A/N: Warning for violence, gore, PTSD, a little profanity, a subtle reference to self-harm.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The world was bloody chaos, savage brutality crowned queen of all the earth. Blood clung to his toes like molasses, and broken fingers grazed his ankles. He tripped on something, hard, and fell with an ugly splash into the thick, scarlet pool. He spun around, his body half-submerged in blood, and found the offending object.

It was an arm. A pale, freckled arm.

He screamed, his lungs exploding in pain, and when he looked down, the blood pooling at his feet was pouring from his chest as well; there was a mess of pink and red where his lungs used to be—

—pressure, four light fingers, on his wrist. Automatically, he opened his eyes and swung his hand up, magic and panic flurrying through his muscles. His hard, unyielding fist met soft, pliant flesh, and a strangled cry echoed in his ears. "Ron!"

The sound of his name only augmented the emotions boiling beneath his skin, and his white-knuckled grip on reality unraveled—

—like the flesh peeling off of the corpse beside him; Muca was long gone, but Antonio was still cradling her, trying to get her to wake up—

"Wake up!" Hands on him. On his face, his arms. Fingers like hot irons on his skin.

He summoned all the strength he had, magic exploding in his head and spreading over his neck, shoulders, arms, legs—

—the curse was climbing across his face, that awful color of dried blood, clawing its way across his skin, and the wizard fisted his hand into Ron's robes: "Please," he begged, scarlet already leaking from his mouth, "please, please, I don't wanna die—" But Ron knew if he stopped, he'd be dead, too, so he pried the man's fingers away and kept on walking—

"Shit!" Heat pressing against him from all sides. "Calm down, Ron! Ron! Calm the fuck down!"

—and in the split second before she died, she made eye contact with Ron, her voice a young, terrified whimper—

Pain, explosive and hot, spurting from all corners of his brain. Then, all at once, paralysis looping around his arms and fastening them to his sides.

Thick whorls of fear constricted around his lungs, pulling taut.

—she traveled amongst the weak and the dying like the Grim Reaper, marking the dead with a black circle in the center of their foreheads, the dying with a red one, and the survivors with a purple one; Nguvu left no man, woman, or child unmarred—

—and there was a cacophony of voices, ringing and clanging and clashing until they all became one.

"Hold him down! Hold him down!"

"How the hell is he doing this?"

"Ron, stop!"

But the pleas of his family were—

—the pleas to live from the Ugandan civilians, and he could not stop reach them in time before a Kamilifu raised her scarlet hands and doused the earth with blood—

—Ron screamed, unable to hold in the energy surging through his head—

—

"He's awake now, Mrs. Weasley."

Shuffle, shuffle. "Can he hear me?" He knew that voice better than anything. Mum. He wanted to call out to her, to reach toward her, to embrace her, to sob into the crook of her neck… But he couldn't move.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley."

Magic had him locked in a reclined position, whirling in his ears. He couldn't move, couldn't even breathe of his own volition, and it terrified him. His arms were restrained at his sides by both magical and Muggle means, and his legs were bound together. He couldn't even move his mouth; air came through his nostrils and filled his lungs, expanding without his permission, without his permission— His body betrayed him, obeying the spell's every command. His eyes were closed, and he couldn't make his eyelids open. For a brief second, he thought this was what death could be like: an eternity of life trapped in an unresponsive body.

"Can I… Can I touch him?"

Eerie, cold silence. "I wouldn't advise that, Mrs. Weasley. Although he can't physically harm anyone in this state, touch has caused relapse in the past, so it might cause some...negative...mental..."

A wet sniffle. "Alright, then." A voice close to his ear, warm like apple cider. "Ron, dear, it's Mum. I—" A strangled stop. "They released the...information today about everything that happened, and I—I'm sorry you had to go through that. What happened to those poor, poor people, I…" She was weeping now, crying softly. "I'm just so—so happy you're safe, Ron. They told me about your condition, too, and I just want you to know that I love you, Ron, and I'm going to stay here with you, okay?" The barbed wire clenched tightly around his lungs seemed to loosen a little. Although he was still a prisoner in his own body, somehow the presence of his mum made everything better. "I won't leave you, dear. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

Ron was the prodigal son; he had left home in a whirlwind of selfish heroism and ignorant gullibility, unable to see humanity's true nature. Now that he had returned, Molly Weasley had opened her arms to him and rejoiced. To Ron, her love was tainted by the knowledge that he would return to her a murderer, a taker of five hundred and five (five hundred and six) human lives. He couldn't ever remove that blood on his hands.

"Mrs. Weasley," said the voice in the corner, interrupting Ron's minefield of thoughts. "Either you tell him, or I'll do it for you."

A shaky breath. "Alright, alright, I'll do it. But can you leave us, please?"

"Of course, Mrs. Weasley. But we will still monitor from outside, just to be safe."

Either you tell him, or I'll do it for you. That barbed wire was back, winding around his torso and cutting into his organs. He knew what was coming now; it loomed like an ominous thundercloud around his head.

Harry is dead. Dear, Harry's gone. Harry passed away last night. The options were endless, and the anticipation of those fucking words felt like acid burning holes in his throat.

"Ron, dear…" His mum's well-worn fingers clasped onto his. "You've been in a magically induced coma for three days." The fingers traced the scars lining his right arm, and Ron nearly gagged at the sensation. "I don't know what you remember, but when your brothers, your father, and I came to visit you, you had a...an attack, I suppose. That's what they called it. And your magic, dear, it went out of control. You conjured a pretty dangerous curse, and you…" She explained the potency of the curse, something called Protego Diabolica. It was a spell that conjured violent flames to protect the user, specifically harming those who the user perceived to be a threat. "To someone with your...condition," said Mum, "it's really...dangerous, dear." Because he perceived everything as a threat, she explained, the curse had exploded and expanded, attacking every person in its vicinity as a potential danger to its host. "Your father...he isn't doing too well, dear. After Fre—after we lost your brother, you know his health's gotten worse, and the fire hit him the hardest…"

Ron wanted to scream, to punch through a wall, to curl up in a ball, to set his skin on fire, to rake over the skin of his face until there was nothing left but strips of shredded pink and red.

First Harry, then Hermione, and now this? He couldn't even last a day without hurting someone he cared about. He hadn't meant to—fuck, he hadn't meant to hurt anyone! If only he'd had more control over himself in his shitty, bloody mess of a brain… Fuck!

Mum was still talking, stammering over her words. "But—But everyone's fine, just your dad couldn't get his shield up in time, and Harry's still hanging on…"

Guilt boiled in the pit of his stomach. "...and they had to put you in the coma, dear, because there were a lot of people...hurt by what happened, and they were afraid it would happen again if they kept you awake. That's why you still can't move, Ron. And I—" She sighed. "Bloody hell."

He heard a chair screech away from the bed, followed by sharp footsteps and a slammed door. He could barely hear his mum's voice through the door, but he could hear the furious tone from his bed. When the door finally opened again, his mother was still arguing. "—my son! You have to let him talk, at the very least! I can't tell if he's dead or alive like this!"

"Mrs. Weasley, you have to understand, the nature of his condition is quite fragile at the moment. Subjecting him to any stimulants could set him off again."

"I don't care! I need my son to talk to me, so lift the bloody spell! He won't hurt me!"

An ugly, almost vicious silence. "Mrs. Weasley… He already did."

The barbed wire was impossibly tight now, squeezing all air from him as he bled guilt into every inch of his body. The world halted around him, a clashing of hazy voices ripping and tearing and screaming relentlessly; the barbed wire encircled his body from head to toe, clamping over his skin. Disgusted bile bubbled in his throat. He was so fucked up inside, he couldn't— He'd hurt Hermione, his dad, Harry, and now his mum… It was too much; his flesh writhed at the thought, his muscles twisting and contorting like maggots beneath his skin, yet still he could not move.

"Pulse rising, everyone back up, please!"

Then, a sharp pinch at the back of his brain made something in the pit of his stomach loosen and spill free, drenching his insides, so it pulled him, tainted and so fucked up, into the bowels of oblivion.

Challenges used:

Fanfiction Writing Month: December [1643]