Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Bloody Hands ❯ Interwoven ( Chapter 9 )

*Dear Constant Reader:
Due to the (minor) controversy that the last chapter (Gatti) caused, I've decided to explain it a little.

First of all, Gatti's actions and emotions are meant to seem extremely inhumane because he isn't human anymore. There's also a reason his anger is so much more barbaric and extreme than the other Dragonslayers', but if I tell you what that reason is now, I'll spoil the ending. His thoughts and actions aren't supposed to be justified, and there isn't supposed to be any logical basis behind anything he does (even though he may think his reasons are logical). For example, him saying Hitomi was the reason he was dead, and that Hitomi 'fucked' with his destiny. Those thoughts were meant to be irrational, and as much as I dislike Hitomi, I don't share Gat-kun's reasoning. I don't think that Hitomi tried to play God, I don't think that it was her fault the Dragonslayers died. I never claimed that the stealth cloaks were noble (though that can't be blamed on our Dragonslayer-babes. They were just following orders. They had no choice but to use the cloaks. Hey, it's the army), or that Hitomi's and Van's seeing through them was unfair. You have to keep in mind that Gatti was thinking all of that. And he's dead. He's all messed up.

And as for Hitomi being out of character, I think that's about as in-character as someone can get when there's a lion breathing on her face. If anyone thought Hitomi-chan would have jumped up and kicked that mean ol' lion's ass... well, I'm sorry but you're fooling yourself.

And no, it's not weak to cry over someone you love... I don't know what that has to do with anything, though.

Like I said, just try to keep in mind that Hitomi's murder was from Gatti's point of view and not mine. The horrible, irrational motives were all his. I'm just the writer.

________________________________________________________________ ________________________________

"This is not really-
I said this is not really
happening;
You bet your life it is."

--Tori Amos
__________________________________________________________________ ______________________________

Van looked up and faced Gatti, who was perched on the windowsill that Chesta used to occupy and watch the scenery outside. Though Gatti wasn't watching the scenery, perhaps wishing he could go outside and enjoy it again. No. To Van, it seemed Gatti's only regret about being dead was that he couldn't kill Van as a ghost. Gatti was sitting with his legs folded on the windowsill, elbows resting on his knees, chin in his palms.

After Gatti made no remarks, didn't get up and try to clout the raven haired king, Van became morbidly curious.

"What do you want?" he said shortly and coldly.

"Nothing," Gatti replied with the same stinging heartlessness.

Van looked around, and took a bite of his red apple. He decided that he ought to brace himself for something.

"Where are the others? Did you decide you weren't too afraid to take me on by yourself?" Van seethed.

Gatti laughed. Oh, how Van hated it when they laughed. Always laughing. Always laughing as if Van were some stupid animal for their personal entertainment. As if everything he said were utterly ridiculous. Silly Van, Silly Van.

"Dumb bastard," Gatti chuckled.

"Fuck you," Van replied, vaguely aware of how simple and barbaric their communication was.

Gatti just grinned.

Oh just wait, Van. Just you wait, we'll see... we'll see... just... you... wait.

Van realized the Dragonslayer was being smug. More so than usual.

"You ought not talk to Gatti like that," Wyndigo whispered, though he made no physical appearance in the room, "Heads will roll..."

Gatti threw his head back
(Gatti, please-)
and shook the room with his deep, rich laughter. Wyndigo snickered. The others stifled giggles, conspirators mocking the half-Draconian.

"Stop laughing!" Van shouted suddenly. They all burst into hysterics. Van's anger swelled up like a busted lip. He reared his arm back and hurled the apple in Gatti's direction. The boy with pale, ash blonde hair reached out like a snake striking an attacker and snatched the fruit out of mid-air, the apple making a hard smack against his vinyl gloves. He put it to his pale, chapped lips and sunk his blood-stained teeth into the skin. Gatti felt the wet juice inside of his numb mouth, but he tasted nothing. No matter. Van didn't know he couldn't taste it, and Gatti could almost trick himself into believing he really could taste the sweetness if he concentrated on his apple-memories hard enough. But he was not concentrating on the apple. He was concentrating on the wall. He was concentrating on writing the thick red letters with his mind. It was still hard to read, but he was working on it. The talent was one he enjoyed immensly, even if Van was no longer impressed by it.

Fucking Bastard son of a whore

"If you think that's going to scare me, you had better try harder," Van said flatly.

The Dragonslayers giggled again.

"What do you think boys?" Gatti asked the empty room, keeping his eyes on Van. "Think we can do better than that?"

"I thought it was pretty impressive, Gatti-kun," Roran said, amused.

"Don't think you could beat that," Guimel agreed.

A red symbol started to appear under the red letters. Sort of like a window with four panes, only some of the outsides of the picture were cut out so that it was like four blades of a fan, if they had been made using only straight lines.

Van did not understand the symbol, and neither did the other Dragonslayers. Gatti frowned at it, and got up. He walked over to his artwork, and attempted to smear away the symbol with his gloved hand.

"What is that, Gatti?" Guimel whispered so that Van could not hear.

"It's... it's... I don't know what it is. It's nothing," Gatti said quickly.

He knew perfectly well what it was. He'd seen it, and seeing it in Gaia, his own world
(... still not sure which world I belong in, Migel...)
scared him so much that he thought his heart would jump out of his mouth. He saw the skinny children, the white bodies piled on top of each other. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. Piled into huge craters of graves, set on fire. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. Pale skin. Skin that was nothing but thin film that hung on their bones.

"Gatti?"

"It's nothing! I must have screwed it up or something..."

Soldiers holding them under water tanks filled with water so cold it stung their skin like swords, holding them under to see how long they could stay, to test how long a person could withstand it, to see how long they could keep their soldiers in the freezing water when the time came. Medical experiments. Medical experiments....
(oh god help me! Oh please stop it! oh please oh GOD OH GOD OH GOD!!)
and the lives were expendable because they weren't meant to be on the Earth anyway. The dark man with the small mustache... he wanted... he wanted...
(to build a new world, one without this SCUM)
to get rid of all of them.

"... or something... Just a silly little mistake, all right?" Gatti wiped his mouth furiously, a habit of trying to get rid of the blood that was a permanent part of his chin, as fixed a pigment as the pale gray-blue that was once rich and peach-colored.

Tanks filled with clear liquid, tinted red, limbs drifting around. Arms and legs all chopped neatly off and stored in the clear glass tanks.

Gatti remembered reading it. Oh shit, why had he read those things?

They were stacked like cordwood, naked, without dignity. Nobody to close their eyes. They were stacked four feet high. Every twenty-four hours a cart came. People were simply grabbed by the hand and foot and tossed on there. We knew they were taken to the crematory to be incinerated, but we still had no knowledge of the gas chambers and that people were killed or gassed in such numbers as they were

"Gatti, are you sure it's nothing?"

"Shut up!"

You could hear more and more cries for food.

cyanide poison gas canisters for use in the gas chambers (showers)

Burning pits. "Burning pits" used mainly in the summer of 1944, when the extermination was going at such a rate that the furnaces couldn't handle the number of corpses.

Gatti wiped his chin again.

"Look, he's getting up," Roran breathed. Gatti snapped his head over his shoulder and watched Van carefully. The dark boy pushed open the bathroom door. Gatti grinned. The others were perfectly still.

(tanks filled with clear liquid, tinted red, limbs drifting around arms and legs all chopped neatly off and stored in the clear glass tanks)

Van pushed back his hair with a sigh. He looked down at the tiled bathroom floor and realized that the Dragonslayers were silent. He narrowed his eyes and looked up a little. That's when he caught site of the bathtub.

(Arms and legs all chopped neatly off and stored in the clear glass tanks)

It was filled to the rim with thick red blood. So full that some of it was swishing over the white porcelain. And something was swashing around inside, lolling over and over in the crimson liquid.

(all chopped neatly off and stored in the clear glass tanks)

Hitomi's severed head looked up at him, green eyes wide, mouth gaping in an awful grimace, hair soaked in the red. In the red, red blood. In the red, red, red, red blood,

(chopped neatly off and stored in the clear glass tanks)

staring up in a silent, interrupted scream.

Van opened his mouth and made desperate attempts to find oxygen. Sucking, sucking, sucking. Nothing.

"Huuuhhaa....," he gasped. "Huh...Huuuaah...."

Roaring laughter from far away, like the sound of the ocean in a sea shell. Softly roaring, roaring softly...

"huuu... Hit...Hit..."

Air. Air. Air.

This is not really happening.

(you bet your life it is.)

Hitomi Hitomi Hitomi Hitomi they couldn't have done this this is just one of their fucking visions those visions close my eyes it'll be gone don't be afraid of one of their fucking visions close your eyes it'll be gone

Still roaring... roaring... boyish voices like sea swells, swelling swells, rising, rising.

Gatti backed up and let the wall support his weight, staring into the bathroom where Van holding his hands behind himself, clenching the sink with both hands, white knuckles, sucking desperately for air. Desperately for air.

Desperate. For. Air.

(oh STOP!! OH PLEASE SWEET GOD STOP!! OH GOD!!!)

Holding them under to see how long a person could withstand...

see how long a person could withstand...

(OOH GOD!!!!!!!)

Gatti could suddenly taste the bitter tank water in his own mouth, could feel the freezing cold closing in on his chest. He could feel the poison cyanide sinking into his blood stream. Drowning and being poisoned and drowning and feeling the freezing water, the cyanide closing in, the water filled up his lungs, so fast, so fast, his head was already hurting because he was so hungry, starving, he could barely hold himself up right. Help me, help me help mehelpmehelpme

Deliver me, deliver me, deliver me

(So that's what it's like out there, eh? That's the kind of shit they do to each other on the Mystic Moon?)

(You didn't see the rest, Gatti...)

(Look, I don't need to see the rest. That was the worst, the most horrible, that's... oh fuck I can't even... oh fuck...)

Finally, Van realized that no matter how many times he closed his eyes, the scene did not go away. It was there. All there, staring up at him. Yes, Van, it's really happening this time. Yes, Van, this is really happening.

Gatti made tight fists, digging gloved fingers into gloved palms, remembering those awful, awful things. Those things so horrible that what he did to Van seemed merciful. Even what Van did to him and his friends had seemed merciful compared to this. The things they did to millions of people on the Mystic Moon. Oh sweet gods, the things that went on... the place really was cursed. No shitting, man. The place was a curse in itself.

(Even you have to admit that this is a hell of a lot worse than what Van did to us...)

(Even animals don't do this. Even animals don't just kill without reason like this. I mean, yeah, there's murder on Gaia... but this? My god, Migel, this... my chest hurts. It's breaking my heart. Shit. I think I'm going to fucking cry.)

(How far are you going to go, Gatti? How far are you going to take this? That far? As far as that man from the Mystic Moon did?)

(No.)

(Gatti, where are you going to stop?)

Was it too late? Gatti wondered. Had he already taken things too far with Hitomi?

He saw the limbs floating in the tanks again, saw the soldiers in green-gray uniforms holding the weak, pale-skinned bodies under the ice-cold, stinging water. He saw the cyanide squirting out of the shower heads. Bodies piling up. Pale, naked, limp, skinny flesh all jumbled up. Hundreds. Thousands.

"Gatti, I know what you're thinking about," Mercutio said quietly. Van was screaming now. No, wailing. Sobbing. Sounding much worse than a man being crunched under the foot of a Guymelef.

"I haven't gone too far yet," Gatti whispered.

"Stop. Now."

Gatti shook his head firmly.

"For them. For the people on the Mystic Moon. For the bodies. For those pale bodies-"

"That is not your responsibility. Gatti, stop it."

Gatti looked up at Mercutio, blue-green eyes confused. The boy with ash-blonde hair wasn't speaking, so Mercutio continued.

"We've had our fun. It's not fun anymore, Gatti."

He took Gatti's shoulders gently and pulled him close. Van's wailing pierced through the room like needles on their skin. Mercutio covered Gatti's right ear with one hand, as someone might try to prevent a child from hearing profanity. He leaned closer to Gatti's other ear, so that his lips almost touched it.

"Gatti, let's go home."

Gatti stared up at the ceiling,

("Burning pits" were used mainly in the summer of 1944, when the extermination was going at such a rate that the furnaces couldn't handle the number of corpses)

letting his mind wander through itself. Thorough. Making thorough rounds.

Gatti, let's go home
Let's go home
Go home
Home

Thorough rounds.

Burning pits used in the summer of '44. Drowning. Shooting.
(??shooting??)
Mass graves. Burning pits. Oh. Oh gods...

(Even animals don't do this... My god, Migel, this... my chest hurts. It's breaking my heart. Shit. I think I'm going to fucking cry.)

Memories dripped down, rushed in, opened their mouths and screamed. The world
(?worlds?)
was swirling around him in a huge whirlpool. He couldn't tell the difference between what was in his mind
(burning pits murder mass graves murder)
and what was real.

"Why did they do it, Mercutio? Why..."

"Shh... let's just go now, all right? It's not fun anymore. Look what you've seen. You don't want to see any more of that shit, do you? You stop before you get in any deeper, all right? It's not fun anymore. It's not fun anymore..."

"No!" Gatti slammed his closed fists against Mercutio's chest. The boy with chestnut hair stumbled backwards. Gatti could see that he had left the in-between. His body was bright and his face was clean. Even the face paint was gone. The armor was gone and replaced with the light, baggy clothes that swirled around as if there were a light breeze. He was as handsome, if not more so, as he had always been. Light brown bangs hanging carelessly over his emerald eyes, thick ebony lashes enhancing his gaze. Cheekbones high. Neck slender. Face caramel-colored. Blood gone.

"Please, Gatti. Please don't go any farther...."

"I'M GOING AS FAR AS I CAN!!"

"It's not fun anymore!"

"I DON'T CARE! I don't care about the fun anymore! I want him to suffer!!!"

Mercutio sighed, and watched Gatti a moment longer. Watched his vinyl gloves clench and unclench wildly, squeaking and stretching. Gatti glared harshly, dull gray eyes determined and scared. Those stupid books... why had Gatti read them? Now he couldn't stop it. The flashbacks would keep coming, driving him deeper into... into whatever he was getting himself into.

This is deep shit you're fucking with

And Mercutio couldn't save him.

But he could stay. He could stay with Gatti and the others. He could stay and try to make them see.

"Why don't you leave?" Gatti said coldly, half jealous. ""Why don't you leave? You've passed on now."

Mercutio shook his head, animal teeth jingling around his face.

"I'm staying with you."