Look But Don't Touch

[Frozen Smoke]

The sand burned in his throat with every frantic breath he was able to suck in between the coughing fits that wracked his body.

Jacob wished he had any option other than to listen.
Cyrus was mad.

He rolled onto his side, trying to stand up again - Only to see the kick coming through the tears, and pull his legs up in front of himself.

Jacob screamed, wordlessly this time.

His right hand felt the wrong kind of numb. He couldn't move it. He clutched it towards his chest with his left, instinctively trying to protect it.

[WorldFat]

Cyrus panted, loudly this time. He needed a minute.

"God, you are...resilient. How many broken bones do you feel on you, huh? I mean, seriously, I think I felt a few back there."

Cyrus giggled a bit. "God, it felt..." Cyrus paused.

How did it feel? He couldn't-he couldn't put it on his tongue. It was...it was...

...it was...

"...good?" He asked. Not a question to Jacob, but to...someone else. Someone else that was there but couldn't be seen, like a specter. The specter that haunted over Cyrus, the very Jiminy Cricket to his Pinocchio.

A conscience of sorts.

"...Fuck! C'mere!" Cyrus got angrier, for whatever reason, moving Jacob onto his back, and practically sitting on top of him.

Then the blows came, one after another. Cheek. Chin. Nose. Nose. Cheek. Eye.

Again. And again.

[Frozen Smoke]

The blood from his eyebrow mixed with tears as it all ran down his face. The world was black, only disrupted by a flash of light with every blow that launched his head back into the sand.

Jacob kept his eyes clamped shut.

His left hand clawed blindly at the leather jacket that hung off Cyrus’ body, trying to pull him off. Make him adjust his stance. Something.

Jacob couldn’t think.

His legs jerked, kicking up at the figure he felt above him, rolling his body from side to side with every effort.

Jacob’s feet struck air.

His chest heaved, even as Cyrus’ weight pressed down against it. His tongue felt fat in his mouth. He tried to spit, but was barely able to force his mouth open wide enough to let the thick substance that was filling it dribble out as his head rested on its side.

“help”

[WorldFat]

Cyrus practically growled, his hands grabbing Jacobs throat and pressing down. Down. Harder. Harder.

He squeezed Jacobs life out of his body. Don't let any breath out. Just. Please die. Please. Please.

That's when Cyrus felt a giant pit in his stomach. Where was the satisfaction? Where was the relief from the urge? Where...

...was happiness?

...Cyrus kept the pressure going. Tears slowly building in his eyes. For a moment, maybe he thought that he was doing something a bit wrong.

It was quickly overcome with anger, anger at the world for making him like this.

Yeah. Yeah-thats it. It was the world that made him feel like he needed to kill. And he needed to do this to release that need - if not for a short while.

"J-Just...please. Please, just die already!" Cyrus' voice started to break.

[Frozen Smoke]

The world faded. Muddied pigments and shapes blurring together. Sepia. Black and white. Black and grey. Black and black. Dark silhouettes dancing in front of unfocused eyes.

Jacob could feel the color bleeding from his skin.

His arms lay slack beside him, feeling like they were filled with lead as they sunk into the sand, fingers twitching as he tried to will them into action.

The pressure around his throat felt numb.

His lungs didn’t hurt any more as he lay there, staring back unseeingly at Cyrus. His head felt… Fuzzy. Like a limb he’d slept on top of. Every sensation echoed and rattled around his body.

This was what dying felt like.

[WorldFat]

...

Cyrus cried out, screaming. He screamed loudly, longly, and it ended with him letting go of Jacob letting him breathe just before he was unable to anymore.

Cyrus would be on his hands beside Jacob. What was he doing? Why did he stop? Tears watered the dry Earth.

"It doesn't-doesn't work. Nothing works. Fuck. FUCK!" Cyrus stood.

"I hate you. I fucking HATE you! Nobody-nobody understands, you know? Fuck, no you-no you don't."

Cyrus groaned in absolute frustration and...depression.

"You don't know what it is to feel...nothing. NOTHING! All you...I thought-I-"

Cyrus looked around. Not knowing what to say.

"Why doesn't it feel good? Huh?!" Cyrus looked at Jacob, barely expecting a response.

[Frozen Smoke]

The world came back.

Too bright. Too fast. He couldn't make out Cyrus' words - Just his tone. Even that was hard to place. The pins and needles were back, but they were in his head, in his mouth - behind his eyes. Every breath brought more feeling to his limbs, a new cut to his attention, another digit he could feel scraping against his palm at an odd angle.
Jacob ignored it as he pressed them both into the sand, and pushed himself to his knees. The tone of Cyrus' voice had changed - Demanding. Questioning.

"Don't.. know.." he slurred in response. He had to say something. He just needed another second.

Jacob kept his response to the stabbing pain in his ribs to a whimper as he finally pulled himself upright.

[WorldFat]

"I just-give me a second, lemme just-"

Cyrus felt like he couldn't breathe. As he let go of Jacob, it felt like someone else out their hands on Cyrus' neck. He tried to breathe, but it was choked out.

"God-God damnit-" Tears flowed down Cyrus' face. He sobbed once or twice. Why? Why?

Why couldn't he do it.

Cyrus turned to Jacob again, trying to get the courage to finish the job.

[Frozen Smoke]

Jacob swayed in the non-existent breeze.

He tried to measure up the distance between him and Cyrus as his vision swam. 3 paces? 5? How long was that – A couple of seconds? 30?

The tears that were running down Cyrus’ face would only continue to flow for so long.

It felt like his bones were knitting together as he forced himself forwards, his heavy footfalls cushioned by the sand beneath him. His knee wavered and twisted as he put weight on it, and he hissed the agony out from behind a clenched jaw.

His hands shook as he fought the urge to ball them into fists.

[WorldFat]

"I hate you. God, IhateyouIhateyouIhateyou!" Cyrus grunts turning back, looking out beyond the fence.

"Everything I do, I can do. I enjoy what I do. Hurting people. Seeing you like that. But...why can't I finish the job?!"

A whimper. "What the fuck is wrong with me?!"

Cyrus looked back at Jacob again, much more calmed down. For once, it seemed Cyrus has some kind of remorse in his eyes. Regret. Regret about what?

"Why can't I do it?"

Ah. That's what. Cyrus felt regret, that he couldn't finish what he started. But out of everything, Cyrus felt that he needed to finish this. He needed to or he'll never be satisfied.

How else would an audience get satisfaction without the climax and release of the suspense. The great ending before tragedy. The demise of a young hero, in a play.

"All the build...but no climax. The ending on a wrong note so to speak. I can't-can't leave it like this I have to-"

Finish this. But when would Cyrus give Jacob his exeunt?

[Frozen Smoke]

Jacob fell forwards as much as he ran.

It took 6 steps.

His hands slammed into the boy’s chest. Another step, his leg twisting in between Cyrus’. Fabric and leather under his fingers.

“NO!”

He pushed upwards. Hands were in his face again, clawing. He couldn’t turn away. The barbed wire bit into the boy’s clothing. Cyrus’ red rimmed eyes held onto his.

“GO AWAY!”

His arms shook as he craned then forwards, upwards.

Over.

[WorldFat]

Cyrus yelped and made a sound akin to a terrified animal.

"Wha-no-NO!" Cyrus went over, and life became slow. His final seconds dawning on him.

...He really dies like this..? Cyrus thought about all his accomplishments, his life flashing before his very eyes.

In the few moments Jacob could see Cyrus' eyes..they felt thoughtful and even full of regret for a moment. Not at all filling Jacob full of paranoia or fear.

Cyrus took. And took. And he kept taking every moment of his life.

But none of it meant anything. Nothing. And the one thing he thought could mean something, thought could fill him with something, gave him nothing.

Nothing but regret. Nothing but fear. Like he stood in front of a mirror, looking into his own eyes.

Cyrus took from others, but received none.

And now, he dies for it.

Cyrus will die, for nothing.

That's when Cyrus heard the grinding of metal, feeling pieces of sharp metal and shrapnel shoot into his neck.

Jacob could only hope to watch as Cyrus writhed on the ground, futilely, the ground slowly being covered in a thick, dark red pool of blood. Every sound he made was animalistic in nature. He gurgled, as a final breath and scream at Jacob.

Cyrus looked at Jacob, and tried to talk. He opened his mouth, and instead a mouthful of blood fell out, covering the Misfits shirt in blood.

And in slow, fading, gurgling breaths, Cyrus feels the sweet caress of death.

And all was limp.

S037 - CYRUS VÄHI: DECEASED

[HELPful_Crow]

A voice came over the speakers once more.

"Nice job, kid," said the owl-masked woman. "We might've been the ones to push the button there, but you're the one who ringed him out. According to the rules of martial arts tournaments, you get the credit. Congratulations."

Then, a burst of static, and silence.

[Frozen Smoke]

Cryus' body jerked beneath him. His knee wavered as he tried to push him just a little further. The sound of tearing metal in his ears. The burning in his ring finger became unbearable. The taste of fresh blood in his mouth. Slick leather sliding against his palm - An instinct to grab.

Pain shot through him like his hand had hit a live wire.

Jacob tumbled to the ground with Cyrus. The sand welcomed the two of them as equals this time. He swatted at his attempts to grab at him with his left hand. Cyrus' fists were open now. Grasping. Clawing at the dark brown slush that was forming around him. He could see his eyes again. Bright. Desperate.
The only thing louder than the sound of his heart was Cyrus. Every wet, gargled noise that forced him to look at the one thing his eyes pulled away from. What Jacob had done. The jagged perforations that cut through the pale skin of his neck, revealing the pink tissue beneath it, or opened into dark scarlet pools which drooled in time with his increasingly weak spasms. The worst ones were the ones that seemed to cut into nothing. Flaps of skin and fat opening to leak out pink bubbles every time Cyrus tried to breath in, only to close up as he tried the air he didn't have out of his lungs.

His eyes were dimming by the time Jacob looked back to them.
It took a long time.

He didn't take Cyrus' bag with him.

((Jacob Rowe continued in You Should See The Other Guy))