fic(ish): oblivioning [death note/atbf]
Characters: B [born_crooked]; (remembered) B's mother, A, Belphegor [royal_ripper]
Rating: PG-15ish (mild gore)
Word Count: 1441
Notes: My TL;DR tag(s) to this log at a_trialbyfire. Recent in-game plot had Nero the Sable [couldbeincest] unleashing Oblivion at World's End; B is affected. Partial memories from B's death log at disturbia_rp.
B can’t even say why he’s gone out wandering today - boredom, frustration, curiosity, perhaps a combination of all those things. He’s spent too long holed up in his room at the Lux, recovering from his injuries, over the past few weeks, and there are a number of things on his mind that needed to be muddled over. Best to find a deserted spot in the desolate wasteland B now calls his residence, somewhere specific he can be alone with his thoughts. In Disturbia, it had been the roof of the Becker Heights building. Here at World’s End ... he doesn’t have a place, yet.
Well. No time like the present.
B exits the Lux, picks a direction he’s never picked before, and sets off. He heads for the treeline - he doesn’t bother consulting a map. As long as he stays out of the forest itself, he won’t get terribly lost.
And even as deeply caught up in his own thoughts as he is, B still, out of habit, scans his peripheral view for signs of movement. He knows there’s danger lurking everywhere in this place.
And yet ... B doesn’t notice anything is wrong until it’s too late.
Out of the corner of his eye, it seems like a fast-moving shadow - cast by a cloud, perhaps - until he actually looks up and sees that it’s not, in fact, a shadow, but rather a very palpable cloud of tangible darkness. What else can B do but stare, puzzled, as the dark overtakes him? He can’t duck it. He can’t outrun it.
The darkness hits him, hard - like a wave, crashing down on him; like the impact of a body hitting the ground at the end of falling from a great height - and then, suddenly, suddenly ...
He remembers. Clearly, solid as the first time it happened, he remembers. With the crushing weight of being torn apart, molecule by molecule - with his last breath - he remembers.
B remembers, as a child, merely eight years old, the last time he saw his mother alive.
“I’m just going shopping downtown,” she says. “I’ll be gone an hour and a half - two, at most.” She bends to give him a quick kiss on the cheek and brush a stray lock of his unruly black hair back from his forehead. “You can be good for Miss Louise for that long, right?”
He grabs her hand, eyes wide and serious as he stares up at her, apprehension weighing on his chest like a leaden vest. Her numbers are too small; they’re never exact, yet he knows, knows the numbers will dwindle to zero within an hour. He doesn’t have to know how to read them exactly to know today is the day his mother will die.
“Please,” he says, voice small and trembling, “please, can’t I come with you?”
She gives his hand a quick squeeze and flashes him a small, warm smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
He nods, solemn, and releases her hand, and watches her slip out the door.
The grandfather clock in the hallway of the neighbor’s house clangs one hour later, then two, then three, then four. He sits on the floor, on the opposite side of the hall, and watches the hands move, silent, still. He doesn’t cry. The piercing, gaping void where his heart used to be hurts far too much to cry.
He remembers ...
B remembers, as a young teenager, the first time he saw the body of someone he cared for who’d died.
“A, A, listen to this -” The door to A’s room is heavy and wood but it isn’t locked, so B pushes it forward and to the side easily. “I think I’ve got the answer to the -” He looks up from the stack of papers in hand, and the words die in his throat. A is hanging by his neck from a rope tied to a rafter, clearly dead - it doesn’t take shinigami eyes to see that much. The other boy’s neck is broken, and his head lolls at an unnatural angle. His eyes stare ahead, unblinking, flat, unseeing; his face is swollen and discolored.
B doesn’t scream, doesn’t move. He doesn’t even breathe - the air’s gone out of the room. All he can do is stand, and stare.
Outside, the bells in the clock tower toll the hour. A girl in the hallway screams, and it shakes B out of his daze. He crosses back to the door and pushes it shut.
He remembers ...
B remembers, just seven months earlier, the first time he’d died - the first time he’d been murdered.
There’s darkness, but it’s a natural sort of darkness, because it’s night. B stands on the sand at the beachfront of Disturbia City, facing his murderer - a blond boy with a crown and a demented grin. There’s a far-off strain of eerie carnival music - he can pick out the melody against the sound of the wind and the waves crashing off in the distance. It sounds more like a dirge this time.
Blood trickles out from the cuts across his face as he watches his attacker, and waits.
“I’m gonna slice you up all over the place,” the boy says. “Kill you kill you.” He giggles, a peculiar kind of hissing laugh, and turns to face B. “It’s gonna be so much fun.”
“You’re still going to lose, Belphegor.” B takes a slow half-step to the side, studying the boy closely for movement. “Even when you kill me, you won’t win. You’ll never win.”
The boy laughs again, loud, mocking. “I always win. I’ve already won.” He sends the knife in his hand sailing toward B with expert precision, and the metal slices into his shoulder, then drops to the ground near his feet. B bends to pick up the knife and turns back to his attacker.
“Not such a genius after all, Belphegor.” He forces a laugh, parroting back the boy’s own hissing giggle.
“More of a genius than you’ll ever be.” He grins, eyes hidden behind his hair. “You honestly think that you'd still be alive if I wanted to end it so quickly? I haven't had fun in ages.”
“Oh, I know, you've been so bored.” He parrots back the boy’s words in an imitation of his own voice, then reaches into the pocket of his coat and produces a rock he'd picked up earlier. “I've had to hear about it for months now. It's all you ever seem to talk about.” B takes a an advancing step, then another, and hurls the rock as hard as he can, aiming for the boy's head. “Boring.”
“I'm only bored because you fail to entertain me. Not like a good pauper.” He sidesteps the rock with a sigh, and produces another knife to the palm of his hand. The boy stares at B for a moment, then charges forward, slashing at his shoulder. B gasps at the impact of the blade and stumbles backward, flailing defensively with the knife in his hand against his attacker.
“Entertain yourself, Belphegor.”
“Oh, I am!” The boy erupts into a fit of demented laughter as he turns, rushes forward once more, and slashes first into B’s throat, then his chest, with the knife.
B remembers thinking he’s ready for this, as he remembers it - ready for the end, ready for his life to be over, finally finished, complete because he’s finally done something meaningful with his failed existence - but as the blood (his blood) spills out onto the sand, as his knees give out and he slumps forward toward his murderer and then crashes to the sand, the small bit of peace he’d felt is inverted, amplified, replaced by despair and utter torment, because he knows, B knows this isn’t the end after all.
This was just another failure.
The crazed, distorted laughter grows louder as the forces surrounding B tear the composition of his body apart. He’s too far gone to even realize the laughter isn’t a memory any longer - it’s real, spilling out from B himself, his lungs, his throat. B laughs until he can’t, until he disintegrates into nothing.
Rating: PG-15ish (mild gore)
Word Count: 1441
Notes: My TL;DR tag(s) to this log at a_trialbyfire. Recent in-game plot had Nero the Sable [couldbeincest] unleashing Oblivion at World's End; B is affected. Partial memories from B's death log at disturbia_rp.
B can’t even say why he’s gone out wandering today - boredom, frustration, curiosity, perhaps a combination of all those things. He’s spent too long holed up in his room at the Lux, recovering from his injuries, over the past few weeks, and there are a number of things on his mind that needed to be muddled over. Best to find a deserted spot in the desolate wasteland B now calls his residence, somewhere specific he can be alone with his thoughts. In Disturbia, it had been the roof of the Becker Heights building. Here at World’s End ... he doesn’t have a place, yet.
Well. No time like the present.
B exits the Lux, picks a direction he’s never picked before, and sets off. He heads for the treeline - he doesn’t bother consulting a map. As long as he stays out of the forest itself, he won’t get terribly lost.
And even as deeply caught up in his own thoughts as he is, B still, out of habit, scans his peripheral view for signs of movement. He knows there’s danger lurking everywhere in this place.
And yet ... B doesn’t notice anything is wrong until it’s too late.
Out of the corner of his eye, it seems like a fast-moving shadow - cast by a cloud, perhaps - until he actually looks up and sees that it’s not, in fact, a shadow, but rather a very palpable cloud of tangible darkness. What else can B do but stare, puzzled, as the dark overtakes him? He can’t duck it. He can’t outrun it.
The darkness hits him, hard - like a wave, crashing down on him; like the impact of a body hitting the ground at the end of falling from a great height - and then, suddenly, suddenly ...
He remembers. Clearly, solid as the first time it happened, he remembers. With the crushing weight of being torn apart, molecule by molecule - with his last breath - he remembers.
B remembers, as a child, merely eight years old, the last time he saw his mother alive.
“I’m just going shopping downtown,” she says. “I’ll be gone an hour and a half - two, at most.” She bends to give him a quick kiss on the cheek and brush a stray lock of his unruly black hair back from his forehead. “You can be good for Miss Louise for that long, right?”
He grabs her hand, eyes wide and serious as he stares up at her, apprehension weighing on his chest like a leaden vest. Her numbers are too small; they’re never exact, yet he knows, knows the numbers will dwindle to zero within an hour. He doesn’t have to know how to read them exactly to know today is the day his mother will die.
“Please,” he says, voice small and trembling, “please, can’t I come with you?”
She gives his hand a quick squeeze and flashes him a small, warm smile. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
He nods, solemn, and releases her hand, and watches her slip out the door.
The grandfather clock in the hallway of the neighbor’s house clangs one hour later, then two, then three, then four. He sits on the floor, on the opposite side of the hall, and watches the hands move, silent, still. He doesn’t cry. The piercing, gaping void where his heart used to be hurts far too much to cry.
He remembers ...
B remembers, as a young teenager, the first time he saw the body of someone he cared for who’d died.
“A, A, listen to this -” The door to A’s room is heavy and wood but it isn’t locked, so B pushes it forward and to the side easily. “I think I’ve got the answer to the -” He looks up from the stack of papers in hand, and the words die in his throat. A is hanging by his neck from a rope tied to a rafter, clearly dead - it doesn’t take shinigami eyes to see that much. The other boy’s neck is broken, and his head lolls at an unnatural angle. His eyes stare ahead, unblinking, flat, unseeing; his face is swollen and discolored.
B doesn’t scream, doesn’t move. He doesn’t even breathe - the air’s gone out of the room. All he can do is stand, and stare.
Outside, the bells in the clock tower toll the hour. A girl in the hallway screams, and it shakes B out of his daze. He crosses back to the door and pushes it shut.
He remembers ...
B remembers, just seven months earlier, the first time he’d died - the first time he’d been murdered.
There’s darkness, but it’s a natural sort of darkness, because it’s night. B stands on the sand at the beachfront of Disturbia City, facing his murderer - a blond boy with a crown and a demented grin. There’s a far-off strain of eerie carnival music - he can pick out the melody against the sound of the wind and the waves crashing off in the distance. It sounds more like a dirge this time.
Blood trickles out from the cuts across his face as he watches his attacker, and waits.
“I’m gonna slice you up all over the place,” the boy says. “Kill you kill you.” He giggles, a peculiar kind of hissing laugh, and turns to face B. “It’s gonna be so much fun.”
“You’re still going to lose, Belphegor.” B takes a slow half-step to the side, studying the boy closely for movement. “Even when you kill me, you won’t win. You’ll never win.”
The boy laughs again, loud, mocking. “I always win. I’ve already won.” He sends the knife in his hand sailing toward B with expert precision, and the metal slices into his shoulder, then drops to the ground near his feet. B bends to pick up the knife and turns back to his attacker.
“Not such a genius after all, Belphegor.” He forces a laugh, parroting back the boy’s own hissing giggle.
“More of a genius than you’ll ever be.” He grins, eyes hidden behind his hair. “You honestly think that you'd still be alive if I wanted to end it so quickly? I haven't had fun in ages.”
“Oh, I know, you've been so bored.” He parrots back the boy’s words in an imitation of his own voice, then reaches into the pocket of his coat and produces a rock he'd picked up earlier. “I've had to hear about it for months now. It's all you ever seem to talk about.” B takes a an advancing step, then another, and hurls the rock as hard as he can, aiming for the boy's head. “Boring.”
“I'm only bored because you fail to entertain me. Not like a good pauper.” He sidesteps the rock with a sigh, and produces another knife to the palm of his hand. The boy stares at B for a moment, then charges forward, slashing at his shoulder. B gasps at the impact of the blade and stumbles backward, flailing defensively with the knife in his hand against his attacker.
“Entertain yourself, Belphegor.”
“Oh, I am!” The boy erupts into a fit of demented laughter as he turns, rushes forward once more, and slashes first into B’s throat, then his chest, with the knife.
B remembers thinking he’s ready for this, as he remembers it - ready for the end, ready for his life to be over, finally finished, complete because he’s finally done something meaningful with his failed existence - but as the blood (his blood) spills out onto the sand, as his knees give out and he slumps forward toward his murderer and then crashes to the sand, the small bit of peace he’d felt is inverted, amplified, replaced by despair and utter torment, because he knows, B knows this isn’t the end after all.
This was just another failure.
The crazed, distorted laughter grows louder as the forces surrounding B tear the composition of his body apart. He’s too far gone to even realize the laughter isn’t a memory any longer - it’s real, spilling out from B himself, his lungs, his throat. B laughs until he can’t, until he disintegrates into nothing.