The time limit expired without much of a change to any of the medical windows on the computer screen where Kaori stood. She had no idea what that man had done to the console, but she hoped whatever he did would help Hisoka somehow adapt to the environment he was no surrounded in. Even though there was no physical change in his condition, at least not anything that could be monitored by the systems, the tension and panic from Hisoka’s face seemed to diminish. Before, he had tightly closed his eyes within the water as he attempted to breath, but now he was slowly opening his eyes and looking all around. The water didn’t sting like he thought it would, nor was it very blurry at all. In fact, he could see very clearly, if not more so, than normal. He looked past the glass encasement, grinning, and held a thumbs up to the side of the tank.
Everything was okay! Kaori felt as if she were submerged in a sea of relief when she saw the sign from him. In response, she too gave him a thumbs up.
“You are too lucky, Hisoka,” she said, shaking her head as she sighed. “Okay, now that THAT is taken care of...” Kaori, switching over to another screen on the console that listed executable names of programs and tests to run, tapped part of the touch-screen to activate the program “PR-56 Exorcist.” Immediately after, another window popped up on her screen, alerting her of the start of the program. She looked back up to Hisoka and nodded. “Here we go!” With one, light touch on the screen, the lights in the Dredge lit up, the rest of the surrounding lab darkened as the main lights dimmed and flashed slightly from the energy surge.
Inside the tank, Hisoka didn’t quite know what to expect. Once the bluish-purple lights turned on him brightly, he began to feel his curiosity working its way through him. He did not know what would happen next, but he was ready to find out. The hum of the electricity running through the Dredge vibrated the water, sending a funny sensation through his body. Shortly after the activation of the program, he felt as if something was tickling his arm, his left arm. When he looked down, he found that the computer cords that were attached to the B.O.D.I. suit were beginning to move like snakes all around him. At first he thought it was funny, having strange worm creatures swim around him, but then the cords around his left arm wrapped tightly around his wrist then attached to the mechanical ring of the tank. He tried to pull his arm free from the living wires, but they would not loosen their grasp.
As Kaori looked on, she began to feel the same sort of anxiety swim through her as it did earlier. She didn’t know what was happening, not a single thing. She didn’t know what was happening, why, or how to stop it. “What the heck did that guy do!?” she yelled, frustrated. He pounded on the console and when it would not respond to her commands, she looked back up to Hisoka and saw the cords on his right arm attach to the side of the tank. Maybe this was all normal, all part of the program to somehow connect Hisoka’s mind with the machine to diagnose what was wrong. Or maybe that man programmed something else into the system.
Hisoka continued pulling at his arms, trying to free himself, but then the red cords about his legs wrapped around them both and then attached to the bottom of the Dredge tank. Now completely in a Y-shape crucifixion formation, Hisoka stared out at Kaori, his eyes pleading for help or at least some reassurance. He didn’t know whether he felt more anxiety for the outcome of these tests or the sheer anxiety of what this machine might do to him in the process. There wasn’t anything he could do; he couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak in the water solution— there was no such communication from the Dredge to the console. If there was nothing more to be done, then what more could he do than give in to the machine, to put complete trust in the operator who ran the show? Hisoka peered out through the thick glass at Kaori standing with wide eyes behind the control console and knew that she was not in control. If she was not the one commanding the machine to act in this way, immobilizing him like some experimental rat, then who was? As much as Kaori wished to help him inside of the beast machine, there was nothing she could do. Absolutely nothing, but watch.
Again, looking over at the wires that wrapped completely around his arms and legs, covering the black suit underneath, Hisoka watched them squirm with life. The cords weren’t wrapped tightly enough to cut off his circulation, but they were tight enough to cause a similar tingling sensation as before when the water vibrated— only this time it was more of an internal sensation, not external. This feeling was coming from no other place but from within himself. His left arm began to feel hot again, like it did as he walked to school this morning. The water stared to feel hot, too, boiling red hot— too hot to bear. Then several cords from the mechanical ring around the hole at the top of the tank sank into the water from either side and wrapped around his neck like a pair of feuding snakes, pulling him from the bottom of the tank to the dead center. The thought of the cords snapping his neck at any moment sunk deeply into his heart as he waited for something to happen as patiently and clear minded as he could. There was no way of moving, no way of escaping the blue-green water, the red cords, the black suit, the white light peeling his skin. There was no way out.
Trying to keep a hold of his mind, chaos laughing off in the distance, Hisoka stared at the wires around and above him. He wondered what they were for and where this white light suddenly came from. The illuminance could have been from the various lights around the perimeter of the tank, but this light felt different. It was as if it was coming from underneath the squirming, red cords, from underneath the tight black B.O.D.I. suit. The heat radiating from his body clouded his vision, making it hard to determine whether the cords were glowing white hot or if it were himself. Concentrating on the elusive ray of light coming from somewhere, he heard the echo of a voice reach his ears, or his mind.
“Get ready, boy. You’re on a one-way trip through hell.”
Instantly once the voice traveled through his mind, the cords and wires attached to his suit dug fiercely into his skin like living parasites feeding on his muscle and bone. The hot knife of pain pierced through him as his mind tried to grasp what was happening. His vision blinked in and out as if someone was turning a light switch on and off. Then as the pain faded and the light went out completely from his eyes. Then came nothing but darkness; simple, utter darkness.
Everything disappeared, the lab room, Kaori behind the console, the cords holding his body down; all except for the tank in which he was imprisoned within. He still breathed the oxygenated liquid from the Dredge tank, but everything else outside of the tank seemed to disappear. As he looked back to his arms and legs, he suddenly realized that the computer cords no longer wriggled along his body. He was able to move about freely at last. With a slight sigh of relief, he raised a hand to the harshly unfeeling side of the glass tank. Everything outside was a black swirl with no contrasts, no defining edges— it was all black like an unending blackhole. Without another moment’s thought, a clear light burst from Hisoka’s hand that touched the side of the glass, sending a crack to splinter and shatter the entire face of the tank. In the course of merely three seconds, the Dredge tank collapsed and disappeared from existence, leaving Hisoka alone and cold in an empty shadow of space.
Suddenly thrown into this new environment, Hisoka’s eyes and lungs felt somewhat strange. Maybe it was because of the new atmosphere— and actual air that he was breathing now. How he was able to switch over to inhaling air rather than the liquid oxygen that was in the Dredge, he did not know. Lost in this world of darkness, he could no longer see, the mysterious light that had surrounded him in the tank vanished as mysteriously as the rest of the world around him. He tried to piece things together, to try and slap a tag of reason on how he felt what was happening now, but the more he tried to think on it, the more he became confused and lost. The last memory he could consciously visualize was of the wires in the Dredge tank tying him down, but then when he tried to remember it—jumping into the Dredge, the feeling of drowning, the strength of the cords wrapping around him—it was like those memories became tangled in a gooey web of thoughts, fragments of partial memories, and fabricated dreams. As he attempted to sort through the mess, Hisoka thought he heard another voice off to the left, behind him. He could see nothing and could hardly even tell if he could move in this space or not, but he tried to look to his left, his ears straining for the sound.
But there was nothing; nothing but silence.
Sighing, he placed a hand to what he thought was his
face but quickly drew it away when he felt what was there: nothing, nothing but
empty, unfeeling space. What was this
place? A place where nothing existed,
even himself? How could that be? He still had his thoughts, his memories, his
confusion and fear. Of course he had to
exist, if he didn’t, then what was all of this, this life? A single life defines itself in the course
of time. When it is born, it exists
only in that specific, narrow timeline.
But then why didn’t he exist?
Why didn’t Hisoka exist?
Then he heard the voice again, or at least he felt
the sound. If he had no body, he had no
eyes to see, no ears to hear, yet he did have a heart to feel. Perhaps that is all Hisoka was in this
blackhole, nothing but a fading soul.
He searched with his mind for the sound, trying to place an image to it
as all minds try to do in order to understand.
Slowly, as the sound grew more clearly into a specific voice, Hisoka
imagined who it was, still he couldn’t match a crisp face to the voice. A shadowy form materialized against the dark
landscape; arms, legs, everything clothed in black. Then he saw the eyes— two spheres of color, red and gold, glaring
back at him darkly sinister.
“This is where you were meant to exist, in this
empty void of nothingness,” said the voice, calm yet forceful. “This was your destiny, however, you sought
to change all of that.” The voice
echoed madly in his heart, somehow finding a twinge of familiarity in both the
voice and the matter it was speaking of.
“Fate is not something that is easily changed, but you managed to do so
without a seconds thought.”
“Wait, stop!” Hisoka yelled, lashing his
non-existent arms out into the blankness.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Where am I? What is this
place?”
“Fate has a way of remembering those who go against
it, and you are not an exception.
Before another thought can cross your fading mind, you will already be
swallowed by Fate’s memory!”
**********
It was August of some year, about 15 years ago, when the accounts of mental illness in children was at its highest peek in a record 200 years. This sort of case was typical for an average four year old to visit the Psychologists of the Ages Center, but this family was anything but typical. At the first meeting, the child was labeled “AD765” and was treated for minor to major psychological dementia. According to his parents, both a relatively young age, the child was suffering from an acute case of the nightmares, only they would not stop. Night after night, the child would continuously wake several times a night in a cold sweat, ranting about a monster that was going to eat him. Granted, young children tend to make unsettling dreams more of a problem than what they really are, but child AD765 was somehow different. His parents tried everything in the book and asked several of the most well known psychologists in the center how to end the dreams.
None of them were at all successful.
As a last ditch effort, when the persistent dreams
of child AD765 escalated to the point where they became physically detrimental
to future survival, several ingenious psychiatrists and a few understudies
proposed their pending research in the matter.
They proposed to end the dreams from the inside out. They were developing gigantic, metal machine
that could probe the child’s mind and erase whatever it was that was causing
the nightmares. It was a procedure that
still had to be written into the texts since it was so new, but new techniques
and ideas were always favored by the scientists. They wanted someone to test their new procedure on and child
AD765 was the perfect guinea pig.
They placed the child, who had suddenly been losing
consciousness two to three times a day, into the machine, attached dozens of
cords to his body. They closed him up
inside and sealed the hatch closed.
Only a small window allowed the scientists and the child’s parents to
see the boy inside. Before they had
even begun to activate the machine, bolts of electricity jolted across the
surface of the monster machine.
By the time the final worker gave the experiment a
go, the boy regained consciousness, looked up, and stared out of the window to
his parents beyond. He tried to raise
his hands to the window, but he found that he was securely bound in the metal
of the machine, almost as if the steel molded and bubbled around his tiny body,
holding him in place. All he could move
was his head, but then dozens of other cords that appeared to be snakes came
down from above and drilled their way inside of his skull. They were like individual little lifeforms
worming their way into his thoughts.
There was no pain as they connected and worked their way through the
bone, still he wanted them to stop, to get out of his head. He could hear voices and see strange images
flashing before his eyes, but he didn’t know what any of it meant. He was far too young to truly understand
what was happening to him and why.
Even his parents really did not understand it
either. They could see their son crying
and screaming from within the beast machine, but there was nothing they could
do. The boy’s nightmares must come to
an end or else there would not be much of a future for him. To get rid of one problem, they had to
create another; however, the brilliant scientists told them that child AD765
would not remember a thing of the procedure.
They never said he would retain 100% consciousness during the whole
thing.
**********
Again Hisoka was plunged into a fog
of black, with no forward or back or a left or a right. Everything was black, like nothing was
anywhere. Everything was nothing. Still, in the vague realm of nothingness,
Hisoka, or at least his mind, existed.
He was here, within this black swirl that refused to let him go. The voice from before kept repeating in his
mind as he attempted to understand what it all meant. None of it made any sense.
What had he done against fate to be cast into this darkness? Was there such a thing as fate, as
destiny? He didn’t believe in any of
it, so then why was it holding him captive in this world of nothing?
“You ask far too many questions,”
said the voice again, the same as before.
“As soon as you are ready to remember, you will remember.”
**********
Many people say that dreams cannot come true. Others put all their hopes upon those dreams, wishing that they do, someday, come true; only to find that what remains after a dream is just an image, a hope, a desire. Nothing solid ever comes from dreams. Even the vision of the golden eagle or dragon crashing into the lake, its splintered feathers glistening brightly as they fell to the earth like little suns. That was nothing but a dream. The pile of feathers alongside the shore was nothing but an illusion. The tainted color of the lake was a nightmare. The destruction of the planet was hell. Many people say that dreams cannot come true. Until that one trek through the hills to the delicate lake of spring, when the dream slowly became familiar.
It was another beautiful day in the small, isolated mountain village of Springbrook. It was about mid-day, the sun steadily creeping across the sapphire sky, the birds swooping past patches of cotton among the blue, the white river washing over the rocks with a soothing echo. It was peaceful here. Very peaceful.
“Youko, wait for me!” a girl about
the age of 13 called out to her companion.
Laughing back at her and running
faster, an older girl—perhaps 20— replied as she dashed past trees and
disappeared down the hills, “Hahaha, hurry up, Syrian! You’re too slow! I’m going to win the bet if you don’t run faster!”
“I-I can’t... I’m too tired!” she yelled. Panting for breath, she stopped alongside a
large forest tree. She looked onward at
her sister dancing oddly as she ran, making fun of her poor endurance. Then when she was about to collapse to the
soft ground, she saw her sister smack right into a tree.
Instantly
laughter sprang up from the pits of Sydirna’s stomach. She pushed off of the tree and ran down the
hill where her sister lay on the ground with a smooshed, red face. “Hahaha, that was a nice move you did. Could you maybe show me how you did that
again?”
Placing a hand to her face as she
stared straight up into a canopy of green, Youko grinned. “I meant to do that. Really.”
She sat up and pointed to the tree that halted her dash through the
woods. “You see? That’s the tree that stands as the finish
line for the sprint. See, I made it
here before you did...”
Sydirna frowned. “Maybe, but I’m the one standing at the tree.
You’re the one who made up the rules:
‘The one left standing next to this tree will be the winner.’ So, I guess that makes me today’s
winner. Ha-haha-haha!” the young girl
laughed tauntingly. “And! I’m going to be the first to make it to the
lake!” Just as she finished the
sentence, she sprang from her feet and out into the open meadow and toward the
lake.
“Hey, that wasn’t fair!” Youko
called after her, breaking off in a sprint toward the lake as well. “I wasn’t ready!”
“Hahaha, who said anything about
being ready first?”
Youko, inching closer and closer to
tackling her younger sister, reached out in front of her, just about close
enough to drag the girl to the ground.
Finally she yelled, “Me!” as she pounced at her sister and both fell
hard to the ground.
Both of them out of breath and
practically eating dirt, the two girls turned on their backs and faced the
sky. It was such a beautiful day, just
like every other day. There hardly ever
was a “bad” day in this place. Youko
couldn’t think of one thing that darkened the sky, the village, or their
lives. Everything was perfectly calm,
at ease. She would have loved to stay
here, lying on her back at the foot of the hill, but she remembered neither of
them made it to the lake yet. It was a
game they played everyday, through the woods, to see who could run the fastest
and make it to a certain “safe” point first.
Youko thought she was playing it sneaky by making her sister think that
she had forgotten about the second round of the dash.
Casually standing to her feet, her arms poised at
her waist and hair blowing loosely in the air breeze, Youko smiled with wide
eyes and said, “I’m going to make it to the lake before you!” And again, she dashed out across the open
field.
Sydirna clawed the ground as she jumped to her
feet. “What!? Now who’s talking about fair!
C’mon, wait up!”
She was going to make it! Haha! It had been over a
week since Youko won this little game and she was bound to make it this
time! She could see the rim of the lake
unfold as she ran up and down a small hill.
The surface of the lake was shimmering so beautifully in the sunlight;
it was impossible to get caught up in the beauty of nature. This is why they kept coming to this lake
day after day, even though their father thought negatively of the excursion. He’d always say, “Someday that lake will
turn red with blood...and when it does, don’t come crying back to me! Stay in the village, and nothing will ever
go awry.” Who could ever pass up the
temptation of doing the exact opposite of what a parent told you? Certainly not Youko or Sydirna!
Youko was young for her age; her temperament was
more like her younger sister than of an adult.
Her heart was carefree and spirited, however, her role in the town put a
great deal of stress upon her shoulders. By simply being the first born to the
head of the village, Youko became a sorceress.
She loved nature and everything in it, even the tempting mountains
beyond the lake. Perhaps that’s why she
loved it here, in the quiet, away from her “duties” and the everyday conjuring
of essential materials, food, and water.
She didn’t want this mysterious power or the psychic abilities that came
with her name. But here, in the midst
of nature, she could forget all that, relax, and be young again.
Every time they came to this lake, Youko sensed some
sort of wholeness or connection to nature.
It was an exhilarating feeling that made her come back day after day,
but as she approached the lake this time, she felt a far different and distant
sensation. The memory of the dream
beard its ugly head.
Instantly stopping in her tracks, staring out across
the lake in a semi-conscious trance, Youko heard her father’s voice echo the
words again as the water before her gradually became tainted blood red and
soft, puffy feathers rained from the sky like spits of snow. It was a beautiful sight that spelled
disaster. Her eyes scanned along the
shore of the lake for a few short moments, then when Sydirna came up beside
her, she saw the figure of person, facing away from them, lying half-way
submerged in the water. Following her
stare, Sydirna saw it too, then quickly looked back at her sister.
“Tell me this isn’t happening,” Sydirna said.
Still staring at the figure in the distance, Youko
said, “Visions cannot be real until reality becomes the vision.”
Sydirna didn’t understand what her sister meant, but
she too could feel something odd happening here, or happening not too long
ago. She suddenly felt like she was
being drawn inside a vacuum, like something was pulling her forward, toward the
lake and the figure. The sound of
nature melted away along with the world behind her. All that seemed important and clear to her were her sister and
whoever that was lying half-drowned on the bank. Youko sensed that Sydirna wanted to go to the person and help,
but that was also part of the dream. No
matter what happened, she had to try to keep Sydirna as far away from this
person as possible.
“Sydirna, I want you to go back to the village and
get help.”
“But, I can help.
Whatever you want me to do, just say it. I’m not afraid,” she looked into her sister’s eyes, trying to
plead her way.
“What I want you to do is leave this place. Go home and get help.” When Sydirna gave her a sad/angry look,
Youko continued, “Please, Sydirna. Just
do as I say for once.”
For a moment Sydirna didn’t know who was standing
there in her sister’s shoes. That woman
was so serious, she couldn’t have been Youko!
But then again, when the sense of “duty” overruled her light-hearted
spirits, Youko often appeared to be somebody else.
“Okay...” Sydirna said at last, backing away from her sister. “I’ll go get Daddy! He’ll know what to do!”
They both knew what their father would say about
this— and about the visions. To some
people legends were nothing but fancy stories told at bedtime, but for
believers, these stories were real, had shape and form, and could have just as
easily fallen from the sky into the world of the living as this person on the
side of the beach had. For all the
times she had seen this vision, this dream, she never could get a clear glimpse
of the man’s—yes, the figure was a man!— face.
When she tried to see it, carefully turning him over on his back, it was
as if he had no face at all, nothing but an endless void for a personal, facial
description. But now, in the real
world, she finally had the chance to see who this man was.
She didn’t want to find out about this man or learn
what had happened to him. She could
feel a dark tinge of sorrow from the sight before her. She raised her head from the wicked scene
and turned her faltering gaze out to the lake, a chill breeze passed by,
blowing several fluffy feathers along the beach. There weren’t any birds flying around the lake and she didn’t
know where these feathers could have come from. Then one of them floated back and forth in front of her
face. The sunlight glistened off of the
feather, glowing a bright light in the open lake-breeze. Kaori reached out her hand and let the
feather gently rest inside of her palm.
It was soft and hardly seemed real.
It appeared to be made out of a silky, golden material, something she
had never seen before. Then just before
she could study it closer, a gust of wind blew it from her grasp just as
unexpectedly as it had brought the feather to her attention.
Slowly stepping along the water, Youko kneeled
beside the man somewhat clothed in tattered white garments. It was just as she pictured it in her dream—
walking next to the man, kneeling down, and staring at his torn and bloody
body. She somehow knew that he had been
in the lake for a long time, then finally, with the help of fate, he used the
last bit of his strength to find the shore, where he collapsed at last. The man lay on his stomach with his head
facing the other direction from where Youko stood. He was bruised, cut, and literally torn apart. She had to be careful how she assessed the
situation— she didn’t know exactly to what degree he was wounded. Carefully turning him onto his back as she
had done in the dream, she horridly realized how severely injured this man
really was— this is what made the lake turn red!
Someday that lake will turn red with blood...
Her father was right! His own vision of the village’s destruction
was starting to come true. But Youko
couldn’t imagine how one man on the brink of death could cause anything that
severe to happen. For the moment, she
didn’t want to believe it, so she through her father’s words into the back of
her mind, then looked over the man’s wounds.
He appeared to be relatively young, perhaps slightly older than her
sister, Sydirna. His long red hair
blended and matched almost perfectly with the red of his blood splattered all
over his body, the beach, and the water.
He had small cuts and gashes on his face and neck, a long but narrow cut
across his chest, but the wound that concerned her the most was his left arm
and shoulder. He had the longest slash
she had ever seen anyone endure. It
appeared that something bit or clawed the entire length of his arm, attempting
to rip it from his body. The would was
so wicked and inhumanly possible to withstand—Youko tried not to imagine what
could have possibly done this. Then the
question of whether or not he truly was alive crossed her mind. How foolish of her not to check for any
life-signs before she sent Sydirna back to town! If there was no hope of survival for this man, she didn’t want to
make a big scene out of it— this poor soul deserved at least a little bit of
respect.
When Youko lightly touched the side of his neck for
a life-sign, the man’s face twitched as if in pain. So he was alive, the slightly irregular yet strong heartbeats
pulsating up through her hand. Youko
was relieved and yet saddened at the same time— this man would have a long way
to recovery, if he could even make it to the village alive. It was quite a distance and by the time
Sydirna returned with help, she didn’t know how tightly he would still be
clinging onto life.
Gently moving her hand from his neck to the top of
his forehead, she suddenly sensed something, as if it were coming directly from
the mind of the man. It was a frightful
vision, materializing into her brain like a fuzzy blizzard. She was not even sure what she was seeing, but
she took note of those images that seemed most important. She saw two figures, a gigantic golden
dragon and a demonic silvery black serpent creature; both fighting in the sky
upon feathery wings. She noticed that
the black monster had three violet wings as opposed to the dragon’s more common
two. Perhaps she was making too much of
this more obvious observation. Round
after round of exchanges, some fiercely brutal and others mere spatting bouts,
she saw the serpent painfully lodge its jaws into the golden dragon’s shoulder,
which then fell almost completely out of the sky. It spread its wings just before slamming into the ground below,
but the black monster dove out of the sky and shoved the dragon into the rocky
soil below. Besides the two creatures
dueling it out, Youko abruptly started to become more aware of the surrounding
landscape. It seemed like any normal
place on earth, and yet something did not seem right. She felt an odd sensation of divine existence, as if this place
and the two beings in it were not from her same level of existence. They were far above her, existing in a time
and place separate and yet connected to her own, this world.
Then it hit her.
A golden dragon fighting a black beast!
How very similar that idea was to the ancient Legend of the Golden
Dragon story that the elders told the children of the town. It was a local folk tale that not many
people believed in it word for word, but with the odd combination of her
father’s words, this sudden vision, and the appearance of the man on the beach,
Youko knew of no other explanation. In
the legend, there was a divine being that came from the heavens and purged the
land of darkness. It is said that he
was the one who actually created the world and most importantly the sun of
which he was the symbol for, giving both light and fire to the people
below. But could this man, appearing in
human form, truly be the god spoken of in the legend? That was impossible. No
god could suddenly become human, bleed, and possibly die. What would that say for the average life of
humanity? If even gods are mortal, what
could humans possibly look forward to in the next life?
Groggily, as if awakening from a long sleep, the man
slowly opened his eyes and attempted to sit up, but the pain of his arm and
other various injuries bit through his being and grounded him to the sandy
beach once more.
“Oh no.
Please don’t try to move,” Youko said like a mother to her child.
But he didn’t listen. The man continued trying to sit up and look at whoever was
speaking to him. Still firmly planted
on the beachside, the man tiredly raised his head toward Youko, then said in
almost no voice at all, “W-where...”
“Please don’t try to talk. We are getting help and they should be coming soon. Just try to stay calm until they get here.”
“You... you
must get... away from here. He
could...come back... You’ll just...get
in... the way...” Finally able to sit
up, the man scrunched over, painfully holding his left arm in his right. “Who are you? Where is...this place?”
With the look of concern glowing from her face,
Youko answered, “My name is Youko. I am
from a village not too far from here.
My younger sister and I found you lying here— she went to get help. May I ask what happened to you... If I know, I might be able to help.”
The man stared across the lake with the sunlight
shimmering on the surface as if he had never seen such a thing before in his
life. His blue eyes seemed so far away
and lost when he looked back at Youko.
“I don’t....remember.” Wide-eyed
and searching for answers from himself, he looked away. “Why can’t I remember...? I—
I? Who am I?” Wincing, he clutched his arm again.
How could he not remember what happened to him? It didn’t make much sense to Youko, but she
imagined that he must have suffered from shock or maybe he sustained a blow to
the head and that is why he cannot remember.
Either way, Youko had to do something, something to calm him down before
the others come to help. “Here, just
lie back down,” she said, softly guiding him to lie back on the sandy bed of
the beach. “From the looks of it, your
wounds are pretty serious. You mustn’t
overexert yourself.”
Confused, lost, and shocked, the man did not expect
such kindness from someone he had never met before. Thankful for the girl’s presence and feeling as though he could
trust her, her voice soft and quite, he closed his eyes to the bright light of
the sun and tried to breathe slowly, deeply.
He could feel the thumping of his heart beating through his torn limb
and the oozy feeling of his own warm blood pouring down his arm and a gash in
his side. Suddenly he felt so sleepy
and as he heard the girl’s voice trail off into the darkness that surrounded
him, the man left everything up to fate.
Finally, a group of men and women from the town with
Sydirna in the lead came running down the hill to the shore of the lake. Standing to greet them, Youko caught the
look on her father’s face as he followed shortly behind Sydirna. She could tell he was not happy. He had warned the both of them not to travel
outside of the village— he told her this would happen, that this mysterious man
would fall into the lives of the townsfolk.
But it was too late now. They
both came to the lake against their father’s wishes and they encountered the
man there on the shore. There was no
turning back All they could do no was
move forward.
Coming up to her, Daos said darkly as he frowned at
Youko, “And it all begins with you, doesn’t it, Youko?”
“Father, I know you are upset with us, but please do
not blame Sydirna. It was my idea to
come here and it was my idea to come so frequently.”
Daos sighed and turned to the others behind
him. “C’mon, we have to get him back to
town or else he’s going to bleed to death.
Let’s go.” Two men who had been
carrying a crude form of a stretcher set the contraption on the beach next to
the man, then proceeded to roughly transfer him on to it. The man had been slowly losing consciousness
again, but as the men began to move him, he cried out loudly with nothing but
the look of agony on his face.
“Be careful!” Youko yelled at the two barbaric men,
who did not seem to care whether the man was in pain or not.
“Look, Youko,” Daos said, pulling her away by the
arm as the two men began to walk back up the path with the man on the
stretcher. “You have to understand that
many people will not be happy with this decision, bring this stranger to our
village. There will be some who won’t
want anything to do with him. We know
absolutely nothing about him or how he came to such a state. The unknown is dangerous, and therefore,
this man is dangerous. You have to
realize what sort of fate you have accepted in doing this, a path that all of
us have to follow now.”
Turning her head away, Youko replied, “Yes, I
understand.”
Again Daos sighed only this time he let his harsh
words and expression melt away. “So,
what is his name?”
In a partial trance, Youko knew the man’s name as if
something whispered it to her. “Yes,”
she said. “That man’s name is... Ryuu.”
**********
What were these...vague feelings? They were only pieces of an ancient shattered mirror, reflecting the life of someone or something unknown to him. The more he denied that he knew anything about the images, the sounds, the feelings he was being exposed to, the more they seemed to make sense. The names, people, and situations seemed so real— how could they have not been from his life?
“How is one to define “life” or
“existence?” How does one know the
difference between life and merely existing?
Or is there even a difference between the two? If there is no life, is there an existence? If there is no existence, can there be
life?”
Hisoka had had just about enough of
this black world and the voice taunting him, never fully giving him an
answer. He wanted to... he wanted to
what? Scream, lash out with violence,
to fight? Yes, all of them. He admitted it to himself. That was the one strand of his life that he
never admitted to anyone let alone himself.
He recalled his childhood and how hyper he always was. He was a very wild soul back then, wanting
to run wild across the land, but he had to set that aside for those around
him. He grew up as does every human
being.
“Yes,” the voice echoed. “You do remember that time, don’t you? How you would run around in the back yard
butt naked like a wild banshee that you were, how you would fall off your bike
and laugh at the scrape as blood would drip down your leg, how you’d watch
enviously as birds came to eat seed from the feeder. These are all small pieces of your life, Hisoka. They’re so small that they hardly seem to
matter in the great scheme of things.
But that is only one fraction of what you call a “life.” Do you remember how you crashed into that
lake near Springbrook, how the people treated you there as you tried to adjust
to a new life, how you were tormented in that machine as a child and had to
have your own father come rescue you from it, killing him in the process?”
“No, stop it!” Hisoka said, drawing
away.
“These are all very small pieces
from your life, or lives, I should say.
I could call you Hisoka and Ryuu, but neither of them would be
correct. What you are now is far
different than who you were thousands of years ago, who I remember you as.”
“I don’t know what you are talking
about! I only have one life, just like
everybody else!”
“So you really do think you are
human, do you? Then how do you explain
the fire welling up, exploding inside of you?
How do you explain the dreams, the demon of the night, or that lightning
bolt that came from no where and struck you down? Please, if you think you know so much, then tell me! Tell me why you are here!”
What could he say? After all the visions, all the sounds, the
faces, how could he connect them all together and make some sense out of it
all? It was impossible because there
was no connection. Hisoka had no connection
to this Ryuu person, he had no connection to the people of Springbrook. He never even heard of the village before
now. Feeling a burst of anger beginning
to work its way through his spirit, he looked around the black space he was
suspended in. He wanted out of here,
out of this darkness! He wanted to see,
to feel something, to know that he really did exist!
At that moment, at the realization of his desire,
something opened up inside of him, something that he had felt before while he
was trapped forever inside the nightmare with the demon. Emerging from deep within his chest, a
golden circle of light appeared in front of him, lightening the darkness all
around. Now he could see at least
something, and he was thankful for that.
Slowly the light changed into a tiny form of a dragon as it appeared
before Sakura within the dream world.
He flapped his small, leathery wings and faced Hisoka.
“Looks like this is it. But I don’t think you are ready to remember everything just
yet. For now, I will give you Ryuu’s
memories, from the time he awoke on the beach and on. But don’t be frightened.
You will suddenly know these
things as happening at some point in time, just like remembering something that
happened to you last year. That is how
Ryuu’s life will appear, like it already has begun to unfold before you. I know this is confusing, but you have to
simply go with it. Don’t question what
you think you know. If you must push it
aside as you slowly digest it all, then fine.
I give you that choice.”
Floating in the darkness with the dragon glowing
like a star in front of him, Hisoka stared blankly at the beast. He wanted to wake up from this dream, he
wanted to see Kaori’s face again, he wanted to go home and just sleep a whole
peaceful night for once. Was that too
much to ask for?
Apparently it was.
Beyond the dragon and off to the right, a shadowy
figure began to appear out of the black, illuminated by the light of the
dragon. The figure stepped bit by bit
closer to Hisoka and the dragon; the closer he came, the more detailed his form
became. He had long bluish-purple hair
with an earring of seven different colored gems dangling from an ear, he wore a
long, loosely fitted robe and he rested one hand on the hilt of a broadsword on
his left side. As if a part of his
clothing, two leathery black wings outspread from his body to show that he was
not quite human. Finally opening his
mouth to speak as he stepped closer, the man said, “You don’t know why you are here,
nor where “here” is, do you?”
Hisoka had heard this man’s voice before— it was the
first voice he heard when he entered this dark world and it was the same voice
of the demon from his dream! Was this
the man from his nightmares? Was he the
one he was running from, the one he feared so much?
“I thought not,” said the man. He then raised a hand, motioning to the
golden dragon between them both. “He is
the reason why you are here and you are the reason why both of us are here.”
Staring his gemlike golden eyes into Hisoka’s, the
dragon replied, “If you want to wake up from this dark world, then you must be
prepared to deal with the shadows of your existence. If you are not able to accept and deal with those shadows, demons
will overrun your soul until they consume you.”
“It’s entirely up to you, Hisoka,” said the man,
reaching out to hold Hisoka’s bewildered face in his hands. “What is it that you want?”
He had been silent for so long and yet his mind’s
voice never completely stopped for a breath.
What did he want? Was this like
a genie’s question to the one who woke him?
Would he be granted any wish that he wanted? If that were the case, nothing came to mind, nothing except for
silence. That is what Hisoka wanted; he
wanted a silent life. He wanted to
silence those voices in his head, he wanted to forget all of these images he
had been seeing in this black world. He
didn’t want to see or remember these two faces before him. But even if he asked to forget, would he be
granted these desires?
“It’s finally time to wake up,” said the dragon. Just as the man drew away from him and
backed into the shadows once again, the form of the dragon appeared to melt
like honey envelop around him, forming a strange set of golden armor as it
hardened and took shape. As Hisoka was
absorbed within the golden light, the separate pieces of the armor solidifying
into an indestructible metal, the darkness all around him seemed to crumble and
shatter.
From within his mind, the voice of the dragon spoke
to him: “Get ready for a rude awakening.”
**********
Gulabel had watched it all, from the beginning stages of the Dredge warming up to the point where all the instruments of the system were beginning to go haywire and explode from an odd energy burst from inside. Watching from above, within his own personal office with a one-way window looking down into the lab, Gulabel stood with scarlet desire dripping from his brow. That tiny little form inside of the Dredge was the one, the one who would bestow tremendous power upon him! He was the one! As he stood looking down at the boy inside of the machine, he couldn’t contain his excitement for his inevitable future. He would become a god, just as Chryarnth had promised, and it would be beautiful. Just as other gods came and went through the ages, he would be the first to permanently inscribe his holy name in the walls of time. He would be the one constant.
But as the hour expired and all
sorts of beeps and flashing lights suddenly spread throughout each individual
system of the Dredge, his worst fears crept up and grabbed a hold of his
stomach. The one thing that he feared
the most was of the boy losing control of his divine power, wasting it all
before Gulabel could even imagine of its power. That could not happen! He
would not let that happen! As a last
ditch attempt to alter any such energy expenses, Gulabel set up a self-destruct
mechanism in the Dredge’s circuitry. He
would wait at that last possible moment before it would become too late to
salvage any godlike power from the human inside.
And so he watched. He watched as Kaori’s scurried here and
there on the console, trying to compensate for the energy fluctuation that had
begun emanating from within, but no matter what she tried, she could not stop
the system’s meltdown.
It would not be much longer
now.
Inside the Dredge tank, still
tightly wrapped up in computer wires, Hisoka stared off into nothingness, his
eyes seemed to be far, far away, as if he was in some sort of trance, his face
deathly pale. Kaori counted the time as
it went by from the moment he had looked like that and she was about to pull
the plug when all the sirens and various red and bright white lights flashed on
her console.
With eyes dashing from screen to
screen, Kaori cursed under her breath, “What the hell, what the hell!?” She didn’t want to admit that she had no
clue what was going on, nor did she truly know what to do to stop whatever it
was from happening. The sounds and
lights appeared to be extremely important, dire even. But again, all she could do was sit back and wait.
Within the next few seconds, the
color seemed to come back to Hisoka’s face, however, the eyes that she had
known for so long were no where to be found.
They were dark and even though there were tons of separate lights lit in
the lab, not a single reflection of light touched his eyes. The eyes that Kaori looked into now were
different, not of the young boy she had known years before and after the fated
cliff accident. A bright, warm color
suddenly began to expand like a inflatable balloon in and around the Dredge
tank with Hisoka in the center. The
pale white color bled in the blue-green water of the Dredge until that same
light as before burst out around Hisoka’s body, expelling the cords that bound
him. The rupture of such energy all of
a sudden cracked the glass. Kaori
instinctively stepped backward at the sight of the crack spreading across the
entire length of the tank. There was
nothing more than the sheer strength of the glass holding in the tons of
gallons within the Dredge. If the glass
gave way, all of its contents would spew out into the lab with tremendous
force.
By the time the natural color and
light returned to Hisoka’s eyes, it was too late. The next burst of energy exploded violently inside of him, and in
that split second as Kaori looked on, she could see the image of golden wings
appear on his back. But all of that
disappeared from sight when the structure of the Dredge collapsed in upon
itself, the glass and water pouring outward from the giant machine and the large
sections of the mechanical ring above and to each side of the tank folded
inward as the glass lost its stability.
There was no place for Kaori to run and take shelter from the surge
except for the small control console.
She ducked behind it, covering her head with her arms. Most of the force was diverted by the
console. The sound of shattering glass
on the hard linoleum floor sounded like a hail storm in the summer. And the water was like a typhoon blasting
along a chain of helpless islands.
When the most of it was over, the cackling of
electrical wires and the expense of all the energy slowly waning down, Kaori
cautiously peeked her head over the console and saw the Dredge in ruins. As she slowly stood over her station, she
suddenly realized that nearly everything in the lab, not only the Dredge, was
either damaged or completely ripped apart from the blast. But none of that mattered now. Her eyes searched the debris for
Hisoka. She saw the mechanical supports
that integrated with the glass parts of the machine close in on him just before
she ducked away. If there would be
another expense of energy, now would be the time.
But there was no time to be had.
Before Kaori could even approach the wreckage of the
Dredge, she was assaulted from behind by two powerful arms. “You’re not going anywhere, Ms. Epoh.”
Struggling against the than that came up from
behind, she glanced and saw who restrained her. It was Gulabel.
“I’ve waited all my life for this moment. I should have known that you would foil it
with your presence here.”
“Gulabel!
Sir! Let go of me! My-my client…!”
“He is no longer any of your concern! From this moment on, from this day forward,
you are formally removed from this case, is that understood!” The man gripped her arm behind her back
tightly, painfully. “Do you understand
me?”
Her face twisting in pain, she cried out loudly,
“Yes, sir!”
“You are not to ever set foot in this building
again, do you understand? You are no
longer one of us.” Holding her face in
her hand and forcing her to look at the devastation that just came through the
lab, he continued, “Can you see what you have done? This is the outcome from such a meddling, obstinate pupil such as
you! You had been warned to stay away
from this case, but you persisted. I allowed
it, but never would I have imagined that it would come to this! This!
All my dreams! All my desires! Gone with that rotten kid’s life!”
“No…” Kaori whispered as tears began to flow from
her eyes. What had she done? There was no way Hisoka could have withstood
the explosion from the Dredge or the collapse of the support beams and other
mechanical parts of the computer system.
He was dead and it was all because she didn’t know what to expect from
the experiment. Yes, it was an
experimental procedure that hadn’t been proven of anything, but she had every
desire for it to work. It should have
worked. Perhaps there was some small
figure that she did not account for, some small piece of knowledge that she was
not aware of that caused this catastrophe.
She didn’t want to believe it was all over. She denied that anything horrible happened to Hisoka as Gulabel
had said. He had to be lying!
“Look at it!” the man squeezed Kaori’s face and
dragged her closer to the pile of broken glass and metal halfway submerged in
red-green water. “This is the end of
everything!”
She couldn’t stand it anymore. She hadn’t the strength to break free from
Gulabel’s berserker hold, but somehow she found the will to go forward to find
the truth. She wiggled out of Gulabel’s
hands and ran to the remains of the Dredge, digging through the pieces
desperately trying to find Hisoka amidst the rubble.
Gulabel was about to grasp her up again in his angry
arms, but instead, he called for security to take her away. “Take her away. I don’t want to see her again.”
Several security guards dressed in black suits with
a bright yellow lightning bolt insignia over their hearts came running into the
lab, three of which scooped Kaori up off of the floor and began to drag her
away.
“No! You
can’t do this!” she yelled, refusing to leave.
“You can’t leave him in there!
Hisoka!!”
Discussed, Gulabel turned his back on Kaori as the
guards took her away. He longingly
glanced where his glorious Dredge once stood and said, “That boy— as well as my
dreams— is dead.”