Jedao

Edwin does something - brave.

Something terribly, agonizingly brave. Maybe he didn't manage to speak to John, and never heard his brother tell him it was okay, to do whatever he had to, to survive. Maybe he saw the face of the person Larson wanted him to hurt, and was so repulsed, so furious that he's tried so hard to be better and Larson wants to force him to be worse -

Maybe he just makes a decision. He refuses.

And he goes somewhere dark, dark, dark.

Somewhere very far, black bodiless void. Somewhere small. Somewhere that feels like a cell, if he can remember what things feel like. Plain, stone, grey. Five feet on a side.

Or nothing. Just black black black black -

Yellow.

Yellow eyes. Crowns. Is there one crown here, or two? No, that's just eyes - nine yellow eyes in the shadows, with nothing at all to see. A darkness that has been eating itself for - who knows?

Jedao remembers his name, and his fire. He doesn't quite remember colors, or what it feels like to have hands. Sight is impossible in the casket of the Black Cradle, but he can hear the voices of ghosts. When his tormentor does not speak to him - when he is alone - he makes noise for himself. Ghosts with no throats are still permitted the luxury of screaming.

He is making a noise like someone chewing their fingers off. Humans are astonishingly good mimics, among the best in the animal world. The sound is horrendous, visceral. He has not been here long enough, this time, to forget pain. It is good to remember. The memory is better than nothing.

And then he is not alone.