A/N: I literally cried while writing this, so... Heads up. The feels train cometh to run you over. And over and over. (—Choo choo, bbs.)
Coriana — So... This is part two of the uh... Christmas gift... :D Sorry it took so long! I know I know... Three months late - not cool.
A huge buttload of thankies and cookies and cupcakies to archangelBBQ for being the best the best THE BEST
*Rated for strong language in some parts, and for implied themes.
**Companion piece to 'The Unheeded Line', but can be read alone.
***Please listen to Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude, Op 28, No. 15 as you read! :)
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Crooked Angles
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- - Misfortune is kind, benevolent, altruistic. It does not judge, does not choose. - -
- - It shall befall us all, without fail - -
.
A day of happenstance, of peculiarity and of tragedy—Eugene Davis's last.
-:-:-:-:-
Just a little more. . . Just a little more and Mama can fix my ouchies. . .
All the trees, all the animals and all the insects of the dense forest witnessed your escape from Hell. They saw how you ran as if your life depended on it, how you tripped and cried from the pain of your wounds, how you looked back again and again, waiting for the moment Death might catch up to you.
You reached your first destination: your husband's car. It was a new car, a shiny one. You loved this car. It was blue. You loved the color blue.
Struggling to open the door, you glanced behind you once more. Oh no no no no no. Your husband was already out of the house. He was holding onto a pillar, catching his breath as he glared so so so hatefully at you. His head was still bleeding from the booboo you gave him when you threw that bottle of wine at him. His blood was so red. You hated the color red.
(My little baby was so red when he came out of my tummy. He was dead when he came out of my tummy. So dead and so very very red.)
At last, the car door opened and you went in immediately. You stared blankly at the steering wheel, then at the key in your hand. (And ignored the bruises on your wrists and on your arms and on your legs.) You were ecstatic that you made it to the car, but you didn't know what you were supposed to do next.
An enraged bellow echoed behind you. Now you really really really needed to go.
You tried to remember what your husband did when he took you out for a ride. (Though you tried to not remember what he did when the ride ended.) First, he put in the key in the little hole over here. . . And then he twists it like that. . . And he pulls this thingie. . . And pushes his foot down all the way! Finally, you knew what to do! You smiled and laughed in delight (though it wasn't long 'til you had to stop because smiling and laughing hurt too much.)
At last, you can go back to Mama!
As the blue car sped away from the forest, the earth and everything under the heavens witnessed your escape from Hell. They saw your happiness from your sparkling eyes, heard your excitement from your mindless chatters, felt your doom closing in on you from what would happen later that day.
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Maybe Gene's sense of direction, or lack thereof, would be the death of him.
He was tired and hungry and lost. He would surely die from exhaustion, then die again from hunger, then die one more time from being a moron. He should have asked around earlier where that famous fortune-telling lady was, or if she existed at all. Although, the stupid idiot that he was—as Noll, his brother, so lovingly reminded him everyday—he had forgone that, trusting in the data they had gathered about her.
But of course, knowing his luck, his search wasn't easy-peasy in any way. The lady was nowhere near this village in the middle of godknowswhere. She was supposed to be living in this immediate area. She was supposed to be in that house! She was supposed to be right here, damn it.
He glared at his map, glared at his brother's unintelligible scrawls, glared at his own stupid notes. He should have accepted his mother's offer to babysit him. Enduring embarrassment was leagues better than this.
Or he could have at least agreed to Noll's babysitting offer. His brother had asked him several times if he wanted his accompaniment, he had even asked again at the airport right before Gene's flight departed to Japan, as if he was good to go, ready with his luggage and plane ticket—and he really might have been ready; he had always been thorough, that meticulous brat. Even so, Gene refused all of his brother's proposals; this was something he had to do on his own. He didn't want to remain dependent on his brother.
And yet, here he was now, regretting his choice to follow his obstinacy. Who cared about him proving himself anyway? Yes, he wasn't as productive as his brother when it came to studies. Yes, he admitted, he wasn't as smart. Yes, he wasn't the one who graduated college five years earlier than the norm, not the one who had a doctorate at the age of sixteen. But who even cared, really? And he doubted this little quest to find some supposedly brilliant, obscure clairvoyant would hardly change anything.
He shouldn't have listened to his inferiority's sickening whispers. He wouldn't be in this mess if he just accepted the fact that even though he and Noll were twins, they couldn't be equal in each and every trait.
He sighed and continued trudging, muttering under his breath about his foolishness and the injustice of the world. Then a sudden draft slammed into him, a chill crawling up from the base of his spine to the back of his neck. He froze, then shivered. His instincts told him not to look up from his map.
. . . He looked up.
Before him was a crossroads. It was nothing like an urban crossing wherein everything was neatly cemented; this one was rough, merely existing because of constant overlapping friction—caused by humans or animals, he wasn't sure.
The creation of the crossroads wasn't important to him now, however. To his right, a strange man commanded all his attention. He wore traditional Japanese mourning clothes: a five-crested kimono of plain black silk, black and white striped hakama trousers, a black crested haori jacket, black zori and white tabi. His clothes told the story of sorrow, but his expression did not. Although half his face was covered by a straw kasa, clearly it was devoid of any emotion, perfectly blank.
From East to West, the man crossed Gene's path with not a sound except for his slippers click clacking across the hard ground, his steps like a broken metronome. He never spared the younger man any mind.
When Gene could no longer see the man's silhouette in the distance, he shrugged and continued his journey. The man gave him weird vibes, but again, he gave it no real thought. Everything was weird according to his instincts.
And they were right. They always were.
Gene was sure that he had covered some distance from it, but there it was again in front of him. The crossroads—the same one he crossed only a couple of minutes ago. And the man was there as well—the very same who rung the whacko alert.
Definitely weird.
The man crossed Gene's path for the second time as the boy watched, helpless. He walked slowly, his feet dragging across the dried soil. The moment he reached the middle of the intersection, without twisting his neck he glanced sideways, staring straight into the boy's eyes. Still, he exuded no emotion whatsoever. His stare was blank, as were his features. Though, a cold calculation was present throughout the exchange. It was as if he was looking at a figure, a percentage in a statistical report, not a human being.
It was a quick glance and no more, but what Gene felt. . . He felt as if the man had stared right into him, dug through all his secrets and all his fears. If, on an emotional level, this was what it was like to be raped. . .
He shuddered.
The man was still within Gene's line of vision, but unlike before, he did not wait for the black-clad person to disappear into the horizon. When the man was at least fifty paces away headed West, he bolted forward to the North, walking as fast as he could without breaking into a run. It wouldn't do any good to rush; he might just speed up the creeping panic if he did.
The landscape around him was as bleak as ever, the whole field exceptionally monotonous. Grass filled the ground for miles and miles as humongous trees loomed in the distance—would it kill anyone to put up a sign or two around here? Or some kind of indicator, anything, much like, 'Of course you've covered some distance. This place isn't one giant treadmill. Don't worry, you aren't hallucinating.'
His heart pounded against his chest, blood hammering through his veins as he frantically searched his pockets for his phone. Quivering fingers dialled once, twice, three times, yet every time he pressed 'Call', nothing happened. No dial tone, nothing.
Stopping in his tracks, he bit his lip, clenched his fists, tried to control his breathing.
The crossroads was in front of him again.
The man was there again.
Goosebumps rose and eyes threatened to gush. The feeling of dread was undeniable, surely a sign of impending doom. Despite his unease, Gene kept his eyes locked on the man. Something told him it would be unwise to turn away.
As the man shuffled forward, with the same slow pace as before, Gene called Noll through their mental link, desperately praying it would work. He knew it was a stretch—they were thousands of miles apart after all—but he tried and tried and tried anyway, looking for any sign of the familiar warmth of his brother's mind.
Noll, are you there?
The man continued his trek forward and was now merely a few feet in front of him.
Answer me, Noll. Please.
The sound of the man's sandals clacking against the ground was deafening, each step making Gene's insides drop lower and lower, inch by inch.
Come on, Noll, I know you're there.
The man reached the middle of the intersection, and Gene watched with terror as the man lifted his dark gaze to his own blue.
Please tell me you're there.
Simply, he smiled, a cruel twist on a condescending pair of lips, then continued his stroll.
Noll.
He disappeared into the setting sun's horizon, leaving the trembling boy alone in his despair. Gene's feet were rooted to the ground, and while all he wanted to do was get out of there, run, go back home, but the tight knot seizing his chest told him otherwise. He shouldn't go anywhere, it said. To the North, he would find himself facing another crossroads. The East would bring him to a place where the peculiar man came from, and the West was no better—it would bring him to where the man wanted to go.
Doubling back South was an even worse idea, his instincts told him. He didn't know what awaited him there, but he knew the moment he took even one tiny step back, a terrible danger would ensnare him instantly.
However. . . the same thing could be said of the other three directions. He felt that trouble would come from them all; the only difference was the South would bring it to him right away.
Noll, Noll, Noll.
He decided to move forward, thinking it was the lesser of the other evils. He would have wanted to avoid crossing the man again, but he told himself—desperately persuaded himself—that living through it for one more time wouldn't hurt him. Besides, he would have moved forward anyway regardless of the warnings of his subconscious. It was his philosophy always to move forward, never to back down from anything.
But still, his trepidation rendered him shocked still, unable to move from his spot, be it forward or backward. He couldn't move his limbs, couldn't gather enough force to push his feet into motion, couldn't summon the desire to run into another crossroads.
Or rather, he didn't want to move his limbs, he didn't want to gather enough force to push his feet into motion, he didn't want to summon the desire to run into another crossroads.
Noll, please, please. Answer me.
His eyes stung, and he realized he had been holding back tears.
Don't leave me alone here.
He sucked in a large, shaky breath, held it in for ten counts and released it as he took his first step towards the North. He stared at the landscape in front of him, and lost his sense of Time in the process. Seconds, minutes, hours might have passed before he took another step. Every fiber of his being screamed at him to stop.
Another eternity passed before he took his third step. The screaming was louder this time.
Focusing on nothing else but his feet, he took his fourth, fifth, sixth steps in sequence, then paused again. Nothing happened. So far so good.
Noll, I know I'm annoying and you think I'm stupid and weird, but can you help me out just this once? I promise this isn't another one of my pranks.
On his eleventh step, a drop in temperature forced him to look up from the ground. A fog rolled in out of nowhere, but it wasn't dense enough to block his vision entirely; although he could only see a few meters in front of him, much of the blue expanse above was still visible. That was important.
Noll and Mum and Dad were being guarded by the same sky after all.
Ah, I know what'll get you to talk.
His fifteenth pace gave him no different results, and so he took one more, and one more, and one more. His heart grew heavier each time.
Do you remember back when we were still learning how to ride a bike?
Twenty-one. . . Twenty-two. . .
And when you fell into a ditch full of dog poo?
A need to look towards the West nagged at him on his twenty-sixth step, and he turned his head accordingly, witnessing the exact moment of the sun's descent into darkness.
I have pictures.
He stopped after the thirtieth. The moon was still near its horizon, too weak to exude enough light for travel. It was no point. A veil of shadows shrouded everything. He couldn't see anything. He could no longer see the sky.
If you want them back
He curled into a ball.
Say something
And let go of his tears.
Anything
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You struggled and struggled to keep the car running, keep it away from bad, nasty trees that always wanted to hit you, and keep your pace at a hustle. You didn't want to slow down, didn't want to stop.
You didn't want your husband to catch you.
He was scary and you didn't want him to shout at you anymore, didn't want him to hurt you anymore, though still, you knew he was good and caring and kind deep down. When you met him a year ago, he was the one who approached you and not the other way around. No one ever did that, never ever. Everyone usually avoided you like a plague, sneered at you to get lost, spat on you whenever you tried to say hello. You never understood why they all did that to you.
Mama said it was because you were special, God's sweet fallen angel. She said all the people who were mean to you were the Devils—evil, scared of your kindness. Never mind them, never mind them. Mama is always here, don't be sad.
When your mother explained this to you, confusion and not relief washed over you. If the people who were mean to you were from Hell, and those who were good to you were from Heaven, then why did Mama love Papa?
Papa was bad bad bad. He always swore at you, called you mean names like 'Retard' and 'Crazy Bitch' and 'Come here, you fucking dumbass'. He hurt you, too, slapped you and punched you and kicked you because he said you deserved it.
Last year, on a night of the full moon, you escaped from your home. Papa had promised you that he had many many things to give you and he was going to show them to you the next day. You were excited; it was the first time Papa was going to give you gifts.
But Mama told you not to wait for the next day. She said you should go away, away from Papa and his gifts. He was going to give you booboos again, she said.
So you ran the next day, ran and ran and ran and ran, until you couldn't anymore. You ended up in a strange place, the environment was similar to your home's, though strange nonetheless. Everything was old and grey and broken like your neighbourhood, except streaks of red red red were everywhere. You hated the color red.
And it was in that horrid place that you met your husband.
He walked to you slowly, smiling so kindly, telling you sweet things like 'Hello, beautiful' and 'Don't worry, I ain't gonna hurt you' and 'Why don't you come with me? I'll take you to my place where we can have lots'a fun'. You agreed, because his smile was so pretty; it was the first time someone other than Mama smiled for you.
Even though he did not keep his promises that night—he hurt me, I didn't have fun—still, you stayed with him. Because he kept smiling for you. And you loved his smile.
But then, after a while, he stopped.
He stopped smiling.
And instead sneered at you like all the mean Devils. Spat at you like all the mean Devils.
Hated you like all the mean Devils.
You wept every day and every night, heartbroken. It was like Papa all over again. At first he loved you, then he didn't. Then he called you bad names. And never gave you food. And hit you all the time. And stole someone precious to you.
Papa killed Mama.
Your husband killed your unborn child.
So, again, you ran—ran and ran and ran and ran, without ever looking back. Your husband told you last night that he had something to give you the next day. And if he was like Papa, then he was mean and bad and horrible. You were afraid his gifts might be the same ones Mama had warned you about before.
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A gentle breeze guided a single four-leaf clover to Gene's upturned palm, urging him back onto his feet, whispering promises of Hope, Faith, Love and Luck. Although he knew it was only his imagination talking and not his brother's true voice through their mental link, he heard him say: No matter what happens, you can never lose Hope. You have to remember what's most important, and that's to have Faith and to have Love. If you can remember all of those, that'll bring you good Luck.
The Clover was their charm, given to them when they were still living in an orphanage. Their psychic abilities had isolated them back then, had kept everyone at a distance, everyone except one—the kind mistress who managed the place. She loved them as if they were her own sons, protected them as if she had borne them herself. She was the one who introduced them to the Clover, opened them to each concept of its four meanings.
Her saying was like a mantra to Gene and Noll, even after all these years; often they would chant it over and over, especially whenever faced with yet another twilight in their lives. It was now that he realized just how important the Clover was to him, now that he faced the most sinister dusk of his life. He clung unto the leaf, tightly, resolutely, and took his next step forward.
Thirty-one.
Nothing happened, yet still he waited, his heart now a silent weight against his chest, its beat faint and timid compared to the thunderous hammering it did before. The fog was ever so thick, and he still couldn't see more than two arm lengths in front of him, so he looked up. He saw the moon at the center, and was surprised by the sight. Just how long had passed since his thirtieth pace?
Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four.
He took the three in quick succession, keeping his tear-stricken gaze at the moon. Then he looked back down to the mist and took another. In that instant, the air around him grew heavier, and this didn't make any sense to him because the fog was slowly retreating.
With the Clover clasped securely, tenderly in a closed fist, he looked back up to the moon and locked his eyes onto it once more as he took two wide strides, each time the cool air biting at his skin. He continued the method until his fortieth step, until he was forced to stop. He felt the familiar prickling sensation of someone staring at him—someone of the other world.
The crossroads was before him for the fourth time, and the man. . . The man was there again.
Clack. . . clack. . . clack. . . clack. . .
The sound of the man's wooden slippers was clear against the hush surrounding them all, a morbid percussion. With a broken rhythm, Gene's pulse mirrored the steady crescendo, increasing not only in volume, but in tempo as well.
Slowly, slowly, Gene's gaze traced the worn path to the East and landed on the man's feet, then hesitantly rose up until he met the man's sinister stare.
Nothing but black—pure black eyes against sickly pale skin.
Gene looked away in an instant, turning his head North as he swallowed a mouthful of drought.
Clack. . . clack. . . clack. . . clack. . .
He breathed in and out, bit an already bloody lip, blinked tears away, caressed the Clover in his hand.
And bolted forward—running to the North, crossing the man instead of him crossing Gene.
Forty-one. . . Forty-two. . . Forty-three. . .
. . .Forty-four. . .
Only four steps
and then he—
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Oh no oh no oh no no no no no
Shock flooded you when a flash zoomed into your line of sight; you thought lightning had struck the middle of the road, lightning that you hated so so much. Those awful sparks gave you nightmares as a child and nightmares even now.
But you wanted to be brave this time! You wanted to be the one who was scary, you wanted to be the one to make the lightning cry and go away! So you stepped on the gas pedal harder, harder, even harder than how your husband pushed it before.
One second you were flying across the road, the next you're not. The car had stopped completely, the echo of a loud, ringing thud accompanied by a sickening squelch. You hit your head against the steering wheel, splotches of black entering your already dimmed vision, and then you blacked out for one moment.
You woke up to screaming. Pure agony entered your ears, deafening you. You were sure the sound came from you, because when you looked up to the windshield, everything you saw was red red red red red red red red redredredred
But then you realize the voice wasn't from you; it was from a young man—a young man who lay at the ground before your car, thrashing. Your eyes widened as you stared at him. He was so red. You didn't like red. You hated red.
You were reminded of the time you and your husband had been in a similar situation. He and you had just come out of a funeral home then, and even when you knew your husband should have been sad—because all the other people were—he was jumping for joy. In his hand was an envelope with one piece of paper. You didn't know how to read what it said, so you asked your husband. He told you that you didn't have to worry about silly details, Just thank your Ma when you see her again. Then he smiled for the first time in a long time, and that was enough to make you happy, too.
Excited, he drove you both home so so fast. The scenery around you whooshed past like a blur, your laughter twinkling along with his.
Then the car had stopped suddenly and you found yourself cushioned against a fat white balloon. You looked to your left and saw your husband's face smooshed in a fat white balloon, too. You shook his shoulder three times and told him to wake up, wake up, wake up there's a little girl on the ground I think she needs a band-aid for her ouchies.
But your husband didn't give the little girl a band-aid, instead he stayed glued to his seat, eyes wide, body shaking. Then, he pulled back the stick stuck in the metal thingie between you and him, and kicked the gas pedal hard. The car stopped again and you heard a thud, then your husband opened his door and went out and picked the little girl up and put her in the trunk.
You followed him outside and saw that he was wrapping the little girl in a pretty silver blanket. Your husband told you that it was a cocoon for the girl and she wouldn't turn into a butterfly if he didn't wrap her. Then he told you that he needed to hide her so that she can sleep peacefully.
So now, remembering what had happened on that day, you tried to mimic your husband's actions. You slammed your foot to the pedal, sped forward and waited for the thud. When it came, you went outside and hauled the young man to the trunk and wrapped him in pretty silver cloth and and and
His eyes are blue. I love the color blue.
You gaze into his dark beautiful sparkling blue eyes, and notice tears flowing down from them. You wondered why he was crying. He shouldn't be sad. He was going to be a butterfly soon.
Driving excitedly, with the young man sleeping soundly in the trunk, you rush towards the perfect place for where he should rest—at the beautiful lake as blue blue blue as his eyes. He would be able to sleep so peacefully there.
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~A/N2-
Word Count: 4,444
Stuffsss I don't own: (1) 4-leaf Clover meaning – Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors; (2) Four Crossroads concept – XxxHolic