Halfblood [King|Alber × Reader]

Eighteen

You lower your flight, and your mind becomes empty, your thoughts dissolving into the air as your wings take you to the town.

You flinch as your bare feet touch the burnt wood, and the soot paints your skin black.

You glare at the remains of the houses that stick out of the ground like skeletons, the ribs of an ancient creature.

They hold nothing to remember the homes they once were.

They lost everything they were supposed to protect.

The ends of your wings brush the thick layer of ash as you take an uneasy step.

You can't move fastly from the shock. Some places still erupt dark smoke as they smolder without flames.

Your lips open as you fight to have enough air.

Your sight narrows into a circle opposite yourself, the edges turning into a black mass as your subconscious refuses to see.

It can't be happening.

Your ears ring loudly on a high-pitched tune, but you keep walking, one step after another, through the street where you fell the last time.

The peace and happiness you found at Wano, are slowly filled with fissures as you see the destroyed town and the lives ruined.

The shadows of your past creep out from the abyss, but you walk towards the main square.

You start to understand that you are looking for people and it terrifies you.

You force your hands on your ears, trying to find silence.

Only your wings move to carry you away, but you can't think straight and don't let them.

You refuse to believe your eyes.

You refuse to believe that he did this.

Until all collapses as you find the center, and see the pile of corpses in the middle.

Once human beings, now barely dark skeletons since the fire took away everything they had.

Flesh, mind, emotions, and memories burned into nothing in the flames that should heal and protect.

You stop a meter away from the bodies and crouch down. The ringing you kept hearing turns deep and steady, getting louder and louder.

You close your eyes and shake your head, but it doesn't go away.

The voice becomes even more emphatic until it sounds like the howling of the dead.

You hear them singing.

You start screaming to make it stop, but the noise doesn't end for several minutes.

And one moment, it does.

Everything falls into deep, grinding silence that swallows all except the despair that fills your mind like a disease.

Your tears soak the black ash under your hand as your nails run into the soil opposite the pile.

Your eyes are wide and frightened, and they turn away from the corpses every time you try to stand up.

Your muscles don't work. Your body doesn't listen to you as you lose all control.

Your heart beats like crazy, and your lungs ache to keep pace.

You cough desperately as the smoke poisons the air you breathe in, and you look down.

A pale blue gem gleams by your leg that fell beside the grave. Its string burnt away in the fire.

As the smile of the little girl comes into your thoughts, suddenly it becomes the only thing in the emptiness.