#takecontro1

The world is full of noise now, it's messy outside. He has seen it, he doesn't like it. But Jesse is here... He won't question it, he doesn't want to, right now. Instead, he's been paying attention to her movements, staring. There's something else on his mind.

"Jesse?" Dylan asks, judging if she was available to listen. Whatever had her mind seemed serious, much like everything that was going down. When there's response, he doesn't hesitate.

For the final time, she has failed him.

And she bore witness to the end of him, thus her world in real time.

"DYLAN!"

A scream of her brother's name ripped out of her mouth.

It was a blind, white hot RAGE that consumed her when she saw his body go limp on the ground after a monster managed to do him in. One that lead her to personally cracking the neck and ripping out the infected heart of the monster herself, she too tossed it aside like trash before bolting to her brother.

"DYLAN!"

Another scream for him, louder, ripped from the deepest pit of her lungs. He didn't answer. He didn't move.

Nothing did. Her world froze.

She ran so fast to him she almost fell on top of him, and immediately did she try to shake him, to yell his name, wake him up.

She brought her ear to his mouth, no breath.

To his chest? Nothing, not a single beat, just the last of his warmth.

His eyes were half-closed, mouth hung open. His head was limp, his arms were limp, everything limp no matter how hard she shook or how loud she yelled for him to wake up. Nothing responded, he didn't respond. She can't lose him now, not after everything they have been through, not with the little time they had once they were able to find each other again.

How could this happen? How could she let this happen? Again? She was trying to protect him, keep him out of harm's way. Keep him ALIVE. She TOLD him to go home. He came to help her, and she wanted nothing more than to send him back so he could be SAFE. ALIVE. She should have forced him back as far as she could muster, anything to have prevented the last of his breath.

"No, no no no no no-" Is the mantra that spills forth. "Please come back, please, please open your eyes- Open your eyes, please. Dylan-" He can't be. He can't be gone. With all she's done, he can't. He can't. "Don't you dare, don't you dare-" Her voice started cracking, and for once, she didn't hold it back. She'd pulled his shoulders and head in her lap and held the top of his torso and kept trying, though futile, through her dropping tears and frantic breathing, to wake him up. He simply stayed a dead weight against her arms. Against her chest. Against her very soul.

She started rocking back and forth, her face on the top of his head, in his hair, begging, pleading for this to be a fucked up dream, for him to get up, to be fine. That this wasn't her world. It wasn't her world. She doesn't have a world without her little brother.

He did not get up. He was not fine. She was not fine. Her world is dead.

Her world is dead her world is dead her world is dead.

A deep breath.

A wail of a scream echoed from her chest as she let herself lay over him, her head setting on his chest, wishing though knowing there would be no beat, and soon there would be no warmth. For him nor for her. She won't be getting up, she'd soon be joining him, no one could stop her.

The sibling has fallen, and so has the director.

Jesse Faden fails everyone. She failed Dylan Faden for the final time.

"Why?" Dylan's brows furrow, in part because he had been caught. He thought he was being discreet! Plus, Jesse was so engrossed, he thought the world was just background noise to her, at this point, him included.

Another part of him is simply annoyed.

"Does it bother you that I want to learn?" Whoops, is he acting like a brat? Surely not!

"Not everyone is as versed on everything as you are." Certainly not himself. And no! Again, is not being a brat. He simply is stating facts...! And not at all glaring.

Well, maybe a little. He lets out a long sigh, deflating.

It's not a pull, more like a yank over to a corner of the world that feels far too close and closely far. Inside a dream. He didn't have a chance to try and force it properly, to try and find her... Still, he did.

For a moment, he thought he had been wrong. The room is small, dim, and lonely. Almost too empty, but a figure is there. Hair fiery but disheveled. Not a soothing flame but a fiery inferno matching the crimsons trickling from knuckles as he steps closer.

Is that really Jesse? She heaves, her image distorted against the broken mirror right in front of her. Remnants of red lie there, too, proof of what had just happened. Dylan feels his skin crawl, his eyes water as he continues to step close. He must see. He has to confirm that this is his sister.

Jesse, his anchor, the one who always has everything under control. The one who faces all head-on, never wavers... She lies crumpled against the floor, curled up, eyes wide open as if she were some crazed beast waiting, ravenous and hungry, but so... sad. So small.

He'd never seen her like this, a fear falls against him, but he continues to approach, slow and controlled as he had seen her do so many times before.

"Jesse?" His voice soft and wavering. Even like this, he still feels much smaller than her.

But he can help her. He is here to help her.

Barbed wire swallowed, harming his throat, sensory overload with both Hiss and the loud darkness in disarray. Twisting and distorting, he should be used to it, he should be able to give in. But he panics. Because when he looks over toward anyone, anything, it fades. He is trapped, as he always has been.

Where's reality? Is he gone again?

Jesse, he had tried calling for her, but the words disappeared, too. Instead, he was paralyzed, hyperventilating in the abyss. ...But she heard him. Even bereft of voice, she heard and reached for him.

It is because of her that his eyes open, his body wakes up. She comes into view, decorated in vivid reds and blacks surrounding her, he tries to concentrate on his sister only. Facing the overwhelming fear of losing her if he blinked, he kept eyes wide open, desperate as his chest heaves high and low, no real rhythm. His body tenses up against the bed.

Jesse's voice leads him, Dylan tries to follow. In, out... In, out! It is a poor attempt, but it is earnest, he uses his mouth to take in as much air and throw it back out. He doesn't look away from her, even as it seems like her presence is distorted. He tries to raise a hand toward her own, maybe then he'll keep her in place.

It's all an illusion, she is still here. She is the only real thing when he is awake. But she, too, could disappear.

No. He could fall right back into the dark.