Your POV

"We're not out of the woods yet!" I yelled, grabbing onto the wrist of the person closest to me, which was the tall brunette. I started running as fast as I could into the woods (ironically) and the ginger one followed us.

"Did you guys have any kind of escape plan? How did you even get here?" I could feel myself getting out of breath as we kept running, but these two seemed completely unaffected. I've never really had anywhere to run and now that I'm experiencing it I can say with certainty that whoever enjoys this is psychotic.

"Yeah we have a plane it should be ju-" the ginger one started but is now staring blankly ahead. Following his line of sight I suddenly realise why. There's a bright orange light coming through the trees. A forest fire.

"Oh dear. We need a way around it." The tall brunette said as if we're not being chased through a burning forest by a terrifying giant bird. As if reading my thoughts, another petrifying crash sounds through the forest, shaking the earth beneath us. Another squawk sounds afterwards.

I slowly turn my head to lay eyes on the beast behind me but the brunette moves my head to the front of us.

"I hate to ask this, doll, but think you can help us out?" He smiles at me, gently rubbing my head to calm me down.

I think long and hard about how to fix this fire in front of us, and then it hits me.

Directly above the fire I start to open a tear. The more I open it, water starts spilling out from the edges and directly onto the burning ground beneath it. Some fish fall out as I put a tear in the middle of the ocean, but I don't have time to feel guilty as my guard is getting closer to us.

Once the fire is mostly extinguished, we are able to push through it without concern.

What we see beyond the fire is much worse, however.

A plane lies on the other side of the fire, broken in half and completely destroyed. I can see the pilot in the front, blood seeping out of a large hole between his eyes.

Tears begin to form as I feel my legs give way.

I've never seen a dead person before. I've never really thought about it. But now... this man is dead. He's gone.

I feel sick.

The urge to lean over and spill out my guts is pushed down as I'm picked up by the shorter male and they start running again.

"How far is the next town?" I hear him ask, barely affected by the extra weight.

"It's about 10 miles away through dark and scary woods~" the tall brunette wiggles his fingers in the shorter male's face, making strange noises to try and scare the smaller. It doesn't work.

"STOP IT YOU NOB JOCKEY!" He screamed while still holding me and I couldn't help but snort at the two of them.

Silence comes over us for a bit. Then I realise.

"Where's Aaron?" I ask, and both men just stare at me confused. "The bird man."

Realisation dawns over them both. We were being chased by a giant bird who wanted to kill them... and now we're just strolling through the woods. I quickly remove myself from the ginger man's arms and look around.

"It's getting dark so we should stop for the night soon. I don't trust these woods." I said, looking for appropriate shelter.

"How about that cave?" The tall brunette smiles at me innocently, pointing at a cave right next to him while I'm walking around like an idiot searching for a good spot.

"Oh... yeah that will do!" I scratch my neck, feeling embarrassed that I didn't see it first.

We go into the cave and it smells damp and depressing... but at least it's not guarded by some psychotic half-man half-bird guy.

I sit down on the floor of the cave, feeling somewhat awkward. The fear and adrenaline have been pushing me for the last hour or so while we were escaping and the second I sit down I just crash.

Sitting down in this dank cave leaves me with nothing but my thoughts. I think about my ability, my former prison, my saviours, their names which are... oops.

I physically face palm when I realise I don't know their names yet. A loud smack sounds through the cave making both men look up at me, now wearing different clothes to the uniforms from before.

"Is there a reason you're hitting yourself or have you just gone insane?" The short one looks down at me with a smirk. Okay, he definitely still dislikes me from the book incident.

It was definitely worth it, though.

"Yeah - no - I... what are your names?" I stutter awkwardly, playing with my fingers and staring at them to avoid eye contact.

Suddenly a hand wrapped in bandages rubs around mine, its thumb stroking gently against the back of my hand. I feel my heart start to beat fast from the human contact, something I'm unused to.

"My name is Dazai, doll, but you can call me your future suicide partner." He stares deeply into my eyes with full seriousness.

"Wha-" I'm cut off when he places his hand on my face and gets up, inspecting my hand more closely and forcing me to lift it up by doing so.

"My, what beautiful, dainty little hands! I wonder what it would be like to die by these gorgeous hands strangling me!" The man I now know as 'Dazai' places his hand on his heart and looks off into the distance, clearly getting emotional.

"So, darling, would you be willing to join me in a double suicide~?" He gets down on one knee, almost as if he's proposing.

I've never been more confused.

"SHUT THE HELL UP, CAPTAIN BANDAGE!!!" The short one screams while trying to kick Dazai over. Dazai only grabs his foot before he can get kicked and smiles at me.

Why do I feel like this is a regular thing.

"Just ignore the suicidal maniac. He's always this annoying. I'm Chuuya." He looks at you, bored, his foot still in Dazai's right hand while my hands lay in his left.

Chuuya removes his foot and walks to the other side of the cave. I lean to Dazai and whisper "is he always this angry?" And in the blink of an eye Chuuya is charging towards us screaming.

Dazai just picks me up and moves to the side at the last second, making Chuuya face plant into the wall.

I just laugh at the two as I lean on Dazai, not sure what else to do. The darkness is starting to seep through the woods now and, honestly, the cave doesn't look like such a safe place anymore. It's so dark I can't see how far it goes or what could be in there with us. However, the woods look even less inviting, so cave it is.

"How did I fly earlier?" I ask, breaking the silence in the cave and sitting back down on the floor.

"I let you." Chuuya said bluntly, removing himself from the wall and going back to his spot.

"Wait so you're like a superhero?" I asked, cocking my head to the side as I looked at him.

Both men break out into chuckles at my comment, seeming to find it hilarious. "I'm far from it, princess." Chuuya said, moving his hat over his face and resting his head on his arms.

"But how can you fly?"

"How can you tear apart reality?"

"Touché." Silence came over us once more.

"He controls the gravity of the things he touches. You weren't flying, you just weren't falling." Dazai is using animated hand gestures and staring at me with massive eyes and an equally massive smile as he explains.

"Ahhh," I spoke in response, nodding my head. "And can you do anything?" I asked curiously.

Dazai smirked, "make a tear... any tear you want." And so I did. I made a tear to the first place I could think of, the tower. I opened it to the library and saw all my books. Now that it's open, I'm realising a tear into the tower probably isn't a great idea...

But it doesn't matter, because the second Dazai touches me, the tear just disappears.

"Woah... so you can make my tears disappear?" I was astounded now, staring up at him with big eyes.

"Yep, and I can make Hat Rack over there stop floating too if I feel like it." Dazai smirked and Chuuya got up to hit him, something he easily dodged.

I start to feel exhaustion creeping in, making my eyelids feel heavy, so I lay down on the ground just to make sure I don't pass out.

"You should get some sleep, kid, it's been a long day." Chuuya says, handing me his jacket as a kind of blanket as he walks by.

"Thanks." I say as I see him lay down against the wall of the cave, his hat placed over his face. "Nice hat." I mumble, snickering to myself. Who honestly wears a hat in this situation?!

"What was that?" He glares at me, clearly too tired to start a fight like he usually would.

"Night night (y/n)!" Dazai says cheerfully, his brown coat laid over him much like Chuuya's is over me.

"Night Dazai, sleep well!" I respond, just as cheerfully but much more exhausted.

Chuuya grumbles something about not getting a 'goodnight' but I'm too busy drifting off to sleep to notice.

——————————————————————————

"Psst, (y/n), wake up." I feel someone shaking me and whispering at me.

"Go awayyyy." I flail my arms in front of me trying to push them away.

"Aargh you git!" Someone yells. I glance up to see Chuuya clutching his nose tightly, glaring at me. I try not to laugh but Dazai is right behind him pulling a really funny face so I can't help but let out a snort.

"Okay that's IT!" Chuuya yells, grabbing the blanket on me and trying to pull it off. I hold onto it tightly with tone hand and try to bat him away with another.

"Stoooop don't take my blanket it's warm and it smells niiiice." I whine holding onto it as tight as I can, not quite processing exactly what's on me in my tired state.

Chuuya looks shocked. So shocked, in fact, that he lets go of the blanket altogether, causing him to fall back.

Not knowing what I said that was so bad and, honestly, not caring, I turn my back to the duo and try to get back to sleep. Try being the important word here.

"Come on, (y/n), we need to get you out of here." Dazai says, picking me up with the blanket on me. I can't be bothered to move so I just let him take me and cuddle into the blanket.

This blanket feels really rough, though... I look at it properly and realise it's not a blanket. Not able to stop myself, I jump up and scream, letting go of Chuuya's jacket and making it fall to the floor.

"Yah! Be careful! That's expensive!" Chuuya yelled, picking it up off the ground and slinging it over his shoulder.

"Wait why do you have a jacket if you don't... actually you know what, I don't care enough." I mumbled, not bothered enough because I'm still half asleep. "What's the plans guys?" I ask, getting out of Dazai's arms and skipping ahead.

"Well the plane is busted so we're going to walk until we find transport." Dazai said happily. I stop dead in my tracks. I'd completely forgot about the plane.

Chuuya and Dazai continue walking until they notice I stopped. "We haven't got all day, princess, get walking now!" Chuuya glowered at me from in front, turning to start walking again.

"The pilots..." I mumbled, rubbing my arm. Chuuya stops walking once more and turns back to me, Dazai already by my side. "They're dead, aren't they? I wasn't just dreaming it." Dazai just nodded.

I feel sick.

Okay, no, I'm being sick.

I lean against a tree as quick as I can, feeling everything I ate the day before come up at once, burning my throat. The image of the pilot I saw, the hole between his eyes. It won't leave my head.

Dazai pats my back while I'm sick, holding back my hair, and Chuuya just stands there indifferently, picking at his nails.

"Why aren't you upset? A man is DEAD!" I screamed at them in disbelief. Neither of them seems affected at all!

"It's part of the line of work, princess." Chuuya said casually. "Now let's get moving."

Before either of them can think to react, I start sprinting as fast as I can away from them. I'm not going back to that tower, but I know for sure that whatever these two want from me can't be good either.

"(Y/n) just come back now!" I hear Dazai yell from behind me. They're following me.

I push past trees and bushes, trying to get away from them and make them lose my trail. Looking back as I'm running I don't see anyone in sight or hear anything but my own breathing and running. Looking ahead again, I see a cave I can hide in until I'm 100% sure they can't find me.

I hold my hand over my mouth to silence my breathing so if they come by they can't hear me. It all feels calm and well until I hear a voice that definitely doesn't belong to either of them.

"I swear I saw her come around here!" I hear a man yell and see someone approach the cave. He's wearing a blue uniform and holding a pistol.

Shit.

He's a guard from the tower and there's never just one.

He pulls a Walkie from his belt and speaks into it, "I think I've sighted the girl at my location, over.". I can't hear what the man on the other end says in response, but there's no way it can be good.

I feel a tear fall down my face and realise I'm crying. I'm crying and panicking. I'm crying and panicking and that means I'm going to start hyperventilating fuck I need to calm down.

It's impossible to calm down when you're trying to calm down I'm just throwing myself for a loop now oh fuck why can't I breath shit shit shit just breathe fuck I'm being so loud he isn't coming over here is he-

Fuck he sees me.

The man slowly walks towards me, lifting up his pistol. I look around the floor surrounding me for a rock or a stick or literally anything to defend myself with which isn't a pebble smaller than my nail.

Quick, open a tear! Wait, fuck he has a gun. Okay open something to block him from you. Think of something now!

"Come here, girl." He says, pointing the pistol directly at me. I can't open a tear now he might just shoot. I put my hands up and slowly walk towards him trying to think of a plan. Now right in front of him, he keeps the pistol pointed right at my stomach. "Now turn around," I gulp and do as he says. "Now get on your knees." He uses his hand to push me down.

"Ok and lean forward. Face on the floor, ass up."

Okay well that escalated quickly.

Not having much of a choice I do as he says, albeit very reluctantly.

"Nice, good girl." He says, pistol still pointed at me. I really want to laugh now because it makes me think of when I dropped a book on Chuuya's toes, but the weight of the situation is pressing down on my chest and stopping me from doing so.

Before he can say anything else to disturb me, I hear the sound of someone being hit and a loud grunt, followed by someone falling on the floor.

I feel a bandaged hand press against my back and rub it gently, trying to calm me down. I didn't notice, but I'm still crying. Not just crying, either, I'm full on sobbing.

Dazai slowly and gently helps me get up from the ground, keeping his hands on my back and shoulders. I still hear thuds behind us but as I turn around to see, Dazai holds my chin with his hand and gently turns my head back to him.

He's so gentle with me I'm starting to feel like I'm made of porcelain.

"Remember when you dropped a massive book on Chuuya's toes?" He asked, grinning at me. I can't help but giggle at the memory.

"I'm fairly sure next time he sees a book he's going to drop it on my head while I'm sleeping." I chuckled back, wiping my eyes.

"And I'm going to make it 10x heavier just so it hurts even more." Chuuya walked past us with his hands in his pockets. He looked at us over his shoulder with a light smirk. Not his usual condescending one, this one was... kind of friendly. "Come on, kid, we should get moving." He gestured at us to follow and we did.

Not before I took a glance at the massacre behind us.

"They're not just gonna let you go." Dazai said out of nowhere when we started walking.

I didn't know what to say so I just glanced at him to continue.

This time Chuuya spoke up, "That tower... those experiments... it can't have been cheap. Whatever they were doing, they were doing it for a reason. They want you for something and they've put way too much time and money in it to give up now."

He's right. It sucks, but he's right.

"What, so I'm some kind of... investment?" I spoke up, stopping from walking and looking at my supposed 'saviours'.

"Exactly. You're an investment they don't want to let go of. That ain't the last time they're gonna send people for you." Dazai spoke up once more. "We get you're hardly a killer, but in some situations, if you don't draw first..." he started

"You don't get to draw at all." Chuuya finished.

"I get it... let's just keep moving." I mumbled, rubbing my arm.

Moving forward, an awkward silence settles over us once more.

"Wait... where are we going?" I ask, looking at the two men in front of me.

"Where do you want to go?" Dazai asked with a smile.

"...Paris. I want to go to Paris."