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Fear Toxin prompt drabble - Wraith

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Water splashed, cold and gritty, as she ran through the growing darkness spreading around the buildings of the city.  Her breath was beginning to catch in her chest, a painful stitch building up behind her ribs in her lungs, but she kept running as her leg muscles burned.  The huge wings on her back should have slowed her progress; logically they should have, but logically also, the darkness lurking within Gotham City shouldn't have been tangible either.  But there it was, beginning to devour the city in waves of beast-like claws.
She ignored it.  She was worried over something far more precious than the rotting city.  The air grew thick and heavy and cold, and the damp smell of dropping pressure hit her nose.  She kept running.
Her feet hit the edge of emerald green grass and the world shook.  The ground broke away from the pavement and the world outside the small patch of park began to spin, howling with screams of agony as the citizens of Gotham cried out in terror. She tore her gaze from the sight as it slowly began to build up speed, seeking out the one person she knew had to be there.
She stood like a monument, dead-center atop a small hill, her head of dark hair hung low as though in prayer as her pure-white wings radiated a glow of soft, golden light.  But even as Wraith began to step toward her, the glow of those wings started to fade, the feathers began to fall, one by one every several seconds.
"Guen!" She called out to her counterpart, watching as the girl with the white wings slowly crumpled to her knees.  She ran to the top of the hill, the pain in her chest growing rapidly as with each step, she watched the white wings enfold her other personality. The wind screamed distantly as Gotham spun faster and faster still.
"GUEN!"
She made a tremendous leap, stretching out a hand in relief to touch one of the white wings.
The feathers withered and cracked beneath her touch, and blood began to stain the white.
Wraith retracted her hands in shock, staring at them as though they were diseased.  What had she done?!  The last thing she ever wanted was to see her other self hurt.  Other personality or not, Guen was more of a sister to her than anything, one that shared a body with her, that was all.
"Wraith...?" Came the soft, imploring question.
She looked up, afraid of what she would see.
Dull green eyes stared up at her blankly from a pale face, and blood was slowly trickling down in a small river from a nasty-looking injury near the roots of Guen's fringe.  There was something dead about the way she looked, something soul-less and defeated.
"I'm so tired..." she muttered in a weak voice that still carried over the screaming wind and the cacaphony of wailing.  "I'm tired, Wraith..."
"Guen, it's okay," she said, drawing in hard breaths to try to calm herself as she addressed her counterpart, extending her black wings over them both, "It's okay, I'm going to get you home, we're—we're going to get you fixed up.  I'm going to make sure you're not hu-hurt.  And then you can rest."
"No." Came the empty, low chime of Guen's voice as everything grew even darker.  "I'm tired of all of it.  I hate existing.  It's too much to deal with.  Even breathing is asking too much of me.  I hate being."
Wraith's heart began to beat in panic behind her ribcage.
"Guen.  Guen, don't talk like that.  You're just not feeling well. You need rest."
"I need to stop.  Stop existing." Guen said hollowly as her wings molted like fragments of glass, shattered and slowly crashing one by one on an unforgiving floor.
"Guenhivyre, quit it!" Wraith snapped, an edge to her voice as her panic increased.  "You're freaking me out!  This isn't funny, so knock it off!"
"You could do it, you know." Guen's dull eyes suddenly glittered with unreadable emotion.  "You can end it.  After all, you can't touch me."
"What?" Wraith said, stunned for a second.  "What are you talking...?"  She trailed off, looking back down at her hands.  Is that why Guen's wings were dying under her touch?
"You ruin everything you touch," Guen said in a breathless voice bordering on feverish reverence, "You can't love or care about anything without killing it, can you?  You may not do it intentionally, but you kill what you love slowly, from the inside."
Startled, Wraith began to back up, but it wasn't enough.  She had forgotten to draw back her wings, and Guen touched the tips of them.
Black-red blood started to waterfall from her hands as an empty smile formed on her face.
"Guen, NO!" Wraith yelled, trying to pull back, but her other personality had a tight hold on her black feathers and drew them across her cheeks as though trying to caress them.  They could have been razor blades for all Wraith could tell, because more blood started to pour from her cheeks.
"GUEN STOP!"
"Too late." Came the small, happy whisper as she released the black feathers, and cracks began to form on her skin, with a sound of more cracking glass.  "This is the one selfless thing you can actually do, Wraith."
She surged forward from the ground, seizing Wraith about the throat. The girl with black wings tried to suck in a gasp as the airflow to her lungs was suddenly constricted, but even that barely lasted long.  With a sound like a sigh rolling over dead plains, Guen slowly vanished, fading into a faint mist that Wraith involuntarily felt herself swallowing.
"No.  No no no no no no no NO!!" She screamed, fingers scrabbling at her own throat in a desperate attempt to stop herself.  But it was no use.  The mist vanished, and with it, the light from the sky.
Trembling, she sank to her knees, pulling her hands away from neck as she tried to process what had just happened.  Blood continued to drip, small little glistening rubies that fell and stained the emerald grass, off her feathers that were still as black as night. Her hands and wings trembled violently as her breath came in ragged, disjointed gasps, punctuating a strange hole that was growing in her chest.  The screaming howls of Gotham as it blurred and spun dulled in comparison to the pounding of her heart.
Guen was gone.  Completely gone.
The reason Wraith existed was gone, and there was nothing she could do about it...
How completely and utterly embarrassing.  I'm ashamed of myself.
I RUN DCFanfictionWriters and I put off my drabble for this month's prompt off until the absolute last moment. :cri: 

*sighs* Well, I've considered writing an additional one for Nuriyah, just because, but for now I'm posting this one.
See, the issue is, Wraith is a split personality. (For those of you not yet familiar with her yet.) And as such, Guen and Wraith would both see different things under the influence of the Scarecrow's fear toxin; it would all just depend on which personality was in control at the time. While I don't feel like stating what Guen's fear is (some of you know it, but I'd prefer to just leave it to my friends to know that,) if you can't tell what Wraith's innermost personal fear is, it's that she'll somehow absorb Guen (the original personality) and in the process, lose her. Guen is the reason Wraith exists; not only is she part of Guen, but the reason the personality split happened was because Wraith was born from a need for self-defense. However, Guen is pacifistic on her own. She won't fight most of the time, even to protect herself. But she's been spliced with harpy eagle DNA and her "raptor side" of those instincts was chemically suppressed.  That "raptor" part of her, combined with an adrenaline need to fight back and protect herself, emerged as a split-personality that has named itself Wraith. Both personalities are aware of each other, and Wraith considers Guen her "reason for being", as she was "born" to protect Guen.

And thus, the thing she feels most is that she will be the cause of Guen one day ceasing to exist, and then she'll have no reason for being any longer...

Ugh, this feels so crappy. Sad dummy Probably not the best writing I've cranked out in under forty-five minutes, but I wanted to submit something nonetheless.

Batman and all related elements and titles are © to DC Comics 

Guenhivyre Pendragon/Wraith is © to me

IF YOU STEAL MY WRITING, YOU CAN CONSIDER YOURSELF HUNTED DOWN AND REPORTED.
© 2014 - 2024 Yoru-the-Rogue
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The-Resident-Jinx's avatar
Wow, I absolutely adore this Yoru! The idea that the fear toxin made Wraith envision loosing Guen is just brilliant, it make you feel really sorry for her! D: Xx