiet and the tears, he'd managed to collect himself enough to get up and wage war against the hurricane in his mind. Again, he'd been glad for the darkness; it made things so much easier, somehow, to embrace the notion of solitude and progress forward through it, shoving away the drifting ghosts of foreign thoughts with firm and vicious denial. He'd spent most of the day sitting still, but in his mind he'd visualized walking a long and dusty path stretching out into oblivion; the rhythm of footstep after footstep had been comforting and familiar, and with every pace of advancement he'd gathered his defenses up a little more.

It was sometime during the second day that he'd found himself seated on the floor of his room with Lysandre's small light in one hand and Kirei's incomprehensible slip of paper in the other.

Small words. Easy words.

That priest had lined his robes with Kevlar; maybe now this benediction would do the same for his weary mind.

I will kill. I will let live. I will harm and heal. None will escape me. None will escape my sight.

Bit by bit, the foreign thoughts began to draw back.

Be crushed. I welcome those who have grown old and those who have lost. Devote yourself to me, learn from me, and obey me.

Forward march. One, two.

Rest. Do not forget song, do not forget prayer, and do not forget me.

Don't be stupid; you left more than bruises behind on me, you idiot.

I am light and relieve you of all your burdens.

Much obliged.

Do not pretend. Retribution for forgiveness, betrayal for trust, despair for hope, darkness for light, dark death for the living.

Slam it to the left if you're having a good time, shake it to the right if you know that you feel fine.

Relief is in my hands. I will add oil to your sins and leave a mark. Eternal life is given through death.

Chicas to the front...

— Ask for forgiveness here. I, the incarnation, will swear. — Kyrie eleison!

There'd still been a long way to go, but with every iteration, things had grown a little stronger — and he'd caught himself wondering if this was what faith (or was it fate?) felt like, or if maybe he were just being sentimental.

I will kill. I will let live. I will harm and heal...

The second day had bled into the third, and he'd grown strong.

Now at last, as the lights begin to come back on, the ache in his skull and the roar of his turbulent mind have diminished, and he remembers at last that he's not done yet.

He gets up; he showers and gets dressed. He dons the mementoes of his missing friends. He hides the cross beneath his shirt, and feels the metal begin to warm from the heat of a chest that guards a still-beating heart.

Kyrie eleison.

Time to go.