interlude ( video )

[brokendetective]

[Mello has his face up in the camera the second it turns on, shakes it around a bit to give the impression he's staggering. When it steadies, and the picture focuses in to the standard single room, it's obvious to anyone that knows him by his displaced countenance that he's not altogether himself. In some respects, though, he's been elevated. The

Comments

[without_fanfare]

I'm coming to get you.

What the fuck did you do to yourself this time?

/change to action post

[brokendetective]

He'd knocked open all of the cupboards and drawers he could find beforehand, had managed to scrounge a gun with a pathetic one round for which he was actually greatful for as it was an offering of survival. As such he still holds onto it as religiously as he does his rosary, bounding down into the throttle of a neverending thunderstorm sending shocks through the garden he treads. There's a beckoning.

[without_fanfare]

She mumbles something or another as she runs down those horrid hallways, trying to get away from the monsters and get to him, to stop him from doing whatever fool act he was doing now.

At least, the spiders have less of an impact on her now. Halle has no doubt that she has stepped on a few in her quest to find Mello and bring him back.

The thunderstorm mader her pause-- but this only time she has seen him like this was when he was on the pain medication-- so she moves quickly, running after him for the chapel.

"Mello!"

[brokendetective]

In his rush to get to wherever he was going, Mello did not stop to fully absorb the setting around him; nor is he dissauded by the lightning that strikes the grounds and strikes close, as everything surrounding the Asylum seems so artificial it's really the only place for it to hit. It's simply not there to him--or, moreso, it's no threat in his eyes. He does stumble in his haste, picks himself back up as if it was nothing at all, and without even so much as brushing the dirt from the side of his arm continues. It'll buy her enough time to 'catch up' as it were.

[without_fanfare]

She makes a grab for his arm, but instead of trying to fight him, she follows. Inside will perhaps be safer than out in this mess. He's made his intentions clear, he wants to go to the chapel, that's fine with her.

"What's wrong with you?"

He doesn't even need to answer, not yet. She will keep up this run until they have gotten inside.

[brokendetective]

The touch results in a sudden jerk as he pulls the ligament protectively away, provoked by even the smallest touches and yet nothing but. It's an unglorious state to be in physically as well as mentally, and well, Mello wouldn't exactly regard himself as shameless should he come out of the shell and glimpse himself now, as would be expected by almost any man. Of course danger is everpresent, manifesting in both pathetic fallacy and the small bugs that are less scattered around but clumped when sighted. He's got boots that weigh a ton, after all; he's kicking through them and he remains destitute towards the kind, as well as a particular blonde that had been dragged out to drag behind him.

It's probably for the best that she hasn't turned him, saw his hardened eye and how his own sway is holding him down. The things she'd say later, the things they'd say. If there's a wall he'd be against it, trying to claw his way through. But thankfully there's just a clearing, and as he raises his head--there, in the distance.

[without_fanfare]

She breaks down, and just asks.

"What? What is it?"

Halle tries to follow his gaze, but sees nothing but the damn chapel. What happened to him, was it-- the cake? Could that be the cause of all of this? Whatever it was, it didn't look like it would wear off soon.

[brokendetective]

His steps along a mossy pavement break up the sounds of the artificial surroundings as he goes--what is real, what is false, it was never really outstandingly clear to begin with, but now his perception is even more astray and he's unable to console in himself. Which is bad for Mello, who feeds so intensely upon his own predictions and outcomes. Before he reaches the fight he reaches out; and then, Mello, unaware of the racing in his chest finally lets out and slows, because of all things he's afraid to run into what seems to be the two dicomposed doors that had once been so marvelously conventional in structure. The layer had twined them, and they seemed as degrading and offsetting as the atmosphere. Should one follow his gaze they'd discover that Mello has pinned his sight there, on a lock, pupil rivetting. His presence, his fortold ghostly presence; he squeezes his cross in dispair.

Akane if you would~

Hallucination!Near to the rescue! Fail English is fail.

[nearly_the_best]

Through the darkness protected by the chapel's decayed doors, Mello's eyes could catch the glimpse of a shadow at the chapel's entrance-- a familiar, white shadow, the cause for so much past agony, now agonizing on its own.

One of Near's hands was on his side, painfully protecting the pool of crimson that stained his no longer white shirt. The other held a gun. Despite the lack of information, the whole sight gave the impression that the boy had just survived a dangerous encounter, albeit not without getting an alarming wound of his own. His eyes, usually cold and detached, were hidden behind snow hair, his head lowered.

"How daring of you, Mihael," Near spoke, half pained, half spiteful. "To attempt to save anyone when you fail at saving yourself."

The words were followed by a movement. The ghost turned his back to Mello, running further inside the chapel, out of sight.

[brokendetective]

Predisposed by the toxic, Mello is inclined to believe it is Lucifer that turns if he so wishes, that it is in spite of his usual demeanor that he follows, and that the apperation's countenance--that of Near--warrants no immediate connection with the clean and stable Near of his own mind that makes him feel guilty should he fail to make such an association. "No; wait."

He takes a semi-step forward and stops with his shoulders hauled over. It's effortless for his dear consort to identify the delirious balance of mind and matter; the seriousness and extent to which he has become an experiment is parplexing, nonetheless he was as susceptable as anyone else. So he takes a few steps forward; he leans on the arch to which the doors open; he growls; his eyes pierce shut; his temple contorts; the realization that dawns causes a sudden rush of raw sickness to roll through his stomach; he burns. And lastly, incohesively and carrying a large burden, he plunges forwards into the unsaintly atmosphere that greets him.

[nearly_the_best]

A trail of blood on the eroded floor greets Mello's first steps. The engulfing darkness follows. The sight of Near isn't clear now, albeit his petite, slightly hunched figure can still be guessed through the dark mist.

"How far are you willing to follow me?" his voice echoes firmly, coldly, betraying his position inside the dark chapel.

[brokendetective]

The assault of both omen and prophecy scrawled over the walls and the floor fall like death to his eyes, and bears not on the way he responds to the chaperon beckoning him forward nor the way he maneuvers through the pewless, demoralized staple of the chapel. And of the grand window? It's nothing when the sky outside is desaturated to such a point. Grey, seldom. Empty for this man, Halle, and the illusion teasing him with the thread. Though he cannot simply tack the voice, ominous as it is, he is not shaken by it. He owns an amnesty in this place.

"Forever I'll come," his eyes narrow, and he staggers down the isle, interpreting the answer to darkness as simply moving in complete concession forward to what is supposed to be the altar, "you will lead me out."

[nearly_the_best]

It's not the altar what Mello meets with his next step, however, but a metallic crimson hand on his chest (right where his heart is pounding, still alive), stopping his clumsy movements with a light force that was never supposed to be there. Not outside Mello's drugged mind.

"Forever is not within your reach," the abomination speaks, closer this time. Close enough for Mello to meet ice-cold eyes in features paler than what they used to be. Close enough for ghostly fingers to move up, slowly, and leave a red trail on Mello's unmarred check. The gesture a mockery of affection at best.

"Let's see how far." Words are followed by one of Near's trademark smiles, dark, twisted, and distracting. Then the single, smooth movement of his gun pressed against his own skull. There isn't time for Mello to react before Near pulls the trigger.

The sickening smell of blood feels more than real this time.

[brokendetective]

It's there. It pools at a hole in his chest and he stumbles backwards, lips opening to take an impulsive breath of the dust-clogged atmosphere--it's not there, it's not there, his rosary is gone. With a child's hand that shakes he fumbles, snake eyed and pupil thinning around the side in anticipation because he can't find the cherished artifact. As if, within an instant, this vision could engulf and kill him unless he found the cross; as if he had all of six seconds to do so, and crush the nightmare before it swallows him. But it's just the circle of blood, to draw back a stained fist when in reality he was squeezing the object hard enough to mark his skin.

"Near--" A croak of a call, he's using hardly any air to make it, "you don't belong here, Near!" He yells, and he cowers, falling to quaking feet and still trying to find what he's already found in a hot fit of foolish, mistaken conception.

[without_fanfare]

He's been talking to himself this entire time, so Halle has simply stood back and watched. Watched him shatter while she tried to make sense of half a conversation. He yells; she runs, unsure whether or not it's safe to touch him, to establish contact with him.

Her voice is soft, and she tries to look around the chapel as she speaks. Dangerous, she sees shadows and movement in every corner. She tries to hold the finesse she's been taught, but it slips here and there.

"Mello, we need to go. Now.

... Mello?"

[brokendetective]

He's absolutely devistated, completely displaced and worried for his own salvation out of all things. Any touch pales his complexion and only fuels his darker than dark attempt to find answers as to the apperation that had never been there to begin with. That, within five minutes after the gunshot slowly seeps through his skin and turns into full-throlle anguish, manifesting as it hits him in a bout of thick and sullied violence, humanly transgression in its purest form, he smacks a ground that seems more like a thin frame of glass with a pounding fist simply because his senses are loose and he feels as if his physique is rivetted with each assult. And he yells and screams and watches what the blood and grime had been only a second ago with the projection of his mind, and he wakes the demons.