Click clack. Click clack. The noises drive me into a twitching mess. Wrists burn painfully, blood trickling from the severed veins. Master hurts wrists. He makes brain go funny. He has control over me. I feel it. The things in my mind telling me to hurt and KILL- Sky Eyes. Think of hi- CONTROL. SUBJECT 304. HURT. KI- I laugh as the mind fights me. I'm not but a drone to do its master's bidding. It tries to take control. My wrists bleed more. I stare at them. Blood...it's so...red...and inviting... I slowly lift my arm, running my tongue over it. It tastes like fear. Like Sky Eyes. The redness settles on my vision, my thoughts shifting, emotions becoming hostile. I start to lose my control. Master is winning. KILL. KILL. I scratch at the door. Sky Eyes is in there. I want him. WANT HIM TO BE MINE. Mind control is becoming mine too, twisting thoughts again in different ways. Then...I hear singing. Sounds like, pictures in my mind. Rose Eyes and a warm hand in mine. Her sweet voice painting my memories. Mind control fades. I feel the cold stone beneath my hands like the stone of the village well. I look up and see Rose's bedroom door, like the door to our house. When my mother would call us in for dinner. The way I would watch her brush Rose's hair in the mornings before school. Her soft purple eyes. I look down at my wrists. There's a blue bit. I scrape and scratch away at the blood, pulling at it with my teeth. A sharp pain, worse than the others as they dig into the injury. Then a stab of more pain hits my head. Stand up. Bleeding mind. Bleeding wrists. Bleeding body. Soul... I want my Sky Eyes- KILL. YOU MUST. LEARN. TO KILL, IF YOU. ARE TO. SURVIVE. I must survive to keep Sky Eyes safe...so I must kill.
***
Rose had started singing a little while ago and it had fallen silent outside the door. She'd been singing 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'. I asked her about it. She said it was one of Derp's only ways to trigger calm in his mind. She wasn't sure why but she guessed it had been a lullaby of sorts in his childhood. I found that sad, that his childhood was lost. I shivered as another tentative scratch of nails at the door resonated through the silent room. Silent but for Rosemary's soft singing, the notes wavering a little as she shook in fear. I was scared too. There was something in Derp. Something the Master had put in him. Something that was twisting his mind, perhaps controlling him. I heard a succession of light thuds and the door handle was jiggled. I found myself panting for panicked breaths. "Will he give up?" Rose reached the end of her song, pale and terrified. "Th-the song...it should work! Why-?" The door suddenly exploded inwards, splinters lodging in the floorboards, crazy laughter driving my heartbeat into overdrive. Rose screamed and lunged at the wall, scrambling away as Derp suddenly grabbed me, baring his teeth. I yelled in terror, trying to wrench myself away from his grip. He slammed my back hard up against the wall, holding my arms up above my head by the wrists as I gasped for breath. I glimpsed his knife between his bared teeth and a desperate plan formed. I screamed at Rosemary to run before raising my feet, kicking hard into Derp's chest. Guilt bit hard into me as he whimpered, falling away from me, the knife leaving his teeth as he mewled in pain. I grabbed it, the shiny, metallic lure of the object taking me as I held it in my shaking hand. Derp's terrifyingly insane crooked eyes found me, the icy blue iris' slowly darkening to red. I lunged at him, pinning his thin, wiry body to the ground.

He struggled restlessly, resisting my attempts to get a grip on him. I slammed his back down, shutting my eyes tight to his yelp of pain. I finally got a grip on his shoulders, cupping his face in my hands I sought out his face in the dust from the broken door. "Joseph! You need to trust me!" He snarled, his fist hitting my stomach. I gasped in pain, my nails digging into his skin without me realising. He whimpered, fear overtaking the anger in his eyes. He grabbed my shoulders, yelling at me in terror. "KILL THE WRISTS IAN! KILL THE CONTROL!" My eyes widened as he started twitching, sobbing and screaming. I grabbed his arm and examining the wrist the best I could with his spasmes. I glimpsed a blue...wire? I knew what I had to do. I straddled Derp, pulling him up by his shoulders into a sitting position and keeping a tight hold on his wrist. His eyes glimmered red and blue. He was fighting something. The something put in his mind. The something connected to his wrists. I grit my teeth before slicing the blade under his skin, snapping the wire. I threw the knife down and pulled it out in one vicious movement. Derp's hoarse scream of agony hit my mind like a sword, stabbing into every part of me. I could feel his suffering in the very air I was breathing. The smell of his blood was everywhere, the liquid itself soaking our bare skins. I held his spasming form close to me, kissing his neck. "It's ok, I'm gonna get the other one out. The hurt's gonna stop, I promise." He sobbed as I took the other wrist.

"It's f-fighting me I-Ian, h-hurry!" I could hear the terror in his voice. Saw the knife glimmering in my corner vision. I grabbed the hilt, pinning his wrist to the ground and making the quick clean cut across the veins. The wire was red in this arm. Torn flesh caught onto it as I tugged, tears stinging at my eyes at the deafening screams of pain issuing from Derp as I did so. I kept talking to him, reassuring the best I could as he cried like a frightened child. Anger overtook my frustration and I dug my nails into the flesh, hooking my fingertips under the wire and grabbing the knife, slicing more skin before wrenching it out. Derp's final resounding scream of agony hit my heart, the sound so loud it was like it was trapped in my own body, fighting to get out. I forced it back down and grabbed hold of Derp, pulling him into my lap and holding him, nuzzling into his hair, soothing him to the best I could. His sobs never quietened though, his hysterical cries never ceasing as more blood dripped from his hands. "M-mind. M-mind-" He buried his face in my neck, crying harder. "M-Master c-control m-mind w-with w-wires in w-w-wrists and s-spine-" I stared at him. "Spine?" My voice was a hoarse whisper. What if he was still being controlled with the wires still inside him? He flinched, shivering in my arms. "Derp, how do I get it out of you?" He locked gazes with me, desperation clear in his wide, tear-filled eyes. "No, way out...NO ESCAPE!" I grabbed hold of his shoulders. "Derp-!" He tore my grip away, scrambling to his feet, grisly blood caking his wrists as it slowly dried. I stood up, grabbing the knife. "Derp those things are still-"

He screamed, sobbing again, gripping his head tightly, shaking it from side to side like an aggravated dog. I took a deep breath and shoved him down onto Rosemary's bed on his front. He yelped as I jumped on top, holding his head down. "Ian-!" "Joseph! Listen to me!" His sobs quietened to frantic pants. "If the control is still inside of you I need to get it out!" He took a gulping breath. "C-Control i-in mind! In mind!" I grabbed his head in my hands. "Then fight it Derp!" A shudder went through his body beneath me as he yelped, trembling. "T-t-trying!" "You can do it, I believe you can!" He suddenly went silent. The sobs shut off and he collapsed, unbreathing. I stared at him in horror. "Derp?..." A few tense moments passed. The hysteria started growing, the misery and the shock. "Derp please...-" He suddenly took a great gulp of air, as if surfacing from underwater depths. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tightly. "Sk-sky Eyes?...where are you?...so dark, here..." I flipped him over beneath me, gently parting his closed eyelids. He blinked, staring up at me. "Sky Eyes." I smiled faintly, tears of relief travelling down my grimy face. "Derp...you're ok-" He enveloped me in a bone crushing grip, crying quietly into my shoulder. I held him tightly, ignoring the warm, fresh blood seeping down my back from his open cuts. "D-darkness n-nearly t-took me." I placed a shaky kiss in his shaggy hair. "I-I know Derp-" "Mind c-controlled. H-hurt you-" I nuzzled into his neck as he did mine. "You fought it Derp. It's ok. It's over." My blood ran cold at the next few words he spoke in his hoarse, depraved tones.

"But Ian...you know it's never over."