TW: slightly graphic gore
~Scott~
A ringing of sirens filled my ears louder than the silence that had closed in. Darker than the black pressed against my eyes, fuzzy and spinning.
Shouting. Someone was shouting. Or was it quiet? I felt things and hands grabbing at my arms, throwing me back and forth, up and down, yet all was still, I was alone. A high-pitched nothing pierced the silence, filling my ears with a static so quiet but so loud that I couldn't tell if it was coming from everywhere or nowhere.
I was stationary but I was falling, there was no ground, and my stomach was dropping but at the same time I was sprawled across a cold, cold surface that also felt boiling, my cheek and palms seared to no extent.
"SCOTT!"
I knew that voice. I had heard that scream before. I had heard it. Panic and fear and adrenaline all laced into one and woven by fingers of distress. Followed by the worst and last moments of my life.
Then I opened my eyes. And another pair was staring at me.
Muted blue eyes bore into my own, wide with alarm, small strings of red threading within the irises and circling their pupil.
White and brown hair tangled in a matted mess hung in strands, pointed ears just barely visible, wildly hanging around their shoulders like linked and broken chains, damp and sticky with sweat.
Their lips were moving, they were speaking loudly, I could hear their voice. A mix of a hoarse and wretched breaths and a gritty tone. But I couldn't make out a word of what they were saying, a buzz of nothing but noise.
In a blur and swing of colors, pain exploded on the left of my face, my vision sparking with the darkness that engulfed us.
I was jerked forward a moment later, the same hand that had struck me grabbing to the collar of my shirt and yanking me closer to their face. "SCOTT LISTEN TO ME."
Suddenly, all their features came into sharp focus, their voice loud and clear with a streak of violent hysteria.
My sister stood in front of me, hands tangled in my shirt to pull me down to her level. Her expression was feral, little trickles of blood seeping out from beneath the scales littering her face, like her skin, that was discolored, patched with a colorless grey, could no longer contain it.
With lips chapped and scarred she panted, chest heaving with a crackle of her ribcage. Burns laced up her shoulder, shriveling her skin to wrinkled and smoking ash that smelt of fire and destroyed cities, her mangled and shredded wings hanging down her back like weights.
Twists of the darkness encircled her arms and legs mingling with the red strands of power, trying to pull her back, tug her to what was hidden by the loud nothingness, but her body was tense, she resisted, clutching onto me.
Every couple of seconds her image would...flicker. Her elbows would stick out so sharply I could see bone, the side of her cheek gaping open to reveal rows of bloody and cracked teeth peeking through swollen gums, nose crooked and eyes bloodshot. But then it would return to normal...or as normal as it was, to the pale, injured girl.
"Erin?" I breathed, the name leaving my lips in a horrified whisper. The strange, strange world we were stood on seemed to stop, we were falling, wind whistled by my ears, all the air was snatched from my lungs, I couldn't breathe. But then all was still, and I was being dragged forward again.
"Well duh." Erin sneered; her teeth gritted. "Who else would it be?"
"But you're—"
"Dead? Sort of." She shrugged, another creak of her body causing me to flinch. "So are you, you fucking idiot."
"What?" I asked. My head was spinning, she was dead, I was dead, why were we here, where was I before?
"I literally save your life, for you to die TWO SECONDS LATER." I thought she was about to slap me again, but instead she shook me back and forth, nearly tossing me off of my feet.
We weren't even standing on anything, everything below us was void, even though beneath my feet felt solid.
"I—"
"You know what, that's not the point—" She cut off, a frantic air returning to her voice. Syllables in her sentence seemed drowned out, quieter than others, before spiking and her voice raising to nearly a shout. "Bet you missed me, bitch."
"Of course—" I started, before I was stopped. Things suddenly grabbed at my attention, pulling my gaze in different directions, stretching my sense of hearing like it had a hold of my jaw, away from my sister.
"No, Scott, you have to listen to me." Erin snapped, her voice jagged and sharp like the daggers she had wielded. "Don't listen to them."
"Listen to what??" My voice seemed muffled, foggy, like my ears were clogged with water that also blurred my vision. The world around me flickered again, Erin's form seemed to crumple before she was back on her feet like she had never fallen.
Nothing felt real. But at the same exact time I could feel the sting of air in my nose, the tension, the violent panging of panic and fear in my chest, my heart pummeling against my ribs. The realness was nonexistent yet suffocatingly present.
Erin didn't give me an answer to my question. "They're idiots, all of them, they'll never be able to find it—" Find what?? "—you have to do it for them. I would if I could but—" her voice seemed to sizzle out in static for a moment, her expression falling blank before returning to its original, wild look.
"What." I exclaimed, choking on the dread creeping up my throat like claws digging through my neck. I felt the hands from before, tugging and grabbing at me from all sides, trying to drag me away from my sister. But she held steadfast, knuckles already pale beyond belief growing whiter beneath the bloodstains as she kept her grip on my collar.
Yet again, my question was ignored.
"You can't forget Scott, don't get distracted, the world you're in is not what it seems. They're imposters. She's an imposter." Erin was speaking quickly, rushing and tripping over her words, words that became choppy and hoarse the longer she spoke. Like she was worried she wouldn't be able to get them all out. "You have to get there first."
"Get where?!" I asked, raising my voice. I couldn't process what was getting told to me, I didn't know what was happening. I still didn't know where we were, why was it silent but why was there shouting, why did every breath I took feel like the entire sky in my lungs yet at the same time I couldn't breathe?
"The library. The others will make it, but they have no clue what they're in for. They're going to fail." She hissed through clenched teeth.
"Who are?!"
"I don't have time to explain! Just get there. As soon as you can. You'll know what I mean soon enough. Hopefully." She replied, trailing off in a tone that didn't sound...the most confident. "I didn't think it would take this long."
"What would?!"
Erin facepalmed with one of her hands, releasing some of the pressure on my shirt. "Oh my god you're cluelesssss." She groaned, squeezing the bridge of her nose, as if I weren't there at all to begin with. "It's messing with your head. They don't want you back."
I opened my mouth to ask yet another question, but no words would come out. Delirium seemed to be blocking my voice. My nose burned, tears stabbing like needles in the corners of my eyes. I was so confused; my sister was here but I had watched her die. But she didn't look alive either, she looked like she had been dead for a very, very long time. I hated it. I hated it so much. It should have been me. It was me. But she didn't have to go too.
Why did she do it?
"Are you okay?" I asked, looping my hands around her wrists, which bloodstained and torn sleeves covered.
"Do I look okay?!" She half-shrieked, her eyes flashing a deep crimson before the red strands of light faded from her irises again, lightening to purple and then back to blue as she exhaled slowly. "That doesn't matter right now, what matters is that you get to the ancient library and find it."
"Yeah, okay, find something that you won't explain to me and that I've probably never seen before. Sounds easy." I commented, breathing heavily to avoid hyperventilating. I was so overwhelmed, I felt like I was drowning in it.
"Stop being a smartass." Erin sneered. "Like I said, you'll know what I mean when you get there. I can't tell you yet, there's not enough..." She trailed off slowly...the seemingly nonexistent ground beneath my feet rumbled the slightest...and a look of fear overtook Erin's expression as her eyes widened. A fear I had never seen before on her. Not like when Xornoth was getting dragged into the crystal, not like when she stood before me in the cage in Eastvale with Exor's corruption in her veins, not like when she was dying. It was pure and raw horror that tainted her expression, heart stopping terror. "...time."
"What's wrong?" I asked. Everything was wrong, actually. But something now was different.
"I have to go. She's coming." She said. I did a doubletake, I didn't believe it. Her voice was shaking.
"Who's coming—?" I started, reaching out as Erin let go of my shirt, taking a tentative step backwards. Her eyes flickered in all directions, the strange hum of this realm growing louder, the darkness licking her limbs twisting even more violently. "Who are you running from?"
Her eyes met mine again, still wide, the blue deep and strange and getting further and further away. And her answer was hardly more than a whisper.
"Death."
And suddenly like a screech, something shot out of the darkness. A hand paler than the white of Erin's eyes threw itself around her mouth, sealing off her lower face. Erin lurched forward, the fear in her expression absolutely sickening. But the figure holding to her didn't budge, long claw like nails indenting themself into my sister's cheek. Blood gushed from underneath their palm, splattering Erin's face in crimson blood as thick as mud, globbing down her chin and jaw, their touch rotting away at Erin's skin, peeling away from bone and muscle tissue that had begun to disintegrate.
I stumbled backwards, hitting the ground in one horrible throb of pain, the mix of hot and cold and real and fake absolutely mind melting. I wanted to scramble away, but I was frozen, unable to breath, like someone had sat themself on my chest.
I could hear the panic, I could feel the fright, but I couldn't move. I couldn't help, I was stuck, I couldn't save her, I was forced to watch. Again.
A brutal flash of colored light glowed from over Erin's head as she struggled against the hand and wrist, the figure's arm disappearing into nothing. Two wicked eyes of the deepest and cruelest green curled themselves into a smirk, though the rest of their face was not visible.
And then, in one swift movement, Erin was thrown backwards, getting dragged down by whatever had a hold on her.
"NO!" I shrieked, finally able to move. I threw myself forward, adrenaline searing my chest like an explosion of power hurling my limbs in the right direction. I brushed Erin's hand, but not soon enough. It was as cold as stone. Our eyes met. All the words she hadn't been able to say so close yet so far, her image melting away, my regret meeting her confirmed trepidation.
And then she was pulled out of reach, falling through the darkness, hand still outstretched towards mine.
She was gone.
But then I was falling too, the invisible solid from before disappearing and throwing me into pitch black darkness.
~
"NO!"
I jolted upwards, my chest heaving, my throat burning from the scream that had left it.
I blinked wildly in the natural light blaring through the window, curtains pushed aside to reveal the Rivendallian mountainside.
I was drenched in cold sweat, my bare chest heaving as I inhaled deeply, trying to register what had happened and where I was.
The man, standing by the door and about to exit the room, flinched. "Scott what—" Xornoth started, startled.
My head snapped up, meeting his concerned expression with wild eyes. I could still feel the panic in every limb of my body, fear coursing my veins and keeping me frozen, arms propped up behind me to keep me sitting up.
But I was in my room, my blanket drawn up over my lap, my chest bare, wings tucked behind me.
What...?
Xornoth hurried back over from the door, magenta curls let down from the braid they had been in, messy and tangled over his shoulders and down his back, a few frizzy and framing his face, like he hadn't brushed it for a while. They sat down next to me, looking me over with worry, brow creased and frowning. "You okay?"
"Wha—" I began, breathless. My eyes flickered around again. It was morning, it had been morning before, but it was...different... how had I gotten here?
Xornoth seemed to read my mind, possibly by the confused expression on my face. "You passed out. After you stormed out of the council meeting. It's the day after." He said quietly. "Couldn't figure out what happened to you. How're you feeling?"
"I'm...I don't know." I replied after a moment, staring down into my lap as I began to calm down. I remembered the...the flit before. Xornoth was...
I shook the fleeting memory off. Must've been my imagination.
I leaned back again, letting a sigh slip through my teeth as I rested my wings and shoulders against the headboard. I could feel the adrenaline seeping out of my body, replaced with exhaustion.
My brother glanced me up and down again, his frown deepening. "You screamed." He said shortly. "Bad dream?"
I nodded without thinking too hard about the question, my eyes trained on the ceiling above me, trickling over the off-white paint.
"What was it about?" He asked, a hint of curiosity to his voice.
I paused. "Well—" I started, before I stopped. Huh.
What had my dream been about?
"—I don't remember."
***
Heheheheheh
Yes. I wrote this whole chapter today. I was really bored and running off of twelve hours of sleep so w r i t e
I hope you enjoyed this chapter that totally made complete sense and wasn't confusing or infuriating in the slightest :]
Comments and votes are appreciated! Hopefully I'll get the next chapter out as soon as this one- we'll see, my dad's making me go to someone's house to watch the Super Bowl tomorrow so I may not be able to get much out :')