Some things can change

•chapter 2• Crimson Sleeves

[Jace's P.O.V]

A hot, burning, searing pain shot through my entire body spontaneously, initiating with my damaged heart slowly in recovery from all the years of torture, pain and sorrow. The feeling of being burned inside out engulfed me into the jaws of hell in one singular bite.
The pain spreading uncontrollably, got worse and worse the more it travelled, down into my arms, my legs, my stomach. My parabatai rune shining like a thousand spotlights, shining in pain and agony, shining like it never shone before.

Collapsing, ungracefully and dangerously, my surroundings haltingly collapsed with me, as if I was looking through the lens of a horror film. Except this was a horror film for me, my rune pulsing to the sound of my parabatai's ever decreasing heartbeat, I don't care about myself and how much pain I'm in; all I can think about, my parabatai, my friend, my brother....

.... Alec

I lay there on the cold, stone, worn out floor clutching at my side, praying to the angels the pain would subside soon enough. I didn't want to nor could I imagine my parabatai in pain, I see him with a happy life set right before his eyes.
A million scenarios run through my head as to why Alec could be like this; soon all I could think about was the ever increasing pain I was in, screaming out in agony I witness few shadowhunters coming to surround me, helping me, nourishing me; no iratze could subside the pain I felt.

Soon enough, all thoughts and conversations were stopped as I felt something, something wet, something cold slither down my arm ever slightly.

Blood

Coldness tearing across my skin, a foreign feeling to my pure, tanned, unharmed skin upon my arms. A metallic sensation overflowing onto the bridges of skin across my runed arm, blood seeping through the layers I wore.
Looking down at my crimson sleeves a mixture of emotions run through my mind as if in a race to cross the finish line to dictate my brain.....

...Worry
    Anger
     Pain
      Sadness

I lift up my sleeve to see perfectly straight horizontal lines scarred across my skin, splitting it directly in half without hesitation. The waves of deep red water, still crashing violently upon to the tanned shore on my arms, crashing up onto the shores like a never ending storm.

I quickly draw and iratze to stop my arm from bleeding. As the prominent red lines fade into simple white lines spreading out into transparency of my skin, more longer, thicker, deeper lines appear further and further up my arm after every stroke of a sharp, hungry metal blade.
I knew Alec had them, he always thought he could hide them from me, but it's a bit difficult when you're his parabatai and have known him practically you're entire life. I knew exactly where he hid them, in exactly which draw, and the exact place and corner they were in. I never touched or moved them because he would of course know, being his parabatai I had to know, I had to be the one to protect him, to guard him, to believe in him.

The excessive amounts of dark, crimson, metallic blood seeping through onto my sweater sleeves wasn't normal, I knew I had to get to Alec soon. Ignoring all the attention and help offered from my fellow shadowhunters, I irazted myself up, enough to last me a little while and stumbled, staggered and blundered my way across the institutes' floors, trying to reach Alec's room.

Using an unlock rune to enter left me in shock when he was completely invisible to my eye, his room just as tidy as it was left in the mornings. Only one place he could be...
... the bathroom.

Lifeless, drained and bloody, my friend, my parabatai, my brother, Alec lays there on his bathroom floor leaned up against the wall with a blunted shimmering silver blade, proud of its latest achievement, in his fragile hand.
Tears immediately crashed up onto the coast of my cheeks seeing my best friend like that, shaking uncontrollably I try to wake him up. But nothing works.
I know I'm the only person who can fully help him, keeping Alec close to my chest as possible, taking him into a tight grasp to share my strength, his heartbeat fighting on like a champion, steadying out after it's overload, into a gentle pace, matching mine, Alec regained consciousness causing another round of storm worthy waves of tears to roll up onto my cheeks dripping down onto his jet black midnight hair.

One thing echoes through my mind, Alec is back, I don't have to worry about loosing him anymore In this point in time, everything positive occurs, just knowing I have my best friend back.
But I notice something out of the corner of my slightly blurred vision...

...A journal type book

It's bad but I just had to look
A decision which could take many routes
It might even uncover Alec's actions
Just please be for the best.