Video; @cphantom | memory share

[sweetlies]

[The video starts in a faintly dimmed room, all the light coming from candles spread about. It's a large room, all made of shining white marble, a chandelier of gold hanging above and holding several of those candles. It's clear it must have cost a fortune.

Pillars make a circle around the room, behind them are stone seats for an audience, there are several cages filled with children in various conditions and all of them chains to the bars by their ankles. In the center is an altar, the floor around it painted with a pentagram, and around that are a couple dozen adults dressed in dark robes and masked as if it were a masquerade. They're all laughing, ignoring the caged children until one cage door is opened and a young boy is pulled out, no more than ten years old.

He's screaming and reaching back to the cage.]

"No! Don't take me away!"

"Ciel!"

[They lay him on the altar, hold him there, and one man holds up a dagger, a wild grin on his face, and brings it down into the child's chest. Blood spills everywhere, from his chest, from his mouth, there's a scream. Two screams. One from the boy on the altar as he dies, one from the boy in the cage.

They look alike, even while one lives and one dies. Like mirror images of one another.]

"There is no such thing as God!"

[And a black smoke filled the room, the candles are snuffed out, the cultists fly into a panic. And then red eyes appear and several of their panicked faces turn to delight, demanding riches, eternal life, petty desires one has every day but the eyes instead settle on the boy in the cage as he reaches out between the bars.]

"Oh. What a tiny master... You have summoned me, that fact will not change for an eternity. The payment to cross has already been made. Now... choose..."

"I... I want-"

"Shut him up!"

"I want power! The power to take revenge on the ones who did this to us! Demon! I'll make a contract with you!"

"So you're abandoning the light for the path to hell? Fine. Well then, let's mark our bodies with the contract seal. The more visible the place where your seal is, the stronger it's power. So, where do you want-"

[The child in the cage, Ciel, doesn't hesitate.]

"Anywhere is fine. I want a power stronger than anyone else!!"

[Through his tears, the smokey figure reaches out a clawed hand, wiping away a tear slipping from his right eye.]

"You're quite greedy, despite your small body. Well then, I shall put the seal on that big eye of yours, filled with despair."

[He grabs his face, another scream being torn from his lungs, and when he draws his hand away, one blue eye had turned purple, an inverted pentagram replacing any features his eye once had. Even his pupil is gone, and blood pours down his cheek.]

"Kill them all!!" [And all... goes dark...]

Comments

action

[somakemelaugh]

[The network sure has been active today, more so than usual. These look quite personal in nature, some of these posts, and he wonders if or not they were truly meant for the network itself. Then he comes across this one in particular and he's certain that at least this one wasn't.]

[It's nothing he hasn't already seen before, from the Cinematic Record that was retrieved from the demon butler, but still it draws a sigh from him as the memory comes to a close and he lifts a hand, rubbing through his hair at his eyelids. After a moment, he pushes himself from the couch to go to the next room over, where his roommate is currently in the middle of one thing or another.]

Milord? Are you aware of this? [He lifts the phone and shows the boy the entry.]

action

[sweetlies]

[It does give him slightly more context though, since Sebastian only had his summoning and beyond in his record. He'd never actually seen the sacrifice, never saw the twins reaching out for one another. Now Undertaker had it all, each moment that brought Sebastian from he'll.

Ciel is sitting quietly with a book when Undertaker enters the room, unaware of the network or the unwitting post. He does glance up though when he realizes he has company.]

Aware of what- [He froze for a moment, glancing at the phone, watching his own memory play out. Suddenly he really does feel cold.

That's there for everyone to see. He can't stop it. ]

That...

[somakemelaugh]

[If he had any doubts as to whether or not the post was made in earnest, the look on Ciel's face cleared it all up. Not that he thought the boy would do something so brash. But now it was getting a little more than serious. These memories were not easy for anyone to bear, let alone throw out into the open.]

Can you try to delete it from your own phone? It's worth a try.

[sweetlies]

[He nearly lunges for his own phone, pulling it up on the device and going through the options once... twice... his frustration and panic is probably visible.]

No-

No, I can't. The option doesn't appear at all.

[Everyone can see. There's no filter or anything and it's very clearly registered to the user cphantom.]

I can't do anything with it...

[somakemelaugh]

[He watches quietly as the teen makes frantically for his phone to try and remove the offending post and... just can't do it. By now, they both understand the technology well enough to know how to do simple tasks like this. He's confident this isn't user error.]

[Not that it would help the situation any. Poor boy. He sits down in a nearby chair, watching the Earl and wondering what might have caused this.]

This is in poor taste, whatever did it.

[sweetlies]

[His phone slips from his hands and hits then floor, the teen curling his legs tightly against his chest and burying his face there.]

Everyone knows. They know about the contract. About Ciel.

What I did while his blood was still warm... [Everything he'd kept so carefully hidden from every normal person he'd met over the past few years.]

[somakemelaugh]

[There isn't anything he can say that will make this better. There isn't anything he can do that will take this back. So he stays where he is and watches, letting this run its course. Whatever happens next, with anyone else, he'll be by the Earl's side this time. He can't imagine that Ciel is the only one suffering from this new plague, but he's the only one suffering from it who Undertaker cares about.]

[So he'll stay where he is. He'll watch over the boy and be the background presence that he always has been while Ciel sorts this out.]

Voice @givesyouhell

[hititwithacrowbar]

[ Well, that was unexpected, mostly anyway. It felt like something straight out of the Court of Owls urban legends, and made him worry for his young friend even more. He almost sent nothing, almost said nothing... but, that felt like it was not fair to Ciel. ]

Earl Phantomhive, I'm sure you've been told already, but... well. It's happening to a lot of people.

Voice

[sweetlies]

[Honestly, he's not sure he wants to reply either but he's never once hidden himself from anything difficult or from frightening truths. Even if this wasn't his choice.]

Jason.

[What does he say?]

Undertaker showed me it just a bit ago... [No matter what he says, he's still damned. Here and at home. Liar. That's all he is. And now his friend knows.]

Voice

[hititwithacrowbar]

We don't have to talk about it.

[ He hates that feeling of wanting to murder that whole cult not just for hurting Ciel, but for hurting kids in general.]

If you do need someone to talk to though, I am always free.

Voice

[sweetlies]

[He swallows hard because he expects pity. Isn't that what people give when they see children in hard positions like that? When they see any kind of excessive cruelty? The lengths people go to for some kind on control?]

I'm not sure what there is to talk about. It happened years ago.

Voice

[hititwithacrowbar]

[ That was why Jason choose the voice setting, not the video, so Ciel wouldn't see his eyes, see the way he felt. Batman trained him well to mask his feelings in his voice.]

Doesn't change a thing, two days ago, ten years ago, pain is pain. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger yes, but it also robs us of something we can never get back. The peices are broken and will never fit quite right again.

...also, if any of these fucks arrive and Undertaker can't be reached you call me and I'll put them the fuck down.

[ You dont fuck with kids, its like Red Hood rule #1]

Voice

[sweetlies]

Something, once lost, can never be regained.

Just like his eye, just like his brother- or so he'd thought. His parents to, murdered on their children's birthday.]

I don't know that I'd recognize them. We never saw them without the masks. I would recognize one but... I killed him.

[ video | un: jkent ]

[supersweet]

[ Jon . . . can't help looking a bit queasy. Killing has never been something he's comfortable with. He may not have his father's iron will, but he hasn't caved to that much violence. Though, he knows, it resides in him. Like a button that could be pressed any day. A danger to others. ]

Ciel . . . What is that?

Re: [ video | un: jkent ]

[sweetlies]

[He looks drained when he answers, exhausted, patch still covering the eye the demon had marked. And the queasy look on Jon's face just makes him glance down a bit.]

That...

Exactly what it looks like. It's... [He takes a breath, trying to anchor himself for what he's sure it going to end in a request to stay away.] It's the day I sold my soul.

[supersweet]

[ Jon isn't familiar with magic. He knows Damian died once and came back. But he wasn't familiar with the details. Either way . . . Jon breathes out. He can't help being shaken. ]

I'm sorry that happened to you. That you were pushed to that.

[sweetlies]

[He isn't either and he's the one that made a demonic contract. He also doesn't have much interest in learning more, considering what he'd lived through.]

It's nothing to apologize for. It was years ago. [He just wishes he could have saved his brother. Somehow.]

[supersweet]

It's something worth apologizing for. No matter how long ago it happened. It's still hurting.

[sweetlies]

This isn't something I ever wanted anyone to know about. It's incredibly taboo in England. And I don't want anyone looking at me differently for surviving the cult.

voice. private. ilikehorses

[shoplifter]

[Laura had watched it all with empathy and a coldness befitting someone from a similar background. She's... not sure what it all means in the end... what a demon curse is, how it works. But the rest? The rest feels ordinary, like it's something many kids must endure. Being caged, being confined and used like that. And sometimes... put to sleep. It makes her knuckles ache, and she would love to put her claws through any of those cultist's eyes. She wouldn't lose much sleep over it. She supposes that makes her a bad person, in a way... but she wouldn't.

Some time later, she sends him a message.]

You protected yourself. It's not something to hide from.

... I would have killed them with my own hands.

voice. private.

[sweetlies]

[Ah. Laura. Somehow, her reply makes him smile. There are a few people, he knows, who would have liked to do the same and he's getting used to that.]

In England, a deal with a demon could lose me everything so I have to hide it.

[So far, nobody here seems to really care and that's harder to get used to than having friends.]

I wish I could have.

voice. private.

[shoplifter]

[Laura nods -- and, well, Ciel knows just how well Laura could kill them. Or maybe he's got a damn good idea from the video feed of her life in Transigen. She can see why people would judge him, but that's because she lives a life where normal people will likely always judge her for what she is. It's a terrible and vicious cycle.]

And you -- escaped then?

Re: voice. private.

[sweetlies]

[It was a vicious cycle. One neither of them should have to endure but he's dealt with enough, and sure she has to, that it made them stronger.]

I did. I escaped and they all died.

voice. private.

[shoplifter]

What about the other children?

voice. private.

[sweetlies]

[There's a pause as Ciel fiddles with the ring on his thumb.]

I was the only survivor. All the others, their spirits were broken to the point that only the cult forcing us to eat actually kept them alive.