Achilles, Come Down - Read on MistNovel

He�s choking, rattling in raspy, withering gurgles as his sight dies, the column of his trachea the last splotch of color he can see and wondering what will happen when he hits the end. His body�s finally shutting down. He can feel it beneath the grime and the blood, in the way all his limbs, or what�s left of them, are growing cold; how he can�t move his fingers anymore, pools of blood tacky where they dip in.

He wants to let slip a last whisper, but he can�t get his lips to move, their cracked skin too slippery with coppery red, the lump of his tongue he�s long since lost a missing crater in his mouth.

�I�m sorry,�

he hears murmured in his head, among the fading whispers crowding his ears,

�that I�m glad I�m dying.�

The noise is fuzzy, quieter than it�s ever been inside the hell of the prison. He doesn�t bother to shut his eyes as he feels his heart stop. What�s the point? He�s going to be found soon if the prison really does open- why give anyone false hope.

�I�m sorry.�

Death is almost warm, like sunlight on his skin.

�Satoru?�

He flinches, blind, but not from the lack of light.

He stares, and stares, and keeps staring, fingers shuddering up to his throat where they trace featherlight along unbroken, undamaged, unscarred skin. Where�s his esophagus? His trachea? Where�s the throat he ripped out? The blood he choked on? Why is there only unblemished skin and the

sun?

It�s bright, fire in the sky and too saturated for his eyes to process, too much as they consume everything. His brain throbs in his skull, taking in the sight of the Tokyo technical college, the forest surrounding it, the individual waving of the leaves as they ruffle in the breeze; the clamor of the people beyond Tengen�s humming, buzzing barrier, moving like ants in the thousands, pinpricks of light and energy making his vision swim; the catch of curses as they flare in the horizon, a blight on his senses and overwhelming with everything else.

�Satoru?� The word rings, fuzzy in his ears as it whines like tinnitus, familiar and heart stopping.

�I�m dead.�

He can�t even hear his own thoughts over the loudness of the world, staggering where he stands, eyes still fixated on the sky, on the

sun.

�I�m dead, I died, I felt my heart stop, this can�t be, it can�t-�

�Hey,� it comes again, a little more urgent than before, a little closer, another hammer to his ears and all the noise shrieking behind his eyes. He recoils hard enough to go stumbling as a hand reaches for him, covered in flesh rather than empty bone, tan and recognizable. Unbelievable.

He might make a noise, maybe a whimper or a soft whine, but if he does, he can�t hear it over the pounding in his head, bursting with all of the world�s noise after what had felt like years of darkness and nothing. People ten, twenty, eighty miles away, creatures scratching through the forest, the sorcerers moving about within the school, the drag of his own shoes on stone path as he stumbles and sways.

�Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop,� he thinks but doesn�t hear himself say, choking on the flesh inside of his mouth, the plead dripping from his lips like the dark, slick copper of his own blood from just a blink ago. It�s hot on his skin, sticky and warm. It�s hot? There�s something wet trickling from his nose. Bile stings on the back of his tongue. The words dissolve into the rest of the white noise as he stares up at the blue of the sky, and tries to remember if he�d ever had a hallucination as bright as this.

There�s an enemy over his shoulder, a friend in his frozen posture, and the sun shines down on it all as Satoru finally drops to his knees. It�s bright, it�s so bright, and he thought he�d never get to see it again.

�I have to be dead,�

he hears, before the stone rises to meet him.

When his eyes crack open again, his first thought is that they shouldn�t be.

The thing he�s lying on is softer than anything he�s felt since the blackness became his sky, and he flinches as the world trickles back in. It�s loud; it�s so loud. He�s never had a loud one before- the hallucinations scream, maybe, but they�re never loud like this.

Then again, he�d thought the same thing when he�d started seeing faces in the shadows, familiar eyes in the invisible, infinite walls.

His throat feels whole when he skims his fingertips along his jugular, unbroken skin and soft for it. It�s not unreasonable- the injuries are quick to disappear when he�s caught in a dream. Maybe he�s just asleep again, and choking trying to swallow around the tongue he knows he pulled out because it isn�t real.

When he sits up, a thin blanket falls off his shoulders, clad in the dark uniform he�d worn when he�d been a kid, before he�d changed the collar to a scoop neck to hide the scars from the Spear of Heaven. It�s odd, a little uncomfortable against his throat while he�s still trying to remember how to swallow. It�s marginal, though, barely a phantom compared to the other things he�s felt since being consumed.

When he swings his feet over the edge of the small clinic bed, the warm browns of the wooden furniture and the honey warmth of sunbeams staining his vision, he thinks it�s a lot better than some of the other dreams he�s had. Sometimes they take a while to devolve into pain and misery and blame, but they�re usually never peaceful. He�s always still doing something, being somebody, moving like he�d worked so much that it had imprinted itself into his soul.

His feet are smaller when he stares down at them, his shoes missing. That�s odd, but it fits with the old uniform, he supposes. He hasn�t had a dream about being young again for a while.

When he stands, he wavers, the pressure in his head expanding like a balloon as his vision blackens, fading to nothing for a long moment as the noise bursts in his ears. And then it�s returning, the woozy feeling all that remains of the temporary faint. He blinks, shakily letting go of the bedrail as he stumbles away, one foot in front of the other as he walks, feet unfamiliar and going nowhere remembered.

He wanders for a long while, head swiveling around and around as he watches the bright, colorful energy flares of people and objects move throughout the school, odd after so long outside of it. He drags his tongue over his teeth as he trails his fingertips along the old wood of the walls, eyes shut save for when he passes another huge, blindness, bay window. The sunlight looks like spiderwebs as it streams in, dust motes floating within the golden of its rays, dotting the floor in burning stripes of liquid light.

He walks for a long while, wondering. It�isn�t a

bad

dream. It�s mostly just peaceful, wandering aimlessly through the expanse of the school, staying far away from where he can see the colors of people flickering through the walls. He knows there are things looking for him; they chase after his residuals, false and real, slow and yet hurried. He can�t tell if they�re real or not, just like how he can�t tell if the impression of Riko and Suguru down in the energy bright catacombs of the star tomb deep below the school are real.

It doesn�t matter anyway, he knows, skimming his fingers along the dusty window ledge of the wall, eyes shut against the soft brightness of the honey wooden hallway. It�s a dream; the monsters will find him if they want. Either he stops it before they can and creates another, or he lets it keep going, and risks getting stuck until it ends.

He can�t quite decide, hanging in a limbo of indecision as he walks, feet padding softly and near soundlessly on hardwood, breathing in the old, paper tinged smell of ancient, and trees, and dust. Maybe it would be better if he were to break a window and fall until he wakes, or maybe it would be better to keep walking, running from the monsters before they can catch him. Maybe it would be better if he put another streaking set of gashes into his neck, or maybe it would be better to keep playing quiet and silent, a ghost flickering through old hallways he�d never bothered to walk before.

He doesn�t particularly want to leave. Dreams are the only places he can remember the prickle of Limitless under his skin, the hollow of infinity separating him from the world. They�re never peaceful, but they�re the only oasis from the whispers and the glares and the screams that shriek in his ear that it�s his fault, always his fault, all his fault.

It�s nice to have nothing for once, he sighs, taking another turn as he pads through the top of the school�s forgotten, maze-like twists. There�s old classrooms and storerooms up here, and it makes him wonder if he ever saw it before. Did it actually exist once? Or is it just his imagination, creating an escape from the things that slowly hunt him down, floors and floors below?

He thinks he�ll keep wandering until they catch him, because for once, he doesn�t want to leave. He likes the tranquility too much to let it go, likes the soft beams of light and the library-like smell of oldness, likes the quiet without the whispers. Maybe he�ll regret it when the monsters catch him, when they tear him apart by his flesh, tell him horrible things that he knows are all from his own mouth, but maybe he won�t. Maybe the hazy eon of small peace will be worth another death.

He walks, protected from the noise of the world for the smallest moment, fingertips tracing walls and windowsills, eyes open to catch the liquid of the sun and the blue of the sky.

They find him, eventually, just like he knew they would.

He watches the window instead of behind himself where they stumble into the hallway in twisting masses of chatter that fall silent when they see him, looking away even as the sight makes his eyes burn from too much light. He doesn�t know how this dream will end, what nightmare it will turn into, but he�s made his choice, he supposes. He doesn�t really want to leave whatever lucidity has flooded his brain to create this place, even though it�s probably going to be bloodied in but a moment.

�What the hell, Satoru, we�ve been looking for you for hours,� one says, marching towards him, and he watches it come closer, wrapped in fuzzy edges and jittering, faceless blackness. He flinches when it gets close enough to reach him, one long fingered hand outstretched towards his shoulder, and only stares when it pauses, when it stops, the pit of its facelessness seemingly scrutinizing him.

�Hey,� it says, �it�s just me,� like it�s not trying to reach out to hurt him. He watches it, its flickering image, the harsh lines scattering over its body to hide the image of the person he can�t see and doesn�t want to see, confused.

�Satoru?� It asks, his name fuzzy and heavy in his ears. Intrigued, he lets his eyes shut, cursed energy filling his vision with colors he can never name, and slowly walks back, expanding his sight as he expands their distance.

It�s a twisting thing, calm even as it roils with emotions, confusion and hurt and a little fear, annoyance and puzzlement. It stays put even when he backs away, feet soundless as they ghost along the floor until his back hits the rickety old doors of a cabinet in the equally old storeroom he�s wandered into.

�Shit,�

he can hear them curse, mutterings drifting in and out of his ears like crackling, snapping static,

�what�s wrong? Don�t know, could be anything, strain? Not like him, try again, slower, no sudden- unlike- don�t- gotta be.�

He stays, watching their flickers sway like firelight behind his shut eyes, pressed up against the squeaky cabinet door. He doesn�t move even when they turn back to him fully, nonsense images face to face opposite himself.

�Satoru,� one says, so familiar, and he knows that voice, hates that voice, �open your eyes.� He loves that voice. Wants it to go away and leave him be to wander this dusty, peaceful afterlife. Silently, he shakes his head, not wanting to see the roiling black masses instead of people.

�Please? Can you look at me?� It repeats, creeping a step closer that he tenses at, shoulders rising. His face tightens as his nose scrunches, eyes pulled taut with stress even as they stay stubbornly shut. He shakes his head again, watching the cursed energy ripple, flaring in frustration.

�C�mon,� it pleads, taking another step closer, and he freezes, stilling as his muscles stiffen. The monster freezes too, stopping for a long moment as it seems to contemplate something.

He jerks against the cabinet as a sharp, jagged movement slices across his vision, eyes snapping open in his panic. The faceless thing stands opposite him, the other in the back of the room in front of the door, its line-slashed hands jittering like spools of living thread as they hover in front of itself.

�Look at me,� it says, �no one�s here but you, me, and Shoko.�

�Shoko?�

He thinks, brows furrowing as he slides his gaze from the first thing to the one guarding the door. Shoko? But�His thought trails off, eyes darting between the monsters as they writhe without moving in his vision, beginning to recognize pieces of something different between every harsh scribble of black.

�It�s just me and Shoko,� the one in front of him repeats, hands held in front of itself as it steps closer again, and then closer still when he doesn�t recoil. He watches it, eyes its hands, knows it�s a trap, doesn�t quite care. He�s never had a dream do this before, lucid or not.

Slowly, tentatively, he uncurls his hand, twitching repeatedly from false starts and split second changes of mind, before he�s letting his fingers unfurl to reach out just a little. He can�t help the jump that crawls through his shoulders when the black thing�s fingers bump against his own, disturbingly solid and human below the hallucination.

�It�s�not real?�

He thinks, eyes blinking a bit wider as he stares at where the darkness begins to fade, dripping from the hand that touches his own to reveal tan skin and human fingers.

�But then what is all of this?�

He wonders, dragging his eyes over the whole of the room, confusion tugging at his mind.

�Hey, hey, hey, eyes on me,� the thing says- the person,

him,

he realizes.

�Suguru,� he whispers, watching the darkness meld away from kind eyes he remembers being so cold, rediscovering uneven bangs and furrowed brows, a ghost he hasn�t seen look so rested in years.

�Yeah,� Suguru says, �it�s just me,� and turns up his palm in an offer that Satoru drops his eyes down to stare at. He doesn�t understand. This isn�t right. It doesn�t go like this. When Suguru shows up, they fight, or they die, or he smiles as Satoru loses more of himself like it hadn�t been him in that station singing death.

He wars with himself for a long minute as he hovers his hand above that warm, welcoming palm, untrusting but trusting but confused but wanting to know.

Is it you?

He wonders, and thinks about the dream he�s in. It�s been unusually peaceful. Typically, the guillotine has dropped and the misery has started by now.

�What do I have to lose?�

He thinks,

�I thought I died already anyway, what�s another death, really,�

and gently sets skittish fingers down into Suguru�s waiting hand.

He can�t help the way he tenses at the contact when it happens, can�t help his sharp inhale or the woozy feeling that resurges from somewhere it had been hiding in his stomach. How rare, he knows, how rare to touch someone, even outside the hell of that place. He lets himself be guided when Suguru pulls him out of the crook of the cabinet�s battered doors, barely able to think as his head spins, the fog clearing in and the peace trickling out.

How strange, he can think, as Suguru�s hands trace up his arms, palms guiding him to the door.

Shoko is just as eerie when she reappears beyond the doorway, shedding the shadows as they pass through it, her brown eyes narrowed as she looks him up and down.

He doesn�t bother to think too hard about it as they pull him back down through the never ending hallways, catching him each time he starts to float off. He�s never had a good dream with Suguru before. Maybe this one will be the first.

�Follow the pen,� Shoko tells him, once they�ve sat him back down in the bed that he abandoned, dragging a pen left and right in front of his face. He scrunches his nose, complying even as he doesn�t know why he�s being asked to do such a silly thing. He can�t remember the meaning of it, why she stares so intently at his eyes as he moves them back and forth, up and down, chasing after the pen as it�s hovered around and around.

She sighs, setting it on the side table with a small clacking sound as she turns away, rifling through drawers for something else. �I don�t understand it. You seem fine,� she mutters, almost to herself, and Satoru only puffs out his cheeks, craning his head back to stare through the ceiling up at the fizzling noise of Tengen�s barrier.

�Don�t do that,� Suguru murmurs, one palm circling the back of his skull to push his face upright again, and he rolls his eyes, lamenting the fact that this softer, attentive version of Suguru won�t let him get up and wander. He�s just pushed back down onto the side of the bed, one of his hands holding him there by the shoulder when he tries.

It�s beyond odd. Every little brush of contact has him shivering and shying away, rethinking this weird dream and the one before it, wondering if they�re related somehow beyond just in succession of his fractured memory.

�Okay,� Shoko calls, walking back over, twirling a tool between her fingers. �I�m gonna temporarily blind you, no complaining about it.� He doesn�t get a chance to scatter away before she�s grabbing his chin and tilting his face up, a small flashlight shining into one of his eyes. He snaps them shut immediately, unaccustomed to discomfort like it when all of his pain is usually gashes and slices and gouges.

�Dammit- Suguru hold him still,� Shoko mutters, and he can�t help a jerk when a slightly larger hand replaces the smaller, colder one that had been on his chin, holding his face up and steady when he tries to yank it away at the feeling of two fingers prying his left eye open. He knows it�s a dream, but he still feels the panic when the pair to the hand on his face wraps around both his wrists in one singular shackle.

It�s reminiscent of the dreams he sometimes gets, the too real hallucinations, always of people that want his eyes or want him dead. The touch of them is usually ghost-like, a whisper rather than a pressure, despite the pain of having his eyes torn from his skull that always feels so real. They come back after every one when he wakes up and blinks them open. He�s never found them as little marbles of jelly by his legs like he had the fleshy meat of his tongue, but it�s forever been a fear in the back of his mind that one day, he might gouge them out for real.

�Fucks sake, Satoru,� Shoko complains, when he still strains and struggles as Suguru holds him still, �it�s not like its eyedrops.� He grinds his teeth as the light finally leaves, eye screwing shut just in time for the other to be forced open, remembering how they�d used to hold him down years ago just to get anti-inflammatory drops into his reddened, overly dry eyes. How the memories had twisted into something rancid, something darker as the days had passed without the rise and set of the sun.

He makes a noise, an unhappy whine that Suguru sighs at and Shoko ignores. The light stays put, black spots burning in his vision like old film reel as he�s forcibly held still, until Shoko drops the tool away and Suguru lets his face go, blinking his shut eyes against the reddened flares of afterimages.

�Sorry,� Suguru murmurs, one hand tentatively resting on his back, �she�s just trying to make sure you're okay, y�know.� Satoru shakes his head, ignoring the words for the most part as he shivers, because they�re so odd compared to everything else. Not when it�s always gorey and bloody and miserable, and this�isn�t.

Whatever,

he mouths, soundless, ever surprised when his tongue skims the roof of his mouth with the silent words.

�Oh,�

he thinks,

�that�s right. I�m dreaming.�

He opens his mouth again to actually say something, only to stop, the ghost of a whisper edging along the shell of his ear.

�Pathetic,�

it says, the same barely there specters that had always snapped at his heels in the darkness of the prison.

�What,� he ends up asking, head turning to catch the sound, missing Suguru�s frown and Shoko�s glance.

�I...didn�t say anything?� Suguru says, leaning closer like he�s trying to see what Satoru is, and failing for it. Slowly, he shakes his head, struggling to tear his eyes away from the far wall where there�s nothing. He sighs as he finally looks back to Suguru, opening his mouth to say something, because he can actually speak and how interesting is that-

A smile catches his eye over his shoulder, too curled and too malicious. His eyes miss Suguru�s face entirely for it.

�This doesn't make any sense,�

he thinks, the words a little hysterical clanging around in his head as he watches the fake hold a finger up to its lips, the stitches on its forehead stark against its washed out skin. The dreams are always a little weird, and it�s true that most of them feature that thing in them somewhere, but�

�That�s a hallucination,�

he knows, ignoring the way the Suguru on the bed next to him waves a hand in front of his eyes, pokes his shoulder, calls his name. His gaze stays trapped on the fuzzy edges of the imposter�s not quite right robe, the lack of cursed energy encompassing it, its thinness. It�isn�t right.

Slowly, he looks between the Suguru at the end of the room and the Suguru beside him, blinking through their differences. One looks real, the other looks almost flat in the lighting of the clinic; one is surrounded by the flicker of cursed energy, the other is a void of nothing; one is trying to get his attention, until he�s turning around and yelling something about Shoko, and the other is silent, still, staring only at him.

He doesn�t get hallucinations when he dreams.

He swallows thickly as he brings a hand up to his eyes, tracing over the fan of his lashes as he pokes a little more at the prickle of Limitless.

Limitless.

It rises around his skin like a shield when he wills it to, and suddenly, he can�t breathe.

Limitless had been inaccessible within the prison. He hadn�t had enough cursed energy to raise it, what with almost all of it being suppressed. He�d saved the meager little trickle of it for injuries he hadn�t been stupid enough to say he wouldn�t be getting. It had knit him back together the first couple of times he�d lost enough of himself to do something big, like scratch out a femoral or radial artery, but still have enough left to know he needed to live.

It had run out by the time he�d clawed out his tongue, scratched his face to ribbons, left huge, jagged scars down his body to match the one Megumi�s deadbeat of a dad had given him, only stopped every time his shredded nails had needed to regrow from their beds. The stasis of the cube had kept infection from eating away his flesh, had kept his blood flow sluggish and syrupy, had kept him alive enough to suffer as he�d tried to die.

Limitless, however, had always been out of reach.

He stares down at his hands, infinity a thrum over his skin, and blinks the black spots from his eyes as the dizziness sends his vision swimming.

This isn�t a dream.

The days- is it days? Maybe it�s just a day- passes in a blur, time bleeding together in what he can�t pick apart as one moment from many, one oddity after another, confusing and unable to be untangled as he scrabbles for some kind of answer. He thinks there�s only one of them. He thinks there�s a million of them.

There�s Shoko, younger and less cynical, less indifferent and still as brash as she�d been as a kid before the apathy had overgrown in her like the weeds of morning glory vines.

There�s Suguru, softer and more worried and himself still, before everything had washed him away into somebody new in the red of all the blood he�d split.

And then there�s him; unbelonging, a piece of a puzzle that doesn�t fit.

�Liar,�

the shadows whisper in his ears when Suguru asks him if he�s okay and he says fine as he stares at a face that can�t possibly be real.

�Because this isn�t real,�

they hiss, when he sits through a class like he�s fifteen and still untouchable, drifting through it as if watching an old memory on a film reel.

�Disgrace,�

they call him, as he finally runs away, after the sun�s set again and he�s refused to close his eyes to let sleep destroy his world.

He runs, bare feet pounding through the underbrush of the forest as he flees the safety of the school, the suffocating wood of its walls and the dream that might be a nightmare after all. He gasps and runs harder, farther, away from Shoko�s comments about his spaciness and Suguru�s gentle hands as they take every excuse to touch him with worry, with concern, with relief he wants to let them have, and yet doesn�t know how to hold.

Tengen�s barrier is a solid wall when he crashes into it, a dome that cuts intangibly into the earth as he beats his fists against it, unknowing why he can�t get past. Is there only one way in, one way out? Hadn�t it been passable? It hadn�t been tangible- except, he can�t remember, hands shaking as he flickers like a ghost higher up, palms dragging down the invisible, thrumming fizzle of it. He can�t remember

anything,

how he used to live, how he used to breathe, how he used to love Suguru before he�d become a monster.

He screams, a wailing, helpless caterwaul of a thing, crashing his head against the dome, shoulders curling up in defeat and sinking back down into the grass, the snapped twigs, moss, and old leaves. He can�t remember how to be human, he thinks, arms dragging down energy he should be able to get past. He can�t remember anything about himself.

His hands shake as his nails- his unbroken, whole nails- dig into his collarbones, lips splitting into wobbly caricatures as his eyes burn. He doesn�t remember how to live, can�t recall how he�d spent every day before the darkness acting like a human when it�s become so distant. Can�t recall how he made the act in the first place when all he can remember was that it was one, when all he knows is that it hadn�t been real.

He�d ripped himself into pieces in the darkness with just the skeletons as witnesses; had torn up what little humanity he�d had left and been eaten alive by the things he�d kept guarded against behind Limitless and a fa�ade. Dying had been easy when he�d done it- if he�d done it. He�d wanted to die, had been glad for it even, and maybe he can�t remember how to be human but he does remember being a god, and every day that he�d wake up wishing it was his last, ever hidden by the act he�d worn like a mask.

He can�t remember how to live, when he�s spent his whole life wanting to die.

�Is it really any wonder why you lost so much blood,�

the voices hiss, too high in his ears and too knowing as he curls into himself on the forest floor.

�Don�t you know why you turned your nails into knives? Don�t you know why slicing your skin open was so easy?�

He tells them to shut up, cries for them to go away, because he hates them but they�re right, because he hates them when they�re only pieces of himself.

How is he supposed to live, if he�d only ever wanted to die?

He doesn�t purposely sleep that night, trudging back through the forest as if walking to a noose on a rope, a guest in his own body- too little, too small, too young, unscarred.

Eventually, the darkness does come back in the walls of a room he hasn�t seen in over a decade, and he�s almost welcoming of it; at least he knows what horrors lie in the blackness and the emptiness; at least he understands the world of the prison.

He doesn�t remember how to live in this dream.