Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Clear Vision ❯ Chapter Eighth ( Chapter 8 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: KatsuyaKaiba 
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Angst | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 01.08.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 276 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Angst | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 01.08.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 276 | Status: Work In Progress
Clear Vision
A Seto/Joey fanfic by subaruxkamui4ever
AN: I herald the triumphant return of Me. I had an affair with The Urgency of Life, but it was just a fling, and I am here to stay. It’s time to get this show on the road, and shake it up some while I’m at it. Something has to happen soon to one of them. Fortunately, the story has shown me the light. I noticed, while reading this story, that to you readers I most likely sound either A) like I am bi-polar or possibly passive aggressive, or B) like I have that multiple personality thingy. I have these authors notes directly above the chapters and they’re always so overjoyed with happiness and life, like the shiny shiny sun. And the next thing you know, all you read is, “and so they made each other cry tears of blood and pain every second of every day, and they were in love and so very sad about it for no real reason. So they killed themselves in a river of suffering and cut themselves over and over until they had no blood left to bleed. And still they loved each other and never escaped from their horrific and severely overly-stressed and dramatized pain and cried and screamed until the end of all time.” And then the ending author’s note is like wasn’t that so romantic! I am so happy now I smile for now and always! It’s really overwhelming. Please don’t think I am crazy. I’d prefer if you all didn’t realize that yet. It’s Story Time.
(I’m crying tears of laughter......It’s like “It’s Hammer Time!” HA! Ha ha......oh God, Story Time...ow)
I found myself alone and lost with no idea of what I was allowed to do in this new environment, or even if I was supposed to be doing anything at all. Seto had disappeared just after choking down a small percentage of my breakfast, bearing a dissatisfied grimace that accompanied each and every bite. It was just his way of dealing with the somehow horrific idea that I had imposed this awkward position upon him, and now he had to sacrifice his dignity and reduce himself to my menial and third-rate pancakes. I thought they turned out rather well, myself. At least he forced some food down his throat, because in all honesty, I really did not want to make our situation more tense and uncomfortable than it already was. There was a small and simple something that was collecting in the invisible place that stood between us, the barrier that had been built by the two of us together. Every fight, every harsh insult and degrading judgement that we passed across at the other, I suppose in time we both accepted the returned hatred without even thinking, blocking each other from feeling anything else between us from then on. So then, what could I do now?
The unknown feeling that had appeared in that repelling barrier, it felt like....a beginning. A fresh and clean something new. And it was very new, I hadn’t been aware of it until that day, until the moment I ran into Seto, literally ran into him and knocked him over. As soon as the contact was over, a familiarly soft spoken and nervous whispering had begun to echo in the very furthest and pushed back places in my mind. Silent at first, but after awhile, the feeling of not being alone crept so slowly into my awareness, and I still left it untouched. But now that I was alone at last, and left to my own devices, the whispering lifted it’s level just slightly, still sounding afraid but becoming desperate, and I picked up on it and realized that I recognized this whisper, this voice from....someplace....but I couldn’t remember a single thing more.
Immediately tensing with interest, I sat up stiffly from my slumped and lazy position on the couch. I had finally been able to locate the room with the largest and most exciting television, which I felt was the first real success of my morning, and celebrated the moment with a short lived and triumphant dance of victory. Now more serious than ever, I came up off the cushions I had been drifting my frame across, and directed all of my attention to the newly discovered and vaguely familiar sensations I had noticed within. Clicking the power off of the television, I shut my eyes and gave in to the silence that surrounded me, reaching out to the feeling lightly, softly, never trying to grab it or force it out. It would leave, I just knew it, and I couldn’t take that risk. I hadn’t been aware that it was an actual voice that I felt, but after three or four minutes of complete silence and gracefully slow thought, it was very obvious that the familiarity was striking within me two separate chords, and I didn’t move in my mind so as not to startle myself out of the sleep-like state, but considered the two carefully. The first realization had been that the way the whispered voice spoke felt like a style that I knew extremely well. I couldn’t understand what the words were saying, sounds and vibrations I didn’t know at all came too slowly, and too low to hear correctly. Something about the sentence structure and the way the communication was directed, it was just like someone I used to know, so long ago, they had spoken just like this. I just couldn’t place exactly who it was.
‘So close....on the tip of my tongue..’I thought, becoming curiously intrigued. But then, at that moment, when the quietly spoken words came forth just a little stronger, and I could almost make out what the words meant, I heard the sound of the voice, and grew still with a contained and stifled shock. I knew that voice. I would recognize it anywhere. Ridiculous that I hadn’t seen it at once, how could I forget? It was....It was obviously.....Of course I remembered! Of course... I can’t have forgotten......
I had forgotten. Completely and entirely, and I wouldn’t accept it at first. I denied the blatant truth, instead listening with a frustration that grew with every word uttered by that person who was.....Ooh! I wanted to scream, it was impossible! I just knew that it was so important that I knew this, that I remembered, but I couldn’t, and I felt the surrender at last as my futile efforts caved in, and I fell back into silence of mind, opting to listen and at least try to make out a word or two. I had been so loud in my own thoughts it had been deafening, and drowned out the hesitant whispering for a few minutes, but in my retreat it slowly came forward once again. It was singing, in a sense. The words that meant absolutely nothing were so nearly silent that they were motionless in the air, and they sought me as I sought them, carried across the empty expanse of my mind like wisps of smoke caught in the breeze of my inquiry. I met with the voiced thoughts within moments, and the curling pieces of wind-wrought clouds were each an individual word or thought form, and they drew closer until they touched me directly, surrounding me with a hazy fog of images and gestures, a far off feeling that suddenly felt very real. Each separate word was silent inside it’s new visible form, and sadly drifted circles around me, trying to communicate somehow, needing to say something that was so important, right in that moment. Feeling the lonely sadness from the words at my face, feeling their frozen and wispy touch on my lips that nearly wasn’t there, I could somehow taste them, and it tasted like how only pure thought could taste, the sweetest and most sinful sugar, the soft and simple joy of existence, and I opened myself to it fully, mentally and physically inviting them inside. The hazy smoke shifted into a union and became a single collected cloud, and waited just before my face. Mentally imagining it to make it real, I opened my mouth and breathed it in, all of it. Every word the voice had spoken, every feeling it sent out, all that I couldn’t remember or grasp had all been contained in that sad and drifting fog that I took inside me, all of it in at once.
The intake had allowed what was once a simple thought in the back of my mind the opportunity to use me as a means to communicate. Having no energy or power of it’s own, by inviting it into my deepest room, I had taken it to a place where there was no sound, or words, just pure thought in images and intent, surrounded by empty nothing in the dark. Here, all reverted into it’s real form, taking on the picture of what it was, and not able to lie or mislead. As soon as I took the smoke into me with the deepest breath, it felt as though it was in my lungs and slowly spreading outward at once. It scorched the back of my throat immediately, and filled my lungs with the intensity and heat of a raging fire, burning so close that I could breath in the very flames themselves. The pain was instantly unbearable, and I was so shocked that I couldn’t think or speak, I couldn’t open my eyes in the physical world, and remained trapped as I had been, inside my mind that had been so quiet a mere second ago. The fire that had sparked on contact and spread instantly was nearly finished already, consuming me nearly completely in moments, but even after I felt that it had finally burned away every inch, I found that I was still aware and alive within myself. It was an expression of the voice’s thought.
This was by far the strangest thing I had ever experienced, and I was terrified into silence, not daring a thought or feeling in fear of the flame, that it would come back for what was left of me, eating me into nothing. The sensation that it gave me, the way it felt to burn and burn in anguish, relentlessly taking until there wasn’t anything left of me to feed off of, killing both the blaze and myself.....why did I know how that would feel? Why would I be afraid of something that had never happened before? Maybe it had, I thought suddenly, fear falling over me in a misty sense of avoidance and dread. I was hearing what the voice had wanted to say to me, and I found that I was no longer curious to hear another word. I really, really didn’t want to know. Not that it mattered at that point, I was within the voice right then, and it had more to say. I heard voices, human voices this time, and not whispering ones at all. They were strained and calling out desperately to each other, only two, and even I could barely hear them over the constant sound of a thousand hopeless things all burning at once. A deafening noise that rang out with a destructive force, sounding like the very act of ‘casting love aside’ would sound in the moment it truly happened, if you could hear that sort of thing being done. I followed the trail of the calling people until I brought my line of vision into the place they were, a new and separate version of reality, but somehow as real as the empty darkness where I was, although they had to connect somewhere. I could literally feel the heat inside me, and the fire was everything and everywhere around them, within feet of them, and they didn’t even move an inch. They must have been near dead, no one would survive heat like that, and so close to them! I panicked and yelled out, knowing it was a lost cause, but not being able to just watch the two of them die right before me. I cried suddenly at the sight, there was not a single shred of hope for either one of them, so why weren’t they doing anything? My eyes simply refused to stop the flood of emotions that formed in watery pools, and my tears saw the pain from the vision as it flew towards me and pierced my heart in full. I felt everything they felt, right alongside them, every second accounted for in my memory. I couldn’t stop to think, and I ran up to where they were, and stood next to the scene, as close as the flames would allow. I couldn’t get close enough to change anything or distract one of them. I just watched, whispering every line with them as though I were watching my favorite movie, played so many times that each word of the script was a part of me. And finally, when they lost control at the very end, and the flames were upon them, they lost consciousness for the last time and were gone.
I blinked and was still instantly. Everything was black and nothing. They were gone and so was the fire, the scene, and my tears. It was instantaneously cold and lonely. But even though I already knew of this event, the message of this scene was clear. While I was speaking the words I knew by heart, I could hear myself, both of my selves, the one that died before me, and the one I was now. Our voices were almost an exact match for one another, and the slight variation that was his version echoed and spun aimlessly inside my mind until I made the connection. That voice, the whispering from before was the same one, the one inside my head somehow....was me. The other me, the me that had died with the other Seto. He was still alive somehow, inside me, and was trying to contact me. But why had he remained intact after his death? Weren’t all memories and feelings lost in the process of rebirth? How could two people live inside a body with only one soul? I had never felt another person before that second in any way, and the thought was unnerving, in truth. He wasn’t me. And I certainly wasn’t him. Our different experiences had shaped us accordingly, and though we were in a sense the same person within, we couldn’t possibly share a single life together. This newfound reality was becoming less and less appealing the more I thought about it, and I started to get upset, and took off into the darkness of nothing, running away from where I had seen us...them. I wasn’t afraid of him, there was no sense of threat or malice from the now almost distinguishable idea of him, a strange sort of mental itching in the back of my head that I now knew felt like him. I was just alone in myself and the ordeal still wasn’t over. I knew that, because I still was unable to open my eyes, and slowing to a stop, I succumbed to the ending ahead. I wanted to have it over with so much, I decided to just hear what he wanted to say and then run, run as quickly as possible, away from him and away from this sad and lonely place within.
I stood, motionless and silent, looking at the floor that was nothing and made out of nothing, and yet held me firmly in place. I looked a bit closer with my eyes cast sideways, it almost looked as though I could see myself down there. Wait a minute...I could! Drawn in without questioning, I leaned over as if I were looking into a lake or puddle, the water was motionless and deeper than space and time, reflecting as any mirror would perfectly, with one small difference from the original. My reflection was distorted in the color, affected dramatically by the surface of the bottomless nothing that the images sat upon. Everything that looked back at me was an exact match in invisible detail, characteristic imperfection, and each movement I involuntarily made, proving it’s authenticity further when I noticed that I could even see myself breath. But upon closer examination I realized what was not right, and my eyes widened slightly, now what was that kind of thing supposed to mean? I was completely reflected in black and white. An impossible variety of infinite levels of grey shaded and contrasted in shadows and tones, but I was stripped of any and all color, and it shook me in a strange way, a creeping fear that stole inside me without notice, the sort that would return to haunt me the next time I found myself alone in the dark. Blinking a few times in a mental stutter, my image matched me in perfect synchronization, blinking like an idiot, and it only made me more nervous at the sight. What was all this cryptic mess leading up to? Communicating with mental symbolism was very necessary for this situation, but it was still so odd to me. Strange to see what my mind was like inside.
I sank to my knees in a spark of curiosity, I thought that maybe I could find a change or mistake in the reflection, and then maybe the game would end. Leaning over until my hands were flat before me on the ground....or whatever the darkness that had solidified beneath me was called, I cautiously but steadily closed in on the new version of myself. Nothing whatsoever was amiss even at this distance, not more than two feet lay between my image and I. It was a me that had been copied endlessly, doubling itself over and over until the ink nearly ran out of the copier, and the image had lost its color over so much time. I wondered on that lingering impression...how many lifetimes had the other me had to keep himself from being lost since his own life ended? If the Pharaoh had been locked away 5,000 years ago, and this was the same lifetime as that one, then....let’s see.....70 years to a lifetime, just for the sake of an average...... that was at least 70 lifetimes! What an awful existence it must have been, must still be.
I was overcome with a pain inside me that was my compassion and his sadness together, and I felt that he saw my sympathy for his pitiful state. The memories of the life he refused to let go of was insistent and had remained, watching himself as he was reborn again and again, trying with every moment of every life to somehow shake me and show himself at long last. 5,000 years of efforts resulting in consistent failure, and yet, here he was, hopeful and patient in his eternal struggle to hold to his promise to the one he loved more than life itself. So adamant in his task that he never gave in to the release and rest that death was the only way to achieve, how weary and drained he had to be after this seemingly endless time of rejection he was able to survive. I lost my nagging suspicions and doubt about him and I smiled into my reflection, not at myself but into my reflection, directed at him. He smiled back, and it was the reflection of my own smile at first, but when his smile faded before mine, I knew I had been correct. It was him in the form of my reflection, reborn repeatedly until he had lost his vitality and strength, a mere reproduction of the person that had been his living self. He had very nearly run out of time, but evidently Fate had decided that he should not suffer in vain. I could do something. What ever closure he needed, I would help him in any way I could. I was only helping myself.
As him smile faded, he grew serious, and I became his reflection for a second, following his lead and letting my smile fade away. It was most likely strange to behold if someone could ever see this far into myself, I was on my knees and peering into the nothingness below with my face so close to the reflective surface under me, and the exact same me peering up in the same fashion, upside down and in shades of grey. Finally we had found a place in my mind that we could talk, face to face, and he leaned as close as he could, his eyes full of hope and knowledge of my life as though he was a old silent film that told my story, and I leaned into his colorless image until he and I were close enough to kiss, but neither of us moved. Until he spoke. Barely audible even from here, I saw why he had leaned in so far. I could make out the meanings of the words, although I couldn’t tell what language it was that he spoke in. It made sense in a way, and my eyes widened when the whispered message became clear.
“The one that you love.....”
“Seto? What about him?” I was nervous at the promise of information, silently hoping for good news.
“He knows what you know......what I showed to you while you slept......”
“He knows what? Do you mean the dream? Seto......?” I didn’t know if that was what he meant, but I certainly hoped not. If Seto had seen as well, then he may just throw me out after all. This would be something that would make him so angry, and he would know it was my fault. We would be finished and done before we truly began, and I couldn’t lose him now, I had just gained so much....
My reflection gazed at me, and nodded so slightly that I barely saw the movement happen. He was sad.
“He knows everything that you know....and something more. He’s watching it as we speak.”
I had to get out. I had to be there when he woke up. The longer he had to himself to get angry about it, the less of a chance I would have to reason with him. He stood up, in the image under my feet, and I followed soon afterwards, our feet met in the middle and we became a single image if we had been seen from farther away. I smiled and mentally thanked him, and he felt my urgency at returning to the place where Seto was, asleep and seeing whatever it was that I had yet to see. He smiled back and then paused, considering for a moment the possibility of something, and then leaned over to rest on his knees, one final thing to say before I left. I copied his action, and strained to take in his words like moments before, just as silently uttered in a breath as before, as though it was so hard for him now.
“His dream is of two moments. The first dream is what you have seen before, the way Sethe and I died in that fire together. The second dream has not been shown to you, but you must know it as well, in order to help your other one. The second dream is of the very first time that Sethe and I became as one.....and I gave myself to him.”
I was in motion before the last word had finished falling from his lips. His face was pensive, not knowing how Seto would react to seeing this, and with him knowing it was my doing. It was just too much for anyone to take all at once, and unspeakably impossible when applied to Seto. The reflection was gone because I took off, as fast as I could, I moved as though the fury of Seto himself were on my trail, closing in to destroy my progress with him so delicately wrought by my sore and bleeding hands. It was so hard, but I had actually begun to close the endless valley in the space between he and I. But now... In that same instant, my eyes flew open in the real world, and I was awake and free. I flung myself off the couch and just ran, ran so fast that before I could open a thought in my mind of what to say, I saw the staircase that I recognized, it was the one that led to his room. I dashed up, two and three steps at a time, to my amazement never tripping once, and reached the hall with little lost time and minus any injury. I just hoped I was in time.
AN: Ahhhhh....breathe it in.....you smell that? That there’s the scent of a yummy dream in Seto’s poor unsuspecting mind. A yummy dream that tastes like the yummy lemony goodness inside... Well, I don’t think I’ll write it but you all know it’s there. You can see it in his face when he wakes up. You’ll see. It will be so funny. Picture Seto, having strangely been both advanced upon and followed for almost two full days by that hack Joey Wheeler. And then escaping into blissful slumber where no dogs are allowed. Only to find.....yes, sleeping with Joey is all that’s playing, and it’s oh so realistic, because it’s oh so very real! HA! Can you feel the fury from where you are? Because I can feel this angry burning....
A Seto/Joey fanfic by subaruxkamui4ever
AN: I herald the triumphant return of Me. I had an affair with The Urgency of Life, but it was just a fling, and I am here to stay. It’s time to get this show on the road, and shake it up some while I’m at it. Something has to happen soon to one of them. Fortunately, the story has shown me the light. I noticed, while reading this story, that to you readers I most likely sound either A) like I am bi-polar or possibly passive aggressive, or B) like I have that multiple personality thingy. I have these authors notes directly above the chapters and they’re always so overjoyed with happiness and life, like the shiny shiny sun. And the next thing you know, all you read is, “and so they made each other cry tears of blood and pain every second of every day, and they were in love and so very sad about it for no real reason. So they killed themselves in a river of suffering and cut themselves over and over until they had no blood left to bleed. And still they loved each other and never escaped from their horrific and severely overly-stressed and dramatized pain and cried and screamed until the end of all time.” And then the ending author’s note is like wasn’t that so romantic! I am so happy now I smile for now and always! It’s really overwhelming. Please don’t think I am crazy. I’d prefer if you all didn’t realize that yet. It’s Story Time.
(I’m crying tears of laughter......It’s like “It’s Hammer Time!” HA! Ha ha......oh God, Story Time...ow)
I found myself alone and lost with no idea of what I was allowed to do in this new environment, or even if I was supposed to be doing anything at all. Seto had disappeared just after choking down a small percentage of my breakfast, bearing a dissatisfied grimace that accompanied each and every bite. It was just his way of dealing with the somehow horrific idea that I had imposed this awkward position upon him, and now he had to sacrifice his dignity and reduce himself to my menial and third-rate pancakes. I thought they turned out rather well, myself. At least he forced some food down his throat, because in all honesty, I really did not want to make our situation more tense and uncomfortable than it already was. There was a small and simple something that was collecting in the invisible place that stood between us, the barrier that had been built by the two of us together. Every fight, every harsh insult and degrading judgement that we passed across at the other, I suppose in time we both accepted the returned hatred without even thinking, blocking each other from feeling anything else between us from then on. So then, what could I do now?
The unknown feeling that had appeared in that repelling barrier, it felt like....a beginning. A fresh and clean something new. And it was very new, I hadn’t been aware of it until that day, until the moment I ran into Seto, literally ran into him and knocked him over. As soon as the contact was over, a familiarly soft spoken and nervous whispering had begun to echo in the very furthest and pushed back places in my mind. Silent at first, but after awhile, the feeling of not being alone crept so slowly into my awareness, and I still left it untouched. But now that I was alone at last, and left to my own devices, the whispering lifted it’s level just slightly, still sounding afraid but becoming desperate, and I picked up on it and realized that I recognized this whisper, this voice from....someplace....but I couldn’t remember a single thing more.
Immediately tensing with interest, I sat up stiffly from my slumped and lazy position on the couch. I had finally been able to locate the room with the largest and most exciting television, which I felt was the first real success of my morning, and celebrated the moment with a short lived and triumphant dance of victory. Now more serious than ever, I came up off the cushions I had been drifting my frame across, and directed all of my attention to the newly discovered and vaguely familiar sensations I had noticed within. Clicking the power off of the television, I shut my eyes and gave in to the silence that surrounded me, reaching out to the feeling lightly, softly, never trying to grab it or force it out. It would leave, I just knew it, and I couldn’t take that risk. I hadn’t been aware that it was an actual voice that I felt, but after three or four minutes of complete silence and gracefully slow thought, it was very obvious that the familiarity was striking within me two separate chords, and I didn’t move in my mind so as not to startle myself out of the sleep-like state, but considered the two carefully. The first realization had been that the way the whispered voice spoke felt like a style that I knew extremely well. I couldn’t understand what the words were saying, sounds and vibrations I didn’t know at all came too slowly, and too low to hear correctly. Something about the sentence structure and the way the communication was directed, it was just like someone I used to know, so long ago, they had spoken just like this. I just couldn’t place exactly who it was.
‘So close....on the tip of my tongue..’I thought, becoming curiously intrigued. But then, at that moment, when the quietly spoken words came forth just a little stronger, and I could almost make out what the words meant, I heard the sound of the voice, and grew still with a contained and stifled shock. I knew that voice. I would recognize it anywhere. Ridiculous that I hadn’t seen it at once, how could I forget? It was....It was obviously.....Of course I remembered! Of course... I can’t have forgotten......
I had forgotten. Completely and entirely, and I wouldn’t accept it at first. I denied the blatant truth, instead listening with a frustration that grew with every word uttered by that person who was.....Ooh! I wanted to scream, it was impossible! I just knew that it was so important that I knew this, that I remembered, but I couldn’t, and I felt the surrender at last as my futile efforts caved in, and I fell back into silence of mind, opting to listen and at least try to make out a word or two. I had been so loud in my own thoughts it had been deafening, and drowned out the hesitant whispering for a few minutes, but in my retreat it slowly came forward once again. It was singing, in a sense. The words that meant absolutely nothing were so nearly silent that they were motionless in the air, and they sought me as I sought them, carried across the empty expanse of my mind like wisps of smoke caught in the breeze of my inquiry. I met with the voiced thoughts within moments, and the curling pieces of wind-wrought clouds were each an individual word or thought form, and they drew closer until they touched me directly, surrounding me with a hazy fog of images and gestures, a far off feeling that suddenly felt very real. Each separate word was silent inside it’s new visible form, and sadly drifted circles around me, trying to communicate somehow, needing to say something that was so important, right in that moment. Feeling the lonely sadness from the words at my face, feeling their frozen and wispy touch on my lips that nearly wasn’t there, I could somehow taste them, and it tasted like how only pure thought could taste, the sweetest and most sinful sugar, the soft and simple joy of existence, and I opened myself to it fully, mentally and physically inviting them inside. The hazy smoke shifted into a union and became a single collected cloud, and waited just before my face. Mentally imagining it to make it real, I opened my mouth and breathed it in, all of it. Every word the voice had spoken, every feeling it sent out, all that I couldn’t remember or grasp had all been contained in that sad and drifting fog that I took inside me, all of it in at once.
The intake had allowed what was once a simple thought in the back of my mind the opportunity to use me as a means to communicate. Having no energy or power of it’s own, by inviting it into my deepest room, I had taken it to a place where there was no sound, or words, just pure thought in images and intent, surrounded by empty nothing in the dark. Here, all reverted into it’s real form, taking on the picture of what it was, and not able to lie or mislead. As soon as I took the smoke into me with the deepest breath, it felt as though it was in my lungs and slowly spreading outward at once. It scorched the back of my throat immediately, and filled my lungs with the intensity and heat of a raging fire, burning so close that I could breath in the very flames themselves. The pain was instantly unbearable, and I was so shocked that I couldn’t think or speak, I couldn’t open my eyes in the physical world, and remained trapped as I had been, inside my mind that had been so quiet a mere second ago. The fire that had sparked on contact and spread instantly was nearly finished already, consuming me nearly completely in moments, but even after I felt that it had finally burned away every inch, I found that I was still aware and alive within myself. It was an expression of the voice’s thought.
This was by far the strangest thing I had ever experienced, and I was terrified into silence, not daring a thought or feeling in fear of the flame, that it would come back for what was left of me, eating me into nothing. The sensation that it gave me, the way it felt to burn and burn in anguish, relentlessly taking until there wasn’t anything left of me to feed off of, killing both the blaze and myself.....why did I know how that would feel? Why would I be afraid of something that had never happened before? Maybe it had, I thought suddenly, fear falling over me in a misty sense of avoidance and dread. I was hearing what the voice had wanted to say to me, and I found that I was no longer curious to hear another word. I really, really didn’t want to know. Not that it mattered at that point, I was within the voice right then, and it had more to say. I heard voices, human voices this time, and not whispering ones at all. They were strained and calling out desperately to each other, only two, and even I could barely hear them over the constant sound of a thousand hopeless things all burning at once. A deafening noise that rang out with a destructive force, sounding like the very act of ‘casting love aside’ would sound in the moment it truly happened, if you could hear that sort of thing being done. I followed the trail of the calling people until I brought my line of vision into the place they were, a new and separate version of reality, but somehow as real as the empty darkness where I was, although they had to connect somewhere. I could literally feel the heat inside me, and the fire was everything and everywhere around them, within feet of them, and they didn’t even move an inch. They must have been near dead, no one would survive heat like that, and so close to them! I panicked and yelled out, knowing it was a lost cause, but not being able to just watch the two of them die right before me. I cried suddenly at the sight, there was not a single shred of hope for either one of them, so why weren’t they doing anything? My eyes simply refused to stop the flood of emotions that formed in watery pools, and my tears saw the pain from the vision as it flew towards me and pierced my heart in full. I felt everything they felt, right alongside them, every second accounted for in my memory. I couldn’t stop to think, and I ran up to where they were, and stood next to the scene, as close as the flames would allow. I couldn’t get close enough to change anything or distract one of them. I just watched, whispering every line with them as though I were watching my favorite movie, played so many times that each word of the script was a part of me. And finally, when they lost control at the very end, and the flames were upon them, they lost consciousness for the last time and were gone.
I blinked and was still instantly. Everything was black and nothing. They were gone and so was the fire, the scene, and my tears. It was instantaneously cold and lonely. But even though I already knew of this event, the message of this scene was clear. While I was speaking the words I knew by heart, I could hear myself, both of my selves, the one that died before me, and the one I was now. Our voices were almost an exact match for one another, and the slight variation that was his version echoed and spun aimlessly inside my mind until I made the connection. That voice, the whispering from before was the same one, the one inside my head somehow....was me. The other me, the me that had died with the other Seto. He was still alive somehow, inside me, and was trying to contact me. But why had he remained intact after his death? Weren’t all memories and feelings lost in the process of rebirth? How could two people live inside a body with only one soul? I had never felt another person before that second in any way, and the thought was unnerving, in truth. He wasn’t me. And I certainly wasn’t him. Our different experiences had shaped us accordingly, and though we were in a sense the same person within, we couldn’t possibly share a single life together. This newfound reality was becoming less and less appealing the more I thought about it, and I started to get upset, and took off into the darkness of nothing, running away from where I had seen us...them. I wasn’t afraid of him, there was no sense of threat or malice from the now almost distinguishable idea of him, a strange sort of mental itching in the back of my head that I now knew felt like him. I was just alone in myself and the ordeal still wasn’t over. I knew that, because I still was unable to open my eyes, and slowing to a stop, I succumbed to the ending ahead. I wanted to have it over with so much, I decided to just hear what he wanted to say and then run, run as quickly as possible, away from him and away from this sad and lonely place within.
I stood, motionless and silent, looking at the floor that was nothing and made out of nothing, and yet held me firmly in place. I looked a bit closer with my eyes cast sideways, it almost looked as though I could see myself down there. Wait a minute...I could! Drawn in without questioning, I leaned over as if I were looking into a lake or puddle, the water was motionless and deeper than space and time, reflecting as any mirror would perfectly, with one small difference from the original. My reflection was distorted in the color, affected dramatically by the surface of the bottomless nothing that the images sat upon. Everything that looked back at me was an exact match in invisible detail, characteristic imperfection, and each movement I involuntarily made, proving it’s authenticity further when I noticed that I could even see myself breath. But upon closer examination I realized what was not right, and my eyes widened slightly, now what was that kind of thing supposed to mean? I was completely reflected in black and white. An impossible variety of infinite levels of grey shaded and contrasted in shadows and tones, but I was stripped of any and all color, and it shook me in a strange way, a creeping fear that stole inside me without notice, the sort that would return to haunt me the next time I found myself alone in the dark. Blinking a few times in a mental stutter, my image matched me in perfect synchronization, blinking like an idiot, and it only made me more nervous at the sight. What was all this cryptic mess leading up to? Communicating with mental symbolism was very necessary for this situation, but it was still so odd to me. Strange to see what my mind was like inside.
I sank to my knees in a spark of curiosity, I thought that maybe I could find a change or mistake in the reflection, and then maybe the game would end. Leaning over until my hands were flat before me on the ground....or whatever the darkness that had solidified beneath me was called, I cautiously but steadily closed in on the new version of myself. Nothing whatsoever was amiss even at this distance, not more than two feet lay between my image and I. It was a me that had been copied endlessly, doubling itself over and over until the ink nearly ran out of the copier, and the image had lost its color over so much time. I wondered on that lingering impression...how many lifetimes had the other me had to keep himself from being lost since his own life ended? If the Pharaoh had been locked away 5,000 years ago, and this was the same lifetime as that one, then....let’s see.....70 years to a lifetime, just for the sake of an average...... that was at least 70 lifetimes! What an awful existence it must have been, must still be.
I was overcome with a pain inside me that was my compassion and his sadness together, and I felt that he saw my sympathy for his pitiful state. The memories of the life he refused to let go of was insistent and had remained, watching himself as he was reborn again and again, trying with every moment of every life to somehow shake me and show himself at long last. 5,000 years of efforts resulting in consistent failure, and yet, here he was, hopeful and patient in his eternal struggle to hold to his promise to the one he loved more than life itself. So adamant in his task that he never gave in to the release and rest that death was the only way to achieve, how weary and drained he had to be after this seemingly endless time of rejection he was able to survive. I lost my nagging suspicions and doubt about him and I smiled into my reflection, not at myself but into my reflection, directed at him. He smiled back, and it was the reflection of my own smile at first, but when his smile faded before mine, I knew I had been correct. It was him in the form of my reflection, reborn repeatedly until he had lost his vitality and strength, a mere reproduction of the person that had been his living self. He had very nearly run out of time, but evidently Fate had decided that he should not suffer in vain. I could do something. What ever closure he needed, I would help him in any way I could. I was only helping myself.
As him smile faded, he grew serious, and I became his reflection for a second, following his lead and letting my smile fade away. It was most likely strange to behold if someone could ever see this far into myself, I was on my knees and peering into the nothingness below with my face so close to the reflective surface under me, and the exact same me peering up in the same fashion, upside down and in shades of grey. Finally we had found a place in my mind that we could talk, face to face, and he leaned as close as he could, his eyes full of hope and knowledge of my life as though he was a old silent film that told my story, and I leaned into his colorless image until he and I were close enough to kiss, but neither of us moved. Until he spoke. Barely audible even from here, I saw why he had leaned in so far. I could make out the meanings of the words, although I couldn’t tell what language it was that he spoke in. It made sense in a way, and my eyes widened when the whispered message became clear.
“The one that you love.....”
“Seto? What about him?” I was nervous at the promise of information, silently hoping for good news.
“He knows what you know......what I showed to you while you slept......”
“He knows what? Do you mean the dream? Seto......?” I didn’t know if that was what he meant, but I certainly hoped not. If Seto had seen as well, then he may just throw me out after all. This would be something that would make him so angry, and he would know it was my fault. We would be finished and done before we truly began, and I couldn’t lose him now, I had just gained so much....
My reflection gazed at me, and nodded so slightly that I barely saw the movement happen. He was sad.
“He knows everything that you know....and something more. He’s watching it as we speak.”
I had to get out. I had to be there when he woke up. The longer he had to himself to get angry about it, the less of a chance I would have to reason with him. He stood up, in the image under my feet, and I followed soon afterwards, our feet met in the middle and we became a single image if we had been seen from farther away. I smiled and mentally thanked him, and he felt my urgency at returning to the place where Seto was, asleep and seeing whatever it was that I had yet to see. He smiled back and then paused, considering for a moment the possibility of something, and then leaned over to rest on his knees, one final thing to say before I left. I copied his action, and strained to take in his words like moments before, just as silently uttered in a breath as before, as though it was so hard for him now.
“His dream is of two moments. The first dream is what you have seen before, the way Sethe and I died in that fire together. The second dream has not been shown to you, but you must know it as well, in order to help your other one. The second dream is of the very first time that Sethe and I became as one.....and I gave myself to him.”
I was in motion before the last word had finished falling from his lips. His face was pensive, not knowing how Seto would react to seeing this, and with him knowing it was my doing. It was just too much for anyone to take all at once, and unspeakably impossible when applied to Seto. The reflection was gone because I took off, as fast as I could, I moved as though the fury of Seto himself were on my trail, closing in to destroy my progress with him so delicately wrought by my sore and bleeding hands. It was so hard, but I had actually begun to close the endless valley in the space between he and I. But now... In that same instant, my eyes flew open in the real world, and I was awake and free. I flung myself off the couch and just ran, ran so fast that before I could open a thought in my mind of what to say, I saw the staircase that I recognized, it was the one that led to his room. I dashed up, two and three steps at a time, to my amazement never tripping once, and reached the hall with little lost time and minus any injury. I just hoped I was in time.
AN: Ahhhhh....breathe it in.....you smell that? That there’s the scent of a yummy dream in Seto’s poor unsuspecting mind. A yummy dream that tastes like the yummy lemony goodness inside... Well, I don’t think I’ll write it but you all know it’s there. You can see it in his face when he wakes up. You’ll see. It will be so funny. Picture Seto, having strangely been both advanced upon and followed for almost two full days by that hack Joey Wheeler. And then escaping into blissful slumber where no dogs are allowed. Only to find.....yes, sleeping with Joey is all that’s playing, and it’s oh so realistic, because it’s oh so very real! HA! Can you feel the fury from where you are? Because I can feel this angry burning....