Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Fathoming Love ❯ Chapter 21 ( Chapter 21 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

“Now, the after life Tazial, is not QUITE what you humans expect. Oh sure, there’s your clouds, your floating white sheet fairy bastards parading around like ballerinas on occasion, but hell? Nah, I think you have that one wrong.”

I looked at him as though he was crazy, continually convincing myself that he WAS, though I think we’ve both dismissed that theory by now.

“You mean….” I hesitated. “You went to hell?”

“No Tazial,” He rolled his eyes. “Mass murderers all make it into Heaven, just like fucking dogs! Of course I went to Hell! But you see, therein lies the difference in human nature and that of other species. You all assume or rather, personify Hell as a lake of fire, hatred and torment, brimming with pain and anguish. And perhaps, parts of Hell ARE indeed like that, though I have not to this day seen them with my own eyes. You see, my Hell (and make no mistake Tazial, Hell can be different for any man who goes there) was unlike any experience I might have expected it’d be.

“Hell isn’t an eternity of burning torture but an eternity of living the lives of your victims. Therein, will always lie the justification of it all.”

“Won’t you explain?” I pleaded.

“Tazial, this isn’t exactly a part I intended to skip out on. Rather critical to the plot I should think. Let me elaborate then and you’ll understand what I mean.

“In the moments (and let me explain first that what could pass as 30 years in hell can be a span of mere minutes in human standards) I spent in hell, I changed what might take a normal man an entire lifetime.

“Oh but listen to me, carrying on like a fucking poet. Let me do this right.

“At first there was a falling sensation, which didn’t surprise me as I figured straight out where I’d be heading, no misinterpretations or complaints about that little detail. It was as if I was being pushed, or rather thrown at an immense pace downwards and the commodity of flying or super strength was not provided.

“I tumbled and tried to catch myself on the black vines and thickets that lined the strange tunnel I was plummeting through. I reached out, grabbing at mysterious moving shadows that hissed and screeched around me, saying things in a language I didn’t understand. Trying to maintain some amount of dignity, I refused to scream, instead, closing my eyes shut tightly and clenching my teeth until I thought for sure I’d damn near molded them together.

“And then, suddenly, the falling stopped and in a dream like state, I looked around me and saw tumbling, swirling clouds above, wrapped around mountains of gold and green that shimmered with a mysterious light. It was like a world of fairies, a great wide fantasy land, glittering with strange, nameless colors as far as the eye could see. I could barely take it all in, only for one moment toying with the idea that God had truly made a mistake and sent me to the wrong place. Pfft… Someone would definitely be getting fired for that little plunder.

“But the longer I stared, the more I began to realize that I’d been here before. I turned my head this way and that and for no other reason that dejavu, I was struck very quickly with the idea that I’d been in this very place at one point in time. Oh, but that was delirious thinking! A place like this? Never.

“It was only when I began to walk that it dawned on me that I wasn’t even in my own body anymore. This body that I inhabited was weak and small and very awkward. It was as if I wasn’t used to walking on legs, as I tumbled this way and that, eventually landing recklessly on my behind and just staying there while I thought all this out.

“Hearing a noise behind me, I quickly shot out my tiny, fat little arm (much like a human infant’s) to strike out at the intruder, only to be swept up into gentle, chubby pink arms.

“It was so contrary to my nature, as this woman (or what I presumed was a woman, this race was very different in appearance) held me tightly to her chest. I breathed in the scent of her, my body registering that it knew this smell; that this smell was good and I slowly let myself relax into the warmth of her hug. I’d never felt anything quite like this. And I was in love with this sense of needing someone to hold me, to comfort me and to want me. It was so foreign and I think in that brief moment, a part of me was both broken and healed at the same time.

“I looked deep into her eyes, pulling back to behold a face with basically no nose or lips to speak of, but bright, gleaming violet eyes that were so glossy, they reminded me of the surface of some of Zarbon’s book shelves. I knew that face, and it was wonderful.

“She walked me into a little hut and I began to actually think that maybe this WAS heaven. MY heaven. To have a real family, someone to look after me, someone to love me intensely as I always wanted. A rectification of the childhood that fate had stolen from me. God owed me this, I began to say, truly wanting to believe that I’d been so unfortunate the first time around and now was being given a second chance at a lifetime. And the more I tried to believe it, the more I realized that this had to be something else.

“Because monsters like me, Tazial” he sighed, tapping one finger on the table. “We don’t get second chances. And what’s more important, we don’t deserve them.

“As she tucked me into bed, a sort of horrible foreboding took over me and the little body began to quake as she covered me in a soft blanket. A tiny, fat body stirred next to me, what I presumed to be a sister of sorts and I suddenly felt like bawling for attention, only to curse myself with the realization that it was the impulses of this body to do so, a crime my pride would have never forgiven me for.

“ “Shhh shhhh shhh shhhh”, she cooed softly, speaking in a language that I didn’t understand. Of course, I later realized that I WAS in the body of an infant and this language was not simply foreign to me because she was of a different species but because my body COULDN’T understand at this time. But I caught one word which I can only associate with what might have been my name.

“She called me Sunshine.” He smiled.

“And then she died.

“A bullet whizzed through the air, striking her directly in the forehead, her golden blood spattering into my face and eyes. A terrible, gut wrenching fear shook me and I was trembling as I struggled to raise myself, watching her body fall flat on its face. The girl next to me was suddenly running for the door, a large blob of a man whisking her into his arms and grabbing me like I was a second thought. Ah, I thought, this must be my father.

“I can remember running up a hill, my sister’s hand holding my entire arm as we tried to climb towards the safety of the woods. Tears were streaming down her pink cheeks like streams of golden glitter, her head sometimes turning to our father to shout something about getting her mother. I can’t be sure now and I’ll probably never know.

“At one point, I really thought we’d make it to safety, if there was such a thing in a vulnerable, infant body. But I believe that there was some hope in me, that we’d make it, mourn our loses and live again. Like somehow, we could recreate memories that were so short and yet meant a lifetime to me But of course, it was then that I heard the words that made this escape perilous and all too real.

“ “Does the word TIME limit mean NOTHING to you? Finish it!”

“I nearly stopped right there in my tracks, falling to my chubby little knees as my sister yanked me up the hill. ‘No,’ I wanted to scream. ‘No, there is no way, there is no chance’.

“Do it Vegeta! Do it!”

“A blast rang out, ricocheting within feet of us, making my father and sister run even faster, towing me along with bloody, scrapped knees and ankles. No use, I thought. Then I felt the powerful force of a blast tear through my little back and burst out of my chest, pieces of my own skin and bone landing on my face as I went down. I felt my cheek land on the blades of grass, the air refusing to fill the lungs of this tired, dying little body. It began to grow cold slowly, the death overwhelming the senses that tried so hard to stay alert, to reach out for life despite all odds. I was like a car accident victim, staring at the remains of my own battered, useless limbs, holding onto each breath, refusing to let the light or the darkness take me.

“My sister’s eyes stared parallel to mine, glazing over with realization as the confusion and chaos was replaced with understanding and acceptance. A horrible moment. I think I tried to reach out to her, or this body felt compelled to, either way the movement was all it took to surrender over to the relentless death and I let myself go into it before being defeated by the inevitable.

“My last memory was feeling the grass pull at my cheeks as my father grabbed our lifeless hands, yanking us towards the safety we’d never reach. We all died there, together, shedding the last of our tears and blood on the very same ground in which a very young 10 year old had once learned a valuable lesson from his own teacher.

“That to love, is to eventually lose.”


“I don’t understand though,” I voiced quickly. “How were you in the body of an infant? How-…”

He raised up his hand, gesturing for silence as he closed his eyes patiently.

“I told you,” he answered. “Hell isn’t an eternity of paying for your crimes by fire and torture. It’s reliving them through the eyes of your victims. That was my punishment. I didn’t get to DO those things again, I was the victim of every crime I’d either directly committed or could have stopped from happening. I had to watch myself be killed millions of times and to feel death as I had so carelessly inflicted it upon others.

“It was my justification, my way of dealing and making amends with what I’d done. I must have endured at least a thousand lifetimes in what was only a short hour or so on earth time. Sometimes, I would only live a few brief moments (as I had when being an infant) before inevitably, I would stare at my former body creating these atrocities and in the end, killing me. Other times though, fate decided that what I had done was a more heinous crime against a soul, and I would live that person’s entire lifetime UP until the day I had torn the life from them.

“I watched that monstrous body purge and shred to pieces every life I had created, every love that I had felt. I lost a trillion loved ones and my heart mourned as if it broke for every single one. I lost my reason and my sanity to the grief until I was flooded with it, thinking that I’d finally reached the breaking point. Then of course, the false hope would come into play as a particular lifetime was much longer than others, or the victim had somehow been spared from the wrath of my former self.

“But in the end, it always turned out the same way. Tears, heartbreak, loss and blood shed. Things I’d never even taken the time to think about when I’d so casually done it. That’s justification though,” He nodded. “Try living with yourself after realizing that you spent your entire lifetime ending everyone else’s. Try looking in the mirror for years afterwards and not knowing if you’re the person looking back, or if you’re staring at the murderer.”