Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Fall Of The Lost ❯ Of Men and Wolves, with a cameo by Death ( Chapter 6 )

Warning: Contains character death.

Disclaimer: I in no way own Dragonball Z or any of the associated characters herein this work of fiction written purely to express my fan-girl issues. And although I would really love to, I don't own Starbucks either, Dr. Evil got to it first (that bastard!).

And after a long angst filled break by the author, Dynishra the Vampire gives you more of Trunks's Journal into darkness:

Chapter Six: Of Men and Wolves, with a cameo by Death.

It seems death eventually comes to claim us all. Caskets, one after the other, sometimes only months apart, were lowered into the ground or rolled with demented purpose into raging furnaces. I say `it seems' because it had been nearly fifty years and I didn't look a day over thirty-five. What am I meant to think? The strange alien physiology that makes up half of what I am confuses me. I have no mentor to tell or scholar me in the correct `Saiyan thinking' or to lie out what makes us tick. My father, the Prince of us all - as he constantly reminded us - was way out there, somewhere in the cosmos. No doubt clueless of the constant flow of years that continued to pass, like normal, on Earth. I had no idea why the other Saiyan brood and I stood in the peak of heath and youth while our human counterparts and relatives withered away before our bright, clear eyes. One thing that did come to me over this time was a revelation of sorts. Humans were, in the historical sense, like ants, or any other short-lived thing. Their major accomplishments and political intrigues were very important to them, anything that rocked the cycle of normality that they lived in until the day they breathed their last. Over fifty years - which by no means is a small amount of time in the lives of mortals - heralded many a war in far distant countries, usurping dictators, and inhumane atrocities that were screamed at as holocausts by the masses. A few years later, these became forgotten whispers in old, rotting newspapers, which tumbled down derelict allies fit only for the homeless outcasts of a new democratic society.

The monarchy was demolished within fifty years. All my political swindling seemed at first to come to naught, but I realised that it was simply a new beginning, new fools to smile cheesy grins at and pick blinded pockets. I, being wonderfully youthful and yet with years of experience behind me, took this world of old and began to mould it anew.

But even when carried away with my secret endeavours into power, I should have seen death coming. It had been coiling its muscles, ready to pounce on my mother for the last thirty years. Truly it was amazing she lasted so long, and when it finally happened I knew… I knew she had held on for him… my father, arrogant asshole Vegeta. What makes a human woman love?

Despite being brought up like a human, there had always been a defining part of my character, my personality, which turned a cold shoulder to normal human emotion. I was my father's son. There was this purely Saiyan part of me, which I did not shun in any way, which ruled every aspect of how I reacted to a human situation. And since humans ruled every situation in my life, every situation was a little alien to me.

To put it in an example of terms, think of it this way. There are two islands in a vast open ocean full of hurricanes and rough water. There is a wide span of water between these islands as well. On one island, full of wild dark forests, there live a great species of wolf. Powerful and great, they rule absolute over the other animals, yet there is a certain order of primal understanding between the beasts.

On the other island there live vast families of dogs, all different in shape, size and colouring unlike the ferocious wolves that are all very similar in appearance. These dogs live very secure, yet close-minded lives, concerned only in themselves and have no care for the balance of nature and how they impact upon it. Content they are in only finding pleasure in life, and in finding the easy way through it. They are not fighters unless pushed to it, and although they are social, their differences affect their close-mindedness so that after a time they segregate themselves into many packs, each with their own piece of carefully and jealously guarded territory.

Both the wolves and the dogs are very similar and yet so greatly different from each other that they could never comprehend each other's world or how they think.

Now, throw in a great catastrophe that mostly wipes out the population of the wolves, so that the few scraggly yet strong survivors manage to get to the island of the dogs. In all physical appearances the few wolves that are left over look very much like the dogs. So the dogs, unknowingly, let the more savage and primal beasts into their own packs.

I'm sure anyone with half a brain could see what I'm getting at.

And anyone knows that the brood of a wild creature always contains a sense of the wild about them even if one of the parents was tame.

I told this theory to Gohan. It seemed to make him nervous. But then most things seem to make him nervous nowadays. Goten tends to agree with it, but you know Goten, he doesn't really care. So, this is how I am. And as are the other half Saiyan, whether they choose to agree or not. We are almost like a sub-species all on our own, different and yet alike, the very different species that were combined out of desperation to create... us.

Unique, we possess the attributes that make up the best and worse of both Saiyan and Human. And yet…

I realised that this can only be achieved with realisation. And it all depends on the individual. Forty years ago, I would have said despite Gohan being half Saiyan, he is and always will be human. I laugh at that naive thinking now. All of us half Saiyans, as in my opinion the Saiyan is the stronger half of me, have the potential for the great violent and wild nature that makes up our wilder, more primal half.

Are we tamed? Even dogs can go wild… if the dog wants it or is forced to. Some say that once a dog tastes blood, it can never be trusted again.

I wanted the wild. I needed that strength; the shadow in the mirror demanded it. It knew that something was coming; some great bad thing was heading into the face of this new democratic society.

I knew that it was all going to end. This seemingly peaceful life was going to end. Humans could not live like this forever. It was going to come sooner or later, so what did it matter if the inevitable got a little push to start it off? The strong will survive, and no doubt that meant us.

Death is the catalyst.

Hers was in particular. Amongst all my deep political scheming, it caught me unawares. It was like a cold slap… a jab with the reality blade.

It woke me up from my deep dreaming.

It was a spring morning; dew painted the grass like some lazy water god had pulled out his holy garden hose and sprinkled it overnight. Already, the small pink and white buds were beginning to unravel on the winter-stunted skeletons of hibernating bushes and trees. New bright green growth was sprouting through yellowed tough grasses. The shadows were still short, pulled in against their physical bodies by the chilly bite of weak sunlight. A soft breeze swept over soggy moulding leaves from last autumn, once brilliant oranges and golds now a slushy brown paste, home to many contented worms and earwigs. Amongst the old dead, rejuvenating back into bright youth come slender high-pitched hungry chirps of newborn ugly featherless fledglings. Bits of speckled eggshell still glued to their grey, naked bodies by birth membrane.

I thought about those ugly grey birdlings as I looked at my mother's… sleeping… body. Surrounded by the finest yellow silk sheets, they would bring no comfort for her dried-up, shadowed face. The fine, light blue hair was gathered about her face in a short bob, never to be brushed aside by a careless age spotted hand again.

My hands clenched about the brass handles of the breakfast tray I held. The one I had carried to her every morning since she had gone into bed rest. The warm smell of oat porridge was scented gently on its own rising moist breath. I think I tried to speak as I stared at her. To usher her from the deep valley of sleep every being falls to. But the valley she had descended to was one far deeper and darker than I could ever hope to call her back from.

Childishly, I gnawed on my bottom lip. I could feel the burning in my eyes and with my next breath the sob caught me by surprise. I was not one for dramatic outbursts of emotion. I did not drop the tray to clatter noisily to the ground, to spray the fine carpet with mush. I walked to her simple dresser and placed the tray there, simply, before swiftly kneeling to her side. I know I didn't need to check for the pulse; I could already smell the death on her slim frame. There was no life in her body. I could not sense the constant movement of blood that would usually circulate about the body of the living. Her blood had slumped, sluggishly into the lowest parts of her, leaving her face and extremities grey and parchment white.

Even thought I knew it, I still whispered, "Mother...?" My voice surprised me with its cracked tone. I wanted to reach out and touch her, gently shake her from her deep rest. But some primal distant fear, the fear those living have for the mysterious dead, stopped me from touching her. I stood suddenly, feeling a strange revolting heat roll though me… the alien sensation of sudden emotion. Usually kept in careful disciplined control, I felt myself cracking like porcelain. Pain, so sudden it was shocking to me, knifed though me like a villain running me through. Then, like a struggling survivor looking for help I stumbled to the phone and attempted to use it. I randomly punched a button and heard the distant dial tone.

"Hello, cme a smiling voice, Son Goku… my mother's best friend. I wanted to laugh brokenly. Of course she would have him on speed dial. I tried to form words. It was like my mind had been shattered and the large ceramic pieces were being sieved so that they jumbled together in chaotic confusion.

First came the logic. The Noun for him... THE NOUN.

"Goku?" replied a cracked alien voice. No way did it belong to the great Trunks Briefs. The noun of the smiling voice was Goku. Wasn't it????!!!

"Is that you?"

Yes… it was... the noun was Goku. Logic... come to me. I clenched my eyes shut. The situation must be told! I have to spell it out!

"She's gone… Goku." There... done… I had called for help. The great hero himself would surely answer for her death. I think I broke down then, the stinging in my eyes was burred out and flooded with alien warm salty tears. Every breath made a broken sound from my mouth that I wanted to hold back, but I couldn't! I couldn't stop it! With every breath, it got worse and the long silence continued on the other end.

Then suddenly, "It's okay, Trunks, I'll be right over." I think I heard him breath out before he mumbled some ending and then there was the disconnected tone. It kept telling me `beep' over and over again. After awhile I got sick of it repeating itself and I splintered it into dead fragments and twisted plastic.

I waited for a very long time; decades it was, I'm sure. I watched the flowers slowly unwind from their enclosed buds on the tree limbs out the window, the dew forming and evaporating over and over again.

I knew there were people rushing about me, a great blur and they passed. Sometimes hands were on my clothes, shaking me, slapping my face, screaming at me. Like bodiless spirits they swirled about me, and were as ineffective as a passing wind. I think the next time I blinked, I was staring in my tall mirror, dressed in a classy black suit. Black silk shirt, my fingers were just falling from the top button when I realised I was awake again. I stared at my alive, bright blue eyes and carefully combed lilac hair; it was done as though someone else had tended to it. Perhaps someone else had, I didn't care.

I noticed there were cue cards on my bed, a eulogy was written on them in smudged blue ink. The corners were dog-eared as though a thumb and sweaty hands had run through the speech over and over again.

I picked them up and deftly slipped them into my chest pocket where a white rose was pinned with a few green sprigs. I flicked the rose and fancied it should be yellow.

When I stood up before the others, I pulled those rough cards out of my pocket and like the director I was, eulogised my mother for all she was worth. There were no jokes, no happy moments to remember, I simply told them what they knew already. That in that white casket, white like the wedding dress she never wore, or fancied to wear as she often use to tell me as a quick after thought in conversation; Bulma Briefs lay. Dead. Old beyond the normal for a human. Her body would be given back to the earth like the stone it once was before Pyrrha threw it over her shoulder.

Most of the crowd was old. Many of her old friends were already in the place she had gone to in her sleep. Krillin, that short little guy who had been like an uncle when I was very young, he wasn't in the crowd. Neither was Yamcha. Mother had told me the story about her and Yamcha once. I think I hated him deeply since then. But it didn't really matter any more. Those humans of her youth were dead. Leaving behind their own families to care or not.

I think one of the weirdest of those left behind was Marron. The little girl Goten and me had grown up with, pulling her hair and sticking gum in it. Teasing her and stealing forbidden kisses when we were teens. To look on her now…an old woman. I think she hated Goten and me a little. She had a happy life though. A great huge family with many children who were now at mother's funeral with their children grown and grand children on knee. Android 18 sat behind them. Young and pretty as always, but her face was tight. The lines of grief pulled on her artificial bones and I knew she was like us. She and mother had become strong friends over the years. Those who knew her personally never called her Android 18. Mother had given her a good name many years ago, and it had stuck.

I didn't pay much attention to the rest of it.

I stood with the chill spring rain running down my face, ruining my silk shirt, staring at her mound of dirt. I knew that there was no one else standing with me, though Bra was under a nearby willow, a black umbrella up and shielding her as she waited for me. She suited the black clothing like she had once upon a time in teen years.

I felt like a coffee, so I turned my back on the dirt mound and ruined my shoes as I walked through the finely mowed muddy lawn back to Bra and the limousine.

We went to Starbucks.

So what if it had been fifty years, there would always be a Starbucks.

~*~

TBC…