{ARRIVAL - IS THIS HEAVEN, OR IS THIS- | CW: REFERENCE TO PAST DEATH, SUFFOCATION / BLOOD, STRANGULATION, ANIMATED GORE (Latter CW Applies to Linked Image)}
In his last memory, he was dying.
Jonathan could remember holding the disembodied head of his step-brother close, and dying with a smile on his face. He could remember Dio's fruitless cries, shouts that devolved into pleading, bargaining that had he heard them, would have left the man smiling sadly and saying-
'...I can't believe you this time.'
(How many times had it been that way? Dio would say something, say anything about how a particular turn of events or offer in his own favor would end in Jonathan's favor as well, and in the end it would be Jonathan left to deal with the consequences.)
(How many times had it been that way, and how many times had he forgotten?)
In his last memory, he was dying, so it is very odd indeed he thinks, that he is opening his eyes again. Odder still, he finds, that he is breathing.
(In his last memory, there were a pair of holes directly through his throat, and blood was pooling in his lungs at far faster a rate than he could hope to fill them with air.)
(It was a miracle he lasted as long as he did in the first place.)
"Agh...what a headache..." the surprisingly soft-voiced giant of a man murmurs as he stands, one hand against his brow as he grimaces. His expression is quick to fade out for confusion as he realizes where he stands- or more accurately, that he stands at all.
He wears, for all intents and purposes, a formal suit, sans jacket- albeit one ruined by the blood streaking down his front from the collar down. As he walks, it is slow as well. Not because of any exhaustion, but instead sheer curiosity and apprehension. Jonathan eyes the world around him with one part wonder and another part worry. The streets are so bare- and there are all these...things he can't even identify, these photos in full brilliant color, these shirts printed with what he could swear was impossible detail. And these lights, these foods-
The first person he spots, he is quick to call out.
"Excuse me! ...Excuse me, please!" he calls, rushing for them with a raised hand, reaching out but never reaching enough to try and make contact. In fact once close enough he draws it back, polite but quietly panicked concern on his face.
"I beg your pardon, but I must ask- just where is this place? Where are the inhabitants?"
{SOUND AND LIGHT - PAINTED DREAMS, PROJECTED NIGHTMARES}
Settling into Rhodos is a strange matter for Jonathan. On the one hand, he is here now, and ostensibly unable to leave. He had accepted that what would occur after death would be a mystery, and if this is to be the answer to it then so be it.
But those he has met since then have put question to such thoughts- more than that, there is the matter of the location and what is there as well. Drawing from his studies in the field of archaeology, he is quick to begin trying to take notes on everything down to the detail within the town- markings on walls, decorations on roof edges, no matter how minor, he is jotting it down with one of those strange and fragile excuses for a 'pen' as found in one of the storefronts.
(Of course, all of this could only take place after he was finally convinced to 1, settle into an empty apartment, and 2, take what was available in the first place. It still feels like theft.)
(It still weighs on him quite oddly, a scratch he cannot quite reach.)
Days pass, and it is not so long after the open air theatre begins to project its current show, that his peaceful confusion begins to drift into fearful confusion instead. Photographs begin to fill his little apartment- innocent things, as brilliantly colored as those tourist cards he saw on the first day.
But its inhabitants...
A teardrop falls upon his notepad paper- just as kitschy and tourist oriented as the pen is, but one makes do- and blots on the notes he was making for the current rendition of the play. Jonathan startles, but even as he moves the notepad, he cannot keep himself from sinking farther into his thoughts- the tears begin to flow more heavily, and soon he finds himself covering his mouth with one hand as he tries to muffle the sound of sobbing for the sake of politeness.
(A useless endeavor indeed.)
"I- I apologize," he breathes, once it becomes clear he has been noticed. "I simply cannot- I cannot fathom what's come over me..!"
(A lie, he finds himself thinking, as the photo of his wife carrying an infant child comes to his mind again.)
{INTO THE FOG - GREAT, AND LESSER DANES | CW: IMPLICATIONS OF PAST ANIMAL DEATH, PAST CRUELTY TOWARD DOGS}
Things have rapidly progressed from neutral, to worse.
At least earlier in the month, he could move through the matters. Have a cry, bond with others, and perhaps come out of the whole thing feeling just a little better even. Photographs continued to appear in his home.
(He can see himself in some of their faces, their eyes, the smiles, and it sends a foreign chill down his spine as he realizes he himself is present alongside them in some of these.)
Other objects, as well- quills, papers, his sword, though he has not seen fit to carry it about- swords are weapons after all, and this is hardly any place for them.
"What a terrible fog..." he remarks as he brushes that thought away, unsure as to why he found himself thinking back to it just now. Shaking his head, he manages to look at one other small, positive thing that has come of all this- one strange, eerie thing that he's still unable to completely be comfortable with, as his hands brush over scars and injuries that weren't there before.
"Come along Danny," he encourages, the skittish giant of a great dane trotting out behind him. The dog sniffs the fog and whimpers, and Jonathan gently stoops down to stroke his head.
(He doesn't think about how these scars indicate something so much worse. Something that would have persisted and persisted until the poor dog breathed his last.)
(They never showed him his dog's body, but he knows what burn scars look like.)
"Come now- nothing here will hurt you now," he whispers, pressing his head against the dog's own. Eight years, since he last saw his dear dog. Eight years, and yet here he is now. It's enough to make him-
rROrrRrRroRRRRR...
Jonathan stands, and stiffens. Danny whimpers loudly, tail already tucked between his legs. There are shadows in the fog that has rolled in, and the more they watch, the more it clears. One, two...Three they soon number, and Jonathan finds his blood running cold. They should not be alive, he thinks, as the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. They make him think of ghouls, in fact- sallow skin and rotting flesh, clouding eyes that speak of death long passed. They must be ghouls, he thinks-
(He can no longer create hamon.)
Jonathan scoops his dog in his arms and breaks into a run.
"Seek shelter!" he calls out as he runs, the words for any who may here. "There are beasts in the fog..!"
"HrrRRnr!! Hrerr!-"
"Worry not Danny, I've got you..."
And he certainly does- for the dogs are not so quick at all. But even so, as he makes it to one of the smaller store fronts and gets inside to set his dog down, Jonathan finds himself strained for breath.
"....Just what came upon this place, I wonder..?"
He has yet to notice the thing 'staring' distantly in the fog from outside.
{WAKING UP TO. . . | CW: Blood imagery, gore, body horror (Thorn impalement, Headlessness)}
The month is almost over, and it feels somehow as if there is more yet to come. As the 28th comes near, there is this sensation of a shoe being held over him, great and massive, whilst he himself plays the role of the fly to be squashed. Something is going to happen. Something is going to happen.
(It does.)
Morning comes and Jonathan stirs to the sound of Danny whimpering at his side. Death has made him a nervous thing, trembling and craving company of the one who missed him so, and Jonathan is too softhearted to even consider doing anything less. He may refuse to acknowledge his own trauma, but he'll not deny any comfort for his first 'best friend', and so he holds the dog close. He assumes, in his sleep, that Danny is perhaps having a nightmare.
The door breaks down and he is immediately proven wrong.
The blanket is soaked in red and he can make out a shape that makes him somehow more nauseous than the stench of blood. The walls seem to seep with fluids and mold despite their material, and as his dog cries Jonathan is quick to scoop him in his arms. And then-
From a mass of vines, it rises. Writhing, the plants so dark a violet they may well be black. They form themselves as bindings and whips, the later lashing toward them as they spear the ground with thorns, and the former holding tight to a figure that slowly emerges from the mass.
It is a body, Jonathan recognizes, but he has little time to comprehend it. Freeing one arm he reaches for the nearest thing and manages to find his sword.
(He wonders to himself, if whatever sent him these knew it would be needed.)
(He does not wonder long, clumsily swinging what was meant to be a two-handed weapon down enough to send the Thing back just enough that they can get around.)
(There are no injuries that he can see. He does not want to remain long enough to see how much more it can take without flinching.)
A body, his mind practically screams, and even as he runs- one arm holding with difficulty his dog, the other near dragging his blade behind him- he cannot remove the image from his mind. Dio's words echo through his skull as it burns into place, and he nearly closes his eyes to try and banish it that way.
'We are one and the same in this world of ours...Thus...I must take the body of the only person in this world I respect, make it my own, and live out eternity with it! THAT IS MY DESTINY!'
It was his size, almost. Certainly, it had the same build. Arms twisted around itself as the thorns dug deeply into its flesh, legs bent to horrid angle.
But worse...
The head. There had been no head, only a gaping hole- a whistling 'scream' akin to the sound made when Dio's tears had pierced his throat, the air escaping without mercy. All he could see no matter where he looked as his eyes took in the sudden darkness of the world around, was that gaping, empty hole.
He killed him. He killed that vampire. He took him down with him to the death.
(But the photos on the wall could only make him wonder, make him think-)
What if he failed?
The cry of another of those hounds meets his ears, and Danny whines in his arm. Jonathan swallows, and averts his eyes away from the hanging mess that now decorates the 'walls' of the streets.
"We mustn't stay here..." he murmurs, though to who, is unknown. The only problem is...
"..But then where is there..?"
{THE BONFIRE (THE AFTERMATH)}
A bonfire, is where.
It is twisted indeed that their refuge be the thing that causes his dear dog to cry in remembered pain and fear until he has passed out into slumber. Jonathan holds his dog close indeed once he finally makes it to the fountain square, shushing and calming the animal as best he can as he lets the poor dear rest.
It is quiet here. Peaceful, in a twisted manner. Or so he thinks until the procession begins.
"...Hold-" he starts, only to chase for the Handmaidens. "Wait! Just what are you bringing to the fire..?! Have you no mercy in your hearts?!" he demands, attempting to pull the Handmaidens back. They don't fight back, but nor does he exercise a particularly large amount of force. How could he? They do not even defend themselves after all, they do not even move to fight. Jonathan cannot even be sure they are human, but without hamon, how could he possibly-
"You can't do this to someone who-"
His words cut short when he sees what the pale figure even resembles. It is just enough pause, that the Handmaidens can carry on.
"Wait-!" he starts fruitlessly, but he cannot bring himself to move, or even shout. The faceless appearance- the smooth stumped limbs, the grey pallor of skin...
He cannot even identify what he attempted to save. He cannot identify anything or anyone of what-
"KGh....GKH..."
Coughing begins- coughing, wet and foul and hoarse, and he can feel the blood as it spills forward in the same way it had when he died.
"Kaghh-!" Is that happening again then? Is this what happens in death? A repetition, a...A... "Kghh...!"
Jonathan blinks his eyes through the pain of the coughing, and makes to return to his dog- but then pauses.
And pales, as he looks at where the blood fell.
'I LEFT HER. ALONE, ON THE SEA, WITH CHILD. I LEFT HER IN DEATH, WITHOUT KNOWING IF I FAILED.'
Jonathan Joestar | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood
In his last memory, he was dying.
Jonathan could remember holding the disembodied head of his step-brother close, and dying with a smile on his face. He could remember Dio's fruitless cries, shouts that devolved into pleading, bargaining that had he heard them, would have left the man smiling sadly and saying-
'...I can't believe you this time.'
(How many times had it been that way? Dio would say something, say anything about how a particular turn of events or offer in his own favor would end in Jonathan's favor as well, and in the end it would be Jonathan left to deal with the consequences.)
(How many times had it been that way, and how many times had he forgotten?)
In his last memory, he was dying, so it is very odd indeed he thinks, that he is opening his eyes again. Odder still, he finds, that he is breathing.
(In his last memory, there were a pair of holes directly through his throat, and blood was pooling in his lungs at far faster a rate than he could hope to fill them with air.)
(It was a miracle he lasted as long as he did in the first place.)
"Agh...what a headache..." the surprisingly soft-voiced giant of a man murmurs as he stands, one hand against his brow as he grimaces. His expression is quick to fade out for confusion as he realizes where he stands- or more accurately, that he stands at all.
He wears, for all intents and purposes, a formal suit, sans jacket- albeit one ruined by the blood streaking down his front from the collar down. As he walks, it is slow as well. Not because of any exhaustion, but instead sheer curiosity and apprehension. Jonathan eyes the world around him with one part wonder and another part worry. The streets are so bare- and there are all these...things he can't even identify, these photos in full brilliant color, these shirts printed with what he could swear was impossible detail. And these lights, these foods-
The first person he spots, he is quick to call out.
"Excuse me! ...Excuse me, please!" he calls, rushing for them with a raised hand, reaching out but never reaching enough to try and make contact. In fact once close enough he draws it back, polite but quietly panicked concern on his face.
"I beg your pardon, but I must ask- just where is this place? Where are the inhabitants?"
{SOUND AND LIGHT - PAINTED DREAMS, PROJECTED NIGHTMARES}
Settling into Rhodos is a strange matter for Jonathan. On the one hand, he is here now, and ostensibly unable to leave. He had accepted that what would occur after death would be a mystery, and if this is to be the answer to it then so be it.
But those he has met since then have put question to such thoughts- more than that, there is the matter of the location and what is there as well. Drawing from his studies in the field of archaeology, he is quick to begin trying to take notes on everything down to the detail within the town- markings on walls, decorations on roof edges, no matter how minor, he is jotting it down with one of those strange and fragile excuses for a 'pen' as found in one of the storefronts.
(Of course, all of this could only take place after he was finally convinced to 1, settle into an empty apartment, and 2, take what was available in the first place. It still feels like theft.)
(It still weighs on him quite oddly, a scratch he cannot quite reach.)
Days pass, and it is not so long after the open air theatre begins to project its current show, that his peaceful confusion begins to drift into fearful confusion instead. Photographs begin to fill his little apartment- innocent things, as brilliantly colored as those tourist cards he saw on the first day.
But its inhabitants...
A teardrop falls upon his notepad paper- just as kitschy and tourist oriented as the pen is, but one makes do- and blots on the notes he was making for the current rendition of the play. Jonathan startles, but even as he moves the notepad, he cannot keep himself from sinking farther into his thoughts- the tears begin to flow more heavily, and soon he finds himself covering his mouth with one hand as he tries to muffle the sound of sobbing for the sake of politeness.
(A useless endeavor indeed.)
"I- I apologize," he breathes, once it becomes clear he has been noticed. "I simply cannot- I cannot fathom what's come over me..!"
(A lie, he finds himself thinking, as the photo of his wife carrying an infant child comes to his mind again.)
{INTO THE FOG - GREAT, AND LESSER DANES | CW: IMPLICATIONS OF PAST ANIMAL DEATH, PAST CRUELTY TOWARD DOGS}
Things have rapidly progressed from neutral, to worse.
At least earlier in the month, he could move through the matters. Have a cry, bond with others, and perhaps come out of the whole thing feeling just a little better even. Photographs continued to appear in his home.
(He can see himself in some of their faces, their eyes, the smiles, and it sends a foreign chill down his spine as he realizes he himself is present alongside them in some of these.)
Other objects, as well- quills, papers, his sword, though he has not seen fit to carry it about- swords are weapons after all, and this is hardly any place for them.
"What a terrible fog..." he remarks as he brushes that thought away, unsure as to why he found himself thinking back to it just now. Shaking his head, he manages to look at one other small, positive thing that has come of all this- one strange, eerie thing that he's still unable to completely be comfortable with, as his hands brush over scars and injuries that weren't there before.
"Come along Danny," he encourages, the skittish giant of a great dane trotting out behind him. The dog sniffs the fog and whimpers, and Jonathan gently stoops down to stroke his head.
(He doesn't think about how these scars indicate something so much worse. Something that would have persisted and persisted until the poor dog breathed his last.)
(They never showed him his dog's body, but he knows what burn scars look like.)
"Come now- nothing here will hurt you now," he whispers, pressing his head against the dog's own. Eight years, since he last saw his dear dog. Eight years, and yet here he is now. It's enough to make him-
rROrrRrRroRRRRR...
Jonathan stands, and stiffens. Danny whimpers loudly, tail already tucked between his legs. There are shadows in the fog that has rolled in, and the more they watch, the more it clears. One, two...Three they soon number, and Jonathan finds his blood running cold. They should not be alive, he thinks, as the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. They make him think of ghouls, in fact- sallow skin and rotting flesh, clouding eyes that speak of death long passed. They must be ghouls, he thinks-
(He can no longer create hamon.)
Jonathan scoops his dog in his arms and breaks into a run.
"Seek shelter!" he calls out as he runs, the words for any who may here. "There are beasts in the fog..!"
"HrrRRnr!! Hrerr!-"
"Worry not Danny, I've got you..."
And he certainly does- for the dogs are not so quick at all. But even so, as he makes it to one of the smaller store fronts and gets inside to set his dog down, Jonathan finds himself strained for breath.
"....Just what came upon this place, I wonder..?"
He has yet to notice the thing 'staring' distantly in the fog from outside.
{WAKING UP TO. . . | CW: Blood imagery, gore, body horror (Thorn impalement, Headlessness)}
The month is almost over, and it feels somehow as if there is more yet to come. As the 28th comes near, there is this sensation of a shoe being held over him, great and massive, whilst he himself plays the role of the fly to be squashed. Something is going to happen. Something is going to happen.
(It does.)
Morning comes and Jonathan stirs to the sound of Danny whimpering at his side. Death has made him a nervous thing, trembling and craving company of the one who missed him so, and Jonathan is too softhearted to even consider doing anything less. He may refuse to acknowledge his own trauma, but he'll not deny any comfort for his first 'best friend', and so he holds the dog close. He assumes, in his sleep, that Danny is perhaps having a nightmare.
The door breaks down and he is immediately proven wrong.
The blanket is soaked in red and he can make out a shape that makes him somehow more nauseous than the stench of blood. The walls seem to seep with fluids and mold despite their material, and as his dog cries Jonathan is quick to scoop him in his arms. And then-
From a mass of vines, it rises. Writhing, the plants so dark a violet they may well be black. They form themselves as bindings and whips, the later lashing toward them as they spear the ground with thorns, and the former holding tight to a figure that slowly emerges from the mass.
It is a body, Jonathan recognizes, but he has little time to comprehend it. Freeing one arm he reaches for the nearest thing and manages to find his sword.
(He wonders to himself, if whatever sent him these knew it would be needed.)
(He does not wonder long, clumsily swinging what was meant to be a two-handed weapon down enough to send the Thing back just enough that they can get around.)
(There are no injuries that he can see. He does not want to remain long enough to see how much more it can take without flinching.)
A body, his mind practically screams, and even as he runs- one arm holding with difficulty his dog, the other near dragging his blade behind him- he cannot remove the image from his mind. Dio's words echo through his skull as it burns into place, and he nearly closes his eyes to try and banish it that way.
'We are one and the same in this world of ours...Thus...I must take the body of the only person in this world I respect, make it my own, and live out eternity with it! THAT IS MY DESTINY!'
It was his size, almost. Certainly, it had the same build. Arms twisted around itself as the thorns dug deeply into its flesh, legs bent to horrid angle.
But worse...
The head. There had been no head, only a gaping hole- a whistling 'scream' akin to the sound made when Dio's tears had pierced his throat, the air escaping without mercy. All he could see no matter where he looked as his eyes took in the sudden darkness of the world around, was that gaping, empty hole.
He killed him. He killed that vampire. He took him down with him to the death.
(But the photos on the wall could only make him wonder, make him think-)
What if he failed?
The cry of another of those hounds meets his ears, and Danny whines in his arm. Jonathan swallows, and averts his eyes away from the hanging mess that now decorates the 'walls' of the streets.
"We mustn't stay here..." he murmurs, though to who, is unknown. The only problem is...
"..But then where is there..?"
{THE BONFIRE (THE AFTERMATH)}
A bonfire, is where.
It is twisted indeed that their refuge be the thing that causes his dear dog to cry in remembered pain and fear until he has passed out into slumber. Jonathan holds his dog close indeed once he finally makes it to the fountain square, shushing and calming the animal as best he can as he lets the poor dear rest.
It is quiet here. Peaceful, in a twisted manner. Or so he thinks until the procession begins.
"...Hold-" he starts, only to chase for the Handmaidens. "Wait! Just what are you bringing to the fire..?! Have you no mercy in your hearts?!" he demands, attempting to pull the Handmaidens back. They don't fight back, but nor does he exercise a particularly large amount of force. How could he? They do not even defend themselves after all, they do not even move to fight. Jonathan cannot even be sure they are human, but without hamon, how could he possibly-
"You can't do this to someone who-"
His words cut short when he sees what the pale figure even resembles. It is just enough pause, that the Handmaidens can carry on.
"Wait-!" he starts fruitlessly, but he cannot bring himself to move, or even shout. The faceless appearance- the smooth stumped limbs, the grey pallor of skin...
He cannot even identify what he attempted to save. He cannot identify anything or anyone of what-
"KGh....GKH..."
Coughing begins- coughing, wet and foul and hoarse, and he can feel the blood as it spills forward in the same way it had when he died.
"Kaghh-!" Is that happening again then? Is this what happens in death? A repetition, a...A... "Kghh...!"
Jonathan blinks his eyes through the pain of the coughing, and makes to return to his dog- but then pauses.
And pales, as he looks at where the blood fell.
'I LEFT HER. ALONE, ON THE SEA, WITH CHILD. I LEFT HER IN DEATH, WITHOUT KNOWING IF I FAILED.'
Jonathan cannot move.