Chapter Text
He couldn’t stand.
He could only kneel, hands on the damp, cool grass, wet by the rain.
Everything hurt.
His eye. Was it bleeding?
There was blood. So much blood. Dripping onto his legs, onto the grass.
(drip. drop.)
He blinked. That also hurt.
He didn’t have enough energy left in him to stand up. To confront Mind.
So he knelt, staring dumbfoundedly at the blood-stained grass.
God, his eye hurt.
His vision was blurry, half of it an inky black void. Oh, but he hadn’t had such clear vision in so long, even if it was just an eye’s worth. It was jarring.
He choked on something warm and coppery coming up his throat. Coughing, he saw red come out of his mouth.
More blood.
More red.
He wanted to stand. To run. To cry. To leave this place and never come back.
This was a dream, he tried to tell himself. Just a dream.
Or was it?
Another wave of pain crashed into him. He continued to kneel, knee digging into the soft earthy ground, rocks pressing against his skin, clawing at the ground, dirt digging into his fingernails.
He choked again, tearing up now. The pain was too much to bear.
Blinking away tears, he mustered up nonexistent energy, reaching up to touch his right cheek. His shaking fingers grazed over it (he’d just realised he’d been shaking).
He saw blood on his hands. Blood, mixed with rainwater until it became an ugly mess.
The scent of hot, metallic blood hit him like a train wreck. It felt real. So real, that he was forced to believe it.
His hand grabbed the grass before he could fall face first onto the grass.
Something felt wrong (besides the obvious blood). He doesn’t remember this. {or did he?} This didn’t happen. He was sure of that. Distantly, he recalled the day he had shot Mind, and the screaming after.
That fact could not deny the scent of freshly mowed grass, the coppery smell of blood, and the salty taste of his tears on his tongue. Nor could he deny the heavy breathing that followed, the familiar smell of gun powder, and the grass blades digging into his sweaty palms. The clouds spat at him relentlessly, freezing droplets trickling down his neck, back, and arms. He swallowed, pulling fistfuls of wet grass off the ground.
(betrayal tastes like wine)
He blinked away more tears before they could stain his face more. What is happening? He thought in a panicked flurry. Where am I?
Where is Mind?
He had to look up. He wanted a resolution. Too many questions swirling in his head, demanding attention from him, and no way to spit them all out.
He choked again, trying to clear his thoughts. He stared dazedly at his bloody hands, the startlingly bright green grass stuck to his blood stained hands.
So bright. Too bright. The grass in the headspace was never this bright. It was always an ugly murky green.
Not in his dreams either. He never had dreams. Only a few times (those dreams he tried not to think about), and even so, he had never seen grass in his dreams.
What was this place anyway?
Heart could smell something reeking of gunpowder. At first he thought it was his face. His bloody, wet face. It might as well be burning too, right?
The smell was intoxicating, and eerily familiar. Almost like he switched sides with Mind in this scene.
More rain. Torrents of water hit him in all directions, cold and unforgiving (like Mind), running down his already soggy hair, and down his burning face, like someone was pressing dry ice to it. He coughed, blood dribbling down his chin slowly, but he barely felt it. Everything was murky now.
What is happening?
He shook, both from the cold and the exertion. His knees and hands were going to give out if he continued kneeling like this. He could feel the cool grass dig into them. The blood continued to flow, warm against his cheek, pooling around him.
Heart didn’t want to look. He was scared. Terrified of who would be staring at him. Who had shot him? He didn’t want to know.
But most of all, he was ashamed.
He was so wild with fear in the moment, unable to move, unable to speak. And he knew who would be in this position.
Mind.
Was this what he felt? Briefly, he bitterly thought that it would be good for the automaton freak to feel something for once, but it was quickly shelved away, replaced with guilt. He didn’t mean for The Sun to go through something like that.
I’m sorry.
No sound came out. The horrible cacophony around him was still present, however.
Am I sorry?
He wondered. He didn’t know. What once was an angry flurry of emotions swirling in his chest, was now startlingly empty. He didn’t feel the resentment he had carried on for so long.
But he didn’t know what could replace the hole in his chest now.
That was it, wasn’t it? Always trying to run away, hiding from the stupid, cold, empty void in him. It felt sick to be so empty like this. He would’ve said he missed the emotions, but at the same time, he felt something he hadn’t felt in forever.
Freedom.
Oh, he felt so free. As free as a bird in the sky. Heart had always been so distracted by the feelings in him, he’d forgotten how it felt like to feel nothing.
Then, a voice. So broken and dry.
“Lo ok up .”
So he did.
And then he understood where the gunpowder smell was coming from.
He saw himself pointing the gun.
The one pointing his pistol raised it again, pointing it square at his chest. A spike of fear erupted in him. He scrambled back, coughing more blood in the process.
“Wait, no please wait-” he choked out, new, hot and wet tears flowing out.
He heard the shot before he saw it. The pull of the trigger. The flint sparking, and metal against metal. Then
BANG
(black, immaculate, patterned silence.)