damned_institute | Nightshift 38: Men's Restroom, 2nd Floor

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albedo

Nightshift 38: Men's Restroom, 2nd Floor

[from here]

The inside of the bathroom was more or less like the ones he was used to back... back where now? Would he call that place home? He shook his head, tearing the thorn-encrusted vines off of his arms. No, that place wasn't any kind of home. Home was found within people, and he would not be able to find that again.

He was tearing the bramble off of his leg when he realized he was still bleeding from his arm. Albedo slowly moved his head to stare at his arm in horror. Why hadn't it healed?! Had Nigredo found a way to shut that off, the infinite telomerase, his claim to immortality?! If he had, if Nigredo had....

...What would he do? He would be able to die.

The thought shocked all sense from him, and then was put aside as he saw the blue glow start to close the scrapes on his arm. He exhaled loudly, not realizing he had been holding his breath. Albedo watched the process scrutinizingly. It was far more slower than it should have been, but it was working. Everything was fine.

The wounds had fully sealed on his arm and were almost closed on his leg before he felt it. Suddenly feeling weak and dizzy, Albedo leaned heavily on the sink. What...? What was going on?!

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The porcelain sink creaked beneath Albedo's palms. The sound echoed dully in the room, but it was enough to wake it. The creature was always waiting and always hungry and it just needed a chance, a good solid chance, and it could eat. Now, it seemed, that chance had stumbled into its lap - how glorious.

Slowly, Albedo's reflection shifted and changed. His skin lost its color and patches of it seemed to dissolve into thin air. In certain places, his hair seemed to recede until it exposed the flesh and then worse, the flesh split and pulled back to show rotten muscle. His arms thinned out, his nails grew ragged and then, the eyes hollowed out. His reflection was nothing but a shell of his former self, a picture of the future of his decay, and finally, the mirabis was in place. Now, all he had to do was wait for him to look up.

[Kaze]

There was no reason to further get upset. He had regenerated fine, the wounds were completely gone. He must have imagined it, that was all. (All there was? Delusions or illusions, or something else entirely?) And the dizzly spell? The weakness? Maybe he had been drugged. Maybe it just kicked in when he ran a while ago.

Maybe. Maybe.

Shaking his head to try and clear it, Albedo looked up, inches away from what he was never supposed to be--dying and in decay. The boy froze, eyes wide, as something shifted in his mind--pieces sliding into each other, thoughts in renewed disarray.

A brief lost hope caught and flared, before crashing into a kind of wild panic--an overwhelming tsunami of emotion that could be clearly felt along the link. He wouldn't die, he couldn't die, death was not for him, not his place, not his purpose--he had meaning! Purpose! Destiny and fate had chose him! He was special! Death had no place here. He had meaning. And this was not it! This was not it, not this way, and he couldn't, not with himself, not with U-DO, not without Rubedo! No! Without him, without the traitor, without the....

For the first time, he wished that he could still talk to Rubedo. Call out and tell his brother that he was scared.

No, no he didn't want that. Maim and destroy Rubedo, until he looked like... like this... like Albedo? But he couldn't! This was....

Impossible.

The white-haired Variant chanced a glance downwards. He... was whole. There was nothing wrong. No wounds, no decay. It was just a trick! A trick?! Albedo shuddered, a trace of that fear still coursing through him. He looked back up at the mirror. The image remained, and he moved his hand out to brush against it. How...?

This wasn't possible. This image. This would never come to be. He wanted to break it suddenly, shatter the lie (the hope) into pieces. This wasn't... Real.

Such beautiful panic. They always panicked when they caught a glimpse of how they'd look in the future. They always did and it always made them wonder - Is it real? Am I really...? - which always led to them exactly what the mirabis wanted.

When Albedo shuddered, so did the reflection. It still needed to be let free and soon, it would be. As he moved to touch it, the mirabis did the same, decaying skin brushing against the other side of the glass. Where flesh used to be, bone stuck out, scraping slightly against the smooth surface. Just a little more, a bit more rage was all it needed. Break the mirror, it chanted in its mind. Set me free.

The scape set his nerves on edge. What was this? A simple fabrication, but how would they?...

It didn't matter what it was. He didn't want to look at it any more. Couldn't stand it. Couldn't be around it. Couldn't be reminded of--

He drew his hand back and slammed it down on the mirror. If it cut him, he would heal. If something broke, he would heal. Because he would never turn into that. It wasn't real.

Finally. Albedo slammed his hand into the mirror and the mirabis did the same. The glass cracked, splintering into spiderwebs and then bits of it began to fall away. Shards of glass fell into the sink and while normally that would mean the reflection would fragment as well, this time it did not. The mirabis grinned wide and pushed its hands against the glass, causing more and more of it to break away from the frame.

A hole opened and the mirabis was free. It slammed its hands into the remaining glass, shattering it to clear a path to Albedo. Reaching through the vacant frame, the half-rotten reflection tried to grab Albedo's shirt to pull him closer.

He took it incredibly well, considering.

His mind cracked further, allowing U-DO's presence to have more of a handhold. The mirror's cracks copied the effect, and Albedo was soon watching a version of him reach through a mirror.

Some instinct made him stumble back to land hard on the floor, the same position he was in earlier in the night. Other than that, he hadn't reacted. Just stared with eyes that glowed purple with a pink tint.

This is possibility, he thought. This is possibility and the past and the sides all at once. This is something that never existed, but might have existed somewhere. Some part of him existing elsewhere, in another dimension, another place. Some lower plane, as if he wasn't as evolved as he were. This was him without the perfect chain of consciousness. Without the infinite telomerase. This was hope and this was retribution, all rolled into a skin-sloughed package. This was life. This was fear. This was something interesting. This couldn't touch him. This was something that could exist, might exist, if certain circumstances are met. If Rubedo...

The pieces of his mind slammed violently together again, leaving little room for U-DO to leak into his subconcious. The glow from his eyes faded. Feeling more tired than he could remember, he scrambled backwards, fear pushing him back, but not up.

Missed. The mirabis' fingers scraped across the fabric of Albedo's shirt, but nothing more. It needed to be free and to attack. Albedo fell to the ground and the mirabis grabbed both sides of the mirror, pulling itself free. It crawled from the darkness, not caring if its rotten skin was cut by glass. It couldn't really feel it anyway.

Slipping out, the mirabis dropped to the floor and then slowly began to stand, bones grating against each other where the joints had lost their padding. It moved jerkily, head tilted just a little too far to one side to be natural. Once it had its feet under it, the mirabis turned its gaze on Albedo - and its eyes glowed in a most familiar manner. Opening its mouth to reveal several jagged teeth sticking out of mostly rotten gums, it started forward, hands reaching for him again. All it had to do was pin him down, then it would attack and feast.

The thing continued its journey through the mirror, to whatever reality this was now. He could only watch, only witness this. If it wasn't a reflection of him... a false impression... this would be managable. He had seen far worse than this after all.

And then its eyes glowed, in a poor imitation of his, because that was his alone, he was special, and this thing had no right mocking it. Like that, his fear dissolved into a familiar anger, a rage that burned through his stomach swept through him. Pushing off the floor, he launched himself at his attacker; one hand going to grab one of the ones reaching for him, the other arm to press against the equivalent of this thing's throat, to press until something crushed.

Albedo caught its arm, but the mirabis grinned blocking his other hand and pushing it out and away from its throat. What a beautiful fury and what graceful skills - and such strength! A mirror was meant to mimic all that their reflections gave them and the mirabis' face twisted into the same anger, its free hand snapping out for Albedo's neck instead. If anything was going to die, it would be him tonight.

His hand tightened around the arm in his grip, skin shifting sickeningly; both enraged and thoroughly disgusted. He wanted to crush it. He wanted to have nothing to do with it. It should be destroyed (he should be destroyed), it was horrible (he was horrible); it should never have existed.

He barely noticed when his other hand was brushed off. If this was his reflection (and it was, wasn't it?), did this reflect his inner self? His body would never die, never decompose and decay, but his self, his waveform, his soul... Surely that was rotting away, deteriorated by the presence of U-DO and his other heartbeat's withdrawn hand. Surely this was what he really was, underneath the URTV power and U-DO glow. Surely, he was this....

Repulsive. Wasn't he? If he was then that would explain why Rubedo had cast him off, looked at him like he was nothing, and how could Albedo be nothing to him, when Rubedo was everything to him?

No. No, not again. Rubedo was nothing and Albedo was perfect. These thoughts (he was an abomination) that resided deep within him (he was a mistake) were no longer truths (he wasn't loved)--he had been shown something higher (his was a unified consciousness, his was a flawless existence), he had been made for something higher.

But the rotting corpse of everything that had came before was staring at him with the anger that had overtaken him, seeming to say the words that he would no longer voice (the universe doesn't want you). And then the thing's hand was around Albedo's throat, and it was irony, pure irony! I'm supposed to be killed by what I will never be? But death was not for Albedo. And what about Rubedo? What about...?

The mirabis closed its hand around Rubedo's neck and with surprising strength for something with rotting arms, began to crush it. The monster squeezed, ignoring the pain in its arm as Rubedo did the same, trying to strangle him. Whatever the boy was thinking didn't matter to it. What mattered was that he was going to die and then the mirabis was going to devour his flesh and drink his blood.

The pressure made his eyes narrow. Something gave in his neck. It was nothing he hadn't felt before. Being strangled, being stabbed, being shot. He would live through it all, and take more experience to grow from. *Albedo* wasn't one to die easily.

As the pressure increased, Albedo turned the arm that he held; twisting it with the hope of breaking it.

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Nightshift 38: Men's Restroom, 2nd Floor

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