school started. :( and being a freshman sucks so far! please enjoy this chapter!

episode 9 just broke my heart.

xxx

" Is it better to live as a monster or to die as a good man?"

- Teddy Daniels/Andrew Landis (Shutter Island)

The nausea was overpowering.

The stench was consuming, rising up in warm clouds, being breathed down, down, down his throat... Alois found his eyelids flickering shut, the oblivion of sleep blinking entracingly before his eyes.

Sleep. Yes, he wanted that. Rest. Too much had happened. He was confused. He was tired. Escape.

...

No. Don't escape.

The boy found his thoughts again, something stopping him from resting. Why? Why couldn't it all just stop here? But there was a question lingering in his mind. Questions. Buzzing like a thousand locusts in his head, demanding to be quelled with an answer. He had to discover the answer... or he will never rest. Eyes wearily peeling open, Alois looked into the darkness again in his half asleep stupor. He must keep awake. The boy crawled forward into the darkness slowly, pausing a few moments to let the nausea past. He got a few meters before collapsing, the palms of his hands throbbing. The darkness had returned, and he could see nothing, nothing at all. He wanted to see.

So without a light to guide him through the darkness, Alois collapsed, and waited.

What did he wait for?

Perhaps for that butler. Alois' eyes blinked laboriously. No.

He waited for the answers to his questions.

The boy struggled, pain shooting up his left arm as he propped his head on it, surprised when his cheek came in contact with a warm, wet liquid. Blood. He quickly pulled it away, and in the darkness felt it trickle, slowly drip, drip, dripping onto the ground.

And as he watched it drip, the boy began to notice the blood lighten in the darkness. Glow, almost. The color of the blood began to change, the blood rippling into a bright golden color. It dripped onto the ground, forming a small pool of gold, shining in the darkness. Alois watched it in horror, in fascination, in disgust. It was beautiful.

It was horrible.

It was a lie.

It was, Alois watched the golden substance drip from his fingers, the yellow shine reflecting in the blue grey of his eyes.. It was, it was- he whispered it under his breath, " fake."

As the words came out, the golden pool on the ground began to immediately expand in all directions, filling the darkness, and Alois, who had been submerged in the blind world for so long, found himself exposed, curled on the ground. The room lit with a serene light, trees slowly rising from the ground, veins of roots, wildly tumbling over each other, sunlight filtering through the leaves, shining at Alois.

The boy stood up slowly, watching as two trees grew together, entwining each other's branches, one a dark midnight blue, the other a bright, golden yellow, like the blood that had once dripped from his finger tips. The created an arc together, a cavity beyond the two that contained the only darkness he could see.

And the warmth was like a soothing balm to his soul, it tugged at his weary self, urging him to stay.

But he couldn't.

Not here.

" CLAUDE!" Alois screamed into the peaceful silence. He didn't want it this way. He hated this.

" CLAUDE, CLAUDE!"

He needed answers. Not this golden paradise.

" I don't want this." he said calmly. Alois paused, hoping that Claude would reply.

There was a second of silence, before a voice sounded softly in his head.

I know.

Alois looked around confusedly. " Then why show me what I do not want?" Instinctevly, Alois began to walk towards the two trees, reaching his hands out to grad hold of them. Claude was waiting in the darkness beyond them- he had to be. The boy hesitated for a second, before lifting one leg into the cavity between the trees.

To show you what you will have to give up.

Alois found himself immersed in darkness again, the only light pouring in from the cavity behind his back.

Are you ready to say goodbye?

He sneered into the darkness, not bothering to turn around. " I won't miss it."

Very well.

Alois felt the trees move behind him, the trunks entwining together to close the open space. The boy kept his back turned the entire time, but he felt himself panic a bit as the very last of the light slowly disappeared, leaving him in the black oblivion once again. Shaking it off, Alois began to walk forwards.

" Your highness."

At the sound of Claude's voice a few paces in front of him, Alois looked up. But there was still nothing there. He frowned, pausing. " Claude?.." It was almost a whisper, but it seemed to slip from his lips and rebound in the darkness.

" Keep on walking."

Alois did as he was told, cautiously resuming putting one foot in front of the other. He heard Claude sigh, a hiss almost.

" Yes, keep walking the path you are walking now. Away from the light, to the dark answers you seek-"

Alois interrupted him, annoyance evident in his voice. " Where are you anyways?" The boy fumed, impatient with the game the butler was playing. " Show yourself! And tell me how you can help me find the answers."

The reply he got rebounded in his mind.

Are you sure you won't miss the sunlit, warm and solid grounds of your 'past'?

Alois frowned- how many times did he have to tell that butle- but his thoughts were interrupted by the sight of something silver and fragile appearing beneath the soles of his feet. It glistened in the dark, extending as for as he could see, and around him as well, as if an intricate pattern of some type of web...

Because, from here on, you will be treading on very fine thread.

The boy gasped, attempting to move back. As he did, he felt a rip in the thread. Eyes wide, Alois felt one, two feet break free of the web; and in a horror filled silence, felt as he dropped into the darkness.

Alois came to a dizzying stop, finding that he had landed in a checkered room, black and white tiles rippling across the floor and walls. Strewn across the ground lay white feathers, limp and dirty, as if somebody had already been inside of the room before.

A pang shot through his left arm again, and Alois gripped it tightly. Why wouldn't the damn butler stop playing games?

" When one has rejected faith, it if impossible for him to pass through gates of heaven. Did you know that?" Alois flinched. It was Claude's voice, but there was something so familiar about it..

Darkness...

Alois groaned, gripping his arm harder. Why wouldn't the voices go away?

dark..help.. help...me..

He watched Claude appear in front of him, materializing through the pattern of black and white on the tile walls." Your answer?.."

... why?... TAKE ME...

feathers...Alois glanced around- like the ones in this room..

ciel...

".. Alois? You do know this do you not?"

When the butler reached a hand out to him, Alois slapped it away. He stood attempted to stand straighter, and looked Claude in the eyes, his expression scornful.

" Would somebody who believes in God summon you?"

Claude sucked in a breath, and pulled away,astonished. " Perfect." The butler lowered himself, arm crossing over his chest respectfully.

" Alois Trancy, do you wish to make a contract?"

Alois looked down on Claude. "Yes."

Claude gestured for Alois's left hand, and kissed the top of it.

" You will serve me until the end, when I am content with the answers to my questions."

" Questions?" the butler murmured, his cold whisper ghosting across the top of the boy's hand. " Are sure they are only that?"

" Who are you? Alois Trancy..." he continued, slowly turning over to Alois's palm. " Have you forgotten your past? Will you make a pact with a demon to remember it?"

Alois flinched as Claude bit into the palm of his hand, a crimson bubble pooling delicately in his palm. Claude looked over it, before tracing a pattern in the blood. The pattern he traced illuminated blue: a star surrounded by a ring of thorns.

Tch...

At the sight of the symbol, Claude seemed to make a disapproving sound, but continued smoothly as he licked the blood away.

" So.." The demon resumed his kneeling position, arms crossed over his chest and his head bowed respectfully. " Beginning today, you are my master. And I am your servant until you remember your memories."

" I will serve you and only you till the very end. For you I will turn sapphire into gold, the seas into plains, and water into wine. For you marble will crumble into dust, and heroes into cowards." slowly, Claude began to raise his head, " I will serve and devour you till the very ends of this world."

Satisfied, Claude smiled, a golden fleur de lis encircled by thorns burning brightly in his left eye.

" Your highness."

xxx

Life had been good for Queen Victoria. Or rather, Anne. She had thought she had left that far behind her, in the depths of days that she had tried to convince herself did not matter. Yet, Queen Anne was clearly printed on the envelope that had been delivered to her chamber that morning. It had cordially invited her to tea with a Duke Trancy, tomorrow at noon.

She crumpled the envelope between her hands. Her past had returned to haunt her.

And that brat was still alive.

please review :) thank you so much for reading!