Chapter Text
Gilbert was stunned, barely even breathing. Uneasy. Meeting Alfred? How could someone do that? Ludwig shifted awkwardly, catching Gilbert's attention once again. The back of his mind stung with a force so powerful it almost gave him the need to double over in pain, though on the outside he was as unmoving as a statue, barely aware of what was going on. He knew Alfred, he knew he did... Alfred was someone from his past, strongly in his past he could feel it. He could feel that almost as much as he could feel the connection between him and Ludwig. He flinched, taking hold of Ludwig's forearm.
"Gilbert? Are you okay you don't look too good?" Ludwig murmured as Gilbert sunk to the floor. His thoughts whispered to him gently. Kill them all, a very prominent voice in his head cut in. He raised his head to look into Ludwig's eyes. "Y-you're crying..." Ludwig murmured, moving to sit down next to him on the floor. Gilbert hadn't realized he had begun to cry. Calm. He continued to stare into Ludwig's blue eyes, feeling a sense of melancholy cover him. His breathing slowed back down, though he didn't remembered it getting that fast. He held his head with one of his hands,
"Gilbert can you please let go of my arm, you're nails are digging into it quite painfully." Ludwig murmured, snapping Gilbert back into reality and out of his own thoughts. He released his grip, letting both his hands fall into his lap. There was blood under his nails... He reached back over to Ludwig's arm, picking it up gently, and observing the crescent shaped indentions his nails had left in the other's skin.
"It's okay... it'll heal." Ludwig murmured, Gilbert remembered the flashback that happened earlier that day, it was sort of strange how similar Ludwig and that young boy were. He didn't ponder on it too much, for that made his head hurt. He let Ludwig's arm fall back, and sat silently, looking down at his lap and occasionally rubbing the tears out of his eyes. Ludwig sighed,
"I can only assume you're on medication like everyone else here, some sort of pill... I think this pill is messing with everyone's head. If you're having any weird thoughts... just ignore them. I've noticed them too." He whispered quietly, Gilbert raised his head again, nodding slightly. He wanted to say so many things about the things he'd been seeing, but if they were all fake... they didn't matter anymore. The only thing that truly mattered was the present, the moment going on right then, where he was there with Ludwig and no one else was around. Gilbert huffed, his fingers fidgeting with each other, Ludwig blinked awkwardly. If either of them were to have any chance of finding out what was going on in the asylum they'd have to break the rules, he knew that much. Though with the events of the past few days he supposed he had already broken quite a few of them, he thought about the book from before. Maybe on a day he was less emotional he'd try reading it, though the warning made him a bit unsure of that, maybe bringing the book to his room was a bad idea. He hadn't even checked if it was still there, the nurse could have taken it away while he was gone or asleep and he wouldn't have known. Ludwig noticed how unmoving the other was again, and reached out to him, twining their fingers together.
"Hey, it's okay. I know you can't really communicate, that's fine though, we'll find a way to work through this. Besides..." Ludwig said, he trailed off, murmuring something indistinguishable under his breath. Gilbert cocked his head to the side. Confused. If Ludwig was going to say something to him why wouldn't he say it loud enough for him to hear? This puzzled him greatly, it might have been important. Instead of wondering about it he decided to trace patterns on Ludwig's hands. Calm. Idle things seemed to help his nerves, which had been worse today. Gemna had curled up next to him on the floor, he noticed she had at some point taken the cloth he had tied on her leg off. He didn't quite know if this was a problem, but the wound seemed to have healed.
"I've been thinking," Ludwig suddenly said cutting into Gilbert's thoughts again. "I want to help you. I want to help you get better..." he then continued, seeming quite flustered.
"It's not like anything is wrong, you're perfect the way you are but..." Gilbert held a finger against the other's lips, silencing him. Tears threatened to spill over his face again, he nodded, understanding completely what Ludwig meant. He wanted to get better too... but he didn't know how. Ludwig sighed, taking both of Gilbert's hands into his.
"I just wish I knew how to help, at this rate we'll be stuck here forever." Ludwig whispered, Gilbert nodded again.
After their meet up Gilbert was sent back to his room, where he was forced to take the medication again. The nurse soon left him alone and he laid down, continuously reminding himself that what he was seeing, and hearing, didn't matter. Gemna had taken residence on part of his pillow, and was happily napping. Gilbert smiled softly at the animal, of whom was probably one of the best things that had ever happened to him, besides meeting Ludwig. Tired. Maybe it was the medicine talking, or just his own conscious need for more sleep, which he didn't even feel like he was being deprived of, but an afternoon nap didn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. Asleep.
Towering buildings of rubble were surrounding him, the wind whistling harshly in his ears and the stench of blood filling his senses. He gagged slightly, unprepared for such a change, where was he anyway? The surrounding area was very dark and dusty, almost like a ghost town. It looked almost like what he thought the end of the world would look like. He sat up, a sharp pain shooting through his chest, causing blood to spill from his throat and into his mouth, the foul taste polluting his tongue. He swallowed, noticeably shuttering at the feeling. Gilbert had just gotten there, he couldn't be sick already. He pushed his body up again, his muscles aching from either a lack of use, or some sort of injury. One of his arms was fairly normal looking, the other was quite strange. His sleeve had been torn near his shoulder and the entirety of that arm was exposed. It was a lot skinnier, and had very little muscle in it. That didn't make sense to him, one of his arms was fine, but the other looked like it had tried to regrow itself and didn't do the job right. He noticed his attire was a mostly blue almost military-esque uniform. It was stained in blood around his mid-abdomen, and overall not in good shape. He finally managed to stand, brushing debris off of himself lazily with his functioning arm, as the other one didn't seem to work at all. A slow, but steady trail of blood ran down his abdomen, which didn't seem to be a good sign. He surveyed his surroundings, noticing a large quantity of mangled bodies scattered about. They were in such bad shape some of them might not even have been human, there was no way to tell. He walked forward a little bit, every move he made stinging his senses harshly, it was a very slow journey to say the least. Eventually he reached what appeared to be the front of a building he was in, there was blood everywhere, it made a squelching noise when he touched it with his boot, making him feel sick. It didn't seem to be just blood, there appeared to be bits of flattened flesh mixed in with the mess. It twisted slightly when he touched it, wrenching forward and grabbing his ankle with its mass. It didn't even have limbs, it didn't appear to have anything that resembled human features; but it moved anyway and reeked of decay. Gilbert grimaced and kicked it off of him, it didn't appear to like that and reached tiny tendrils out to him. Pushing through the fabric on his legs and invading his skin, he screamed silently. The foreign flesh invading his legs, he couldn't feel it anymore. It ripped through the muscles in his leg, tearing them apart in an effort to squirm through his flesh. Which was writhing as the bloodied mass pushed itself into him. It crawled through his entire body, slowing taking control, Gilbert couldn't feel it anymore, and only realized he wasn't going to make it when it pushed into his eyes and he could no longer see. Silence rang through his ears, piercing his body with pain. The last thing he felt was his body being torn apart in an instant. Surely to join the rest of the mangled field of bodies.
Awake, calm, He awoke strangely calm, as if something was finally put into place. Where he was in the dream... he was almost certain these weren't dreams anymore, and the outside world might be as bad as what his conscious was telling him it was. Paranoid. Then again something didn't feel right. The strange laughter came back, burning into his brain, as the back of his eyes stung harshly, forcing them shut.
This is only the beginning, you know nothing.
It sneered quietly, its laugh reverberating around his skull. Then it stopped in an instant, he had made up his mind. He was going to read the book.