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They were dead.

That was all that Chauhn could fathom at that apex of personal agony. They were dead. Every single one. Every single member of his large and tight woven family was dead, so how dare those filthy little plague ridden rats try to bring them back, revive them with the use of their names. It was no secret that Chauhn still hadn't completely come to terms with his loss after three years of solitude. If anything he had falsely fixed up the gaping hole in his life with lies and weak cover ups, turned his back to it and pretended it wasn't there while he focused his gaze entirely upon little reborn Clurie. Now that he was reminded of his poorly patched up wound, Chauhn couldn't handle it and that's probably why, after the brutal murder of the little bell Excito named Brad Lee, he finally went mad.

With one arm, Chauhn shoved off all the little items and trinkets gathered on the table that served as the little Excito playground. They clattered to the floor, scattering, flapping, and breaking all around the little fleeing forms of the Notclemms family, but they were fast and dodged them all. But Chauhn was desperate and desperation gave way to larger tactics. Screaming bloody murder until his boyish voice cracked and broke, the Clemmings boy slammed his feet into the ground, trying to catch one of the peevish little imps underneath his foot. When that didn't work, the boy, in a howl of rage, dug one hand underneath the table and flipped it over onto the ground with a loud and hollow crash, and kicked it to the wall, catching one of the fleeing Bell Excito underneath it. He could hear her little voice screaming in pain, but she still wasn't dead. He'd make sure she was nothing but a smear of black and taint, he'd rub her remains on his knees and on his arms, his face, to make sure that she was dead! He'd make himself look again like the little chimney sweep boy he was with his brother Michi when they went out to earn copper and tin for their family. Chauhn started lumbering towards the table, intent to destroy the little Bell Excito he had caught underneath it's edge. In his hand, he heard little Clurie's voice, strained and weak, but calling all the same to the Notclemms family in fear.

How dare he call to them. Wasn't he the victim here? Wasn't Chauhn the one who was betrayed? Wasn't Clurie his brother, and, by bloodright, his defender? So, why wasn't he defending him against these two faced impostors? Chauhn gave a terrible squeeze to Clurie despite the bandaged stiffness in his hand. It was probably that very stiffness of his stab wounds that saved Clurie from being crushed into two, but he choked off the little Excito's breath all the same.

"THEY'RE ALL DEAD!" Chauhn screamed, over and over again, "THEY'RE ALL, E'ERY ONE O' THEM, DEAD!"

The fact that the door had blasted open didn't occur as a threat to his path of destruction until Chauhn felt a clumsy force smash into him from the side, throwing him off his bare feet and into his bed along the far side of the wall. Screaming against the body that was thrown into him, the Clemmings boy kicked and bashed his knees into the strange white and red being that was pinning him down. He knew that given this lapse in his attack, the little filthy maggots would probably find a way to escape from his death trap of a room. With an open door it was nearly assured that they would pull the injured one free and flee into the vast expanses of the Fellowship grounds. Chauhn, however, was a determined and hard worker. That was part of the Clemming's Code, it was their way to do the best they could at every task, and it was his responsibility now to strike revenge on the little imitations of death that paraded about in mockery of his family's names! Chauhn screamed, wrestling and bucking his head to try and free himself from the weight that was held against his collarbone.

"LE' ME GO!" the boy shrieked, his voice breaking with every shouted word, "STOP, THEY'RE GETTIN' AWAY, THOSE LIARS 'N' THIEVES, LITTLE DIRTY DEMONS, THOSE THINGS ARE GETTIN' AWAY! GE' OFF O' ME!"

Then a sharp pain in his hands.

Chauhn opened his eyes and narrowed them into a deadly glare at the individual who would dare try to pry his brother away from him. It was only then that he realized just who it was that was hindering him from his psychotic task.

He paused, and croaked in shock, "...Sloane?" And for a moment, he looked like the terrified and troubled boy that had stood by Sloane against the bloodthirsty Obscuvians. It lasted only for the duration of the moment, though, because in the next, Chauhn bared his teeth at Sloane in an animal growl, his eyes clouded over with madness. "DON'T YOU DARE TRY 'N' TAKE 'IM AWAY FROM ME TOO. YOU CAN'T 'AVE 'IM! LE' 'IM GO, 'E'S MY BROTHER! MINE!" he yowled, "MY BABY BROTHER!"

Yet, Chauhn's hands were weak, aching, and ripped anew from their healing threads, so when Sloane raked his fingers in between his again for Clurie's gasping little body, he couldn't resist against him. His bloody fingers fell free and the Clemmings boy gave a mighty banshee shriek, raking for Sloane's face with his nails as he fought to snatch his precious ash Plague back.

Crushed and jostled, squeezed and pinched in between the hands wrestling for him, Clurie took every opportunity to gasp and cough, obscuring their hands in a small cloud of ash. He was so dizzy, weak and delirious, that he hardly knew which hand was whose, which hand he should cling to for safety. He knew that someone was fighting for him, trying to rip him free, and between coughs and juggling between grips, he tried to breathe in and really note the smell. It was rusty, a tangy irony scent of blood and metal, and Clurie knew who had come to his rescue, as if there were any possibility of anyone else playing the part of hero.

"Sl-Sloane!" Clurie gasped, losing his hat and catching his shoulders in the loops of his overalls, "Help! He's gone raving mad! He's killed Brad Lee! Sloane, oh, please, help! Help, please! He's MAD, I tell you, mad!"

The little Bell Excitos, in the meanwhile, trying to keep from screaming, were working to free little Minori from underneath the crush of the table. Her legs had been caught, but between Micchi and Midori, they were able to wrench her free and carry her between them, rushing for the open door.

With fingers twisted into gruesome hooks, the Clemmings boy was ready to claw out Sloane’s two toned eyes in defense of his supposed little brother when he was shoved again onto his bed with all the strength that Sloane could muster in his still healing state. He skidded across the tussled sheets and bumped his head into the wall, pausing just long enough to hiss and grasp his skull, before he was crawling up again and running after Sloane, clumsily slamming into walls and using them to claw his way after the white and red kidnapper.

"NO! STOP! COME BACK!" Chauhn screamed, running as if he were on ice, skipping, falling and hopping to try and keep up with the Sword Plague. He was trying his best to blink past the tears in his eyes were were turning his eyelids red from effort and rage than anything else. His voice was getting torn and ragged with his screaming, leading him to cough and try again to shriek at the top of his lungs, his voice gathering strength and echoing off the purple curtained walls. "YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE 'EM AWAY FROM ME?! YOU CAN'T JUS' TAKE 'EM AWAY! YOU CAN'T! COME BACK!"

By the time he caught up, rounding a corner that brought him to his knees for a full on sprint, Sloane had just slammed the door shut to his tower bedroom. All teeth and nails, the Clemmings boy slammed up against the wooden boards like an angry tide against the shore, banging his bandaged fists into the frame.

"DEATH 'AS CLAIMED 'EM ALL YOU KNOW," Chauhn screamed into the cracks of the door, banging his palms against the door in desperate knocks, "THEY'RE MINE BY BLOOD RIGHT. THEY'RE MINE, AND CLURIE TOO. HE'S MINE AND DEATH'S. DEATH'S AND MINE. SO YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM, GIVE 'IM BACK TO ME, SLOANE, YOU MONSTER!" His knees were wobbly and his head felt light, but bubbling his chest, keeping him aloft was a terrible and blinding rage for the white knight that would steal his brother away. Clurie was his responsibility. Clurie was his brother. And those Excitos in there were trying to be like the rest of his family, but they weren't. Chauhn knew that, he knew that they could never replace his family. Not ever. Not EVER could an Excito replace one of his siblings!

What a disturbing thought.

Clurie, at this ooint in time was an Excito. Was he trying to replace Clurie too? No. No, it couldn't possibly be. Clurie was born from Clurie's ashes, therefore he had to be Clurie. But the pain of thinking such a thought, the possibility that his precious little brother, his driving force, his will to live, could be a foul usurper of his brother's place, Chauhn released a terrifying and gut wrenching howl. Chauhn propped himself against the door, his chest heaving against the grain as he scratched his bloody and blackened nails into the wood.

"NOOOO! HE'S MY BROTHER! My baby brother! He has to be! HE HAS TO BE! GIVE HIM BACK AND DEATH TAKE ALL THE OTHERS!"

Heaving and gasping for breath, Clurie's mind spun and tumbled in his head as he wobbled on his hands and knees where he was deposited against the soft plush of Sloane's bed blankets. He was still having trouble breathing, feeling like his lungs were crushed into each other, flattened and squished. He coughed fitful bursts of ash and ember into the sheets between the trangle his fingers made underneath his chest where he was holding himself up, but with every cough, he would recall the choke and scream of Brad Lee as his voice was squeezed into a squelch and pop, and Clurie would practically retch out sobs in between each heaving breath. He looked with hot cheeks to Lavelle, noting the difference in her from Minori and Midori by the look of confusion on her face. The Notclemm girls that he knew and cared for had their faces scribbled with miens of fear. They were nearby, glued to each other and glued to Micchi, who was bewildered and shouting with fear, as if every second he was reminded of the murder of his Bell brother. Clurie couldn't manage to lift his head and look around anymore than that, though, as a new fit shook his shoulders. He could hear, though, a wave of Excitos swirling about him, orbiting in concern. They were Excitos that he had come to know through Sloane's company, and, while he was glad for the familiar voices and faces, he couldn't possibly feel comfortable, not with the terrible inhuman wailing from the other side of Sloane's bedroom door. Every time he heard Chauhn shriek, Clurie winced and moaned in between coughs, sounding like he were about to throw up.

Minori, held in the arms of her sister and brother, blinked madly through the heat in her eyes. Her legs, which were caught underneath the table, were horribly mangled and smeared in black tint. It frightened her to see such horror upon her legs, but when she dared to take a look, she would grow faint and wobble until her face was pressed against the collar of her sister, who was weeping loudly into her arm.

Outside, pressed against the wood of the door so tightly and so desperately that he mouthed against it as he screamed his demands, Chauhn jumped, shivered, and collapsed onto his knees at the colossus' roar from behind the door. The door was to death's room, was it? Not Sloane's at all? But no, this was most definitely Sloane's door, this was Sloane's room, so was Sloane death as well? Chauhn laughed, a bitter laugh of realization. Of course, Sloane was death! Sloane was one of them, one of those life-stealing little thieves, a monster, a terrible disgusting perversion of life and mocking him as well as everyone else who lost a loved one to the blasted and terrible disease!

With renewed vigor, Chauhn scrambled up against the door and threw himself at it with a fury unlike before, using his head, his shoulders, anything, to make as much noise as humanly possible against the drum of the door, shrieking until his throat turned raw and croaked with ugly noise.

"YOU TOOK 'EM ALL FROM ME," Chauhn bleated at the door in frothy anguish, "You took 'em all! Why would you take 'em from me?! Ah 'adn't ever done anythin' bad to 'ave deserved this! Ah did my work, and Ah worked 'ard! Ah worked as hard as ah possibly could, 'n' Ah never complained! Ah never stole on the streets, 'n' ah never lied! Ah never cheated anyone or called 'em names! WHAT DID AH DO TO HAVE LOST EVERYTHIN' TO YOU?! WHAT DID AH DO TO BE LEFT ALONE LIKE THIS? WHAT DID AH DO?!"

And with every word, he pounded his fists against the door, kicked his bare toes against it, and hammered his head against the boards until his forehead swelled with heat. Anything was better than the feeling he had clawing through his chest.

The Notclemms family reacted to everything in a kind of daze, moving in twitches and jerks, drowsy nods and slow movements in between. Of them all, Micchi was in the worst mental state, reacting to everything with a tiny scream and yelp. He was the closest to Brad Lee, looked up to him and followed him about as his miniature, and now, having witnessed his brutal murder, he was in a state of complete disrepair, hardly able to help Midori support their broken sister as they teamed up with the other skittering Exctios in an attempt to migrate to the safe haven of the doll house by use of Sloane's hands. Clurie, still winded and choking on his deflated lungs, coughing up black serum, was hardly more than a rag doll to Grimaud as he jostled his little body into his arms. In between half-hearted mumbles and sticky repetitions of Chauhn's name, he allowed himself to be moved and guided about by the red leaf cavalier. the most movement out of him was the grip of his hands as he twisted them into Grimaud's clothing, trying still, despite the limpness in his body, to stand himself up.

When they had all been carefully deposited and shuffled into the interior of the doll house, the Notclemms family shivered against each other, refusing to let each other go or break contact with them for some inexplicable fear that something terrible might happen to them. It was only when the other Excitos around them started gently coaxing them away from each other that they released their tiny grips from the hems of each other's clothes. Minori, by the time that she was gingerly positioned near the dining room table for treatment, had used up all the energy she could in staying awake, and by that point, lapsed into stillness, her breathing still haggard and ringing gently with every rattling breath. Midori, although finally pried from her side, refused to move any father from her than an arm's reach. She turned to Draconia and Nikolas and, with pursed lips and wide black eyes, reached out her hands, determined to help assist in the caring for her sister's legs.

"Please," she said.

Micchi in the meanwhile, stumbled off by himself, backing up as if he were afraid of his own eyesight that would betray him, reminding him of the newly engraved image still haunting his vision. Eventually he bumped into Nikolas and when he did, he jumped, spun about, and pushed him away, before he looked down at his own hands, confused by their belligerent actions as if they didn't belong to him.

The smallest of the abrupt Excito guests was clung tight to Grimaud's side, though he did not weep into his clothes or try to claw himself closer. It was obvious to see that Clurie was only hanging onto him for stability, for his ankles and lower joints didn't seem to respond or have the ability to hold himself up. After a particularly strong set of wheezes, Clurie seemed to finally be able to breathe, and with a wobble, pushed himself away from the red leaf musketeer. He didn't quite know where he was headed, but he wandered away from Grimaud, stumbling with nearly every step and lifting his hands to his capless head where a fit of ashes and embers made a glowing crown around his scalp. He came to a stop a few paces away from Grimaud, took a deep raking breath, and gave a moan straight from his gut that soon bubbled and doubled over into a haunted wail.

Outside, Chauhn seemingly echoed that wail, screaming with all his strength into the door until he had no more breath with which to scream. It was around the same moment that he bit the air in a forceful inhale that his arm was grasped and pulled away from where he had fixed himself to the door. By turning him out for her to see, the woman who dared to interfere in his tirade saw a muddied and miserable monster. His front was smeared with black that was a different shade and depth than the usual soot and ash he had all over his self, and his palms were bleeding. The desperation reflected in his bright green eyes, seemingly held in place by the dark circles and haggard crinkle of his brows, were a flickering and twitching flame, and at the touch that would pry him away from the door he so recklessly tried to claw through, the boy shrieked like his arm had been dipped in fire. Wrestling and roughyl jerking his arm free from her grip, Chauhn growled and pushed against her, trying to move her out of his way. She didn't understand what was going and she probably wouldn't understand even if he took time to explain it to her. Such time, though, he didn't have. Death had taken away the only thing he had left of his family, and he was going to get it back even if he had to lose every one of his fingernails in the planks of wood before him.

"THA' SICK MONSTER TOOK 'IM AWAY FROM ME. TOOK 'EM ALL FROM ME. THEY'RE MINE. MY FAMILY. 'N' THEY'RE TRYIN' TO TAKE 'EM AWAY FROM ME!" Chauhn roared at her, cringing against the door like he was clinging to his mother's skirts. But then, he quieted, the woeful insanity becoming all the more apparent the moment he began to speak in a hushed strain, "...Ah discovered them. They were tryin' to take 'em away from me. All o' them. They were tryin' to replace 'em, bu' they're mine. They can't ever be replaced. They're all ah have. 'N' they were tryin' to take 'em away from me."

With a pinch of his fingers, he plucked at the black damp fabric on his chest, the white hospital clothes that had served as a canvas for the recent Excito murder, and gave a haphazard grin of satisfaction.

Deposited in the chair, Clurie, with as much cartilage as a worm, had hardly enough energy to keep himself stated in it. With the slow heave and hiccup of his body, an all encompassing convulse, he slowly twisted and fell out of the chair, still trying to shed the excess of terror with loud sobs and ugly coughs. He had hardly noticed that the blue bauble had come to crouch in front of him, all but mirroring his fear and confusion. When he noticed the little Excito's body beside him from underneath the crook in his arms, he managed to pry his drooping head from where it leaned against the chair's seat, and turn towards him. He was sure that the little one had asked a question, but whenever it squeaked and spoke at him, Clurie couldn't understand him. For a few moments longer he stared at him, trying to comprehend what was being said when the repeated words eventually came into a bleary focus.

What's going on?

That was a good question, a repetition of the question that had been repeating in his head from the moment that Clurie understood the familiar look of madness glinting in Chauhn's eye. What was going on? He didn't know. He could compare it to incidents past that he had experienced with his so-called brother, but nothing like this had ever happened with Chauhn. He had never gone so far to such a terrible place that Clurie wasn't sure if he could ever return.

So, with his mouth trembling as he tried to form words, Clurie shook his head slowly from side to side, and slowly evolved his breathing from shakey breaths to desperate inhales as if he were slowly getting cut off from oxygen. His cheeks were red, glowing from the exertion, but dim with a faux heartbeat, glowing brighter whenever he managed to get himsel to breathe.

The only things Clurie the fake Clemmings could croak was, "He's mad. He's raving mad..."

Elsewhere, Minori was gingerly and carefully focusing all her effort and attention into bandaging up her broken sister. She didn't want to lose her too, not to a slow death, and not even to a fast death like Brad Lee's had been. When they were done doing what they could, which wasn't much, she folded herself onto her knees, smoothing her crumbled golden dress about her thighs. It was in that silence, watching the shaky huff of her sister's chest rise and fall, that Minori's shoulders began to shake and she looked up at Nikolas without shame of the grief splayed like a recently carved hide over the shape of her face.

"Will she live?" she asked.

Elsewhere, Micchi had finally stumbled himself into a corner in the room, his hands pressed against his face as if too keep himself from falling apart, because that was certainly how he felt, broken and heavy. With a trembling cry, he tried to rub out the images of Brad Lee from his eyes but to no avail.

Chauhn, on the other hand, couldn't seem to get the blinding flash of white out of his eyes no matter how many times he blinked. The explosion of pain against his face had completely taken him by surprise, throwing him into a spin and wobble as he bounced off the nearby cobblestone wall with his hands splayed out before him, and fell to the floor in a writhing mess. He wasn't given much time to breathe past the after blossom of hot sensation against his jaw before his shoulders were lifted up and he hung suspended from the gathered cloth underneath his chin in Sage's grip. As his higher cheek began to swell with blood from the popped blood vessels in his cheeks, turning a corner of his face into a brilliant mix of rose and lavender, Chauhn finally began to weep huge globs of tears down his stained cheeks. With weak pries of his fingers, he dug at the fist underneath his chin, clenching his teeth and growling at Sage despite her towering stance of darkness. He couldn't forgive her for saying that dreadful thing, reminding him, after all these years of the soul-crushing truth he had left behind at the Clemming's meager establishment. He had lost them there, then and there, and he was just now understanding it, in that dreadful moment that Sage repeated those binding words.

He hadn't lost anything that hadn't already been taken from him.

But a madman's rage wasn't so easily convinced. Chauhn, between heaving breaths and broken sobs, turned his green glare into Sage's amber stare from underneath her knees, and, with immortal conviction, made a dreadful declaration, a somber and terrifyingly serious ultimatum from the heart of a boy whose soul had, in that moment, died:

"Ahm goin' to take it all back."

It was after hearing his own words echoing in his ears about a boy that had, not that long before, put his life, his energy, his everything on the line for him, that Clurie felt a disgusting thread of guilt mix in with the roiling nausea that was the terror of Chauhn's recent madness. Of course, it wasn't a new thing. Chauhn had shown short bursts of this quiet dwindling in control a few times before, scaring Clurie each time, but oddly reassuring him in his dedication to brotherhood. Though, that was before Clurie's epiphany. Before, when he truly believed himself to be the forgetful reincarnation of the youngest Clemmings child, he had taken these quickly come and quickly passed moments of violence as an extreme measure of Chauhn's strength and determination. But now that Clurie knew of Chauhn's naive torture to him, to force him into the role of someone who was already dead and gone, Clurie didn't know what to think of Chauhn's radical displays of protection and so-called love. Was Clurie to try and find understanding? Or was he to find any means possible to stay away from him?

Looking at Ebenezer, the ash plague tried to quiet himself down if but for the sake of the littlest one. He didn't like to see the reflection of his fear in him. It only made him even more confused.

With her hands folded atop her lap, Minori gave a somber nod. She hadn't bothered to even hope for her sister's leg's recovery, but if she could, she was going to do everything within her power to keep her alive and to help her along. If Midori wasn't going to be able to walk again with her own two legs, then Minori would give her hers. Sitting beside her, she pursed her lips into a flat line, making a silent promise.

With a slump of her shoulders, she turned again to Nikolas, her head dipping low in a mock bow. "Thank you for taking us in like this in such short notice...In such a state. I'm sure there's something we can all do in return for your hospitality."

Against the wall, Micchi looked up, his monotone body a huddle of shivering and his face stretched into a mute wail. He seemed to stare at her, not understanding just quite she had said until he discovered the strength in her words. She truly believed that Sloane could protect them and...Well, Micchi couldn't argue that. He hadn't been proven wrong so far. So, giving a trembling nod of his head, he brought his hands down from his face and dared to reach out for her, attempting to push himself into the arm that was on his shoulder.

Outside, Chauhn was trying to push himself away from Sage, using his oxygen starved muscles to strain and shove against her at every opportunity. He yelped, kicked, and clacked his teeth at her like a wild animal caught in a vice, but at the same time, what came out of his mouth was so horrifyingly human that it would turn the stomach of any who would hear.

"No! Please...No! You don't understan'! They're m'family...My blood, please...Ah need them! Ah need them! Ah wasn't ready to lose 'em..." the boy choked, blinking out of tears that rolled down his face in fitful gushes, "Please, ah just wan'em back...Ahm...Ah'm so lonely...! 'N' ah can't stand it that those things live while they're dead...took 'em from me...They ate 'em all alive, 'n' now they're livin' off their blood 'n' bodies...! They're vultures! Filthy vultures! It's them who killed my family! It's their fault ahm left alone! It's their fault! IT'S THEIR FAULT!" Chauhn wailed.

The sound of his bare feet catching against the floor was strangely loud in between the spaces that Chauhn gasped in air.