[Week 19, day 4 | before midnight to day 5] Thought I got stronger
Warning: contains spoilers for the end of DGM's second reverse novel.
You don’t actually know how it happened, you just know it did.
Well, you heard of it but you can’t know for sure if it’s actually true even if you doubt that the ”Earl’s messenger” actually lied. So you think it’s true, it sounds likely enough. Likely enough that you can picture it, clearly in your mind, built on those few words you were given about the incident.
A small maid's body, with red marks from hands around her throat. Doug holding her, tears streaming down his cheeks, heart aching as he asks why over and over because it’s all he can muster. It’s unfair, it’s horribly unfair but it’s life.
It’s life but you still find yourself wishing that you could have done something to help, anything, to prevent it from happening.
But you weren’t there, so it’s not your fault.
You remember it clearly, and you will never forget it, won’t allow yourself to forget it. You don’t remember it simply because you don’t forget, but because it’s not something you can forget; your gaze landing on your best friend (you think of him like that because you’re not sure how else to put it), your best friend who still talks somewhat like himself but everything else is just off. Those eyes, those eyes that are like mirrors, dead and not human.
The images flash, but they’re as clear as that day, if not clearer. And the emotions are fresh in your heart, wrap around it in a cold embrace, all of the pain and the confusion and the wondering of why everything is just unfair. But it’s a little hard for you to tell if the emotions are completely a part of the past or if some of it is influenced by the current time, you can’t separate it, don’t know if there’s even anything to separate. You just know it hurts, hurts bad, but you know what you need to do.
Cut him down. Cut her down. Because that is not Doug, that is Colette in Doug’s body, that convulses and bursts and transforms into an Akuma in the shape of a knight of some sort, that is Colette’s soul that has been pulled back even after she finally got some relief, after she was finally taken away from the life that Doug was trying to save but she didn’t quite want so much.
Doug has always been so very kind.
But that’s not Doug. That is Colette, who is in pain after being torn away from the peace she finally received, instead turned into an Akuma cursed to serve the Millennium Earl until she’s destroyed. Looking at it like that, it’s probably a good thing that she came here.
She has killed people, yes, but she’s in the Order and she will be destroyed here. She hasn’t been an Akuma for that long, has she?
You swallow hard and close your eyes to the knowledge that it’s Doug, to the image of his familiar features on that Akuma’s head. This isn’t the time to get caught up in emotions, it’s never the time; Doug is just one of many deaths that you have to write it, just one of many…
But it’s not just one of many because he’s your friend.
So subconsciously, you tell yourself that it’s for his sake too. Though you drown your mind in other thoughts, to keep control. You’re doing this because this is your job, not because it’s best for the people.
’I am the Bookman’s successor,’ you recite to yourself. ’Belonging nowhere, my heart unmoved.’
You recite it to yourself as a lifeline; you bury your mind in facts so that you can’t think of the feelings.
’Akuma are malevolent weapons created by the Earl.’
Facts are comforting. Facts are solid. Facts are unbiased.
’That isn’t Doug! This has nothing to do with Doug!’
But you find yourself going back to feelings because they’re connected to the facts. This isn’t Doug, that is fact. This has nothing to do with Doug, that is fact. Fact, fact, fact, not a reassurance for yourself. Fact, fact, fact…
At the time, you refused to think that the wetness on your cheek was tears and not blood.
Or, no, you didn’t refuse to, you didn’t realise it was tears. But when you look back at it now, you do realise that it probably was. You recognise that feeling, the clenching of your heart and the blurry vision, how hard breathing suddenly becomes. It was unfamiliar to you at the time, but not anymore.
It hits you that you gathered yourself together quickly back then, quicker than you usually do nowadays. Wonder why that is…
Actually, you know why that is. You’ve gotten caught up in it all, but you’re not quite like that now. You’re not.
…except maybe you are. Because then all of the friends you’ve gained here come to mind (Dre, Gau, Matt, Winry, and Raikou pops up for whatever reason, one you in fact know, you know he is your friend), their faces showing up as you destroy the Akuma-that-isn’t-Doug and you realise that you probably really still are. They’re important to you now, close, and will get closer, you’re sure.
It’s a frustrating thing, and even as you sink down with what you know now are tears still running, you feel yourself frowning, at yourself. Because you’re stupid. You told yourself you wouldn’t let this happen.
Though you did kind of figure from the start that there wasn’t any real use.
It’s really so stupid because then there are more people that can affect you this way. This way that makes everything hurt and makes you cry.
But.
You will just have to pick yourself up anyway. You will just have to pick yourself up and go on. You can still see the goal ahead of you; it will be fine.
On a blank parchment, you write down Doug: Deceased
[Lavi awakes with a heavy breath and pushes himself into a sitting position, staring forth with his eye wide. He doesn’t move for a while, just stays like that and breathes, trying to calm it.
And once he has, somewhat, he glances at the Hitomi. And sees it recording.
His blood goes cold and he quickly reaches to shut the thing off. Goddamnit… He can. Only hope Doug won’t see that.
Crap.
The screen goes black as his practically terrified expression is quite obvious.]
You don’t actually know how it happened, you just know it did.
Well, you heard of it but you can’t know for sure if it’s actually true even if you doubt that the ”Earl’s messenger” actually lied. So you think it’s true, it sounds likely enough. Likely enough that you can picture it, clearly in your mind, built on those few words you were given about the incident.
A small maid's body, with red marks from hands around her throat. Doug holding her, tears streaming down his cheeks, heart aching as he asks why over and over because it’s all he can muster. It’s unfair, it’s horribly unfair but it’s life.
It’s life but you still find yourself wishing that you could have done something to help, anything, to prevent it from happening.
But you weren’t there, so it’s not your fault.
You remember it clearly, and you will never forget it, won’t allow yourself to forget it. You don’t remember it simply because you don’t forget, but because it’s not something you can forget; your gaze landing on your best friend (you think of him like that because you’re not sure how else to put it), your best friend who still talks somewhat like himself but everything else is just off. Those eyes, those eyes that are like mirrors, dead and not human.
The images flash, but they’re as clear as that day, if not clearer. And the emotions are fresh in your heart, wrap around it in a cold embrace, all of the pain and the confusion and the wondering of why everything is just unfair. But it’s a little hard for you to tell if the emotions are completely a part of the past or if some of it is influenced by the current time, you can’t separate it, don’t know if there’s even anything to separate. You just know it hurts, hurts bad, but you know what you need to do.
Cut him down. Cut her down. Because that is not Doug, that is Colette in Doug’s body, that convulses and bursts and transforms into an Akuma in the shape of a knight of some sort, that is Colette’s soul that has been pulled back even after she finally got some relief, after she was finally taken away from the life that Doug was trying to save but she didn’t quite want so much.
Doug has always been so very kind.
But that’s not Doug. That is Colette, who is in pain after being torn away from the peace she finally received, instead turned into an Akuma cursed to serve the Millennium Earl until she’s destroyed. Looking at it like that, it’s probably a good thing that she came here.
She has killed people, yes, but she’s in the Order and she will be destroyed here. She hasn’t been an Akuma for that long, has she?
You swallow hard and close your eyes to the knowledge that it’s Doug, to the image of his familiar features on that Akuma’s head. This isn’t the time to get caught up in emotions, it’s never the time; Doug is just one of many deaths that you have to write it, just one of many…
But it’s not just one of many because he’s your friend.
So subconsciously, you tell yourself that it’s for his sake too. Though you drown your mind in other thoughts, to keep control. You’re doing this because this is your job, not because it’s best for the people.
’I am the Bookman’s successor,’ you recite to yourself. ’Belonging nowhere, my heart unmoved.’
You recite it to yourself as a lifeline; you bury your mind in facts so that you can’t think of the feelings.
’Akuma are malevolent weapons created by the Earl.’
Facts are comforting. Facts are solid. Facts are unbiased.
’That isn’t Doug! This has nothing to do with Doug!’
But you find yourself going back to feelings because they’re connected to the facts. This isn’t Doug, that is fact. This has nothing to do with Doug, that is fact. Fact, fact, fact, not a reassurance for yourself. Fact, fact, fact…
At the time, you refused to think that the wetness on your cheek was tears and not blood.
Or, no, you didn’t refuse to, you didn’t realise it was tears. But when you look back at it now, you do realise that it probably was. You recognise that feeling, the clenching of your heart and the blurry vision, how hard breathing suddenly becomes. It was unfamiliar to you at the time, but not anymore.
It hits you that you gathered yourself together quickly back then, quicker than you usually do nowadays. Wonder why that is…
Actually, you know why that is. You’ve gotten caught up in it all, but you’re not quite like that now. You’re not.
…except maybe you are. Because then all of the friends you’ve gained here come to mind (Dre, Gau, Matt, Winry, and Raikou pops up for whatever reason, one you in fact know, you know he is your friend), their faces showing up as you destroy the Akuma-that-isn’t-Doug and you realise that you probably really still are. They’re important to you now, close, and will get closer, you’re sure.
It’s a frustrating thing, and even as you sink down with what you know now are tears still running, you feel yourself frowning, at yourself. Because you’re stupid. You told yourself you wouldn’t let this happen.
Though you did kind of figure from the start that there wasn’t any real use.
It’s really so stupid because then there are more people that can affect you this way. This way that makes everything hurt and makes you cry.
But.
You will just have to pick yourself up anyway. You will just have to pick yourself up and go on. You can still see the goal ahead of you; it will be fine.
On a blank parchment, you write down Doug: Deceased
[Lavi awakes with a heavy breath and pushes himself into a sitting position, staring forth with his eye wide. He doesn’t move for a while, just stays like that and breathes, trying to calm it.
And once he has, somewhat, he glances at the Hitomi. And sees it recording.
His blood goes cold and he quickly reaches to shut the thing off. Goddamnit… He can. Only hope Doug won’t see that.
Crap.
The screen goes black as his practically terrified expression is quite obvious.]