Vanity Decay

Gasp!

Venus sat up, gasping for air as he panicked at his encumbering surroundings.

"Where is he?!" Venus frantically scurried against the backboard of his bed. "WHERE IS HE?!!!"

"Venus! It's us!" Veronica was by his side. "It's okay, it's just us…"

Eyes widened with clear fear, Venus looked around as he regathered his senses. He was in a bed, which at first was unfamiliar to him. "It's not blue…" His hand trembled as he picked up the brown blanket at his feet. He noticed a hand hanging over the base of his bed. It was big, and lightly colored—not like the one he recognized, that was covered in black leather gloves, and that held sharpened scissors.

"It's me, Venus." Gian-Luca looked at him with worry. What worried him more, was the nearly unfamiliar look Venus gave him back. Venus looked to his left and saw that Ian stood by his bed across from Veronica. A gentle hand landed softly on his shoulder.

"—AGH!" He immediately slapped it away. The move had scared him.

"Oww… What was that for…?" Veronica retracted her hand, rubbing the red mark he'd made on it.

Venus was still static with fear, unable to properly process his environment. The rest of the Sins in the room continued to watch him with confusion and worry. For too long they'd seen him unconscious, only to wake up with sudden disorder.

"What happened, Venus? Why are you like this?" Ian asked.

Venus looked back at him, muttering breaths under inaudible words. "I-I… He…" Venus dropped his face into his hands. He began to sob as his surroundings settled warmly into his skin.

"It's not cold anymore… Are we…?"

"Yes, we're back at the base, Venus. Metatron Tournament is finished."

A feeling of familiarity washed over him, and his body adjusted to the fact that he was now within a true sense of reality. The realization broke him, and Venus began to sob, pouring tears and cries into his hands. The scene was completely new to the Sins. He'd always defined the Sin of Pride with his reckless and endless parade of insults and mockery. But now, for the first time ever, the Sins were witnessing the embodiment cry, as if humility had finally taken over. As Venus raised his face from the puddle of tears that'd formed in his palms, he could see that blood from his imagination mixed in thoroughly. "No…" He shuddered. "NO!!!"

"IT'S OKAY VENUS!" Gian-Luca reached out to him. He grabbed onto Venus' wrist and pulled him forwards. He landed right into Gian-Luca's hug. "It's okay Venus… I don't know what happened to you while you were alone, or why you've been asleep for so long, but you're here now. It's okay…"

Venus' chin hung over Gian-Luca's shoulder, and as even more tears began to swell in his eyes, he couldn't help but return the hug as emotion overwhelmed his consciousness.

Veronica approached him, "Venus, baby, I've never seen you cry like this, ever… What happened? Was it something that happened at the tournament…?"

Venus looked up at her. His eyes reddened and puffed with sorrow. Suddenly, the memory returned of what had truly transpired before his purgatory began.

~

On a raging rooftop soon after Phase 3 had been initiated, screams echoed outwards.

"MIDAS! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!" Venus yelled to catch his attention. Finally, Midas snapped out of the trance he'd fallen into. By then, Reed was already just a distance away from killing his comrade. Venus decided he'd take it upon his own hands to deal with the beast.

"Imbecile!" Venus raised his hand in an unfamiliar stance. "Prepare to be deceived once more by my Deception!" He clenched his palm, and soon the ability soared invisibly towards Reed.

"Reflection." Reed raised his palm.

"Huh—?" Venus was suddenly overtaken by a wave of nausea. "What…"

Slam!

Venus fell to the floor. He'd been knocked unconscious, and his mind now swam in a delusion of its own.

~

Venus put his hand over his mouth. "Deception…"

"What?" Veronica listened closely. "Deception?"

Venus' face strained. "That was the ability I'd retrieved from Specialized Phase D…"

Ian's attention was stolen. "Specialized Phase D?" He remembered the scene at its location—the numerous limb-twisted corpses that fell from the roofs of the parking lot.

"The ability would… impose a delusion on whoever you targeted… When I was fighting Reed, I tried to use it on him, but he used Reflection, and the ability was directed back towards me. I've been under Deception this whole time…?"

"You were fighting Reed?!" Ian stood up. The action startled Venus.

"Hey," Veronica sat him back down. "Let's hear him out first. Is that the reason you seem so traumatized, Venus? Because of your battle with Reed?"

Veronica knew what she was doing in asking the question. It was to test Venus' mental state; if he were as normal as usual, he'd take immediate offense to the statement. His usual pride wouldn't allow him to admit fear in another person. But what came out was not what she expected.

"Not because of that," Venus replied. "The delusion… from Deception… My purgatory… Again and again and again and again…"

Veronica began to smell the familiar scent of a Begonia. Venus' fear was growing. "Hey, hey, Venus, it's okay. None of that was real, right? It was just a delusion from Deception..."

Venus backed away once more from the Sins and their closure. "No, no… Even if that's what I want to believe, even if that's what I'd been trying to believe all this time, I can't… After seeing what I saw I can't reject it anymore!" Venus tugged at his hair with the panic that began to encumber. "It wasn't me, IT WASN'T ME! THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO BELIEVE, BUT I CAN'T ANYMORE! I WAS SHOWN EVERYTHING! THE BLOOD, THE SCISSORS, EVERYTHING! I'M SORRY!"

Venus began to yell and scream, trauma clear as day settling violently within his mind. The old and new memories he now began to bore were encumbering his spirit, his pride, and driving him mad. Screeching guilt etched into his heart and it pained him to think of anything from his past. He could only scream in anguish, sensing pain worth a hundred days straight, which tormented his soul and traumatized his mind; he was losing sight of reality again.

"AGHHHHHHH!!! GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD! GO AWAY—!!!"

"VENUS!" The three of them pulled his hands away from ripping shreds of hair off of his head. "Calm down! We'll hear you out! We'll listen!" Gian-Luca looked him dead in the eye. "We've all been in this together, haven't we? We're all Sins, and we've all come from the same tragic fate given to us by A.X.A., right?!"

Venus' spasm ended with sobs. He cried while his emotion settled down once more. Once he finally took some deep breaths and came to a calm state, Veronica tried speaking with him again.

"Venus, baby, we're here to help you. You're not in danger anymore, and that's why we want to know what happened in your delusion so we can assure you that you're not in that danger anymore."

Venus' face tightened with guilt and regret, like an image he abhorred had reappeared in his head.

"So much happened, so many times. The same thing, over and over again."

He bit down through it. He took a deep breath. He was ready to share his delusional story from start to finish. What felt like an eternity of purgatory and endless agony, was about to be shared and revealed to the Sins.

"I saw my irregularity." He covered his face with guilt. "I found out where my pride was born."