Nightshift 43: Weapons Range
[From here, Jen said she'd NPC]It had been a lame excuse for a lame retreat, and Junior knew that it couldn't possibly have made his brothers drop the subject, but at least for now he could get away from it. They'd followed along, if nothing else. Hopefully whatever was on the other side would give him some more time to come up with some other sort
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"I know that I never should have existed in this world to begin with."
"It's not true...it's not true!" he repeated quietly, his good arm dropping to his side while his hand clenched into a fist. How could he have even thought that? And now his younger self stood in front of him, probably thinking that very same thing...
Junior looked up in time to notice that Nigredo was stepping back from them, looking absolutely terrified, which was rare enough for the youngest to give him cause to worry. Was he actually hearing something, too? Was he hearing the same thing? If he did, was he aware of the speaker's identity? "What's wrong?" he asked, but never received a response.
Junior screamed for the second time that night and stepped back several paces as part of his brother's head exploded for seemingly no reason whatsoever. He'd seen people be shot before, had even seen the end result of it happening to people he knew when their father had created that bloodbath on the Durandal. But this was his brother, someone he'd spent so much of his life with, who had been just fine a minute ago, and now...
Now he was watching him die again, while hearing what had happened before. It was surreal, had to be a dream or else a really fucking sick joke. People only got one shot at life; or so he wanted to believe. This place had proven otherwise, hadn't it? Some of Nigredo's blood had sprayed onto the eldest, along with bits of flesh, proof enough that it had happened. It had happened, and the bastard responsible was nowhere to be seen. "Nigredo!"
"I'm not saying goodbye. Let's play together again sometime. Until then, take care, Rubedo, Albedo..."
Nigredo's voice again, though he couldn't tell if this was the voice from above having changed or something that the youngest was sending along the link. If he even could anymore. Junior fell to his knees, a jolt of pain shooting through his arm as the bullet tore through more muscle, but he almost didn't feel it. It didn't matter anymore. He'd lost one of his brothers again already, even though he'd sworn that he wouldn't let it happen. All because he'd wanted to explore the basement. It was some sort of horrible curse that the redhead couldn't escape from, no matter how hard he tried.
"No, dammit!" Junior shouted, and though he was furious with himself, a sob tore through him instead and his body sagged. "Don't do this to me again! Don't..." He didn't finish that train of thought, another sob cutting him off, and he made no effort to try to finish it; instead, he just sat there and cried.
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The first actual clue that the ever-present feeling of dread was not simply another fabrication. There was something hesitant in Albedo's movements--perhaps sluggish, but perhaps unwilling. He shifted, turned from Rubedo to Nigredo with fear still in his gaze.
His eyes widened.
There was something like a pause, something like time stopping, images burned in the retinas, retaining the impression endlessly. Albedo could stop, detail this later--everything about it was fresh, and he had years to pour over the evidence. In his mind, Nigredo was suspended in the air, knees already touching the ground, body tilted forward to hang forever. In the corner of his vision, Rubedo was halfway to the same motion, his legs having given out, mouth opened in a wretched cry. "Don't do this to me again!" Don't....
If Albedo had an expression it was empty, missing anything that would signify someone as a living human. His head had tilted to the side, surveying the scene--like a bird, curious, he eyed the damage. The death. The body's face was still in a mock-up of perpetual horror, caught in frozen shock. Something in him still had the humor to note that perhaps if the afterlife existed, the body had gained enlightenment. A third eye, red and small, centered the forehead, a brilliant contradiction to the splatter of gore--blood and bone and brain, leaking out in a dull display of color and motion--festooned in the air behind. A spectacle of spectacles. The moment of death, frozen. A snapshot of life fleeing the body.
...Of Nigredo dying.
Time unfroze in a grotesque display, ruined flesh hitting concrete with a wet, crunching sound. Air taken in was a gasp--too high, too long--and Albedo stumbled forward a step, fist rising to his mouth in habit, stifling a noise, animal-like in nature. His over-taxed brain tried to process this turn of events and failed, something giving in while something else rose. His eyes unfocused, the breath held came out in a desperate giggle. Something too much like a sob. Something ruined in the undertones. Air was coming short now, gasping breaths quick and painful, black rounded the edges of his vision. The life fled the body. Oh, how true that line was.
There was life. And there was not.
Eyelids fluttered as consciousness was lost, before or after the rest of the Institute was yet undetermined. Darkness encompassed everything, a miasma of nothingness--deep and daunting, cradling one yet to fall.
Albedo might have wished for light but the first day had not yet come. The darkness remained. The sins unclean.
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