[PRP] You were clearly meant for more (Shiloh & Melany)

[shibrogane]

"Not again," said Melany. She clutched Shiloh's arm in both hands. "She's calling me..."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh's eyes narrowed.

"Well whoever the ******** it is can get their a** over here so I can kick their s**t." He huffed eloquently. "C'mon, let's keep walking." He tugged at her, "I'm not gonna let anything happen." Even still, something tasted sour in the back of his throat. Being a noble or a principal didn't mean he could automatically handle whatever the ******** the voice was, but he still felt responsible. He'd been one of the ones to change the world, after all.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

The smile Melany shot him was grateful, but she still seemed distracted. She looked around, over her shoulders, like the source of the voice could be nearby. Somewhere, anywhere, nearby. "Sorry to bother you," she said, under her breath. "I'm usually not like this!"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

He shrugged, "I've dealt with weirder things. Worse things. I can deal with this too." He seemed... resigned almost. It wasn't a very natural look for him.

"Does it sound like it's coming from everywhere or something?" He couldn't help but notice the fidgeting, his own ears straining. He patted her hand this time, "You're fine."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Melany shook her head. "No, but it... moves? Before it was from over there, now it feels like she's calling from behind us. She's getting closer..."

She looked over her shoulder, her steps slowing.

"You really don't hear her?"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh's footsteps slowed with her, and he allowed his eyes to close, allowed his ears to listen. He hadn't heard anything before, but...

"I can try to? But I didn't before. I really don't hear it." He took a deep breath, "You said if you follow it, you feel like you'll get lost, right? You'd never come back?" He was vaguely recalling their conversation from before, his voice tense, his posture tightening. He tugged her forward again, trying to speed up.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Yeah," said Melany. She was reluctant to speed up, but at Shiloh's urging she did, heels clicking on the sidewalk.

This time he heard something. It was her voice, the Spinel Lady's voice, high and clear and cold. But the details, what she was actually saying, were lost.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

He listened, and listened, and listened until his ears strained. He could feel Melany's reluctance as he kept them forward down the sidewalk, but the voice he heard cut him down like a knife. He stopped—froze—eyes wide and glassy as his breath caught in his throat, like the air was being squeezed out of his lungs, like he was drowning, like he was—

"No—" His mouth felt dry. He couldn't speak, couldn't form words, couldn't, "I hear—it's her." He looked at Melany, the expression on his face panicked, "It's her. It's her. It's— no, no no no no no—"

He seized forward, his gaze spinning around in the direction of the voice, his own tone an aggressive snarl, "<******** off." He looked like an animal when they got caged, when they got cornered, when they had nothing to lose because it was between death or death. He felt sick. The sickness showed on his face, the paleness, the emptiness, the way his eyes swelled, the fear in the taut lines of his mouth. His eyes kept staring forward, flicking backwards, staring forward again, "We need to go. Where is it coming—? I—" He shook his head, his lungs wheezed.

"We need to go."

But go where? He couldn't even tell where the voice was coming from. Panic grasped at his throat and he turned to run, his arm and his hand still viciously clasped around Melany's.

shibrogane

boy i die

 

[shibrogane]

Melany grabbed him, her eyes just as glassywide, a clear pearlescent gray. "Shiloh, you're hurting me," she said.

The voice didn't come back. It seemed it had said what it had to say. But Melany's hand was over Shiloh's where he was clutching her, and her eyes were starting to water. "Let me go," she said. "Please, Shiloh, it hurts."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Melany's voice might have regained it's normalcy, but in Shiloh's head it was still cold and clear and commanding. He let go of her like she was iron hot, looked at his hands like they might have been burned. He nearly stumbled over his own feet, but the motion was fluid and he caught himself without so much of a second thought, his magic keeping him poised and upright. His head was pounding, his heart was pounding, something was threatening his eyes. They hurt. He hurt.

"I'm sorry." He choked, "I-I'm—" He looked around frantically, jaggedly, "Where is she? I heard her, I heard her." He stopped very suddenly, his head slowly turning to look at Melany.

"She's still there." He said this in a breathless realization, his memories flickering back to the eldritch face from the coffee store. The pain in his face was unmistakable. "She's still—I-I have to go, I—" He looked over his shoulder, looked across the street, looked everywhere but at her. It was like their first meeting at the mall all over again, except somehow this time it was worst. His feet couldn't move. None of his muscles could.

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

"Shiloh?" Melany was clutching her hand to her chest. She looked afraid: afraid of him? afraid of the voice that had caused him to act this way? She didn't leave, though. She stepped back, giving him space. "Shiloh, who's still there? Who're you talking about? There's no one here but you and me." She held a hand out, but left enough room between them that he wouldn't feel trapped. "I don't understand."

The space around them was graying out, time seeming to stretch like warm caramel. The otherworld, washing up around them, slow as the tides. "Shiloh? Who's still there?"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh visibly flinched. From what was hard to discern, but he did and he recoiled backwards until his feet finally clipped into one another, nothing more than a startled gasp leaving his throat as he went down onto the pavement. The look in his eyes was still wild. His hands went up to clutch as his face as if he was trying to validate his own existence.

"I heard her." He repeated like a broken record, posture trembling. "I heard the voice. It was her." His voice was thick and it cracked. His vision focused on the world around them and he paled. He knew what this was. It didn't have to rain here anymore for him to know what this was.

He had flashbacks to the classroom, to Beel in the background barking at him for insulting Melany, to Melany's hand delicately reaching out to touch his curls that were no longer there. He lashed out—swatted his hand in the air—but Melany's hand was too far away for there to be any contact. He was swinging at nothing. He realized very belatedly that he was swinging at nothing.

He looked over his shoulders frantically, spun around like he was trying to get up. He couldn't. His arms were shaking too bad. "We're—" He took a deep breath like he was trying—and failing—to steady himself. "We're—god no." His hand ran through his hair, beanie falling to the ground next to where he sat. He seemed absentminded to this fact. "No."

shibrogane

 

[shibrogane]

Melany hesitated. A long moment, a hesitant face, something like agony in the tautness of her mouth, and she turned her extended hand over and snapped her fingers. The sound was sharp, a gunshot in the stretched-out silence, demanding attention. She snapped again. When she was sure Shiloh was looking towards her hand, the source of the only sound, she pulled her hand up to her face. Her normal, soft, sweet face, with her sparkly navy eye shadow, freckled cheekbones. There was nothing eldritch about her.

"Hey," she said, sinking to her knees. As small as he was. Smaller. "She's not here now. I don't hear her. Listen, okay? Breathe with me, and listen. It's okay, Shiloh, it's, whoever it is she's not here. Listen." She took a deep breath, very obviously. Her eyes stayed on him, a soft girlish gray.

The only sound was Melany's deep breath, held to her chest for moments, and then released. "I'll keep you safe," she said. "Shiloh. Do you need me to call someone?"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

He was looking; hard not to. His eyes snapped over the second the gunshot rang out, eyes wide, frame still shivering but otherwise frozen. He listened to the silence, the evenness of her breathing and how it was like the ocean-esque sound one got when they put their ear to a conch shell. Everything else blended out.

"I—" His voice cracked again. Something deep and distraught was in his eyes. His hand suddenly went up and caught his face—covered his mouth—and his head shook and his shoulders shook and his eyebrows furrowed like they were holding something back. "Y-You can't. Not here. You can't call anyone, you can't." His body felt numb.

"It doesn't matter." He was speaking calmly, almost even if not for the way his voice wavered, throat obviously tight. "She's still here, she's—Melany it's you."

The voice covering his mouth went to cover his eyes instead.

shibrogane

im literally so distraught rn

 

[shibrogane]

It was not instant. What's instant, anyway? There was the snap-second gesture, the Spinel Lady saying I don't want blood on his clothes. The fetches, their fists. Noeh, watching, blank-eyed behind her mask. Her teeth all black. Melany offering her hand. Instant rice took five minutes, instant pudding an hour. As far as she knew, their friendship had taken years to build. Now it was gone, washed away in the thundercrash slap of a wave as Melany understood what Shiloh only just said. An instant. An instant of blinding pain.

It didn't feel particularly instantaneous.

Melany looked away. "I won't leave you here alone," she said. "I don't know what I did, but I, I'll do what you need, but I can't leave you like this. You're my." She stopped there. She didn't say it. Her hands twisted uselessly in her lap. "You deserve better than what I did to you," she said. "I'm so sorry."

Melancholies