Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Cult Characteristic ❯ Someone Else But Me: Sidefic ( Chapter 26 )

Title: Someone other than me (Side-fic to Cult Characteristic)

Author: Lethanon

Archive: it's not yet.

Warnings: Angst, duo-torture…occult…the usual :-P

Notes: lyrics are from Zenith's `Someone Else But me"

I slammed the door. I don't mean that for a brief moment in time I lost my temper and decided to take it out on a poor inanimate object. I mean I was so flaming pissed I made sure the door wouldn't be opening until someone reattached it to the hinges and that I myself was so pissed there would be no abating for some time. I slammed the door, charged through the car park, straight past the damn car to the fence. One leap and I was gone.

Irrecoverably so.

Now one might ask themselves why I didn't just get in the damn car, and believe me I've asked myself that so many times there's a little birdie permanently lodged in my head who knows the litany by heart. There is, unfortunately, one simple, stupid answer. It wasn't my car; it was Heero's. Heero had the keys, and Heero was still sitting at the table in the restaurant, no doubt trying to explain why his date had just torn through the flash little joint like a hurricane to some pimpled teenage waiter more worried about losing his job than what the ex-perfect soldier might actually do to him. A hint for the not so wise; Heero was never perfect, he just liked people to think he was.

My point? I didn't get in the car. If only I had waited, sorted it out with Heero or just swallowed my pride and let it drop! But I am known for nothing if not my temper and there will always by if only. At least, I used to think there always would be. Now I wonder if I will ever have the chance to regret anything more; whether what has passed is all I shall ever have. I regress. I leapt.

I found myself, after my leap to nowhere, in an alley. Nondescript, dark but not impossible to see in, a few scattered garbage bins and a cardboard box. Nothing out of the norm. At least, for me…In the end one has to wonder if that wasn't in fact my downfall. Me, myself, I. If only I had exercised an ounce of self control at some point. It's always if only. I believe I have enough regrets for a thousand life times. I'll be hard pressed to get half of one.

Had I been in my right frame of mind, I might have noticed I was not alone, but then there is every chance I would not have. Those doing the following were, after all, of my kind, born and bred in the same conditions, trained by the same harsh reality to believe the same dark truths. That there is evil in this world and we are a part of it. Perhaps the whole of it.

They are laughing at me, I can hear them…but I couldn't hear them then.

I stormed through that alley like I owned it. It was never, at any point, mine. Some small, deranged part of my mind was just dumb enough to think it did, and there was nothing willing to prove me wrong, or maybe just nothing with the time. Time to waste. But on what?

I was used to those back alleys. I knew them by heart, every nook and cranny and half the names of the people who lived in them. I wish I could say that was why I didn't call someone, ask them to come get me, tell them what had happened. The sad truth is some part of me believed Heero; believed the harsh words we exchanged and I needed to prove, if only to myself, that I wasn't wrong. And that I wasn't worthless. So I walked, and I let every dark souled freak see me in their territory. I was there for the taking, and taken I would be.

When you grow up as I did you learn quickly that the best place to hide is in the open where everyone can see you. In those obvious places where no one thinks to look, because no one in their right mind would hide? That's the place. It should have come as no surprise then, exactly how I came to be where I am, but I was a fool to the very end, and still am.

I caught on to the fact I was being followed about halfway home. I took a few extra turns, a few well thought out aversions and knew in the very core of my being I had lost them. And I had; the decoy had been more than happy to let me get away. To let me think it had been all my doing. To lull me into that fake sense of security humans find so alluring. I was so very there.

So when I actually arrived home and slammed my front door only slightly less hard than I had the restaurant door, checking to see that it at least stayed on its hinges, I tossed my boots across the room, tanked the phone cord free of the wall and marched to the refrigerator, not bothering to lock the door. Basically, I did their job for them. Easy access, communications disabled, and still so flaming pissed I would not be thinking logically. I can't say I'm surprised things turned out the way they did.

They used the front door. I have no idea, to this very day, how many there were.

Quiet, but not silent. The first rule of the streets? Not even the dead are silent. Every whispered non-sound it still audible and you will hear them, or you'll join them; become a whisper in time only memories can hear. So, on some level I heard them. It was just that I was making so much noise myself, with the stereo blaring out old aussie rock and the television turned up loud enough to hear it over the stereo, that those little whispers were mighty quiet. Somewhat like the grave, which is, I gather, the effect they're after.

The first glimpse I caught of them was somewhat ignored, I will profess. I was watching the exorcist (believe me there is nothing like a good exorcism to cool off your anger) and a few more dark shadows in the television screen was nothing unexpected. Everyone sees things while watching this in the dark. It's just one of those things.

The first inkling I had that they were not, in fact, a part of the movie was the appearance of a scythe, but can anyone really blame me for thinking I was just hallucinating? I would bet a million dollars Heero, who I repeat is not perfect, Yuy hallucinates about his damn beam cannon every second day. It's just too tempting not to, you understand.

So the third and final warning I had was when the shadows moved off the television screen and fell about me in a wave of black cloth and cheap steel. I do not think I have ever moved that quickly in my life, and I put it down the adrenalin left from my rather exclusive temper tantrum, which I was still not really `over'. I lunged for the television. Poor thing just didn't know what was coming. It landed on some guy's chest. Who? I have no idea. There was a hood over his face. Suffice to say he was large, and not as fast as me. In the end that was all it came down to.

The second guy swung the scythe, but I know how it moves like I know my own feet. I know the shadow it makes as it cuts air and how in the right light the shadow moves first, so I followed, stayed ahead for that split second that is enough to live, to keep going. I was completely unaware of the fact I was being tested. They were trying to prove something. Had I but known I might have given in then and there and just died, joined the whispers that whisper to me and accepted destiny.

Since when have I accepted anything? I grabbed the stereo next, slamming it over one of the shorter one's heads. He went down in a slither of cloth, whispering over skin….there are so many whispers within this…had I only listened…

The cd must have been scratched because it kept jumping back over the same line, and at any other time I might have joked it was a message from god.

We walk in sanctuaries of a past that we deny….

I grabbed the lamp, spun on one heel, lifted my weight with the other, dove…

And we wander through the sanctified halls, wondering why we should comply…

One swing of the lamp had another on the floor but there were more, and looking behind the one dropping a scythe into my lap I could see them, still coming, flocking through my kitchen door, and forgive me if the only sarcastic little, terrified thought in my overloading brain as looked on this murder of crows was `nevermore'.

But I don't know no alchemy, no chemistry can set me free…

Every cornered animal tries to run. It's human nature. I threw myself at them as if the fires of hell were on my heels, every whispered flame in my head blazing with renewed life, the damn cd still playing that same verse. I had nowhere to run, no escape, and I knew it, but I still tried. I am not submissive.

In the end it was the simplest of things that brought me down. I lunged too quickly past one man and his knee caught my ribs, at the same time as another I had thought fallen, or just wanted to believe was fallen, grabbed hold of my braid and yanked my head back, plastering a knife to my neck. I felt ribs crack even as my arm was hauled behind my back by unfamiliar hands and the shoulder slipped out a mere second before that bone snapped. They were laughing, and I recognize their laughter. Now. I've heard it before.

And lost in this illusion I know I wanna be, someone other than me…

The cd skips again, back to the beginning of the verse, playing the same words over and over as they swing a scythe at my shins and I hear the crack of bone, feel the rush of blood pool over my feet, drip on my toes. I don't feel the pain, because I'm already leaving, fleeing…cowering.

The thing that shocks me the most? I can only think of one thing now, and its not exorcisms, or anger, or ravens or murder. It's just Heero, and the fact he was right. We're not perfect, we're not always right, we're just us, and that should be enough. We should settle for that. I should have settled for that. Then I would be there, and not here…

I catch a glimpse of them cleaning up my blood, of setting the room to rights. It's hard to tell anything took place and I wonder if anyone will play the cd and know…it keeps repeating…I'm lost in this illusion…I want to scream, but I can't find my voice.

"Heero…" It's the only thing I can think to say, and all I can manage is a whisper. Is this death? Is this hell? What is this?

They're collecting their dead, hauling them over worn shoulders like potato sacks, as if they mean nothing, and they probably do. We're all being pushed into the back of a van. Quiet, but not silent, black and moving quickly through equally quiet black streets. I could yell, scream for help, but I can't find my voice and I know that even if I did no one would hear me. This isn't space, but it is a space, and the music is still playing somewhere even if you can't hear it. Only memories can hear me now, and they're not the right memories.

Heero…they should have been the right ones. It's my fault they're not.

The van stops, there are voices but I can't make out what they're saying. A swirl of black cloth, a shine of a torch in the darkness, and then there is the heat of fire, harsher than candles, but not enough to burn me. We're moving, I'm being carried again. Someone is forcing something between my teeth. It's a tablet of some kind. I hate drugs, but I want this. I want oblivion. I want forever, with Heero and I know I am not going to get it.

The room is brighter, cooler, I can feel an updraft coming from somewhere. I blink open weary eyes and find myself face to face with…something. Swirling, black darkness. A pit. And I'm falling into it.

I'm lost in this illusion, I know I wanna be…

Falling, it's coming closer, roaring in my ears. Heero…

Someone other than me.

I hit the water, feel more ribs break, my arm break again, the other arm fracture, bones splinter. It hurts being here. I want to leave, but there's not escape and I'm sinking too quickly. I hit the bottom. It's hard, cold metal. So cold. I try to push up, but my legs won't work, so I flail broken limbs like a broken newborn toy and somehow, miraculously, I find the surface. And there is cheering, dark and sinister. And there is that laughter. I've heard it before.

I just float there, staring at the ceiling, waiting, watching. For what I do not know. They came, they went, they came again. And then it happened. They dropped something in. Something that gurgled and screamed as it came down. Something dying, and before it hit the surface, something dead.

I held a shaking hand before my eyes in the soft firelight and realized it was not the blaze that tinted the water red. I am swimming in blood, my own mixing with theirs as I slowly die here. But I don't want to die…

So I salvage his clothes and use them to bind my wounds. I do Heero's delightful trick, or at least attempt to, and put my bones in a generally straight position. I test the bottom of the pit for a way out and find it slopes. I can hide in a corner, huddle on the edge, and the offal will only reach my waist. There is a grate here. It splits two ways. I can hear sounds from them both….one whispers, one screams. Don't want to know. I've heard these sounds before. But they've never owned me…

Heero…

Time does not exist here. It simply passes. Segues. The blood drains, fills up again. The dead fall, the bodies rot, fall apart, slip through the grate in rotted messes. Chants cipher from above, metalwork echo's from below. They're building a Gundam. For death to pilot. Is that who I am now?

Heero…

A body falls. It doesn't scream, but it whispers…whispers to me.

"Shinigami." And I got to it. The body lives. Little green eyes watch my from under a head of blood stained curls. She's alive. They left her alive. I drag her to my grate and check her little body for wounds. There's nothing serious. My brain starts ticking. She's a whisper. I can use her. But she's just a little girl! No, she's a whisper. In a child's body….NO! She's just a whisper. I will use her. And one day maybe we'll both live again.

I've heard this sound before…it's called hope. But I'm writing this for the hundredth time in the blood of hundreds on Gundanium walls, knowing I might die tonight and hoping someone might read it, write it down, pass it on. Knowing no one will. Yet I still write, and the squeak of my bloody fingers on the cold Gundanium walls is a sound I've heard before. Whispers. Laughs. Squeaks. Squeals. The slam of a door…If only.

I'm lost in the illusion, Heero…and I want to be someone other than me.

There are whispers coming from above, voices I've heard before, but I can't believe. Then there is the sound of the ladder…there is a bright light, too bright! People in front of me. Living beings. Alive. Not shadows reflected in a television screen…

Heero….

Heero!

Owari.