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The first breath he takes, and it chars his lungs, an inferno caged between ribs. Another breath kindles the flames, burning through muscle and tissue and bone. He doesn’t know where the fire came from, but it rages so bright he can’t see, can’t think. Blind to the world around him, deaf to the white noise outside.
Amidst those consuming flames, he can perceive only one thing. A face he doesn’t recognize, yet still wants to scar. A voice he’s never heard, yet still sours his thoughts. A fear he hasn’t known, helplessness he hasn’t felt, pain he hasn’t tasted. They mingle and dance, a tangle of memories he knows isn’t his, as deja vu itself stares him down.
He feels so small under those peculiar eyes…
He wants to rip them out.
“…vi…”
A sound cuts through the noise, a sharpened edge he’s sure belongs to that face. But it’s not the same. No, it’s not the same as the familiar-yet-unfamiliar voice in his head. So it can’t belong, can it? Is the being the inferno burns for with him? Or is it all smoke and mirrors?
Smoke. That’s almost funny. But why? Why is that funny?
“Cal…En…”
He lashes out at the voice. He can’t see, but he can hear. That’s all he needs. That’s all. Then he can silence the noise and sort through his confusion. Figure out what he’s supposed to do, what’s happening to him, who this thing in his head is.
His hand hits something. Good. Maybe it'll shut up. Maybe he can think now. Maybe-
“Calm down, Envi.”
The voice barks at him a third and final time, slicing through smoke and flame alike, carving away the clutter of his racing thoughts.
That’s him.
Envi.
He isn’t sure how he knows, but he does.
He–Envi blinks away the cloudy remnants of rage from his mind and finds himself in a bedroom. Purple bathes the room, violet sheets draped across a grand bed and lavender curtains cascading down towering windows. Plush animals are scattered about, populating every otherwise vacant nook and cranny, the bed not so lonely with them tucked beneath its sheets.
And then there’s red. The same red in Envi’s head. The red of rage, the red of love, the red of blood.
Blood… is the pain in his head real? If it’s real, he knows it’s not his. Yet, if not his, then whose? The voice’s? The one who spoke his name or the one in his head?
“Envi. Come here. I need your assistance.”
His eyes follow, resting on the words’ speaker: a demon, reminiscent of a goat. Covered almost head-to-toe by a black cloak, red fur lining its cuffs and collar. Dark hooves peek out from beneath the fabric, while snowy white hair tops the demon’s head.
Yagi, his mind offers. He doesn't know how. But he knows that this is Yagi, a man–no, a brother–he trusts.
Behind Yagi, he sees another figure: someone smaller, though it’s hard to tell just how much when the figure is curled in on itself, a blanket huddled around its body. Satanick, he’s offered once more. A Devil. His Devil, crowned with the most stunning muted purple horns, parting charcoal hair and curling in on themselves much like their owner. He… he wants to touch them. To trace the curves of bark-like bone in reverence to his Devil. To comb fingers through dark locks, brush them from eyes he knows are more vibrant than anything else in the room. He can’t even see them, but something in him knows.
“Envi,” Yagi hisses, patience quickly draining. It tugs Envi from the unusual thoughts, finding himself kneeling next to the other goat demon in only a second.
He's promptly handed a small box, Yagi reaching for the Devil with his now freed hand. “Could you give me your arm? I need to clean your wounds.” The demon's voice is far softer, speaking to the Devil. It lacks that annoyance he'd shown Envi, replaced by a firmness that's far more grounding than intimidating.
As Satanick offers a blood-soaked arm, Yagi picks up a damp towel from beside his knee, gently taking hold of the Devil's wrist and dabbing at the blood. With a glance towards Envi and a gesture towards the box, he instructs the other demon; “I need the needle and sutures out of there. Quickly, this time.”
Envi nods in acknowledgment, flipping open the box and digging around inside. It's so full of stuff, it's difficult for him to sort through. But he does find what he's been asked for, stringing the thread through the needle and tying it off before handing it to Yagi.
The fellow goat places the freshly red-stained towel back on the floor before taking the needle and thread from Envi. “I need you to be still, alright? This shouldn't hurt too much,” he says as he turns back to Satanick. “Just pay attention to Envi. He'll help keep your mind off of it.”
Envi blinks at those words, taken off guard by being thrown under the bus so haphazardly. How is he supposed to distract? He can't even think of anything. Anything but that thing. Maybe he could talk about that? Or why they're here? Where they came from?
“Uh,” he starts, fumbling over himself with his words, “what… happened?”
The goat demon feels more than sees Yagi's disapproval at the shoddy attempt, the other throwing a glare in his direction and prompting Envi to bury his hands in his lap. His cheeks feel warm, embarrassment at his failure creeping up his spine. He parts his lips to try again, to try something different, before…
“I'm not supposed to talk about it.”
A small voice, barely a whisper. Even so, it sounds like a song. A somber melody that pierces through the demon's chest, wrenching at his heart. Why does it feel so… strong?
The demon's thoughts are abruptly interrupted as the Devil continues with a soft, apprehensive “I'm sorry.”
No, no. Why is Satanick sorry? He has nothing to be sorry for. He could never-
“You're alright,” Yagi interjects, and Envi's gaze slips over to see him gently rubbing the Devil's arm with a thumb as he works, careful not to scratch with sharp nails. His voice is so, so steady. An anchor, grounding in unruly waters. It's nothing likes Envi's, there's not even a hint of hesitation. “Who told you you're not supposed to talk about it?”
The question is followed by silence. A silence that Envi chokes on, every second morphing into an eternity of unsureness. It's all so heavy, pulling at his shoulders, dragging him down, down, down…
“Neph, my big brother.”
Big brother.
Something about those words strikes a chord in Envi. He feels something… wrong. He didn't hurt just a moment ago, did he? No, he didn't. He knows he didn't. Why does he hurt so much now?
“Just be good,” that voice murmurs, and he feels hot breath on his ear, violently grabbing his attention. He tries to move, to pull away from that voice, that uncomfortable sensation, but there's so much pain. He can taste his heart in his mouth, the rapid beating of it numbing his tongue, more and more blood dripping from his lips with every heave of his lungs.
Everything is wet. Everything is so, so wet. Why is it wet? It's not blood, it can't all be blood. Can it? Can he really bleed this much?
The splash of liquid sounds so distant to his ears, so much further than that voice had been. His heart slips from his tongue to his lungs, blood draining from his mouth and rapidly filling them. It burns more than a liquid has any right to burn, scorching him from the inside, an agony he can't run from, can't fight.
There's more splashing, so far away, and he wants to scream. He wants to scream and cry and thrash, anything to stop the burning in his chest, anything to get out of this living hell. But he can't do that. He can't, he can't, he can't. He has to-
…What does he have to do?
It all feels so… heavy. His eyes, his limbs, his head. He doesn't want to think, he isn't sure he can. A pleasant darkness reaches into the recesses of his mind, extinguishing the flames in his lungs, numbing the ache in his muscles, making it so hard to… to…
“That's it, you're being so good for your big brother, Nicky.”
It's all he ever wants and all he's ever wanted.
And it's the most perfect lullaby to pull him into the cold embrace of that darkness.