The hypnotization attempt lasted for less than a second.
But even in that split second of a moment, faster than Seirios could react, and faster than Artorias could move, the insidious mind hex had taken root and began festering.
"Don't look at its eyes!" the shout came too late, but Artorias had still been able to grasp Seirios and cover his eyes, pulling him back and pinching the skin on his wrist.
Seirios gasped from the pain. But…it didn't change anything.
His mind, previously empty and free, felt as if it had been locked away, hidden in an endless fog of golden clouds.
He stumbled, or…no, he was pushed, by Artorias.
Seirios blinked, his vision overlapping as the sound of something exploding echoed in his ears. Looking with narrowed eyes and gritted teeth, he could only make out a cloud of grey slowly approaching him.
"What…is that…?"
From within the cloud, he could see a human figure, a silhouette of a girl slowly beginning to move towards him.
His ears perked up, hearing the whisper of a voice he had thought gone forever.
"Big brother! Why are you just sitting there on the ground?"
It was high pitched, glowing with warmth and radiating happiness.
"Maren…?" his voice sounded distant to even his own ears as the cloud of grey steadily grew closer.
"Of course it's me! Who else would call you big brother, silly?"
He felt the tears before he even knew he was crying.
He tried to stand, but his legs shook too fast.
He didn't even notice the pain of falling back to the ground, though it was more an afterthought as his attention was squarely focused elsewhere.
"Maren!" he shouted, his hands gripping the ground as he tried to pull his body up. It was like a dream, he tried to move his body, yet it didn't move. "Maren! I'm sorry!"
She giggled, her body slowly appearing from the fog.
Just as she stepped out of the fog, something roughly grabbed onto his shoulder.
"Seirios! Get up, now!"
He blinked.
"Art…?"
He looked up at his cousin in confusion, his mind distracted and consumed by a veil of fog he couldn't even recognize was there.
Artorias, his cousin, all but growled before pulling him up and pushing him onto the ground.
Another muted explosion rang a moment later.
Dazed, he lay on the ground, looking up at the dark sky hanging over him as the cloud of grey from before began to surround him.
He turned when he felt something warm on his right arm, and smiled when he saw Maren, her tiny body cuddled into his side, her platinum blonde hair covering her face.
"You have nothing to be sorry about!" he could hear the familiar pout in her words as she huffed, pushing herself more into his side. "I don't blame you! And look! I'm all better now, see?"
He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, he was being pulled again. Up to his feet and away from his sister.
"Maren?" he blinked, watching blankly as he began to be pulled away.
'No, no, no, no!'
Even with her face hidden by her hair, he could see her body shaking, that same way it always did when she was close to tears.
"Please don't leave me alone again big brother."
'Not again!'
"Damn it, let go off me! Let get off me you bastard!" he tried to pull himself away from the invisible grip on his shoulder, but it only tightened. "Damn it you bastard! Let me go!"
He felt the force push him away as his thrashing increased, falling to the ground with a wheeze.
Another muted explosion in the distance rang out, but he ignored it. Something wet fell down his chin, but he rubbed it off without looking and began pushing himself to stand.
His body toppled faster than he could react.
"SEIRIOS!"
"Huh?" he looked up again, away from the floor, away from Maren and into the familiar dull gold of Artorias.
"Art!" he cheered, a grin on his face. "Quick help me up! Maren's about to start crying and we both know how she can get it." He said with a chuckle, ignorant to his cousins beaten and bruised form.
Artorias pulled him up with a muted grimace, his movements urgent.
"Wow! I know it's annoying," he said with a chuckle, leaning into Artorias' body for support. "But you don't have to pull me up that quickly, one look at her favourite cousin and she'll be light as rain, you know this."
Seirios blinked when, instead of going towards Maren, they began to limp in the opposite direction.
"Um, where are you going?" he received no response, his cousin's eyes glazed as they slowly walked further and further away.
"Art?"
He strained his strangely muted hearing and leaned forward with a frown.
Artorias only repeated the same words, over and over again.
"You're okay Seirios, you're okay Seirios, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay, well get you all patched up and you'll be okay."
"Art? Buddy, we're walking away from Maren?"
He glanced behind him, at the cloud of grey that seemed all around them.
He looked for Maren, only to blink when she was no longer there, but walking by his side.
"Is Art going to be okay?"
He blinked and glanced at their weirdly bruised cousin.
'Who the hell did you fight this time, Art? Ugh, best to lie, she's only six, she doesn't need to know about the life outside the house just yet. You owe me one for this Art,' he thought morosely.
"Yeah! He's okay, he just had a bit of a tumble down the stairs, probably slipped, you know how clumsy he can get."
Maren happily nodded, a ghost of a smile on her pale lips. "Mhm, he's always so clumsy! Do you think I'll grow up to be clumsy like that one day?"
Seirios laugh came from his chest, his weirdly light body shaking.
"No, I think you'll be more than okay," he reassured his sister. "Art is just a special case." He told her with a wink and a small smile.
"Move!"
"Wow!"
Artorias pushed him away again, his body falling and landing on the ground beside Maren with a groan.
Another muted explosion wracked the ground near him, and he could have sworn he heard a screech of some sort of bird echoing in the distance.
Shrugging to himself, he allowed the thought of Artorias to simply drift away, his attention focused back on his sister.
"Did you put your toys away, ready for dinner?"
Maren sat by his side, facing away from him but nodding with a little hum.
"Are you sure?" he questioned, lightly raising his brow as something wet trickled down his chin again.
Wiping it away with his left hand, he focused on her suspiciously still body.
That same bird screech echoed around him, before another muted explosion rang out.
"If I went upstairs, would I find your room a mess?" he teased lightly, a grin on his face.
"Nope!" Maren said, popping the 'p'.
He heard the screech again.
"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yep!"
Another screech echoed around the grey fog.
"Wow, consider me impressed, what brought this change on? Usually, you never clean up after yourself." He teased again with a laugh, coughing lightly, and feeling something wet fall into his hands.
He rubbed it off without looking.
Another screech.
Maren was silent for a moment, before she shrugged.
"There weren't any toys to clean."
He raised a brow, feeling confused. "What do you mean? Have you not played with anything today?"
Maren shook her head again, her long platinum hair moving with the motion.
"I couldn't."
Another screech, but it was getting closer.
"Why not?"
"Because I have no toys…"
The screech again, though this time it almost sounded mocking.
"I could have sworn you had a whole box full of them. Maren, what are you talking about?"
The six-year-old released a theatrical sign, all performance and barely any air, as if she was tired of his questions.
"I don't have any toys to play with…"
Several things happened within the space of a single moment.
Maren turned around, her small sundress spinning with the motion.
That screech again, getting closer, sounding almost above them.
And then a hand, grabbing onto his shoulder and pulling him back.
"…Because you let me die."
Maren's face, once gaunt and filled with childlike innocence, was now nothing but a rotting corpse.
Where her sapphire eyes once sat, only two black holes remained, filled with maggots and worms of various sizes. Her nose, once as pointy as his, was crooked, as if broken, and her smile, once as radiant as the sun, was now as pale as the moon.
He only had a moment to take her in, before a great, terrible beast of an animal crashed into her, its crooked beak devouring her head in one giant gulp.
Seirios felt something inside of him shatter, as the image overlaid itself with a memory from years before.
Of his sister, a once beautiful child full of potential, being devoured and killed right before his eyes. Directly under his care. Dead. Gone.
"MAREN!"
The hands gripping him pulled on him to stand, but his legs didn't respond. His mind broken, as he stared into the gleeful, bloodied grin of the chimera.
The chimera, they were meant to be fighting.
The chimera, who had eaten his sister,
The chimera, who had nearly killed Art.
The chimera…
…Who had broken his mind, shattered his spirit and splintered his body.
'Ah…so that's what it was falling off of me, blood…"