I Will Follow You Into The Dark (Shalt/Shu x Valt)

Grief

Valt's eyes shot open. His face was buried in his wet pillow, stained from his tears. He quivered as he very gently tried to lift himself up from the bed. He was afraid of seeing his bed soaked, covered in blood, evidence of a horrific deed he had committed... but his bed was dry, save for his tears.

He gently placed a hand to his face, feeling the still fresh tears on his cheek. He shivered as his hair moved to cover his eyes, still in shock at the sights he had seen.

"How... how could I..." the vivid images of the nightmare he had just slept through came back in his mind. Horrific cries rang vividly in his ears, his t-shirt soaked with blood, the feel of slicing open another living being... it felt so real. Valt shook his head viciously, trying to remove these thoughts from his head.

"Why am I having these dreams!?" He rammed his hands into his head, trying to stop the images that were assaulting him. For the past two weeks he'd been having restless nights of sleep. He was having nightmares every night, the severity of what they showed were getting worse and worse with each one.

The first dream hadn't been too scary... he was just attacked by a monster, he had shrugged it off easily, and it wasn't too different from a normal day really. From there the monsters changed, one night he was attacked by a dark shadowy figure who wanted his soul for damnation, another night it was a faceless slender man whose presence quaked his very being, then the next night he suffered from a disease and starvation as his body had begun to rot but was denied death from the pain...

He could handle those dreams. They weren't real after all; a good beyblade battle with his friends made all those scary thoughts go away. He'd tried changing his diet for a day to see if the bad dreams would go away, and it worked for a night, but only for a night. The next night he had dreamt of being a demon, one with claws, horns and wings. He was the demon and he had attacked and eaten himself. He still remembered the gagging taste the dream had left in his mouth.

The next dream had him terrorizing people throughout the forest; he'd wrecked homes, crops, products and lives. Then the next night he attacked each of his friends, he could feel the berserk rage of the demon as it had slashed and tore them apart indiscriminately, but at least it was a quick death, his friends didn't suffer in that dream.

But the dream last night was different... it was personal. He was a demon again last night... but it was different. He was just himself, no claws, no wings, but a monster, with vampire fangs and demonic red eyes. In the dream he had feasted his friend, his beloved friend Shu. He had taken sharp objects and...

Valt dashed into his bathroom, before emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet, as the vivid images of what he'd done in his dream flashed before him once more. He felt wretched, how could his mind even come anywhere close to thinking of such horrible, horrific things!? He loved his friends! He loved them more than the sun, then his training, then his battles, then life itself! Especially Shu! Shu was the coolest, most awesome blader he'd ever met! If he wanted to just hang out and have fun or train or practice or battle it was Shu who was there for him.

He wiped his mouth as he groggily looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was down, his eyes were bloodshot with bags under his eyes, his face was pale with a sickly look, and he was breathing quite heavily. He looked terrible.

He ran some cold water and repeatedly splashed his face with it. He really, really, REALLY wanted to go see Shu... he had to know he was okay but... at the same time he couldn't do it until the memories of that dream had faded some more... and he had to get out of here for the day... he wouldn't be able to hold back anymore of his stomach if he even smelled a flesh.

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"GAAAAH!" Screams echoed through Shu's apartment of the bedroom, the silvery white haired male startled wide awake in a cold sweat, terror surging through his veins. Nightmares. Again. The seventh time this month. And it was always the same one. The one with the fangs. Flashes of memory lanced through his head. Needles plunged into his beating heart, adrenaline injected into his body to keep him awake and alert at the torture went on. The smell of his own flesh cooking, the sight of his own blood and gore spilling from his surgically incised belly, the mastermind behind his terror toying with those glistening organs like they were food. He knew in his heart that Valt would never be capable of doing such a gruesome act, but that thought didn't help to make the dreams any less vivid. The Spryzen blader breathed shakily, curling up pacing back and forth as his body trembled with fear. He hadn't told anyone about the dreams. About the lingering feeling of steel piercing flesh and blade cutting bone. His work had suffered because of the constant night terrors, the nightmares being so powerful that he was simply afraid of going back to sleep, some nights staying up altogether in an attempt to stave off the horrors for just one more night. And everyone wondered why he spent most of his day napping, in the open, in the daylight. Because in the shining brilliance of the sun, it was the only way he could actually rest. But even then, the black clutches of his fear-addled subconscious had begun to creep even into that relative safety, following him through the dreaming world. Shu sobbed softly as tears streaked down his face, staining his brown t-shirt as wide eyes darted around the darkened scenery of his room, heart pounding in his chest as breath came before stopping the sobs, his arms clinging tight against his body as paranoia began to clutch at the edges of his mind. Shadows lurched and moved in his peripheral vision, routine natural noises becoming distorted and echoing within his mind, as adrenaline surged through his shivering body. This wasn't healthy. His mind was slowly breaking under the horrors of his subconscious mind, things that no one should ever even have the slightest thought about chipping away at his psyche.

He was starting to crack.