[Fanfiction]: And Yet I Scream, Chapter 01 (Moonchild)
Title: And Yet I Scream
Part: 1 / ?
Warnings: angst
Rating: R (moving it up just to be on the safe side)
Pairings: will contain Sho/Kei-ish flavour... later on.
Disclaimer: Moonchild does not belong to, nor do its characters or anything else related to the movie. I make no profit out of this story, it is written merely for fun and entertainment of other fans. Yadda yadda.
Summary: It is like a tomb, far beneath the earth. No one will be able to hear me. And yet I scream.
AYIS Chapter 00: Prologue
And Yet I Scream
Chapter 01: Please
~*~
The scream bounces off the rocks, tears through darkest silence and slips through tiny cracks. Finally it disappears somewhere far away and leaves me alone once more. The rational part of my mind is fully aware of the fact that screaming is not going to help. It is a poor reaction to my current situation.
I lick my lips, trying to stall time. That is right, I am trying to fool myself, trying to push the thoughts about my situation further from my mind. An attempt made even worse by the fact that I am fully aware of this.
No.
Stop.
Do not go there. Do not think about it.
There. All good.
So I close my eyes and concentrate on feeling my tongue travel across my lips.
They are dry and cracked. A faint layer of dust and dirt has settled on them. I am probably filthy all over. I run my tongue over my lips a second time, to clean and to wet them and to distract. There's a faint trace of blood. I must have split my lip earler when...
A third time, then.
I believe I have already run out of ideas.
Think, Kei. Not about that, but about anything else. Please.
Everything is going to be fine.
Ever so slowly, I flex my fingers. All good there. My bones have stopped shifting and resetting, it seems, but the pain still lingers. I wonder how long I was out. It must have taken my wounds quite some time to heal, seeing as I have not fed in a week. Speaking of which, I think my hunger will likely be a problem in the very near future.
Not a good train of thought, either.
Thinking about ways to keep myself from thinking about my situation once more. I wonder why I am doing this. It would be better to think about my situation, to make plans for escape, to face reality and just get on with it. Where is my usual bravado? Where is the mocking smirk I show towards the rest of the world? Then again, why bother. The rocks will certainly not tremble should I show them just how unimpressed I am by their antics.
Just take a deep breath, Kei.
Everything will be fine.
Please.
For a moment I concentrate on breathing. Air caresses my lips, slips past them. It tickles my tongue. With my eyes closed, I follow it down my airway, and let the breath curl and swell in my lungs, expanding them, pushing outwards as far as my body will allow. Then I hold until it almost hurts. Gently, every so gently, I guide the breath outwards again, until it leaves my mouth in what would almost feel like a kiss were it not too soft and too fleeting. My breath dissolves into thin air.
I do not need to breathe, of course. I am not alive, after all, and the lack of rotting is more or less the only thing that sets me apart from the corpses that need to be buried.
Speaking of which.
I try to remain perfectly calm as I let my gaze wander. The trip is disappointingly short. There is solid rock in front, above and below me. I reach out to touch the wall of my tiny little grave and find that there's not even an arm's length between the rock and me. It's rough to the touch, not smooth. Seems that when the hideout collapsed, it took part of the surrounding landmass with it. Inwards. Towards me. On top of me. Great.
I can feel a smooth wall against my back. Might have been part of the floor; the walls were made to look and feel rougher, an imitation of natural caves that just failed to convince. The guys we have been trying to rob must have had a sense for the dramatic. Hence all the explosives scattered across the place.
Really, not even I as a vampire would ever dream of living in a place that goes nine stories downwards beneath the surface. Especially not when that place is full of explosives. And even less when there's a lunatic in there who has failed to eat the drugged pizza and in a moment of utter confusion and panic decides that a detonation would be just what the place needs.
As soon as I get out of here, I will give Toshi a proper trashing for dragging this job out of the murky waters it lurked in.
Toshi. Sho. Son.
No.
Please.
Nononononononono.
Pain explodes in my head and I remember that sudden movements are not an option when there is solid rock inches above your head. Someone whimpers - I reckon it must be me, but it sounds too frightened and weak to be me, really - and I bring my hands up to my face.
They probably haven't made it. Even I have not been able to escape this death trap, and I am the vampire. Speed and strength far surpassing that of the humans, I should have been able to make it. I should have been able to save them. I should have protected them.
There is no way they made it out in time.
They are dead. They have to be dead. The real kind of death, the one that rips you out of the living world, leaving nothing behind but a hole where there should have been someone.
It is my fault.
Once again I live while everyone else dies.
I am a monster. A murderer. The blood of my friends, my family is on my hands. Blue eyes will never sparkle again. Laughter will never reach my ears again. They will never drag me along to beaches again, never force me to eat human food again, never... they will never see the sun again. Just like me. And I'm still here. I'm all that's left. Me - and Yi-Che - and Shinji. And I will not even be able to tell them. My breath catches in my throat.
No.
Please, no.
This is why I need to try not to think.
Not to feel.
It hurts.
Dead. Forever gone. Holes where there used to be somone.
They have been trapped in here, just like me, and just like my body was shattered beyond repair so were theirs. Only they could not have survived that.
Come back.
Please.
My hands shake badly as I reach out, touching solid rock once more. I push with all my remaining strength. I can't give up. Not yet. I need to dig myself out, somehow, I need to find them, I need to bring them home, I need to tell Yi-Che, I need to tell Shinji, I need, I need, I need, I want, I beg, I plead, I scream and no one answers.
Sho. Toshi. Son.
Where are you?
Please.
Come back to me. Help me. I am not done protecting you. I am not done watching you grow and live and move away from me. I am not done being close to you. I am not done loving all of you, children as you are, annoying as you are, wonderful as your are. I am not done being the odd one out in this strange group of friends. I am not done.
And yet...
I am.
My fingers scratch across stone. I can feel my fingernails tearing and ripping as I try to claw something loose. I can smell dead blood welling up where I scrape the skin of my fingers. I twist in my tiny grave, I kick, I lash out, I thrash.
Please.
Let me out.
I need to look for them.
I need to make sure they find peace.
Please.
PLEASE!
I do not feel anything anymore. I do not want to. Both the human and the monster inside of me scream for the blissfull oblivion I floated in when my body was too weak to hold onto the remains of my immortal soul. I want to go back, just so that I will not imagine the horrible, painful deaths my friends have faced. I want to save them. I want to join them.
I don't know how much time has passed. The next thing I am really aware of is staring at my hands. Broken fingers, white bone, torn flesh. The blood is grey in the darkness of my tomb. The scent is sickening.
„Please don't“, I whisper, but the wounds heal anyway. I have twisted myself halfway around, facing what I will call a ceiling for lack of proper words. More like the stone slab on an old-fashioned sarcophagus. There are bloody handprints above me. Mine.
When someone digs this place up they will find the skeletons of my friends. They will throw them away or sell them or make medicine out of them that does not work. They will also find me. And when someone comes looking for them after that they will find their bloodless, mutilated bodies, because I will be too hungry by then to hold myself back, and bloody handprints everywhere.
When someone digs me up.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
No one will dig us up. Neither me nor the remains of my friends, rotting away somewhere. Sho probably close enough that I will notice the smell sooner or later. I do not know where Toshi and Son where when the celing above me collapsed, broke too many bones inside of me and took me and the floor down, ever downwards. Sho... I believe he was close to the stairway on the far end of the room. We only had two stories left above us. Two stories. I think I saw the idiot moving back towards me when I was broken and dragged under. Idiot.
My idiot.
That burning and stinging in my eyes...
It's only dust and dirt and I wipe it away quickly.
No one will dig any of us up.
In Mallepa, whenever a building collapses (and buildings tend to do that around here because these days people have other problems than those of architectural nature) the people just leave it that way and build other things on top.
They will build houses on top of my friends' graves.
They will build houses on top of me.
Please don't.
Please let this be a nightmare.
Please let me out.
Please tell me my friends made it at least. Someone. Anyone.
Someone sobs.
But it can't be me.
I don't cry.
The rational part of my mind tells me I'm still trying to deny the situation. I'm still trying to find ways not to ponder the concept of spending eternity in here. Thinking about my dead friends, thrashing, hurting myself, trying to remember how I managed to end up here, crying.
As I open my eyes they are dry.
There. Not stalling anymore. I can face this. I am not in denial.
I am not.
Just...
Let me scream.
Let me weep for my friends.
Let somebody hear me.
Please...
~*~
TBC...
Chapter 02: Dreams
Part: 1 / ?
Warnings: angst
Rating: R (moving it up just to be on the safe side)
Pairings: will contain Sho/Kei-ish flavour... later on.
Disclaimer: Moonchild does not belong to, nor do its characters or anything else related to the movie. I make no profit out of this story, it is written merely for fun and entertainment of other fans. Yadda yadda.
Summary: It is like a tomb, far beneath the earth. No one will be able to hear me. And yet I scream.
AYIS Chapter 00: Prologue
And Yet I Scream
Chapter 01: Please
~*~
The scream bounces off the rocks, tears through darkest silence and slips through tiny cracks. Finally it disappears somewhere far away and leaves me alone once more. The rational part of my mind is fully aware of the fact that screaming is not going to help. It is a poor reaction to my current situation.
I lick my lips, trying to stall time. That is right, I am trying to fool myself, trying to push the thoughts about my situation further from my mind. An attempt made even worse by the fact that I am fully aware of this.
No.
Stop.
Do not go there. Do not think about it.
There. All good.
So I close my eyes and concentrate on feeling my tongue travel across my lips.
They are dry and cracked. A faint layer of dust and dirt has settled on them. I am probably filthy all over. I run my tongue over my lips a second time, to clean and to wet them and to distract. There's a faint trace of blood. I must have split my lip earler when...
A third time, then.
I believe I have already run out of ideas.
Think, Kei. Not about that, but about anything else. Please.
Everything is going to be fine.
Ever so slowly, I flex my fingers. All good there. My bones have stopped shifting and resetting, it seems, but the pain still lingers. I wonder how long I was out. It must have taken my wounds quite some time to heal, seeing as I have not fed in a week. Speaking of which, I think my hunger will likely be a problem in the very near future.
Not a good train of thought, either.
Thinking about ways to keep myself from thinking about my situation once more. I wonder why I am doing this. It would be better to think about my situation, to make plans for escape, to face reality and just get on with it. Where is my usual bravado? Where is the mocking smirk I show towards the rest of the world? Then again, why bother. The rocks will certainly not tremble should I show them just how unimpressed I am by their antics.
Just take a deep breath, Kei.
Everything will be fine.
Please.
For a moment I concentrate on breathing. Air caresses my lips, slips past them. It tickles my tongue. With my eyes closed, I follow it down my airway, and let the breath curl and swell in my lungs, expanding them, pushing outwards as far as my body will allow. Then I hold until it almost hurts. Gently, every so gently, I guide the breath outwards again, until it leaves my mouth in what would almost feel like a kiss were it not too soft and too fleeting. My breath dissolves into thin air.
I do not need to breathe, of course. I am not alive, after all, and the lack of rotting is more or less the only thing that sets me apart from the corpses that need to be buried.
Speaking of which.
I try to remain perfectly calm as I let my gaze wander. The trip is disappointingly short. There is solid rock in front, above and below me. I reach out to touch the wall of my tiny little grave and find that there's not even an arm's length between the rock and me. It's rough to the touch, not smooth. Seems that when the hideout collapsed, it took part of the surrounding landmass with it. Inwards. Towards me. On top of me. Great.
I can feel a smooth wall against my back. Might have been part of the floor; the walls were made to look and feel rougher, an imitation of natural caves that just failed to convince. The guys we have been trying to rob must have had a sense for the dramatic. Hence all the explosives scattered across the place.
Really, not even I as a vampire would ever dream of living in a place that goes nine stories downwards beneath the surface. Especially not when that place is full of explosives. And even less when there's a lunatic in there who has failed to eat the drugged pizza and in a moment of utter confusion and panic decides that a detonation would be just what the place needs.
As soon as I get out of here, I will give Toshi a proper trashing for dragging this job out of the murky waters it lurked in.
Toshi. Sho. Son.
No.
Please.
Nononononononono.
Pain explodes in my head and I remember that sudden movements are not an option when there is solid rock inches above your head. Someone whimpers - I reckon it must be me, but it sounds too frightened and weak to be me, really - and I bring my hands up to my face.
They probably haven't made it. Even I have not been able to escape this death trap, and I am the vampire. Speed and strength far surpassing that of the humans, I should have been able to make it. I should have been able to save them. I should have protected them.
There is no way they made it out in time.
They are dead. They have to be dead. The real kind of death, the one that rips you out of the living world, leaving nothing behind but a hole where there should have been someone.
It is my fault.
Once again I live while everyone else dies.
I am a monster. A murderer. The blood of my friends, my family is on my hands. Blue eyes will never sparkle again. Laughter will never reach my ears again. They will never drag me along to beaches again, never force me to eat human food again, never... they will never see the sun again. Just like me. And I'm still here. I'm all that's left. Me - and Yi-Che - and Shinji. And I will not even be able to tell them. My breath catches in my throat.
No.
Please, no.
This is why I need to try not to think.
Not to feel.
It hurts.
Dead. Forever gone. Holes where there used to be somone.
They have been trapped in here, just like me, and just like my body was shattered beyond repair so were theirs. Only they could not have survived that.
Come back.
Please.
My hands shake badly as I reach out, touching solid rock once more. I push with all my remaining strength. I can't give up. Not yet. I need to dig myself out, somehow, I need to find them, I need to bring them home, I need to tell Yi-Che, I need to tell Shinji, I need, I need, I need, I want, I beg, I plead, I scream and no one answers.
Sho. Toshi. Son.
Where are you?
Please.
Come back to me. Help me. I am not done protecting you. I am not done watching you grow and live and move away from me. I am not done being close to you. I am not done loving all of you, children as you are, annoying as you are, wonderful as your are. I am not done being the odd one out in this strange group of friends. I am not done.
And yet...
I am.
My fingers scratch across stone. I can feel my fingernails tearing and ripping as I try to claw something loose. I can smell dead blood welling up where I scrape the skin of my fingers. I twist in my tiny grave, I kick, I lash out, I thrash.
Please.
Let me out.
I need to look for them.
I need to make sure they find peace.
Please.
PLEASE!
I do not feel anything anymore. I do not want to. Both the human and the monster inside of me scream for the blissfull oblivion I floated in when my body was too weak to hold onto the remains of my immortal soul. I want to go back, just so that I will not imagine the horrible, painful deaths my friends have faced. I want to save them. I want to join them.
I don't know how much time has passed. The next thing I am really aware of is staring at my hands. Broken fingers, white bone, torn flesh. The blood is grey in the darkness of my tomb. The scent is sickening.
„Please don't“, I whisper, but the wounds heal anyway. I have twisted myself halfway around, facing what I will call a ceiling for lack of proper words. More like the stone slab on an old-fashioned sarcophagus. There are bloody handprints above me. Mine.
When someone digs this place up they will find the skeletons of my friends. They will throw them away or sell them or make medicine out of them that does not work. They will also find me. And when someone comes looking for them after that they will find their bloodless, mutilated bodies, because I will be too hungry by then to hold myself back, and bloody handprints everywhere.
When someone digs me up.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
No one will dig us up. Neither me nor the remains of my friends, rotting away somewhere. Sho probably close enough that I will notice the smell sooner or later. I do not know where Toshi and Son where when the celing above me collapsed, broke too many bones inside of me and took me and the floor down, ever downwards. Sho... I believe he was close to the stairway on the far end of the room. We only had two stories left above us. Two stories. I think I saw the idiot moving back towards me when I was broken and dragged under. Idiot.
My idiot.
That burning and stinging in my eyes...
It's only dust and dirt and I wipe it away quickly.
No one will dig any of us up.
In Mallepa, whenever a building collapses (and buildings tend to do that around here because these days people have other problems than those of architectural nature) the people just leave it that way and build other things on top.
They will build houses on top of my friends' graves.
They will build houses on top of me.
Please don't.
Please let this be a nightmare.
Please let me out.
Please tell me my friends made it at least. Someone. Anyone.
Someone sobs.
But it can't be me.
I don't cry.
The rational part of my mind tells me I'm still trying to deny the situation. I'm still trying to find ways not to ponder the concept of spending eternity in here. Thinking about my dead friends, thrashing, hurting myself, trying to remember how I managed to end up here, crying.
As I open my eyes they are dry.
There. Not stalling anymore. I can face this. I am not in denial.
I am not.
Just...
Let me scream.
Let me weep for my friends.
Let somebody hear me.
Please...
~*~
TBC...
Chapter 02: Dreams