Once again Eustace finds himself trapped in a horrific nightmare that he can't seem to free himself from.
From the moment that beautiful, peaceful field broke, he had fallen through that exact same hole, dropped into that exact same pool of blood, and had to endure that walk out of the grisly tunnel. Except for him, he could hear them. The voices, the crying, the screams, the swearing, the laughter, the roaring, the howling. Truthfully only the beginning and the end had affected him the most.
It had started with the remnants of his family and members of his home village, the memories of their remains scarred forever in his brain. However, as painful as it had been, he had been able to endure...at least at first. What Tifa did not see or wouldn't have been able to notice is the small body of his younger brother, and how there had been a bullet hole through his head. Although he knew in truth what he shot back then was an Otherwordly Being that had desecrated his brother's memory and created a fake doppleganger, he still had shot at an image of his brother. ....And he still feels the guilt of the what if. He had tried to ignore those words that abomination had said, that Savini had found the device and brought back to their home to show everyone...to show him, wanting to follow in his footsteps to go on adventures and finding things.
If he had stayed home and helped with the chores, would he have stopped him? Or would he...would he at least be with them? Enough years have gone by for him to no longer feel survivor's guilt, but here, in this cave, it rears up like the first day it happened. It forced him to clutch his head and shut his eyes, to desperately remind himself that he had moved on, he had moved forward. He'll always carry them, but what he wanted to remember was the happy the memories, not this. Anything but this.
Everything onward...he was able to look with a steadier eye. The people and monsters he had to kill and destroy, the orders he followed. Some justified, others... He never took a mission he didn't believe had a just or valid reason, but after he realized the truth about Society's organization, he had gone back and started to question. Were there some missions he should have avoided? Or what if he hadn't changed and followed that order to kill Lyria and Gran? An order like that...he would have followed no questions asked, but he had changed. Were some of these lives he took more innocent than he knew? Still, as gruesome as it was, it had allowed him to refocus, to force himself forward. He also knew...that with this trend more would come and he could make guesses as to what expect. And he was right.
When he saw Beat, his hand started to shake, his breathing quickening again. At first he looked away, but then he found himself being pulled back. To stare at what happened...and what could have happened. His steps slowed as if caught in a puppet's string, he was forced to look at everyone, look at their faces...hear their voices. For Eustace, their hollowed eyes followed him as he passed, and their loose mouths flapped to whisper blame and anger. The fear they now held for him, the contempt and betrayal.
How could you?
We were your friends...
Weak.
He grit his teeth, nails digging into his palms so deep his own blood mixed with what was dried there. Rationally, he knew this wasn't what they thought. Yet that fear...that uncertainty... It overshadowed those feeble thoughts until he finally exited the cave—
And it was empty.
For Eustace, the field was completely barren, with only the blood red skies and charred earth. He had expected something else to appear, but...there was nothing. Even as he stepped further in nothing appeared...until he head a crack beneath his boot. Looking down, he froze when he saw something white, and with a trembling hand he crouched down and touched it.
...Bone.
Slowly looking beyond the site, he saw more pieces jutting and a skull half covered in the dirt. His heart pounded so loudly he could barely hear himself breathe, no thoughts coming to him as he scrambled to the dirt and dug it out, his nails and fingertips bleeding by the end of it. And he could have only stare down, his body shaking as he gasps for air that refuses to come.
Black hair. Torn clothes. Broken chain.
A dream a nightmare, he continued to desperately chant to himself before he angrily staggers upright. He shouts, yelling for the nightmare entity he knew was still plaguing him. Yelling at himself to end this. The only answer he got in return was the skeleton suddenly rising and latching onto him, startling him as he found himself unable to move.
Eustace...
Such a sweet, beautiful whispered into his ear before the next words made him freeze.
...You're hurting me...
As he was held captive, Tifa suddenly appeared in front of him, smiling her beautiful smile. But then she started to crumble into dust and ash until there was nothing left. Another one appeared, only for her head to be sliced off by an invisible blade. A third, this time run through by a spear of ice. A fourth—clawed through the chest. A fifth. Sixth—
Each time he struggled, each time he screamed, each time he lost more and more of his rational mind. Lightning rained down, but they struck the ones who appeared, and these would be the first ones he actually destroyed himself. Even though he knew they weren't real, just the sight and realization of it was enough for the darkness that was growing around him to take hold and twist it.
Until at last all the pent up rage erupted around him. Reaching back he blasted he skeleton with lightning and forged a version of Flame into his hand. In his mind he tried to look at each version of Tifa just like the Otherwordly Being that impersonated his younger brother. An imposter. An abomination. If he could get rid of them... If he could somehow end this...
He aimed for his first shot, but he couldn't do it—it was Tifa's face that was at the other end of the barrel. She looked scared, whispering his name in desperate pleas. How could he harm her? But it was then that he felt a piercing pain through his back and a dark shroud enveloping me. Laughter echoed in his mind as his body changed until changed into that accursed lindworm. He yelled in rage and pain, the entire process agonizing.
Kill her, the voice whispered, kill her and you'll be free.
He tried to resist, tried to think of another way. Of focusing on a different way to break out of here. Of just waking the fuck up—!!
But there was a scream, and when he looked he could only stare wide eyed at Tifa's body dangling at the end of his claws, completely pierced through. He swore he didn't even move, so how...??
It was then that he realized.
The body was moving on its own.
Onward it flew through the area, striking at every single version of Tifa that appeared. Each time Eustace would shout and try to force it to stop, but he couldn't.
He was completely helpless. Completely out of control.
The only thing he could do was scream, trapped in this neverending hell.
When Tifa finally arrives, he had been through so much, his mind and will on the brink of complete collapse. He doesn't recognize her as different from the others, so he just watches with blank, empty eyes as the lindwurm first crushes the body it was chasing and tosses it to the side before turning to the one charging at it. With red, burning eyes filled with rage and despair, it rushes to meet her, claws raised to strike.
The only difference is this one is fighting back with fire...
no subject
Nauseating.
Torture.
Once again Eustace finds himself trapped in a horrific nightmare that he can't seem to free himself from.
From the moment that beautiful, peaceful field broke, he had fallen through that exact same hole, dropped into that exact same pool of blood, and had to endure that walk out of the grisly tunnel. Except for him, he could hear them. The voices, the crying, the screams, the swearing, the laughter, the roaring, the howling. Truthfully only the beginning and the end had affected him the most.
It had started with the remnants of his family and members of his home village, the memories of their remains scarred forever in his brain. However, as painful as it had been, he had been able to endure...at least at first. What Tifa did not see or wouldn't have been able to notice is the small body of his younger brother, and how there had been a bullet hole through his head. Although he knew in truth what he shot back then was an Otherwordly Being that had desecrated his brother's memory and created a fake doppleganger, he still had shot at an image of his brother. ....And he still feels the guilt of the what if. He had tried to ignore those words that abomination had said, that Savini had found the device and brought back to their home to show everyone...to show him, wanting to follow in his footsteps to go on adventures and finding things.
If he had stayed home and helped with the chores, would he have stopped him? Or would he...would he at least be with them? Enough years have gone by for him to no longer feel survivor's guilt, but here, in this cave, it rears up like the first day it happened. It forced him to clutch his head and shut his eyes, to desperately remind himself that he had moved on, he had moved forward. He'll always carry them, but what he wanted to remember was the happy the memories, not this. Anything but this.
Everything onward...he was able to look with a steadier eye. The people and monsters he had to kill and destroy, the orders he followed. Some justified, others... He never took a mission he didn't believe had a just or valid reason, but after he realized the truth about Society's organization, he had gone back and started to question. Were there some missions he should have avoided? Or what if he hadn't changed and followed that order to kill Lyria and Gran? An order like that...he would have followed no questions asked, but he had changed. Were some of these lives he took more innocent than he knew? Still, as gruesome as it was, it had allowed him to refocus, to force himself forward. He also knew...that with this trend more would come and he could make guesses as to what expect. And he was right.
When he saw Beat, his hand started to shake, his breathing quickening again. At first he looked away, but then he found himself being pulled back. To stare at what happened...and what could have happened. His steps slowed as if caught in a puppet's string, he was forced to look at everyone, look at their faces...hear their voices. For Eustace, their hollowed eyes followed him as he passed, and their loose mouths flapped to whisper blame and anger. The fear they now held for him, the contempt and betrayal.
How could you?
We were your friends...
Weak.
He grit his teeth, nails digging into his palms so deep his own blood mixed with what was dried there. Rationally, he knew this wasn't what they thought. Yet that fear...that uncertainty... It overshadowed those feeble thoughts until he finally exited the cave—
And it was empty.
For Eustace, the field was completely barren, with only the blood red skies and charred earth. He had expected something else to appear, but...there was nothing. Even as he stepped further in nothing appeared...until he head a crack beneath his boot. Looking down, he froze when he saw something white, and with a trembling hand he crouched down and touched it.
...Bone.
Slowly looking beyond the site, he saw more pieces jutting and a skull half covered in the dirt. His heart pounded so loudly he could barely hear himself breathe, no thoughts coming to him as he scrambled to the dirt and dug it out, his nails and fingertips bleeding by the end of it. And he could have only stare down, his body shaking as he gasps for air that refuses to come.
Black hair. Torn clothes. Broken chain.
A dream a nightmare, he continued to desperately chant to himself before he angrily staggers upright. He shouts, yelling for the nightmare entity he knew was still plaguing him. Yelling at himself to end this. The only answer he got in return was the skeleton suddenly rising and latching onto him, startling him as he found himself unable to move.
Eustace...
Such a sweet, beautiful whispered into his ear before the next words made him freeze.
...You're hurting me...
As he was held captive, Tifa suddenly appeared in front of him, smiling her beautiful smile. But then she started to crumble into dust and ash until there was nothing left. Another one appeared, only for her head to be sliced off by an invisible blade. A third, this time run through by a spear of ice. A fourth—clawed through the chest. A fifth. Sixth—
Each time he struggled, each time he screamed, each time he lost more and more of his rational mind. Lightning rained down, but they struck the ones who appeared, and these would be the first ones he actually destroyed himself. Even though he knew they weren't real, just the sight and realization of it was enough for the darkness that was growing around him to take hold and twist it.
Until at last all the pent up rage erupted around him. Reaching back he blasted he skeleton with lightning and forged a version of Flame into his hand. In his mind he tried to look at each version of Tifa just like the Otherwordly Being that impersonated his younger brother. An imposter. An abomination. If he could get rid of them... If he could somehow end this...
He aimed for his first shot, but he couldn't do it—it was Tifa's face that was at the other end of the barrel. She looked scared, whispering his name in desperate pleas. How could he harm her? But it was then that he felt a piercing pain through his back and a dark shroud enveloping me. Laughter echoed in his mind as his body changed until changed into that accursed lindworm. He yelled in rage and pain, the entire process agonizing.
Kill her, the voice whispered, kill her and you'll be free.
He tried to resist, tried to think of another way. Of focusing on a different way to break out of here. Of just waking the fuck up—!!
But there was a scream, and when he looked he could only stare wide eyed at Tifa's body dangling at the end of his claws, completely pierced through. He swore he didn't even move, so how...??
It was then that he realized.
The body was moving on its own.
Onward it flew through the area, striking at every single version of Tifa that appeared. Each time Eustace would shout and try to force it to stop, but he couldn't.
He was completely helpless. Completely out of control.
The only thing he could do was scream, trapped in this neverending hell.
When Tifa finally arrives, he had been through so much, his mind and will on the brink of complete collapse. He doesn't recognize her as different from the others, so he just watches with blank, empty eyes as the lindwurm first crushes the body it was chasing and tosses it to the side before turning to the one charging at it. With red, burning eyes filled with rage and despair, it rushes to meet her, claws raised to strike.
The only difference is this one is fighting back with fire...
...
...Fighting back...?
......Fire....?]