Chapter 9

The Waking Nightmare

How long had it been since these voices of Ryuu, Sydirna, and all the others first spoke, not in Sakura's mind, but in reality, the period of time that all of these voices seemed to be coming from, originating? It could have been last year or the year before, or maybe it was 10,000 years ago or maybe it never happened at all and she was making it all up as time went by. Time is a funny thing, sometimes it can be traced and measured like all the history books that go back thousands of generations; telling stories of wars, triumphs, defeats, treaties. You name it; it was written. But through the years, one thing still remains as mysterious as uncharted waters: the mind. What one person remembers may be entirely different from another person's point of view. The passages written in the history books are all one-sided tales of occurrences that the reader has no other choice but to believe it is the truth. What if the mind is so powerful as to create false history or false memories, what then? How can one tell the difference between truth and fiction; reality and the imaginary? Does the imaginary world give birth to truth and the real world begins to speak lies? Do they reverse roles and breed a mass of pure confusion? If the mind is such a mysterious thing, just like time, how can one know the difference between the two? Maybe it’s so difficult because there is no difference.

Sakura still sat on the floor with Kaori beside her. She sat so still and cold, but her mind wouldn't stop for even a moment to rest. It was as if she was running away from a masked assailant and she couldn't get away fast enough. All of the questions pelting her left and right, they were her assailant, meaning to pin her down under the weight of the confusion of memory. She knew something was trying to resurface, something that was so close to breaking free of its gilded cage, but she was too afraid of the unknown. She wanted to hold the head of memory down below the waters until it stopped struggling to be freed. It would be better off of those fragments of memory were dead.

Hisoka felt the same way.

The memory of the demon chasing him through the dream landscape continued flashing through his brain, almost as if the demon himself wouldn't let Hisoka forget. The monster was still there, living inside of him, waiting for another chance to destroy his mind. But why? Why all of a sudden was this monster raging a war inside of him? Who was that being? Perhaps Hisoka, himself, was the devil and the demon in his dream was the true angel. If that were the case then, did that make him evil? What was evil? Who really has the right to distinguish between right and wrong, good and evil? This was a war of Good vs. Evil, neither side willing to give up. Would the Good prevail or would Evil take over to crush the righteous? There were all too many questions and far too few answers. If Hisoka could curl under these red blankets and never come out again, he would do it in an instant. Anything would be better than suffering through these pangs of unknown fear.

As Hisoka sat up in bed, his mother still beside him, he withdrew his hand from the soaked sheets underneath him, looked down at his hand, and found it stained red from the massive amount of blood that coated the bedding. How could this be? There wasn’t a single cut on his body and yet there was so much blood… He didn’t understand it. He didn’t want to understand it. He felt like he was thrown into a demented horror film for the sheer joy of watching him suffer physical and emotional trauma. There was no escape from this reality, if you could really call this a reality. When dreams gradually become real and leak into the outside world, how realistic is that? He felt as trapped under destiny’s foot that he knew of no escape. There was none. Suddenly feeling overtaken with the darkest sorrow, he turned to Aiko again and leaned against her.

"What's happening to me, momma?" he said, his eyes looked so young, like he was only six years old again. Lost and confused like he had been wandering aimlessly through an ongoing labyrinth lined with hideous walls composed of human remains, bones, teeth, eyes, and the stench of death; what escape from this horror could there be? The glory of the noon-day sun did not shine here, nor had it ever risen. He could hope for an angel to come and free him from this misery, but god was dead and he was left alone. The only thought that came to mind was to pick out a sharp bone from the decrepit structure and submerge it through his heart. Only in death would this ever come to an end.

Holding her son in her arms, she answered quietly, "Shh, it'll be all right." Then looking him in the eye, she continued, "I'll always be here for you, okay? You know that, right?" He nodded in answer, his voice stuck in his throat. "Okay, now tell me how you feel? Can you stand up?"

"I-I think so," he said, trying to stand as he held his side as if trying to stop another coughing fit from happening again. He thought he had to stand, he had to go on with his life like nothing had happened. He had to erase this period of time from his memory, and he wasn't about to let his weaknesses get the better of him. He had to be strong; he was strong. It was the truth and he had to believe it, otherwise he would fall apart just as easily as a freshly baked crescent roll flakes to pieces. If he wasn't strong now, there wouldn't be anything left of him in the future. And the innocents around him would only suffer more if he did not remain strong and in control.

Moving his legs off the side of the bed, he gradually stood and looked on to the two girls in the center of the room. How many people did he drag into the abyss with him? They were foolish to follow him into the darkness, but he felt far more angered at himself for letting his own weaknesses injure others, whether it be physical, mental, or spiritual. Kneeling beside the two, he looked at Kaori and asked, "Is she all right?"

Sakura was awake but she didn't seem to be mentally in the room with them. Her eyes stared off in the distance and she wouldn't respond to anyone's words to her. Kaori tried to bring her to, but nothing seemed to work. All she could suggest was, "Give her time. She's been through a large ordeal, just as you have. She'll be alright just as long as she accepts her past."

"Her past?"

Kaori quickly broke eye contact with Hisoka as she continued, as if she knew more than she wanted to tell, "Everyone has some sort of past that they would rather not remember, she's only beginning to remember what that past was like, and why she doesn't wish to remember."

"Kaori, what's going on? What's happening to me, to her, to us?"

Looking back to Hisoka, her eyes slightly misty herself, she said, "I'm not quite sure myself yet, but I will keep you informed. I would like to head back to headquarters and do some research, but…"

He shook his head, "It's alright. You can go. I'll watch her until she wakes up."

"Are you sure? You must remember that you've been through a great ordeal, as well. You can't push yourself too far."

"I know, it's okay," he nodded reassuringly. "Plus, I doubt Mom's gonna go anywhere, anyway." He looked back to his mother with a sly grin. All Aiko could do was giggle softly to herself.

Was this the right thing to do, to leave them all in such a critical time? Kaori knew she shouldn't leave, and yet she also knew that she couldn't find out what was really going on here until she was able to do some research, looking up old cases in the history books in the PCM library full of past accounts. Anything from the past, whether PCM dealt directly with the problem or not, would be in there.

"All right… Don't make me regret not being here, Hisoka. And don't let anything happen while I'm gone, either! Got me?"

Laughing, he said, "I hear ya. Nothing's gonna happen while you're away. I'm okay, Sakura'll be okay, Mom's okay— we're all okay! So get out of here and do whatever research you need to do."

Handing Sakura over to rest in Hisoka's arms, Kaori stood half not knowing what to do or say next. To go or to stay, that was the question. She needed to head back to PCM, but she also felt that Hisoka had lied to her. He wasn't fine nor would he ever be. He was like the proud, lone wolf that has to take care of himself, to survive though all the pain, alone. Although she wanted to stay, she agreed with him. He must learn how to deal with his own problems by himself. No one could tell him how to deal with them or how he could fix those problems. And so without looking back, Kaori said, "Right well… I'll be seeing you!" and ran out of the room.

Hisoka watched intently as Kaori left the room. What was she up to and what did she have in mind to research? Whatever it was must have been important to rip her in two directions. Hisoka knew he was her favorite case to work on for some reason, so it must have been incredibly difficult for her to just walk away like she had. Whatever she would find during the course of her research, he was all the more interested to find out himself.

The room plunged into silence after Kaori left. As he sat on the floor with Sakura shaking in his arms, he suddenly felt like he was having déjà vu, something seemed familiar about this; the quite, the timing, the voices… Just as swiftly as they stopped within the dream, one voice echoed the long distance between reality and fiction to reach him. He was caught short and held his breath from a sudden wave of fear; a sense of fear not for himself— he was long over that —but for another…

Don't become too attached to this little one… You will kill her some day.

The voice, it was the demon from the dream, but… he sounded somehow different, far more gentle than he ever was before. No, gentle wasn’t the word for it. There was a sense of sorrow in that voice, a tinge of inevitability of something that must be and will be, and yet his tone of voice sounded more like he meant to give a warning, not a curse. Could it be that the demon was protecting Sakura from the beginning? Protecting her from himself? It didn't make any sense nor did he care to make sense of it.

Forgetting the voice even spoke to him, Hisoka looked at Sakura. She looked so frightened, her hair began to fall out of her ponytail in strands of blue, her staring blue eyes seemed to shed invisible tears as she gazed on at something only her eyes could see. Why did she have to suffer from one of his problems? It was his alone to deal with. She had to awaken, one way or another. Hisoka shook her shoulders and called her name, but there was no response. The harder he tried, the more distant she appeared to become. Growing increasingly angered, Hisoka yelled at her, "Wake up, dammit!"

At that moment, Sakura stopped shaking and her frightened, wide eyes softened as she spoke, "Ryuu… Why…?" Two large tears fell from her eyes at last, and like waking from a deep sleep, she blinked and suddenly realized where she was. She found herself sitting on the floor of Hisoka's room, his mother sat in the corner of the room next to the bed, and Kaori was gone. Hisoka sat on the floor next to her, holding her closely. Too many weird things had happened in the dream, with Mukashi, the demon, the angel Hisoka. She was so overwhelmed by everything; she couldn't deal with this, too.

Breaking away from his grasp, she slid across the floor away from him. She didn't know how long they had been like that, but she didn't want to put herself in an awkward position. Looking up at his innocent face, she attempted to put her mind at ease. "What…happened?" she sighed.

He shook his head. "You tell me." He turned to look back toward the bed. "I just woke up and found myself lying on a bed full of soaked, bloody sheets… Then I found you lying in some kind of trance on the floor."

Remembering the dream and the reason why she came to this house in the first place, Sakura's glance grew more concerned. "Y-you were trapped in there, weren't you? Trapped in that nightmare." He said nothing, not wishing to remember the pain, the agony, the fear that it caused. He didn't want to hear the voice of that beast again. Even without a solid answer, Sakura knew it was true. Crawling back toward him on her hands and knees, she added, "Are you all right? I-I saw you in there, all bloody, fighting for your life…"

"You… you saw me?" he asked her, dumbfounded. "How? How could you have been there? I didn't see you…"

She didn't know what to say. Shaking her head, she said, "I don't know how…but I was there. Kaori told me to just calm my spirit and then I found myself in a world of black. That's when I saw him."

"Saw who?"

"Mukashi, this… dragon," she said, looking off to the side as if to remember exactly what she saw. "He turned into this small little ball and then he told me to throw it at you."

"…a little ball…," Hisoka subconsciously raised a hand to his chest where the sphere penetrated the skin. Was that where the sphere came from? That was the turning point in the nightmare, the thing that turned the tides in his favor. If Sakura hadn’t have been there at that exact time, what would have happened? The demon would have struck him dead right there in the dream world, his life ending with an abrupt stop. He owed everything and more to her, but there was no way he could repay such a debt. It would be better off if she forgot about him, to never see him, or think about him again. What if the demon spoke the truth before? Would he really end up killing her sometime in the future? No fate could be that cruel to decimate something so beautiful, so fragile.

“…That was you, wasn’t it?” Hisoka said, still holding his hand over his chest, feeling the heat pulsating through with each heartbeat. “You gave me the power to wake from that… hellish dream. I-I…” He was so frustrated. He didn’t want to admit it, but before Sakura appeared in the dream to help him, he was completely at the mercy of the demon. Yes, he tried to fight back, but was that really enough? He didn’t have the strength needed to beat him by himself. It was only when he grasped the power of that sphere did he ever stand a chance. Without her, he would be nothing.

You have to understand. You mean more to me than ten of my lives put together, but I can't let you stay near me. What if I lose it again and you just happen to be there when it happens? I couldn't bear the feel of your blood on my hands. I can't…

Ryuu, please don't say that.

Sydirna, listen. I wouldn't be anything without you, but still… You can't be near me. Not now; it's too dangerous. Everyone knows that I'm that monster who's been going off on a slaughtering rampage. You can't be associated with me. I'll only bring more disaster into your life. Please understand.

No! I don't understand! How can fate be so cruel as to rip us apart after all this time?

Destiny is not something to be tampered with. It's not your fault… Please forgive me…

More and more voices! When would they stop? In one second, an entire conversation played out in Hisoka's mind: words, emotions, actions; the whole deal. It was like he was there, beside the two speaking. The point of view he saw the vision was a little unclear. He couldn't tell if he watched them from aside or if… No, that couldn't be true. These visions and voice didn't mean anything. They were only a tool used by the demon to confuse and scatter his thoughts. Slowly he was beginning to lose his mind with each passing vision, each voice he heard speaking in the back of his mind as if in a misty swamp until he went entirely insane. Is that what the demon wanted? If he lost control, would he turn into that beast from the dream, and slaughter thousands of innocent people like the voices had discussed? No, no! He wasn't a murder; not now, not then, not ever!

Looking away, blushing softly pink, Sakura said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to thank me. I just did what I wanted to do.”

What were they talking about again? Trying to refocus his attention back to Sakura and everything else in the real world, Hisoka laughed to regain his composure and to hide his own fears about the voices and visions.

“You’re too much,” he said. “What if we were both stuck in that world? What if I turned into some sort of demon myself and we both attacked you?”

She shook her head resolutely. “What ifs are nothing more than spoken fear. What will be will be and there shouldn’t be any regrets, right?”

“Hm, who’s sounding philosophical now? You’ve been talking to Dr. Uzuki far too much after class…”

Smiling teasingly, she said, “Then I guess that means I’m smarter than you, doesn’t it? Ha, ha, ha!”

In the corner of the room, Aiko finally stood after a long period of silent reflection. She looked down at the two and smiled. She couldn’t understand how they could be joking over minute things in life after such an ordeal, but it made her happy that they could both put everything that had happened in the past, where it belonged.

“You two are amazing,” she said, slowly walking to the front of the room. “You see past the darkness that surrounds you both and look forward to the light at the end of the tunnel. You are both very strong. Please don’t ever lose that edge.” Without another thought, she walked out of the room silently.

Blinking, stunned from his mother’s words of wisdom, Sakura said, “…That was odd.”

“You’re telling me,” he replied. Seeing his mother act that way wasn’t the only weird thing he had ever experienced, but it was close to it. He sighed and looked back at Sakura. “Well, what do we do now?”

The awkwardness of the situation began to eat away at her again. She knew if her brother found out that she ran off to Hisoka’s house the way she had, he would never forgive her. He was so obsessive of her, she almost wondered if there was another reason for his over-protective tendencies. No matter the case, the light from outside the window gradually went from bright to near black in the course of the hour that they spent within the dream. Then it hit her. She can’t walk home alone in this darkness! Just think of all the creepy people who stalk people at night! Oh no! She couldn’t go back home by herself. Maybe she could ask Aiko for a ride home.

“Um, uhh… Do you think your mom could give me a ride back home? I really don’t feel comfortable walking home by myself.” She twiddled her thumbs over and over again, squeezing the life out of her hands.

“It’d be nice if we had a car,” he frowned from the thought. “My mom would be able to drive even if she had a car.”

“Oooh, I see…” She really didn’t understand, but she had to say something. She had to think of another excuse or something. Would she end up walking all the way back home in the dark and have some freaky guy jump out in front of her from one of the many alleyways on the way? Oh, what horror!

From down the hall, Aiko was unbelievably able to hear their discussion, and called back to them innocently, “She can stay the night here, if she wants, Hisoka.”

Quickly standing, not wishing to go down that path, Sakura was at a loss for words. “Uhh, I think my brother’s expecting me. I-I told him… that I needed… I wanted to talk… with… him.”

“Right,” Hisoka said, grinning. “Well, then I guess I’ll have to walk you home.” He stood and politely showed her way out of his room, as if there were more than one. She walked out of his room, still feeling quite awkward, and Hisoka followed. Just before he reached the doorway, he felt something tug at his arm, almost like someone was stopping him from leaving the room. He looked over his shoulder and couldn’t believe what he saw. It was an image of himself holding Sakura just as he had earlier, before she was able to regain her senses, only his eyes shone red with the lust for blood. And then in the next instant he slit her throat with the same golden, dragon dagger.

What did this mean? Why was he seeing such horrible things? Why him? Why now? It didn’t seem fair. Just a few minutes after he witnessed the horrors of the nightmare, he was exposed to more heinous visions. Then just when he thought the vision would fade from his sight, the copy of himself looked up and glared darkly into his eyes.

She is destined to die, and it’s all because of you.