A little boy begged him for mercy, holding his blade out in front of him in a futile gesture to defend himself as he lay on the ground. But there was no mercy, no compassion within him. There was only...death.
There was the brutal scream of a child cut off in mid-shriek, the sound lingering in the air even as his severed head bounced to the ground and lay still. Slowly, his lifeless eyes seemed to turn up and glare at him, reflecting him within their once-seeing pools. And he saw his reflection in those eyes, smile at him, a wide-lipped sadistic grin.
*
Sheryl's morning routine had been fairly simple up till now, and that was the way she liked it. Simple meant there were no unexpected complications, nothing that would or could threaten her and her family. She had woken up at 6 am as she did every morning and prepared breakfast for her family and then had gone up to wake up her son who was the only member of her family.
But now, she stood still, immobile to move as she watched her son writhe in his sleep from the doorway of his room. Writhing she could just shrug off and take as normal, but not this almost violent twisting of limbs and body. Not the fact that he was speaking in his sleep, in a language that had been old when the heavens were new, half-speaking them in a voice that was not his but a voice she recognised and which sent chills down her spine.
She didn't know what kept her rooted, why she couldn't seem to do more than watch as her son suffered before her, and he did suffer but she couldn't do anything about it. Fear kept her rooted to the ground, fear of what she suspected was happening, of what was going to happen now. Events had been set into motion, plans had been destroyed and wheels were turning ever so slowly but they were turning.
And then her son jerked up, like a man surfacing the water after nearly drowning, breathing in deeply the thin morning air. He clutched at his blanket desperately, reassuring himself that it was real, that this was real and not the dream. That his dream had indeed been only a dream.
"Ryu?" Sheryl ventured his name forth, hoping desperately it was her son in front of her.
He turned to stare at her and she gasped, stumbling backwards and nearly tripping in her haste. His eyes were blank and devoid of recognition, he saw her but did not know her.
"Ryu?" she tried again, sobbing his name out and this time it worked as she slowly watched his eyes clear before her.
He blinked once and then he was back, the same old Ryu that she had awakened every morning for the past 10 years and more importantly, he was her son again.
"Mom?" he said, confusion evident in his voice. "Why are you crying?"
"No, it's nothing, I'm just happy that's all." She willed herself to stop, wiping the tears from her eye but her eyes still burned. "Hurry and get ready, Ryu, you wouldn't want to be late," she says and then she not-quite-rushes out from the room before she starts crying again, leaving one very confused blue-haired boy behind.
She knows she has to alert them, to inform them of this new change. But that can wait, wait till her grief is gone.
*
Ryu blinked, once, twice to make sure he was awake. There was a sense of surrealness to the whole morning, of a fragile dream, like a bubble rising from a swamp, that could be so easily broken. Subconsciously, he flexes his hands, muscles rippling as he tests them. Yes, something does feel different but he can not quite place it.
A sense of...wrongness was all he had to guide him, there was also something about a...dream, he frowned as he tried to recall what exactly it was about dreams that disturbed him. He was sure he had one last night but somehow, he couldn't remember even the vaguest details of it.
Yes, something very wrong indeed.
*
It was a simple thing, a thing of routine and repetition.
Knock Knock.
She had done this for as long as she could remember knowing Ryu, ever since he and his mother had moved in one summer's day. Watching from her room where she could see everything, the moving truck and the men labouring over the furniture, observing as piece by piece, the house right across the street was slowly transformed into a home. She had watched as a small minivan drove up and a mother and child got out.
That was when she had first seen Ryu. He had looked so precocious, so fragile back then and her heart had gone out to him then. He looked so lost, as if not quite sure what he was doing, he still looked like that even now. Lost, hurt, so vulnerable and he didn't even seem to realise it himself.
The sound of the front door being opened brought her out of her memories and back to the present.
"Good morning Mrs. Bateson," she says cheerfully and frowns when she sees that her cheer is not reflected in Ryu's mother. "Is everything okay?" she asks, concerned for the woman in front of her is almost as dear to her as her own mother.
" Everything's alright," Sheryl Bateson says, forcing a small smile onto her face to reassure the girl in front of her but it does not fool her in any way. "Ryu should be down shortly, so please, why don't you come in here and wait?"
"Thanks," she says as she follows Mrs. Bateson into the living room. The Bateson house is as clean as always and briefly she wonders just how Ryu's mother manages to keep it so spotless all the time. Magic, she thinks, not knowing how close to the truth she is.
The sound of footfalls, soft as they are, come to her ears and she turns to see Ryu coming down the stairs. He looks like he does everyday, dressed in the black and white uniform of school. Or does he? Something seems different today, he seems a little less sure of himself, a little more lost and yet there is a steady gait to his walk.
Confusing to say the least.
"Ohaiyou Felicia." And then his voice banishes all other thoughts from her.
*
Sheryl watches as her son leaves with his friend, and a tumult of emotions rush through her, she is relieved, she is broken, she knows that all too soon, days like this will be all too rare and hard to come by.
With a heavy heart, she picked up the phone and begins to dial. Duty calls.
*
They walk as they usually do, with Felicia chatting and him listening to her. It is a short 20 minute walk to school and they spend it like this, talking all the way.
Ryu smiles, feeling some of the tension he hadn't even known was in him, draining away as the walk continues. The familarity of the routine comforts him.
But the uneasiness doesn't fade.
*
He stares down at them, seeming for all the world like two ordinary teenagers. The girl he didn't recognise, but the other... Anything but ordinary, no, never that. Never ordinary.
'Kill him now,' the voice that had always been there, whispered inside his head. It sometimes changed, ranging from the screams of the insane, or the pleas of the wretched. Right now, it was the voice of the serpent. 'Kill him now rip his bones to flesh tear his meat to paste the taste of his blood-'
"Urusai! I decide, not you! Not you!" he said fiercely , and the voice quieted down, fading to a faint hum in the corner of his mind.
But still the words echoed in his head.
*
"So Ryu, what are you going to do now? Spend more time in the library?" Felicia asks as Ryu escorts her to her lecture. It is something he doesn't need to do but which he does anyway, and liking the extra time with him, she never told him to stop anyway.
"I was planning on doing that. I don't have any lessons scheduled on Tuesday morning anyway."
"Mou, you shouldn't spend so much time in the library, you might turn into a bookworm," Felicia teases, her voice turning low and husky as it always does when she plays with him. "But not to worry , I like intelligent guys."
"You'll be late for your lecture, Felicia."
"Mou, you're no fun," she complains but she turns anyway to enter the lecture hall.
He starts to make his way to the library when her voice calls out to him once more.
"Ryu..." her tone stops him, the worry in it palpatable, especially to him.
"Yes?" he turns once more to find her back facing towards him, her head lowered slightly.
"Are you okay?"
He blinks at that. "What do you mean?"
"It's just that....you seem different today."
He hesitates for a moment, wondering what to tell her. That he had a dream that he is certain is not just a dream, that he's been having similar sort of dreams for the past few weeks now, just that he couldn't remember what they were? Instead he settles for the easiest answer he can give, "I'm fine."
"Oh..." her voice grows small for a moment, before regaining it's normal cheerful intonation. "That's all then," she turns and gives him a small smile. "I'll see you later in the library."
"I'll be waiting."
*
He is sitting at his usual place, poring one of the many mythological texts the library has, and one of the few remaining that he has not read since he started studying here and there is nothing to indicate that this day would not be like any other he has had in his relatively peaceful life, when suddenly part of the wall explodes.
Or that is the way it seems to him, and suddenly the library is filled with noise as students scream and the cries of those injured when parts of the wall hit them. He is up on his feet in an instant, a long-buried instinct within him screaming of danger and his eyes travel quickly to the portion of the wall that is now missing and realises that a figure is slowly stepping through it. He strains to get a glimpse of the stranger, and his heart stops when he realises that the stranger is him.
Or almost, the similarities are striking. The same feminine frame of face with its narrow chin and high cheekbones, silver-blue eyes and hair and the slight petulant lips set within that face. But the differences are just as striking, the strangers hair tied into a high ponytail that rests on his scalp and with his hair falling down to his waist, the strange sword the stranger is carrying, and the eyes...
Their gazes lock, and in that moment, Ryu knows that his death has come for him.
*
When he spots his target, the voices in his head start raging again and it is all he can do not to just fall to the ground, holding his head. Instead he mentally grits his teeth and walks slowly to the one who must die, the one he is going to kill. It does not make the voices go away.
*
He is aware of the rest of the students quickly running away and while he would like to join them, he is also aware of the fact that to turn his back on his double is to die. And that is not something he wants.
He starts backing away, slowly at first then quicker as he notices the distance between the two of them is closing, only to trip as he stumbles over a fallen chair and fall to the ground. He tries to get up but the distance has been closed and the strangers blade is already falling towards him, so quickly for so huge a blade.
That's when the voices erupt in him.
'-on't die...'
'...too young...'
'won't die...'
'...-e done....'
'I WON'T DIE HERE!'
And with that scream, a blasting white light seemed to wash over him internally like an epiphany.
*
He stared silently at the place where his sword had landed, expecting to find a body crushed brutally beneath its weight, but finding nothing instead.
"Who are you?" a soft voice came from above him, and he turned to see his target standing to his right on top of one of the many cupboards in the library.
He tensed immediately. The target had changed, a mere shift here and there in the stance, perhaps a bit more confident that he had been a second ago, but something about it made him wary.
"I said," the target repeated once more; even his voice had changed, 'Who are you, that wears my face?"
"I don't wear your face, you wear MINE!" He yelled angrily before he gave into his rage and launched himself at the other in fury.
There was the brutal scream of a child cut off in mid-shriek, the sound lingering in the air even as his severed head bounced to the ground and lay still. Slowly, his lifeless eyes seemed to turn up and glare at him, reflecting him within their once-seeing pools. And he saw his reflection in those eyes, smile at him, a wide-lipped sadistic grin.
*
Sheryl's morning routine had been fairly simple up till now, and that was the way she liked it. Simple meant there were no unexpected complications, nothing that would or could threaten her and her family. She had woken up at 6 am as she did every morning and prepared breakfast for her family and then had gone up to wake up her son who was the only member of her family.
But now, she stood still, immobile to move as she watched her son writhe in his sleep from the doorway of his room. Writhing she could just shrug off and take as normal, but not this almost violent twisting of limbs and body. Not the fact that he was speaking in his sleep, in a language that had been old when the heavens were new, half-speaking them in a voice that was not his but a voice she recognised and which sent chills down her spine.
She didn't know what kept her rooted, why she couldn't seem to do more than watch as her son suffered before her, and he did suffer but she couldn't do anything about it. Fear kept her rooted to the ground, fear of what she suspected was happening, of what was going to happen now. Events had been set into motion, plans had been destroyed and wheels were turning ever so slowly but they were turning.
And then her son jerked up, like a man surfacing the water after nearly drowning, breathing in deeply the thin morning air. He clutched at his blanket desperately, reassuring himself that it was real, that this was real and not the dream. That his dream had indeed been only a dream.
"Ryu?" Sheryl ventured his name forth, hoping desperately it was her son in front of her.
He turned to stare at her and she gasped, stumbling backwards and nearly tripping in her haste. His eyes were blank and devoid of recognition, he saw her but did not know her.
"Ryu?" she tried again, sobbing his name out and this time it worked as she slowly watched his eyes clear before her.
He blinked once and then he was back, the same old Ryu that she had awakened every morning for the past 10 years and more importantly, he was her son again.
"Mom?" he said, confusion evident in his voice. "Why are you crying?"
"No, it's nothing, I'm just happy that's all." She willed herself to stop, wiping the tears from her eye but her eyes still burned. "Hurry and get ready, Ryu, you wouldn't want to be late," she says and then she not-quite-rushes out from the room before she starts crying again, leaving one very confused blue-haired boy behind.
She knows she has to alert them, to inform them of this new change. But that can wait, wait till her grief is gone.
*
Ryu blinked, once, twice to make sure he was awake. There was a sense of surrealness to the whole morning, of a fragile dream, like a bubble rising from a swamp, that could be so easily broken. Subconsciously, he flexes his hands, muscles rippling as he tests them. Yes, something does feel different but he can not quite place it.
A sense of...wrongness was all he had to guide him, there was also something about a...dream, he frowned as he tried to recall what exactly it was about dreams that disturbed him. He was sure he had one last night but somehow, he couldn't remember even the vaguest details of it.
Yes, something very wrong indeed.
*
It was a simple thing, a thing of routine and repetition.
Knock Knock.
She had done this for as long as she could remember knowing Ryu, ever since he and his mother had moved in one summer's day. Watching from her room where she could see everything, the moving truck and the men labouring over the furniture, observing as piece by piece, the house right across the street was slowly transformed into a home. She had watched as a small minivan drove up and a mother and child got out.
That was when she had first seen Ryu. He had looked so precocious, so fragile back then and her heart had gone out to him then. He looked so lost, as if not quite sure what he was doing, he still looked like that even now. Lost, hurt, so vulnerable and he didn't even seem to realise it himself.
The sound of the front door being opened brought her out of her memories and back to the present.
"Good morning Mrs. Bateson," she says cheerfully and frowns when she sees that her cheer is not reflected in Ryu's mother. "Is everything okay?" she asks, concerned for the woman in front of her is almost as dear to her as her own mother.
" Everything's alright," Sheryl Bateson says, forcing a small smile onto her face to reassure the girl in front of her but it does not fool her in any way. "Ryu should be down shortly, so please, why don't you come in here and wait?"
"Thanks," she says as she follows Mrs. Bateson into the living room. The Bateson house is as clean as always and briefly she wonders just how Ryu's mother manages to keep it so spotless all the time. Magic, she thinks, not knowing how close to the truth she is.
The sound of footfalls, soft as they are, come to her ears and she turns to see Ryu coming down the stairs. He looks like he does everyday, dressed in the black and white uniform of school. Or does he? Something seems different today, he seems a little less sure of himself, a little more lost and yet there is a steady gait to his walk.
Confusing to say the least.
"Ohaiyou Felicia." And then his voice banishes all other thoughts from her.
*
Sheryl watches as her son leaves with his friend, and a tumult of emotions rush through her, she is relieved, she is broken, she knows that all too soon, days like this will be all too rare and hard to come by.
With a heavy heart, she picked up the phone and begins to dial. Duty calls.
*
They walk as they usually do, with Felicia chatting and him listening to her. It is a short 20 minute walk to school and they spend it like this, talking all the way.
Ryu smiles, feeling some of the tension he hadn't even known was in him, draining away as the walk continues. The familarity of the routine comforts him.
But the uneasiness doesn't fade.
*
He stares down at them, seeming for all the world like two ordinary teenagers. The girl he didn't recognise, but the other... Anything but ordinary, no, never that. Never ordinary.
'Kill him now,' the voice that had always been there, whispered inside his head. It sometimes changed, ranging from the screams of the insane, or the pleas of the wretched. Right now, it was the voice of the serpent. 'Kill him now rip his bones to flesh tear his meat to paste the taste of his blood-'
"Urusai! I decide, not you! Not you!" he said fiercely , and the voice quieted down, fading to a faint hum in the corner of his mind.
But still the words echoed in his head.
*
"So Ryu, what are you going to do now? Spend more time in the library?" Felicia asks as Ryu escorts her to her lecture. It is something he doesn't need to do but which he does anyway, and liking the extra time with him, she never told him to stop anyway.
"I was planning on doing that. I don't have any lessons scheduled on Tuesday morning anyway."
"Mou, you shouldn't spend so much time in the library, you might turn into a bookworm," Felicia teases, her voice turning low and husky as it always does when she plays with him. "But not to worry , I like intelligent guys."
"You'll be late for your lecture, Felicia."
"Mou, you're no fun," she complains but she turns anyway to enter the lecture hall.
He starts to make his way to the library when her voice calls out to him once more.
"Ryu..." her tone stops him, the worry in it palpatable, especially to him.
"Yes?" he turns once more to find her back facing towards him, her head lowered slightly.
"Are you okay?"
He blinks at that. "What do you mean?"
"It's just that....you seem different today."
He hesitates for a moment, wondering what to tell her. That he had a dream that he is certain is not just a dream, that he's been having similar sort of dreams for the past few weeks now, just that he couldn't remember what they were? Instead he settles for the easiest answer he can give, "I'm fine."
"Oh..." her voice grows small for a moment, before regaining it's normal cheerful intonation. "That's all then," she turns and gives him a small smile. "I'll see you later in the library."
"I'll be waiting."
*
He is sitting at his usual place, poring one of the many mythological texts the library has, and one of the few remaining that he has not read since he started studying here and there is nothing to indicate that this day would not be like any other he has had in his relatively peaceful life, when suddenly part of the wall explodes.
Or that is the way it seems to him, and suddenly the library is filled with noise as students scream and the cries of those injured when parts of the wall hit them. He is up on his feet in an instant, a long-buried instinct within him screaming of danger and his eyes travel quickly to the portion of the wall that is now missing and realises that a figure is slowly stepping through it. He strains to get a glimpse of the stranger, and his heart stops when he realises that the stranger is him.
Or almost, the similarities are striking. The same feminine frame of face with its narrow chin and high cheekbones, silver-blue eyes and hair and the slight petulant lips set within that face. But the differences are just as striking, the strangers hair tied into a high ponytail that rests on his scalp and with his hair falling down to his waist, the strange sword the stranger is carrying, and the eyes...
Their gazes lock, and in that moment, Ryu knows that his death has come for him.
*
When he spots his target, the voices in his head start raging again and it is all he can do not to just fall to the ground, holding his head. Instead he mentally grits his teeth and walks slowly to the one who must die, the one he is going to kill. It does not make the voices go away.
*
He is aware of the rest of the students quickly running away and while he would like to join them, he is also aware of the fact that to turn his back on his double is to die. And that is not something he wants.
He starts backing away, slowly at first then quicker as he notices the distance between the two of them is closing, only to trip as he stumbles over a fallen chair and fall to the ground. He tries to get up but the distance has been closed and the strangers blade is already falling towards him, so quickly for so huge a blade.
That's when the voices erupt in him.
'-on't die...'
'...too young...'
'won't die...'
'...-e done....'
'I WON'T DIE HERE!'
And with that scream, a blasting white light seemed to wash over him internally like an epiphany.
*
He stared silently at the place where his sword had landed, expecting to find a body crushed brutally beneath its weight, but finding nothing instead.
"Who are you?" a soft voice came from above him, and he turned to see his target standing to his right on top of one of the many cupboards in the library.
He tensed immediately. The target had changed, a mere shift here and there in the stance, perhaps a bit more confident that he had been a second ago, but something about it made him wary.
"I said," the target repeated once more; even his voice had changed, 'Who are you, that wears my face?"
"I don't wear your face, you wear MINE!" He yelled angrily before he gave into his rage and launched himself at the other in fury.