Fan Fiction / Card Captor Sakura Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Yamato Gun IV ❯ Imaginary ( Chapter 6 )

"In my field of paper flowers and candy clouds of lullaby I lie
inside myself for hours and watch my purple sky fly over me..."

"Mmmnnmgn..."

I slowly wake up. What happened? I can't remember anything past that bowl at midnight, and waking up at 4:20. Whatever happened, I don't want to face the world right now, and roll over my stomach, reaching for the blanket to pull over my head. No blanket, and unexpectedly I hit grass. I open my eyes and see that I'm lying on a field of light blue grass. What the... how did I get here? I ask myself. Where is here, anyway?

I sit up. I'm in my pajamas, and strangely there's blood all over them. Did I cut myself in my sleep by accident? How?

I stand up, and notice my pajama bottom feels looser than usual. The drawstring's missing. That's odd. It was there when I fell asleep, I think. I hold up the bottoms with one hand as I start to walk, taking in the beautiful, if abstract, scenery. Origami flowers stand all around the edge of a field, almost like they're in the boundaries of a video game as a pre- rendered background, and the whispy clouds look almost edible. There's no sun, but it isn't dark. The sky seems to be backlit and is a beautiful lavender-purple in color.

I look around. Besides one tree and myself, the field is empty. Whoever thought up the color scheme for this place must have been very creative, stoned out of their mind, or both. The tree is a creamy, almost fleshlike beige, with reddish-brown leaves. I walk over to it.

There's two roots coming out of the tree right at its base, looking almost like a pair of legs. The left, if it was a leg, would be bent at the knee. The other is running just above the ground. A branch far too low for a normal tree seems like it's resting on the left root, and there's another one that is running almost parallel to the trunk. That looks comfortable. I think as I sit down between the two roots and lean back.

"Hello, Ami." A familiar voice says, just behind my right ear.

Under normal circumstances, I would be scared out of my wits, but this hardly qualifies as normal, so I'm not. I instead turn my head casually, and see that I'm now leaning against Makoto, in the pine green dress she wore when we took her to the sickbay, and she's leaning against a normally coloured tree. "Mako?" I say.

"I'm here, Ami."

"But... the tree..." I start confusedly.

"My last name is Kino, you know."

I laugh at that. "That was funny."

We both stare out into space for a while. "What is this place?"

"I went here when I first fell asleep from the THC. I couldn't remember what brought me here at first, but later I did. This place is like a last retreat, the limbo between Angels and Insects, Heaven and Hell. As soon as we die or get better, we leave. At least, that's my interpretation of it."

"So I'm dying?"

"It would seem so."

Another long pause. "Do you have a theory as to why we're not in...I don't know, angel robes or something? Why we're still in our clothing?"

"I think it's like the Matrix. We have a residual image of what we looked like before we came here, and that is what we are here."

"Then this is inside our minds."

"Maybe. Or it's another dimension. Or it is the Matrix."

Another long pause. A bird with rainbow wings flies by. "Do you still feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"The THC."

"No."

I nod distantly, staring off into space. "Me neither."

"You neither?" She repeats. "That's something I wouldn't expect you to say."

I turn to look at her. "I replicated a bowl's worth of pot to help me sleep. Worked for a while, but I ended up waking up because of a nightmare anyway. I guess something happened to me between then and now that brought me here."

"I hope Hyperion II's not under attack. To see something so large in so much pain..."

"so much unnecessary pain..." I echo distantly, still trying to figure out what's going on.

Another long pause. A light breeze blows around the blades of grass around us. "Have you left here since you first arrived?" I ask.

"I don't remember it if I did. I just remember waking in the same place I started in, but don't remember ever falling asleep. I think I'm going in and out of a coma."

"That must be weird..."

"It was like I was back in corporeal reality, drifting in and out of consciousness. But instead of more unconscious than conscious I'm more awake than asleep, more here than there."

"I wonder if you ever mumbled anything in one of your stints in near- awakeness."

Another long pause. The clouds above us shift and change shape. "I might have called for you once, before I started coming here. I remember the first time I half-woke up, I expected you to be there. I was only awake for five seconds or so, but I remember clearly saying 'Ami...', even if I didn't say it clearly."

Another long pause before, suddenly, I feel like I've been moved. "Do you feel that, Mako?"

"Do I feel what?"

"The entire universe seems to have... I don't know, shifted."

"Oh. I felt that before, just before I woke up again. I think it signals when you're going to leave here."

"But I don't want to leave. I want to stay here."

"Some things you can't control. But you'll be back."

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't know how, but I just know."

The feeling gets stronger. Small amounts of pain start to seep into my body from some unknown injury. My hands and wrists, specifically.

I need to fight it. If I can fight it I'll be able to stay here and be with Mako.

Stronger. I have to fight it. Pain. My wrists ache and sting.

Stronger. I can't fight it. More pain. I curl into a ball. Much like my clone. I muse.

It seems to be sucking me into a vortex. Cream and auburn and green and sky blue and purple and paper white, all blurring. Then a vast expanse of infinite nothing.

Then here.

Hospital bed. On Hyperion. Pain. Can't think. Arms. Arms hurt. Wrists. Blood.

Raynor is there. "Hi." He says.

"Hi." I manage.

"Do you remember what you did?"

"Wrists. Wrists hurt."

"That's putting it mildly. You slit them clean open. Major damage. What the hell did you do that for, Ami?"

"Confusion."

"What? ...You were confused?"

"No... Confusion... in me."

Raynor paused. "Confusion possessed you?"

I attempt a nod, but it doesn't really work. "Yes."

"So it kept messing with you, and you started to feel guilty about something, and suddenly you're here-"

"No... Not right away."

Raynor pauses. "Not what right away?"

"Not... not here right away. Field."

"What field? What are you talking about?"

"Blue field. Purple sky. Paper flowers. Mako is there."

"...This is some near-death experience?"

"Hoped you'd know."

Still a fog around my brain. Not the best time. Makes me wonder why anti-THC hasn't been invented. "I guess it is, I mean Makoto's not any different now. You are, though. How did you get so much THC in your system? Something like 200ng?"

"Replicated some. Smoked... smoked a bowl. Needed something to help me sleep."

"Oh."

"Mako looked like she was having fun. Decided to join her."

"More ways than one. She did look like she was having fun, didn't she? Well, you're not completely out of the woods yet, but you should be able to pull through..." Raynor's voice is fading.

Feels like... being brought back. I close my eyes.

Dark again.

¯¯¯---

I'm being moved, I can feel it.

Grass under me. I open them again, and I'm back in the field.

I walk over to the tree again and give it a big hug. "Welcome back," it says as Makoto replaces it again. I can't tell exactly when or how she changes, but one second it's the tree and the next her.

"I missed you."

"So did I. You were only gone for three minutes, though."

"Time slowed down for me. I was still high when I went back."

"Still? You must have gone all-out with what you smoked."

"I did."

"That explains it, then."

A long pause. "How did you know?" I ask.

"Know what?"

"That I'd be back?"

"I could feel it."

Another long pause. "Do you know why you could?"

"Before you got here, I must have spent years thinking about that question, and I don't have a satisfactory concrete answer. You and I share a link, that's the best answer I have."

"A link?"

"A spiritual bond, something that stretches out through the aether and connects us together, no matter where we are. I think it's that bond that called me back as a spirit to help you."

"That wasn't just a hallucination?"

"No, I was there. There's a reason your pajamas are loose, you know."

"Why, then? What happened to the drawstring?"

"I got to you too late to stop you from slitting your wrists; however, I thought if I could get some rope to make two tourniquets it might be enough to save you."

Another long pause. "How did you cut it?"

"I don't know. It was like I said 'let this rope be cut', and lo it was cut."

"Weird."

A long pause. "It's not all that weird."

"Why not?"

"Something being spontaneously cut isn't as weird as a ghost being the one to spontaneously cut it."

I nod in reply. "I wonder what the purpose of this link is."

"Maybe each of us has some link with one other. A grand scheme pairing, almost. Everyone has their mate, their perfect match."

"It'd be hard to find it in six billion people."

"Maybe why the divorce rate is over half."

"Maybe."

And so for infinity we stand, me and my perfect match, holding each other in our arms and looking out in opposite directions along the horizon. Here I feel safe. Here I am home.

I know this won't last forever. But now is all I need.

Speak of the devil... "I'm moving again."

"Goodbye. I'll be here for you when you come back."

Blurring again. Then pain. Then back.

Raynor's still there. "Hi." He says.

"Mmm." I manage.

"Did you go back?"

"Yes."

"What was it like for you?"

"Like I was myself. Normal. Only still in... in pajamas... covered in blood... drawstring missing."

"Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Did you change your mind halfway through?"

"No... Mako... Mako saved me."

Raynor looks confused. "Saved you?"

I attempt a nod, but Raynor doesn't see it. "Yes."

"How?"

"Came to me as a spirit. Cut the drawstring somehow, then made tourniquets."

"As a ghost." He adds skeptically.

"Yes. She explained when... when I was back." I yawn. Right now talking is tiring.

"How did she get from her bed on the third deck to your room on the fifth?"

"Walked? Went through the ground?" I attempt a shrug. Didn't work. "Didn't say. When... if... I go back... I'll ask."

Raynor nods thoughtfully. "I'll let you rest now." He says, getting up.

"Thank you..." I say. But I don't feel sleepy. Still high... just not sleepy. I look at the clock. 6:36. I get myself comfortable and enjoy the feeling. Eventually I burn out and fall asleep.