Voiced Thoughts [NaLu AU]

Chapter 15

~Natsu's POV~

I think the first sign that something was wrong with Zeref was the fact that after he read the letter, he was emotionless. He wasn't sad or angry or even happy about Dad leaving. He just had this almost terrifying look of completely uncaring, unfeeling apathy.

He took me to my room and a few minutes after the strange episode, he was fine. He just began playing with and feeding me like everything was normal, without a word about his strange moment.

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The second sign was something that I almost couldn't remember.

Zeref had always been the calm one in our family. So when I woke from my unshakable sleep to hear strange noises coming from the room beside my bed, I thought maybe he was watching a video. My mind even went so far as to think someone broke in before I even considered that the noise might be Zeref himself.

It was easy to tell though. When a piercing scream punctured the blanket of silence coating the house, I remembered something. Not much, just a small memory of agonizing sobs mixed with the sound of trees blowing in the breeze. This cry was the same though.

The same anguished cry that I remembered hearing the day of my mother's funeral. The sound made me want to cry, but I stayed silent in the dark.

It wasn't long before the cries escalated. They were no longer sobs, but screams. I felt the pain hidden in every note and tried to cover my ears to block the sound.

The screeches continued until I think I could've convinced myself that the sound was that of a wild animal. I heard something slam into my wall as the shouts increased in an ever growing crescendo. Sounds of thudding against walls and the floor prodded at the steady sound of the scream.

Then all of a sudden, it died down into small cries of desperation. And though they were quiet, they held just as much emotion.

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From that day when I was nine years old, things changed.

Zeref had been acting completely different from how he used to be. We were ten and sixteen now and things weren't getting and better for either of us. He was slowly going crazy no matter how much he tried to deny it. He refused to go to any doctor, and I was stuck living with him when I wasn't sure what he would do next.

At this point, he was entirely unpredictable. One moment he'd be staring at the ground antisocially in complete and utter depression. And the next thing I knew, he was dancing and singing to some song while cooking dinner with a pink apron. Sometimes, he even went berserk and he would break out into a violent rampage. Basically, his emotions were everywhere and I didn't know what to do.

He'd begun talking to himself. Addressing the air with names I'd never even heard before. He was clumsy, falling everywhere. He tried to walk up invisible stairs, where there was only a flat floor. He screamed sometimes, saying he was burning or being strangled, sometimes even going as far as to say bugs were crawling under his skin, when nothing of the sort was happening.

Zeref had become increasingly paranoid, covering windows in foil to "prevent the government from listening in on us." He would panic at the slightest noise. He kept a metal baseball bat beside his bed when he slept.