i'll have you know
i've come to watch you die.

Darkness swirled about him like a dancing demon playing in shadows. It felt like a dream, his head was swimming with the sensation of falling. Then again, he always felt like that. Falling deeper into the crevasses of his mind like a rock descending into the depths of the vast ocean. He was drowning, suffocating. So long... it had felt like such a long time since he had surfaced from this hole he had been thrust into. He had seen images... visions of faces he'd known. Who were they? Why did they look so familiar. He saw streaks of blood, a mountain of corpses of people with no faces. Time was a non-entity where he was. It could have been years, decades. He couldn't tell, he didn't want to know. 

You who are drowning... It is not yet your time...

A voice called to him... a voice without a body or name... The sound echoed around him, waking him from the endless falling. His blue eyes opened to the darkness. Empty. The first word that came to mind was the emptiness that went on forever in each direction. Where was he? A hand of black reached through the darkness and took hold of the youth around the waist.  It was enormous, lifting him so quickly he only had time to look above at the light that was approaching him so quickly. Wait, he was going to slam into it--!

"No!" The blonde choked on his own words and coughed like a smoker. His vocal cords cracked from lack of use. What was going on? The last thing he remembered was... A faceless man stood above him, a lipless mouth uttered something incomprehensible. Vin's body was strapped down tightly as a needle was forced into his arm. Burning. He couldn't remember... Just bits and pieces that were scattered. "Agh!" He winced, seething through his teeth as his hands clamped on his head. A splitting pain shot through him causing him to fall to his knees. He heard a crunching sound as leaves and twigs crumpled below him.  Vin blinked at the ground, the scenery lost on him. Where... was he..?

Come to me... Stand and come...

Go? Go where? If it hadn't been for the nagging feeling in his chest he would have sat on the ground and cried where he was. Something kept his mind set on the voice, however, his freedom lost to him. Vin's eyes rose from the ground to the manor that stood before him. This wasn't anyplace he was familiar with, why was he here?

He is inside...

"Who? Who is inside?" The faceless voice didn't answer, instead the boy rose to his feet and did the only thing he could do. He peered into the old abandoned building. "Are you in here?" He yelled into the house. Nothing. One foot entered the dark of the manor, carrying the rest of the body with it. There wasn't any going back, of that he was sure-- and the pulling in his chest was getting stronger. He felt as though he were guided through the house, his eyes useless in the darkness but his chi giving him a clear picture of his surroundings. There was another person here. He could sense it. Was he the one calling him? The pulling in his chest told him to go down into the basement, and so he did without question. Whatever the voice was, Vin found that he just trusted it.

Vin's black robe would blend into the darkness, not that anyone was able to see in the pitch black-- but Vin was able to pick out the fallen body under part of the collapsed building. Immediately Vin ran over to the person and began uncovering him. "Are you alright? Hey, don't move, I got this." He spoke into the darkness. Any normal person probably would have been skeptical-- somebody was down in the basement of an abandoned house? But Vin was-- Vin. He couldn't just let another person suffer.

i'll have you know
i've come to watch you die.

Vin's hands cupped under the heavy debris and his body strained to lift the wooden beams and pieces of ceiling off the boy. Basic questions began to form in the teen's head. What was this guy doing here? Was he connected to the voice he'd heard? A question of the other's choosing was issued first, not one entirely of distrust or fright-- more of a genuine curiosity from one stranger to another and perhaps a bit of awe as he depicted from the voice. Maybe he'd been trapped here for a while? Maybe he didn't think anyone was going to save him. "I'm Vin." If the answer he'd given him was short and direct, it was only because he didn't exactly want to be prodded into answering more about himself. He couldn't remember. A man... A seething dragon's head with blood dripping from its mouth smiled back at him, piercing red and yellow eyes glowering into his own. A school... A ruin stood before him, wrecked to its foundation. Corpses strewn among the rubble disfigured, mutilated, cold. A-- smile. He couldn't remember the face or even the name of the person it belonged to, but he could feel its warmth.

A chill swept through him suddenly sending a shiver down his spine. A clawed hand clasped at his heart and his breath froze in his chest. He couldn't scream, he couldn't breathe, all the joy of the smile vanished in an instant replaced with terror. What was going on? A clawed finger trailed down his heart and as soon as the hand had appeared, it vanished. Vin's breaths came heavy, sweat beading down his face and his eyes wide in fright. His voice was lost to him as his lips formed words that felt deaf on the other's ears. The hell was that? He looked over to the darkness where the boy was laying, a piece of ceiling still sticking out of his leg. He had to get a hold of himself. Not only for his own sake, but for the sake of this boy. "I-I'm... I'm fine." He finally dredged out the words, doing his best to console the boy at his knees. He probably sounded insane, scared out of his wits for no reason.

He grabbed hold of the shrapnel of wood caught in the other's leg. "Alright, I just want to say that this'll probably--" He yanked before he finished his thought, trying to catch the boy by surprise before he fully realized what Vin was going to do. "hurt." He quickly went to work treating the wound, wrapping it with a handkerchief he had on his person. He didn't have any alcohol or even water to clean the wound, all he could do was try to stop the bleeding for now and get him somewhere to treat his leg properly.

"Can you stand?"

i'll have you know
i've come to watch you die.

Vin listened as the other's skeptical voice questioned their predicament uncertainly. Getting out wasn't any trouble, the stairs he had just come down would lead back to the main floor of the house and finding their way back out of the manor from there would be easy. If it came down to it, Vin was certain he'd be able to carry him to safety. For some reason, though, Vin found himself noticing that he hadn't heard the disembodied voice in his mind. He was starting to miss it-- the voice that pulled him from his darkness. Of course it was stupid to think that he could just think to the voice and it would answer. Actually, he was starting to wonder if the voice had even existed in the first place.

"What's your name?" Vin asked, making small talk in the meantime as he helped Cyril to his feet. Perhaps talking in the meantime would help take his mind off the pain shooting through his leg. The wooden splinter had been buried deep in his leg, without seeing how dark the blood was he couldn't be sure if it had hit an artery or not. He'd have to hurry before the other passed out-- if he was going to. "I know we don't really know one another, but it'd be kinda awkward to refer to you as 'you' or something equally as ambiguous." He helped the young man through uneasy steps, leading him through the darkness. "Why were you down here in the first place? Seems like a strange place to spend the night. You weren't lost, were you?" Then again, he didn't know how long he'd been trapped there-- it was possible he came in while it was light and gotten trapped before night fell. Then again, he didn't know what time it was in the first place... or even the date... Now that he really got to thinking about it, there were so many questions he wanted to ask. No. He shouldn't pester his new friend. His questions would have answers in time.

"Careful, we'll be going up a flight of stairs now. Let's take it slow, yeah?"

i'll have you know
i've come to watch you die.

Cyril? It was an odd name. Vin wasn't much better, but it was a nickname for the name he hated. Devin Rhodes. It was a pretty normal name, he probably would have liked something a little more flashy. Cyril. The more he thought about it the more he liked it. Vin listened as they ascended from the darkness of the basement. There was slightly more light out in the hallway now that his eyes had adjusted but he still relied on his chi to navigate through the house. Well, he wasn't a believer in ghosts or magic. Things were logical, they made sense. Even his powers had reasoning behind them, perhaps manifestations of his past experiences. Ghosts, demons... those things were just fairy tales for those with overactive imaginations. Aliens though, aliens were real.

"Well, that's--" Vin's face furrowed. He'd tell if he knew. What had he been doing here? How did he get here? "I-- can't remember. Darkness..? A-- voice? NNgh--!" Shit. Not this again! A hand shot up to his head, the pain was excruciating flowing from his brain down to the rest of his body. Heat poured through his muscles and he fell to his knees. "Agh!" It was getting worse, the pain swelled in Vin lending to the yell that reverberated off every wall. As soon as the yelling had begun, it had stopped. The young man's gloved hands dangled down to his sides.

So fragile... so much pain...

It was that voice again-- the one he had heard from earlier... So, he hadn't imagined it. Vin's consciousness was balancing on a cliff, on one side he could hear the voice... the other-- a vast darkness loomed below him. No! He didn't want to go back! Not again! Fear flowed up to his throat.

So much fear.

As the voice spoke he turned to look in the direction it came from this time. He wanted to see who was speaking. Where was it? He could see a group of three far away, but their features were distinct like he was standing next to them. A boy, a girl and-- himself. He was holding a sword standing in front of the two, the boy was standing before the girl... their faces were terrified and resolved. He sensed confusion from them as well and a pain. Betrayal? They looked so familiar yet he couldn't place a name on either of them. Silently, the other him raised its sword and cut through the boy. Vin closed his eyes as the metal drug across the throat, the body fell to the ground with a thud, a trail of red splattered on the ground and pooled below the choking corpse. His heart broke and struggled in his chest. He didn't know the boy, but there was a sense of deep loss inside him that grew like a hole consuming him. The ground was so soft like he could just sink into it. The other Vin turned on the girl and his heart stopped. No. NO! His form advanced on her and Vin was helpless to watch.

Suddenly, Vin's motionless form would outstretch a hand quickly and attempt to grasp Cyril around the throat so his gloved fingers would dig themselves into the already wounded boy's windpipe.

i'll have you know
i've come to watch you die.

Blank eyes would stare into Cyril's own. Whatever life they had carried a few moments ago was devoid from his person. Perhaps the teen could see it, perhaps he couldn't. But one thing he wouldn't be able to shake would be the aura of murder hanging about Vin now. He had killed hundreds, his body was drenched red in the blood of those whom he had been pointed toward. But the teen didn't move to finish the job. This wasn't a meta, there was no need for him to die. Besides, he hadn't presented himself as a threat either. Killing him would go against the cause he was fighting for. Vin couldn't help but agree with that logic, after all it was his own.

Vin struggled helplessly against the suffocating darkness, he couldn't move, he was being smothered. All he could do was close his eyes and listen for the soft thud of a second head hitting the ground. There wasn't a scream or anything, but the scene's finale was too gruesome for him even without seeing. He heard the sound and imagined that familiar smile on her face even as everything ended. He felt as though his heart had been shredded inside his chest. He was empty, all his emotions spent and drained from him.

All at once Vin collapsed to the ground. He couldn't feel anything. His eyes trailed up to Cyris who was standing over him. "Sorry..." It was all he could manage. He could remember what he had been doing, a hand wrapped around the boy's throat. Something inside him had told him to squeeze and end it, snap the life right out of him. But something else had stopped him. What was it..? Perhaps it was a guardian angel that saved him from his own darkness-- if such a thing existed. His heart sank as he slowly realized what this meant. "Leave me, you shouldn't be around me-- I'm dangerous." It was a little late to be saying this now, Vin understood, but what if next time he couldn't stop himself? What if his guardian angel didn't stop him? It was too risky and he didn't want Cyril to get hurt, not again.