(no subject)
Story Title: A Covered Flame - Part Three
Rating: T - Character Death
Genre: Tragedy
Series: Professor Layton
Pairing(s): None
Character(s): Hershel Layton, Clive Dove
Summary: The world needs Professor Layton, but he is no longer there to save anyone anymore. And so he decides what he’s going to do about this fact…
Notes: This chapter contains a fictional view of the afterlife, just thought I’d point that out for if anyone’s sensitive about that sort of thing.
Hershel Layton was a man who had just become the Professor of Archaeology at Gressenheller University.
Those who knew him were proud of his achievements, of course, but overall he was a speck on the importance of society. Just a man making his way through life the best he could. Or that had been what he had thought when he had died.
Layton was not a superstitious person by nature. He believed in archaeology, of what was found buried in the earth. There was no time to ponder the uncertainty of what happened once your life came to an end in his mind, which was already too full of the riddles of what he could see for certain in front of him everyday.
But when you die, however, you are forced to discover what came next and couldn’t put it off any further.
The presence of an ‘afterlife’ existing at all surprised him enough, but he soon concluded that he shouldn’t expect it to feel at all like what life had felt like. It wasn’t as if he was experiencing a total lack of feelings right now, but it was more like… like walking through fog while you were half-asleep. Sort of dull and draining. That was the best way he could describe it at the moment.
As a man who asked questions and sought out answers, he soon thought to himself that he needed to discover what was happening now and what came next, if anything.
He found that it wasn’t so much as if someone was telling him the answers to these questions as they was just appearing in his mind the moment he thought to consider the questions at all. It wasn’t him coming up with his own theories, this was an external source informing him that… that…
…That this was not what came next, not really.
There were no questions about heaven or hell, as Layton wasn’t the right person to ask them, just the knowledge that wherever he was, he wasn’t truly in the afterlife yet.
How can I get there?
That was the next logical question.
And then he just knew that he couldn’t get there, because he wasn’t ready yet.
He wondered what he could do to make himself ready.
The knowledge of the reason he wasn’t ready appeared in his head and it shocked him to say the least. The problem wasn’t as much him who wasn’t ready to leave as it was England that wasn’t ready to lose him. This baffled him completely. He was just a university professor! What could he mean in the grand scheme of things?
Whether he had intended that question to be answered or not, it was. He suddenly felt flashes of something that wasn’t quite his life but wasn’t more than just a hand’s grasp away from being so appear in his mind’s eye. Of a man who solved mysteries and saved lives. A man who… was him. Or who he could have been if he hadn’t died.
Not just could have been, but should have been.
He was needed to do all these things, because apparently there was no one else who could do them. It was wrong that Layton had died and until he had set it right there was no way that the afterlife would let him truly move on.
Instead of moaning over his loss or demanding to know how he was supposed to complete these tasks, Layton decided that he would leave and complete them the best that he could. If people were going to be left to cruel fates without him there to help them then it was his duty, as a gentleman, to make sure he helped them in any way possible.
And so he turned to walk back the way that he came, since this was the only logical course of action he could consider in order to return to England.
He didn’t seem to be able to gather much concept of time here, but from what he could gather it hadn’t been very long before he sensed a change to his environment. Another being. Not a feeling in his head telling him answers, but another soul like his.
It felt like… like it was just off to the left of him, so he headed that way in order to locate it.
For all the feelings Layton lacked personally there were certainly feelings from this other soul, such strong feelings of hatred and anger that pierced the fog-like ‘air’ around them. The closer he got the sadder he felt for this other being.
Layton’s eyes allowed him to focus on what was before him. A small boy with brown hair and a cap, who looked so much like any real, live boy, was curled on the floor, sobbing to himself.
“Hello?” Layton tried, surprised to hear his own voice in this place.
The boy’s head snapped up and he looked around wildly before spotting Layton. He probably hadn’t expected to see anyone else here either.
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
“Hershel Layton,” he replied and went to tip his hat, before realising it wasn’t on his head. He had taken it off before he’s got into the machine, after all…
“Are you a ghost too?” replied the boy, quickly.
“I don’t know yet,” admitted Layton, “I like to assess my surroundings before coming to a conclusion. But I would like to know who you are.”
“My name’s Clive,” the boy told him, “And I know that I’m a ghost.”
“How do you know that you are?” said Layton, interested in how he had come to this conclusion with such certainty.
“Because I wanted to know why I couldn’t go be with my family in heaven, but the… thing told me that I couldn’t move on because I had unfinished business. And that’s what a ghost is, some dead person who can’t leave the Earth because they’ve still got stuff to do,” Clive confirmed.
A child’s logic. Layton supposed that the term ‘ghost’ was as good as any for this. It appeared he was in the same situation as Clive was, after all.
“I’m very sorry to hear that. What unfinished business do you have?” asked Layton, wanting to learn as much as he could about what kept people from entering this fabled afterlife in order to help his situation.
Clive looked at him and the fog felt thick with sparks of negative emotion once more; “I want to hurt the people who did this to my family. I want to find them and cause them suffering for starting the big fire from the lab that burned everyone down.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say! It might not have been someone’s fault the explosion happened,” said Layton, trying to block the image of Bill’s face, the last thing he’d seen before being shut in the time machine, out of his mind.
“I know that… but that’s how I feel inside. And because I feel this way I can’t move on to heaven or hell or anywhere else,” said Clive, “Because I can never get them back for doing this… I don’t even know who made the lab blow up in the first place.”
“So what are you going to do instead?” Layton questioned.
Clive looked down, and said, “I don’t know. Guess I’ll just stay here.”
“Why don’t you come with me then?” said Layton, “I have some errands I need to do too and would enjoy the company.”
“Just like that?”
Layton could feel the air clearing of the wave of negative emotions. He was glad of it, as they had been very daunting.
“I don’t see why not, if you have nothing else to do,” Layton confirmed.
Getting to his feet, Clive walked over to the Professor and gingerly took his hand.
“Very well then, we can go do your jobs together,” answered Clive.
Smiling, Layton replied, “Now we need to… to get back to Earth, I suppose.”
“Is it this way?” Clive asked, looking up at him and pointing ahead in one direction.
“We shall find out.”
The two walked together in the direction Clive had pointed, feeling the fog around them lifting and the world they had once belonged to come slowly into view.
What Layton saw was not what he had been expecting at all.
Rating: T - Character Death
Genre: Tragedy
Series: Professor Layton
Pairing(s): None
Character(s): Hershel Layton, Clive Dove
Summary: The world needs Professor Layton, but he is no longer there to save anyone anymore. And so he decides what he’s going to do about this fact…
Notes: This chapter contains a fictional view of the afterlife, just thought I’d point that out for if anyone’s sensitive about that sort of thing.
Hershel Layton was a man who had just become the Professor of Archaeology at Gressenheller University.
Those who knew him were proud of his achievements, of course, but overall he was a speck on the importance of society. Just a man making his way through life the best he could. Or that had been what he had thought when he had died.
Layton was not a superstitious person by nature. He believed in archaeology, of what was found buried in the earth. There was no time to ponder the uncertainty of what happened once your life came to an end in his mind, which was already too full of the riddles of what he could see for certain in front of him everyday.
But when you die, however, you are forced to discover what came next and couldn’t put it off any further.
The presence of an ‘afterlife’ existing at all surprised him enough, but he soon concluded that he shouldn’t expect it to feel at all like what life had felt like. It wasn’t as if he was experiencing a total lack of feelings right now, but it was more like… like walking through fog while you were half-asleep. Sort of dull and draining. That was the best way he could describe it at the moment.
As a man who asked questions and sought out answers, he soon thought to himself that he needed to discover what was happening now and what came next, if anything.
He found that it wasn’t so much as if someone was telling him the answers to these questions as they was just appearing in his mind the moment he thought to consider the questions at all. It wasn’t him coming up with his own theories, this was an external source informing him that… that…
…That this was not what came next, not really.
There were no questions about heaven or hell, as Layton wasn’t the right person to ask them, just the knowledge that wherever he was, he wasn’t truly in the afterlife yet.
How can I get there?
That was the next logical question.
And then he just knew that he couldn’t get there, because he wasn’t ready yet.
He wondered what he could do to make himself ready.
The knowledge of the reason he wasn’t ready appeared in his head and it shocked him to say the least. The problem wasn’t as much him who wasn’t ready to leave as it was England that wasn’t ready to lose him. This baffled him completely. He was just a university professor! What could he mean in the grand scheme of things?
Whether he had intended that question to be answered or not, it was. He suddenly felt flashes of something that wasn’t quite his life but wasn’t more than just a hand’s grasp away from being so appear in his mind’s eye. Of a man who solved mysteries and saved lives. A man who… was him. Or who he could have been if he hadn’t died.
Not just could have been, but should have been.
He was needed to do all these things, because apparently there was no one else who could do them. It was wrong that Layton had died and until he had set it right there was no way that the afterlife would let him truly move on.
Instead of moaning over his loss or demanding to know how he was supposed to complete these tasks, Layton decided that he would leave and complete them the best that he could. If people were going to be left to cruel fates without him there to help them then it was his duty, as a gentleman, to make sure he helped them in any way possible.
And so he turned to walk back the way that he came, since this was the only logical course of action he could consider in order to return to England.
He didn’t seem to be able to gather much concept of time here, but from what he could gather it hadn’t been very long before he sensed a change to his environment. Another being. Not a feeling in his head telling him answers, but another soul like his.
It felt like… like it was just off to the left of him, so he headed that way in order to locate it.
For all the feelings Layton lacked personally there were certainly feelings from this other soul, such strong feelings of hatred and anger that pierced the fog-like ‘air’ around them. The closer he got the sadder he felt for this other being.
Layton’s eyes allowed him to focus on what was before him. A small boy with brown hair and a cap, who looked so much like any real, live boy, was curled on the floor, sobbing to himself.
“Hello?” Layton tried, surprised to hear his own voice in this place.
The boy’s head snapped up and he looked around wildly before spotting Layton. He probably hadn’t expected to see anyone else here either.
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
“Hershel Layton,” he replied and went to tip his hat, before realising it wasn’t on his head. He had taken it off before he’s got into the machine, after all…
“Are you a ghost too?” replied the boy, quickly.
“I don’t know yet,” admitted Layton, “I like to assess my surroundings before coming to a conclusion. But I would like to know who you are.”
“My name’s Clive,” the boy told him, “And I know that I’m a ghost.”
“How do you know that you are?” said Layton, interested in how he had come to this conclusion with such certainty.
“Because I wanted to know why I couldn’t go be with my family in heaven, but the… thing told me that I couldn’t move on because I had unfinished business. And that’s what a ghost is, some dead person who can’t leave the Earth because they’ve still got stuff to do,” Clive confirmed.
A child’s logic. Layton supposed that the term ‘ghost’ was as good as any for this. It appeared he was in the same situation as Clive was, after all.
“I’m very sorry to hear that. What unfinished business do you have?” asked Layton, wanting to learn as much as he could about what kept people from entering this fabled afterlife in order to help his situation.
Clive looked at him and the fog felt thick with sparks of negative emotion once more; “I want to hurt the people who did this to my family. I want to find them and cause them suffering for starting the big fire from the lab that burned everyone down.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say! It might not have been someone’s fault the explosion happened,” said Layton, trying to block the image of Bill’s face, the last thing he’d seen before being shut in the time machine, out of his mind.
“I know that… but that’s how I feel inside. And because I feel this way I can’t move on to heaven or hell or anywhere else,” said Clive, “Because I can never get them back for doing this… I don’t even know who made the lab blow up in the first place.”
“So what are you going to do instead?” Layton questioned.
Clive looked down, and said, “I don’t know. Guess I’ll just stay here.”
“Why don’t you come with me then?” said Layton, “I have some errands I need to do too and would enjoy the company.”
“Just like that?”
Layton could feel the air clearing of the wave of negative emotions. He was glad of it, as they had been very daunting.
“I don’t see why not, if you have nothing else to do,” Layton confirmed.
Getting to his feet, Clive walked over to the Professor and gingerly took his hand.
“Very well then, we can go do your jobs together,” answered Clive.
Smiling, Layton replied, “Now we need to… to get back to Earth, I suppose.”
“Is it this way?” Clive asked, looking up at him and pointing ahead in one direction.
“We shall find out.”
The two walked together in the direction Clive had pointed, feeling the fog around them lifting and the world they had once belonged to come slowly into view.
What Layton saw was not what he had been expecting at all.