[ E-G ] . fragility

Slipping his phone into his pocket, Janne Elford stood in a deserted hallway, shoving himself away from the wall back onto his feet in a manner that he was glad no one was around to see. An easy-going smirk made its way onto his face as per usual as he glided down the hallway, a feat made easier with the remnants of his shadows. 

Janne made his way to the bathroom, turning the handle and stepping inside. As casual as can be, he whistled a merry tune as he spun in a tight circle and quickly closed the door behind him.  A physical barrier between him and the rest of the base was all it really took for the mask to come down. Any form of cheeriness vanished as he stumbled towards the sink.

Albeit clumsily, he reached up to harshly twist the tap, crouching over to splash his face with the cold water - a grimace working it's way onto his face as well. He did it again. And again.

 And then, he turned the tap off and slowly, clutching the sides of the sink until his knuckles turned white, Janne looked up at the mirror, at his reflection - the damp parts of his hair clinging to his face and obscuring part of his eyes.

Janne took in a breath, fully aware of how heavily he was breathing. And then, he laughed - a sharp, hostile bark, watching in the mirror as his own seafoam-blue eyes gained a darker, colder tint. "Nothing to say? That's a first."

A sharp cackle, cascading into a waterfall, an echo of cackling, his own little personal pack of hyenas.  

[ Let me in first, ] a voice cooed, right in his ear and bouncing around in his head all at once. [ And I'll put those words right back into that pretty mouth of yours. ]
And without breaking eye contact, Janne drew his glaive and sliced it across the wires above his head. 

The bathroom lights sputtered, and then flickered off. Ten sets of eyes opened behind him. 

Casted into darkness, he cared not for formalities nor facades. Within the darkness, naught matters.
"You are too kind." Tension rose back into his body, drawing himself up a little higher as he let his weapon fall from his hand, silence where a resounding clatter should have been.  

[ With us around, you will never be lonely... that being said, ] the familiar voice began, a condescending tone trinkling into every word spoken. 

[ ... What kind of pathetic performance did our lovely Janne Ariar put on tonight? ] 

"... Elford." Janne corrected, narrowing his eyes - the word bitter and foreign on his tongue. Handmade, crafted to be his own - yet, it never truly was. And he knew it never would be - a detail not going unnoticed, of course.  

[ You need not run from your origins. ] 

"Piss off." he replied, eloquently, only to be met with another wave of laughter that made his blood boil.  

[ Are you sure? ] It cooed, a sickening sweet tone dripping from every word, making his nose crinkle in disgust. [ You are the one who called us here. Do not forget. ] 

He gritted his teeth, and offered no comment. He wasn't here to bicker, after all.

[ You laugh and smirk and fake your way through every little conversation, Ariar. You pretend- ] It burst into a symphony of laughter, vibrating through the room and piercing straight through him. 

[ Who am I kidding - both you and I know that nothing about you is real, you impostor. ] 

"I am not here to dawdle - do just get to the point." All ten pairs of eyes rolled simultaneously, and Janne would almost laugh at the hilarity of the situation, if he wasn't focusing all his attention on holding himself in check. 

[ You stumble around like a newborn deer, Ariar. Naught but a drama queen, craving the spotlight to make up for your sad, sad life, isn't that right? Clinging to anybody that gives you even a scrap of affection, you poor, miserable, disgusting little thing. ] 

It's taking every ounce of willpower he had to keep himself from shattering the mirror to pieces, or otherwise shattering the illusion. But he needed answers.  So he would bite his tongue until he got them - bite his tongue until it bled, bleeding words he could never say, feelings he could never put into words. 

[ Even your little friends...don't even get me started on them. The sawbones, stitching you back together as if you deserve it - oh, and even the Vanguard leader... he told you to go to the medical bay, didn't he? Don't you ever feel bad for worrying them so? ]  

"Keep them out of this." he snapped. 

The shadows gave a tut, but otherwise relented. 

[ You went out onto the battlefield and nearly got yourself killed. It's a wonder they haven't ditched you, honestly... You worry them so, and the pity in their darling little eyes... Unreliable, and useless, yet you call yourself a commander? Pathetic. ] 

The words tore from his throat, raw and unbridled, before he could possibly stop himself. "Just shut the hell up, and tell me what the fuck is wrong with me." 

Seeming satisfied with this outburst, he was rewarded with another string of words, all in that same, mocking tone. 

[ Wrong? What ever do you possibly mean? ]
Janne slammed his palm against the mirror, his blood boiling and thoroughly hating every second of this exchange - but he needed answers, goddamn it.  He gritted his teeth and pushed through. 

"Something... something's wrong with my body." Drawing in a harsh breath, he forced his voice into a calmer level. "I don't know what the hell's going on. But... something's very, very wrong."  

A beat of silence, and then a multitude of sighs echoed around him.  

He continued. 

"I don't last nearly as long in combat as in the past, before I even joined the Overseers." the words tumbled from his mouth, with a slight shake of his head. "My performance... it's nothing like what I've usually been able to do. I'm slower, more hesitant... more susceptible to damage, more..."
Janne breathed out a sigh, the last word coming out as but a whisper. "...fragile. Dependent." 

The silence hung heavy in the room, a weighted blanket thrown over the top, pulling him downwards into the depths below. 

And when he was about to give up any hope of getting any answers, it spoke once more. 

[ You care too much. ]

... What?

For a split second, Janne hesitated, before tightening his grip on the edge of the sink. "...The fuck are you on about?" The shadow began to purr, and his eyelid twitched in response. 

[ All these meaningless people... it should not bother you what becomes of them. ] A hand rose out to clasp at his shoulder, and he barely flinched. 

"They are civilians. They do not deserve death, of course I care." 

[ If they knew what you had done, they would kill you without a moment's hesitation. ] He opened his mouth to argue, and then promptly closed it. 

[ You spent all your time defending them, these people who hardly know you, hardly care about you. Yet, you... you are beginning to care for them, do you not...? ] A hand slunk down into his pocket, only to pull out his phone, flicking the chatroom open.  

[ Each and every one of them. You worry for them, and feel guilt when they worry for you. ]

The phone snapped closed, and it dropped to the ground. 

Janne stood there, motionless, taking in every detail it had to say to him.  A long, slender finger ran down his jawline, before drawing a thin line across his throat. 

[ We are the reflection of the mind. The more you open your heart, the weaker your body becomes. Once you begin to care, care so much it seeps into the mindset you don when you dance with your blades... you will fall. ] 

[ That is but the nature of shadows. Is it not, Ariar?] 

Janne shook his head fervently, but... they would not lie to him. It just simply wasn't in their nature, and no matter how deceptive he was... he couldn't possibly turn away from this truth. The shadows drew closer, enveloping him in a cloak of darkness, familiar yet jarring. 

[ You cannot have both humanity and the full extent of our power. ] it whispered, wrapping two hands around his throat. 

[ Choose. ] 

... Choose? 

Between forming genuine relationships, or... or giving himself to the void.
... Maybe it was right. Maybe he was getting a bit too buddy-buddy with his peers - after all, since when has trust gotten him anywhere? 

Anywhere but tossed like trash into the abyss below? 

A displeased sigh echoed through the room.  

[ Empathy, trust, love... it will get you nowhere but the grave. Those who trust are just so delicate, so easy to take down. ] 

A single shadowy hand rose up to thread through his hair. 

[ Do not become dependent on these so-called friends of yours. Do not let it get in the way of your... work. Nobody exists without an ulterior motive, and you are the perfect tool. ] 

[ Besides, ]

His blood ran cold. 

[ If your stupid little sister hadn't sacrificed her precious little life to save you... we would have a wonderful, beautiful prodigy- ] 

The fingers in his hair tightened, and Janne was harshly pulled up, to meet the eyes of his reflection once more. 

[ Instead of a defective, pathetic little coward like you, Janne. You know you are not the one who deserved to live that day. And you should fix that when you get the chance. ]

[ Or are you afraid to do that too? ]

"....Shut up." 

he whispered, the words barely leaving his mouth, 

rage boiling up and threatening to overwhelm him by the second.  

[Why does the memory of her hurt you so? ] came the voice once more, echoing around in both the room and his head. A pause, and then a malicious, high-pitched chuckle resonated from the mirror - the sound shooting through his head like a bullet. 

[ Oho, I see. I see how it is. ]

His grip on the sink tightened impossibly so, knuckles white. "You'll never see how it i-" 

「It is not the parents, no. Not the parents who had their beloved child torn from them, 」

Janne gritted his teeth, glaring into his own reflection - doing naught but to further encourage the voice to continue. 

[ But the murderer who grieves? You are pathetic. ]

"This matter is not one that will ever concern you," Janne gasped out, his grip beginning to shake. "I... I didn't-"

[ You do not deserve to grieve. ]
He made a sharp, shaky sound, breathing coming in pained gasps. The sound ripped from his throat, so very foreign. 

[ If it weren't for you, she would live to this day. ]

"... Shut up."

[ And you know it. ]

And he could feel it, the hands moving up to clutch at his throat - were they his own, he could no longer tell - the sharp yet somehow silky words of the being surrounding him. 

And much like a rubber band, stretched too far and then let go, Janne snapped.

"Just shut up!" The words tore from his throat before he could stop them, a frenzied look in his eyes that he only distantly noticed, caring naught for any shred of composure he had left to keep. "You- hah! You don't know what it was like! You don't have an inkling of what any of this felt like, no - so if you would just shut your fucking mouth that would be fantastic." 

He wasn't surprised when the shadow merely laughed - no, in fact, all he wanted to do was slam his head on the sink his hands were gripping so fretfully onto and just not be here at all.

It was like it was smiling at him, those patches of black that spread up the walls, wrapping itself in coils around him. Squeezing the life out of him - and maybe it was. Janne would hardly put it above the abyss to do such. 

A finger reached out and traced his jawline, ice cold. He barely resisted the urge to swap it away, holding himself back from lashing out as best as he could. 

And his reflection distorted, a mockingly sweet smile manifesting on his reflection's face. 

[ You know very well we do know what it was like, dear. ]

And that was all it took for him to reach behind him, pull out his glaive and strike the mirror dead-on. 

 

When he came back to his senses, he was looking back into his own reflection - no longer seeing the black of the void oozing up and down the walls, nothing off except the deep cracks running across the mirror, fracturing his reflection into pieces. His reflection, where he saw himself with a dark, uncontrolled look in his own eyes. Frantic, like a cornered animal, yet twisted. 

Would it be strange to say he was, for the briefest moment, frightened of what he was? Of what he had become? 

He'd never admit it.