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princeash28 · 8 days ago

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The Room (And What it Took from Me)

First chap of a fanfic I am writing about the unspoken, innate connection Natsu and Lucy share post-Alvarez. In which Natsu has no memory but he does have Her.

New chaps are up on Ao3. Started as a Whumptober prompt and then spiraled out of control from there, lol!

CW: Experimentation, Body Horror

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He couldn’t remember how he got here.

Try and try as he might, anything leading up to the Room was blurry, like trying to grasp at watercolor paints of memories. He did not have memory. He did not have a name. There was nothing.

There was only the Room.

There was only him and the Room.

For a while, he could not move. He just stared at the Room, and the Room stared back. White walls. White floors. The Room was bare except for him, and he was bare, too.

Then, eventually, feeling crept into his naked body with small pinpricks, dancing up his feet and making his fingers twitch. His hands were bound. A cold, metallic muzzle clogged his mouth and forced him to breathe through his nose. He couldn’t smell anything. Nothing but himself and the Room.

He’d been awake for a while. Time was strange in the Room. It could have been hours. It could have been days. He didn’t know, and some part of him was worried about that.

A greater part was worried about the why and the how and the hunger gnawing in his belly.

He was weak. His limbs were like jelly. His head was full of cotton.

So when the walls parted in the Room, he blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.

His heart leapt when people stepped into the Room, and he lifted his head. They would help him. They would untie him and—

“Get him prepped,” one said.

Then a cot was wheeled in. It squeaked and the people chatted lowly. All the sounds in the Room were making him dizzy.

They ran cloths coated in sharp smells over his nude body. He tried to pull away, but his limbs were drunk with something he did not remember having. They kept him bound. They looked into his eyes and no emotion crossed their faces.

They put him on the cot, and they took him out of the Room. The swaying made his stomach sick. Sconces on the walls passed by, lighting up stone hallways and reinforced doors, maybe to other Rooms. Maybe to the outside world. They wheeled him on and on until he felt like he would be forever sick, forever trapped on this cot beyond the Room.

A heavy door opened with a clu-clunk, and then bright Lacrimas were shining sterile white light into his eyes. He winced. He smelled chemicals. Blood. Dark magic. The stars.

His body tensed.

The stars?

He had no memory, but he recognized that scent.

Panic ripped into him like the teeth of a great beast. He bolted upright, startling the people who hadn’t come to help him as he whipped his dizzy head around. This new room that wasn’t the Room was full of sharp tools for the body, and potions he didn’t recognize. A few more people were dressed in white, and they were changing crimson gloves from their hands for clean ones.

There She was, on a table and bloodied and stitches winding up her arms. Her eyes were open and empty. There was a pink mark on her hand that made his right shoulder burn, but he couldn’t explain why. Her blonde hair was cut short, and he had no memory, but he knew that was wrong.

He tried to shout for Her, a name that he couldn’t remember but a name he tried to say anyways. But his mouth was gagged, and no sound came out other than a muffled grunt.

Her head turned slowly to him, as if all her joints were rusty and She forced herself to move anyways. She opened her mouth as if to speak.

Gloved hands pulled him back down to the cot, and his bound hands were re-bound to the railings on the side of it. He thrashed and grunted and fought. A sinister heat ignited in his chest that he couldn’t remember but knew was familiar. It threatened to overtake him, dark and malevolent. It bubbled up like magma in his throat, trying to escape but stopped by the muzzle on his face. It went to his nose instead, small flames and smoke shooting out uselessly.

A prick of pain in his arm.

His body surrendered. It knew to do this. It had done this many times before; a part of him knew. He had his own stitches, after all. They ran up the center of his chest. They coiled around his arms.

His vision grew blurry. Time passed as it did in the Room; odd and slow and fast and wrong.

Then they were cutting, and then there was pain. They split the seams of him back open, they stuck in their tools and un-pieced and re-pieced him. They poured magic blacker than ink into his chest, and he saw visions of fire, blood, and ash. It made him excited. It made him sick.

He watched them, because he could not do anything else. He could not cry. He could not fight.

He had no mouth and so he could not scream.

The frigid black magic soured in his veins. It was burned away by the dark fires within him. The perverted flames clawed to get out somewhere behind his heart; it roared to be released, but something held it back—a seal that he knew without knowing would hold steadfast, as long as…

…as long as what?

She flashed in his mind.

“Any change?” one of those who cut him asked.

“Somewhat,” another said, “The Black Core inside of him grows, but it does not transform him, still.”

“The tumor should have worked by now. What shall we do?”

“What we always do. We try again, and we wait.”

“What of the girl? She brings no changes to him each time.”

“She is the key. Without the book, we must improvise.”

He knew these words but could not remember their significance. Something urgent prodded at the back of his mind, something he should know but was just out of reach.

They sewed him back up, leaving him a little less whole each time they opened him.

He looked into their eyes. They looked back. One of them had an emotion, though he could not remember what it was called.

They pet his head, and he knew the emotion: pity.

“Apologies, E.N.D.,” they said it like it was his name, but that couldn’t be right. It didn’t feel right. “Bear with us. We will free you, yet.”

Free him? His heart lifted in hope.

His heart plummeted to his stomach when they took him back to the Room. Feeling returned to him. They took off his muzzle. Steam left his mouth with a heavy exhale, and he worked his stiff jaw. He was feeling and yet he was numb.

They fed him, and he ate.

They put the muzzle back on him. They left. This was the routine; some part of him knew even as his thoughts grew hazy and his eyes grew heavy.

He did not sleep. He could not. The seams of him did not hurt, not anymore—not in the Room.

He thought of Her, even as the details of her face became fuzzy in his mind. Like watching a painting melt, it all dissolved away: the cot, the hallway, the cutting, the black magic, and the people who had done it. The Room took it all.

He couldn’t remember how he got here.

Try and try as he might, anything leading up to the Room was blurry, like trying to grasp at watercolor paints of memories. He did not have memory. He did not have a name. There was nothing.

There was only the Room.

There was only him and the Room.

He’d been awake for a while. Time was strange in the Room. It could have been hours. It could have been days. He did not know, and nor did he care. He was unfeeling.

He was weak. His limbs were lead. His head was buzzing with an emptiness where it was supposed to be full.

So when the walls parted in the Room, he blinked several times to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.

He felt nothing when people stepped into the Room, their vibrant colors sharply contrasting against the whiteness surrounding them. He had not the strength to lift his head. They looked into his eyes; they had so many emotions which he did not know the names for. They said so many words which he did not know the meanings of.

They took off his muzzle. They unbound him. They lifted him up, and they took him out of the Room. Scarlet locks of hair danced in front of his eyes and tickled his cheeks.

Sconces on the walls passed by, lighting up stone hallways, bodies, and reinforced doors, maybe to other Rooms. Maybe to the outside world. They carried him on and on until he felt like he would be forever carried, forever in these arms beyond the Room.

A heavy door opened with a clu-clunk, and then bright light flooded him, warm and unforgotten. He smelled nature. Magic. The stars.

His body tensed.

The stars?

He had no memory, but he recognized that scent.

He lifted his head; it wobbled on his neck.

There She was, held by someone with a blue mark on his bare chest; she was thin and pale and stitches wound up her arms. Her eyes were open and full of tears. There was a pink mark on her hand that made his right shoulder burn, but he couldn’t explain why. Her blonde hair was cut short, and he had no memory, but he knew that was wrong.

He tried to shout for Her, a name that he couldn’t remember but a name he tried to say anyways. His voice, neglected and newly freed, gave nothing but a pitiful, squeaking grunt.

Her head turned slowly to him, as if all her joints were rusty and She forced herself to move anyways. She opened her mouth as if to speak. Her voice, equally disused, cracked and squealed as she formed words. The arms carrying them both brought them together, and their trembling hands touched.

“Natsu.” She said the name like it was his, and it felt right.

Another name came to him, then; something the Room had taken that he was given back. The sinister heat in his chest fizzled and whimpered away, for its seal was unbroken and whole where he was not.

He felt, and it was overwhelming.

“Lucy.”

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Thanks for reading!😊

Read The Room by Prince_Ash_28 on Ao3

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