Disclaimer: Brutally not mine.

A/N: Drabble-thing that possessed my brain at 3am when I was frustrated at not being able to locate D-Gray Man episode 21. Which … probably doesn't interest anybody else, but there you are.

Gunfire

© Scribbler, June 2009.

There's nothing quite like the sound of bullets entering flesh. Sometimes it's a wet splattery noise, veins and arteries giving up their contents in a sudden unexpected rush. With that one you don't actually notice the moment of impact, as the fluid-on-hard-surface effect is what really snags your attention. Sometimes it's more like popping a water balloon – one long spray and then … nothing. And then sometimes there's a crunch when metal hits bone, like if you cut into fruit and accidentally stab the wooden chopping board, or break a plastic toy figurine in two over your leg like your childhood bully did when you were eight.

When you're half blind and deaf with mako poisoning, however, the sound of bullets is more like being underwater while heavy objects are dropped into it all around you.

WHOOMPH. WHOOMPH. WHOOMPH. WHOOMPH.

Handgun. Has to be. The shots are too widely spaced otherwise. The rattle of automatic weapon fire is more like a helicopter's rotors.

WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP –

But to Cloud, when he fell to his knees, Tifa frantically asking what was wrong, and finally remembered being on that cliff-top, the sound of bullets sounded like nothing so much as raindrops and someone screaming using his voice.

Fin.