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Eugh… Where-
Falst’s eyes adjusted to the pitch dark, and he saw that Dainix was tangled up and unconscious, and a crawler had made its way there, its nightmarishly thin frame climbing on the wall, its claws reached out to grab Dainix’s face-
“HEY!!” Falst shouted, throwing a rock right at that thing’s head to startle it. It screeched and jumped down into a combat stance, looking at Falst warily. Focus. Get your shot ready. “What kind of nightmare are you?”
That had been a mistake. It opened its mouth to respond, Monsters can’t talk. in abject misery, “sssssssss face stretching into suffering
ssssssSSSSTARVING”
The voice behind it, had once been human. Was still human. No, it wasn’t a human anymore. She isn’t human anymore. Mumbling with broken thoughts, mimicry of the …Where’s Dad? Is anyone coming to
Falst’s body moved before his thoughts did, throat rumbling with a battle cry as he threw the rock at the thing as hard as he could (Missing it. Don’t want to hurt them) and scared it off, watching it run away.
“Hah… hah… hah…” Shaking hands, shaking voice, shaking mind
In the cabin. Mom, what- it’s me!!! What happened to
FOCUS. With the roughened back of his hand, Falst wiped away the tears before they could ever form. In the grays of the dark, he rushed to get to business -he had a stranger(?) to rescue, and an escape to make.
—
Falst realized that that smell wasn’t coming from the medicine.
“No, it’s-”
That smell. He knew it too well. Sick bodies, desperate to die already
“…It’s something else-”
Looking up. Hundreds, and hundreds of them. Sick, lost souls, ready to devour everything in the room that was still alive.
Idiot. Trembling claws. A cooked spider. It said it was starving
“Focus. Talk to me. What’s coming?”
“Th-the thing that wanted to eat you? Cooking that bug just lured it right to us.”
Pairs of eyes blinking like stars, hungry, desperate to die already
“And it’s not alone.”
Dainix looked at the dark confused, trying to see. “What do they look like?”
“Stretched out sick people. Really nasty claws.” Need to get out of here, anywhere, where to climb to the -no you idiot that’s where the monsters are-
“…never fought one before. None of them ever…”
Can’t go down either- that’s worse- out the front door- n-no, this is a cave, get it right-
“…you have. Okay.” A breath. “They’re opportunistic and motivated only by hunger. Maybe they’ll go after the bug and leave us alone.”
“You can’t seriously believe they’ll get that lucky.”
“I’ve been” A moving shadow shifting of air from above
Out of the way. Falst grabbed the thing by the wrist and slammed it to the ground.
It hissed in pain, Dainix pointed a crossbow at it, Falst cracked its skull in and whirled around to fight the next thing, teeth reflecting the shine of its eyes, right behind Dainix,
Dainix noticed it and whirled around to point his crossbow at the slithering, sickly creature
“p l e a s e”
A cry for help. That orange idiot froze up, even as its claws moved
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Falst yelled, slamming it into the ground with enough force to kill it.
“It— they—”
A defensive whack, far from lethal. A shaky, reluctance to
“-They’re PEOPLE!”
Falst gripped Dainix by the front of his poncho.
“NOT ANYMORE!!”
It happened too fast. Many claws, grabbing them both, dragging Falst deeper into the dark, the horde, his own claws not that far away from their corruption
“CLOSE YOUR EYES!!!”
A bright golden flash, ringing, or was that the screaming of a thousand blinded souls, her scream echoed across the cabin, of pain or of anguish he didn’t know
…Mom-?! W-What- What happened to you? It’s me— It’s me!!! Can’t you recognize me?
I’m sorry I didn’t know, if I’d known then, I’d have done it myself before
A(n empty) slash, (a painful crack), s-she doesn’t- (breathe)
There’s nowhere to run. Can’t reach the walls, this room is too big, and I’m so small, they’d eat me in seconds-
(my arm, it hurts, i-is it going to break off? It’s gonna stretch and tear and)
A small hand, gripping a cold, pale hand, on the brink of worse than death
It’s been hours… she’s still here… why? Is she waiting for Dad? How long is that going to take?
(You remember a face that you simply will not remember)
But she’s already gone. You saw her gravestone. In letters that you can’t actually read.
You don’t think you’ll ever be able to forget how sick she was, in her final days. A corpse, whose heart hadn’t yet stopped beating. She hadn’t even been conscious enough to hum your favorite song anymore.
Screaming. The last sounds she made were anguished screams of agony. Of neverending hunger, confusion, horror. I’m never going to forget that sound, even if I tried. It rings in your ears like a constant pain. Every wound, every hit, the sound the monsters made were all the same-
A strange shadow behind you. A water bucket, your tiny (grizzled, hardened) face, and a monster moving to kill Falst.
Dad- why are you?! What are you doing?! Can she- she’s not gonna- I’m not gonna-
The one thing Falst can’t remember is her face. Can’t even remember that.
She stepped closer to Falst, and he froze, his soft (rough) hands far too small to do anything
(She held back, in her final moments. You wouldn’t be alive otherwise.)
A flash of hot pain in your side- blood streaked from the monster’s claws, and Falst swayed, stumbling backwards, wrist held in a cold iron grip
No. NO. Not here. Not now. Can’t die here
Your throat rumbled as you built up the last bit of my strength, and he let out a throat-tearing cry of anguish, swinging the monster into the ground with more than enough force to kill it instantly.
It hurts- why does it hurt so much- agh- stupid- might actually die here-
The flashbang behind him scared off the thing, and Falst returned to the present day. “…?”
“Sorry! Brace yourself!”
A flash of terrible pain, an aggravated wound.
Fire. A lot of heat. Falst’s friend almost, just almost burned out. But not yet.
“T-The fire…”
“I think I overdid it. I nearly burned out again.”
“A-And you gave me grief… about the arm…”
“Don’t start! I wouldn’t have risked it if you hadn’t gone berserk! Why didn’t you go for the door?!”
No time to answer the question. A monster clawed Dainix’s shoulder from behind, and in an impressive display of reflexes, he turned around and stabbed the monster in the gut, downing it instantly.
“I…” Blood dripped off his spear. “I didn’t…”
There were still monsters that’d made it past the fire. Falst threw Dainix into the doorway, before slumping against the wall, exhausted.
“N-No fire left… to block the door, right?”
“Maybe I can”
“No. My fault.” With a small hiss of pain, Falst forced himself to get up. “I’ll get it.”
The pain in his hand was the last sensation he felt before the last of his strength faltered, and panic gave way to exhaustion.
—
Falst was brought back into this world by intense pain. Something burning bright, caustic.
He didn’t even realize what -or who- he was clinging to until he came back into focus enough to realize that there was blood under his claws. Which were directly in Dainix’s flesh.
Falst pulled his claws away like hot iron, and stared at the blood on them. Fuck, I didn’t- Have these stupid claws done anything but hurt everyone who comes near them?
“Can you… hold this for me? I need a minute.”
Falst watched Dainix put the antiseptic rag over his shoulder, which now bore a fresh set of claw marks by Falst’s own doing.
“I’m sorry.” The words slipped out. Falst needed to fix this-
The room was filled with lacrimas of all kinds -including Life lacrimas.
“No, it’s not your fault,” Dainix said. “I left you fighting alone. I just couldn’t… I didn’t…”
Dainix looked away, his face like a sad puppy.
“The Ravvan hunt monsters. It’s how we protect the people. And until recently… I never had trouble drawing a line between them.”
As Falst listened to this stranger’s story, he realized- this adorable idiot really did feel guilty about killing a goddamn cave crawler.
Falst needed to make it up to this stranger for only losing it a little in the caves and making him have to get hurt saving him in the first place.
There! A hand-sized lacrima, perfect for spellcarving. Falst only needed to make his body move enough to reach it-
“Falst!” Dainix called, as Falst unceremoniously hit the floor. That stupid-
“Th-there IS no line,” Falst insisted. “And even if there was- what you killed was already dead.”
Dainix paused, considering his words. “…How can you accept that?”
…Was Falst really about to tell this stranger about one of the worst days of his life (that he still couldn’t get over even though it happened when he was fucking nine)?
Fuck it, why not. It’s not like Dainix hadn’t shared incredibly personal information of his own -they weren’t exactly strangers anymore. Falst only owed it to Dainix to explain his pathetic freakout back there that nearly got them both killed. (And, it would distract Dainix enough to let Falst get away with his plan.)
Somewhere, somewhen else, a child watched his mom get sick. At first, Falst thought she might be able to get better. (She hadn’t had the heart to tell him otherwise. His dad was, uhh, less subtle, but he was always like that.) Even as she got worse, he still clung to some stubborn, childish hope that eventually Dad would come home with something, and everything would get better.
Somewhere, somewhen else, Falst saw a strange reflection of someone behind him, and a monster woke up where his mom once was. He hadn’t understood what was happening, at first. He panicked, pleading, begging, but she was gone. That claw mark was long faded, but sometimes, it had only happened ten minutes ago.
The worst part was waiting in the rafters, watching Mom pace around the cabin, waiting for someone, or maybe looking for someone. He didn’t know how long he was up there, but he definitely hadn’t eaten in that time. And all he could think of, was that his claws, they weren’t that far off from… What if he was already halfway there?
Somewhere, somewhen else, Dad finally came home. And with one swipe of the claws, Mom was dead (had been for days, hours, years), and Falst’s shaky optimism died with her.
...Dainix looked at him like a kicked puppy -from him, that was hardly a surprise. Too bad Falst was not interested in talking about any of that. It’s fine, we can just forget you saw that and that anything ever happened and everything’s just fine.
—
“Hey. Are you okay?”
The grassy field where the group had set up camp was far away enough from the ruins that there was no risk of any rogue automations dragging anyone else underground. Falst had chosen a quieter corner under a tree to rest, and Dainix had helped him walk there. And now, he was looking at Falst with those soft, sad eyes that made his heart ache a little.
“Yeah, why?”
“…In the ruins…” Dainix looked away, unsure of himself. “A lot happened down there.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“…Falst…” Dainix started. “When we got attacked by- by that huge monster horde- I’m worried about how badly that got to you.”
Falst felt a sharp pang of irritation.
“Let me finish,” Dainix said. Like he’d read Falst’s mind. “It’s just- during that fight… All the monsters triggered some kind of trauma episode.”
“How surprising,” Falst sharply snarked, looking at the sky.
“No, it was a really bad one. You couldn’t hear me at all, you just kept attacking everything that came close to you. It was like you weren’t actually aware of anything happening around you at all.” Dainix paused. “It- it really worried me. Are you sure you’re feeling alright after all that?”
“I’m positive,” Falst said, glaring at Dainix. “Nothing to worry about here.”
“No, really! You almost got killed in there! If I hadn’t been there to rescue you-” Dainix took a breath. “Look, I don’t want anything like that to happen again. If I knew crawlers were a trigger for you, I could’ve helped you deal with it before it became a problem!”
“Great. Now you know.” Falst just wanted to fucking sleep.
Falst heard Dainix take a breath in. Gods damn it he didn’t know when to shut up did he. “Do you… does that happen a lot? The flashbacks, I mean?”
“You really don’t know when to stop asking questions, do you?”
“We’re on the same team now, and after all that, I’d be an awful teammate if I didn’t at least check in on you.”
Falst wanted to argue against that. He couldn’t argue against that. He grumbled in annoyance, closing his eyes to guard against the oncoming headache.
“Well, I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“Alright,” he responded. There was a pause. “But if you need anything, just let me know, okay?”
There was nothing more to say after that. Falst was too tired to keep talking about this. Dainix finally stopped pushing.
Gods, this day had been too fucking long.