My first CC fic! Wish me luck…

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I hate time.

Time dictates everything we do. It is the tyrant, the oppressive force, and we can't do anything about it. It eats at our existence, and leaves us saturated in sorrow. I would do anything for there to be no time at all, for me to just be. But I would do just as much to defeat my own immunity to time, to die with the dead, come my turn. But I will never. Life is a game, and I'm in the stands.

I know I'm selfish, but I feel almost like time is eating at my soul, too, even though I will never know how that really feels. Day by day, I feel weaker. Up in my mind, there's less and less that I can, that I will do. I don't travel anymore. I don't have the energy left to go around helping people, saving lives, like I did back then. I don't have a soul anymore… but I'm not foolish enough to steal somebody else's. That's happened too many times before.

No more. I can't stand those times, when the best moments of my live are ripped from me, along with the one person I would die for. I would die with you, but I can't. Because I'm a spectator, I'm only watching the sad game of time.

I'm Chrno. You may remember me from many years before, you may have known me then, but I doubt it. Even if you did, you would barely recognize me now.

I lead a normal life for the time. Nobody seems to question my 'eternal youth', mainly because I'm a detached sort of person, and for all they know I could be living dead. I get out of bed every morning, and walk outside. I walk down street after street, and in the same hour and fifteen minutes it's taken for 500 years, I reach a building. I work for the governing forces of the world. Since the aftermath of nuclear war, the world population has gone down to little more that 100,000 or so people, and it's my job to keep track of them. Every day I look at pictures and sort them, provide details on people's looks, ages, and lives. Mostly what I do is change the pictures on people's ID cards. Nowadays, you can't get by without an ID card. Mine says I'm 16, and it has for 237 years.

Back then, the world was trying to pull itself back together. Now, you could say we're looking for a sturdy foundation to rebuild society. Many things have been warped and changed. You wouldn't like what religion has become. It's mostly upheld by the teens in society, and most of religion is odd Satanist cults, often at war with each other and the world. We had an episode last year with a cult and their ritualistic burning of Identification documents. It meant overtime to me for weeks.

I still wonder if it's all worth it. I look at everyone in the world, at least once every two years, I run over every detail and sort it, and I am always forced to run over everything I do before I submit it. Most think that I'm crazy to even consider a job like this, but there are two people different.

They know what I search for, day after day after day of face after face after face. None are the same; none look at me the same way. But I've waited for 769 years and 94 days, exactly. I'm not stopping now. At least if I never succeed, I'll have the pleasure of knowing that I had nothing better to do.

You would hate that outlook, wouldn't you? God I wish you were here to tell me off, maybe give me a convincing whack upside the head.

Either way, I often get a bit of help. Az and Joshua have been working with me for a while now… well, a while to their standards. Azmaria recognized me going down her street on an odd walk, and came out to meet me. We were both pretty happy to see each other after all these years. I had spent a while looking for her previously, after my job led me to her, but I don't get contact information. The most personal information I can get that would lead me to anybody is the city they live in. Unfortunately, a good percentage of the world lives in the same one city that I live in, which can make finding someone either incredibly easy or incredibly difficult. Azmaria actually lives only several blocks from my house, and on Saturdays she walks me to work. I have Sundays off.

Joshua lives with me. I found him at an orphanage, four years ago, and took him in. What shocks me is that I didn't need any paperwork or anything. Basically, as soon as I requested it, they handed the poor, scared boy over to me. It took him only about two or three days until he started remembering me. For the first week, the memories almost traumatized him. He spent three days in his room, without food. Ever since, he's come to work with me after his required school hours. I even authorize his activities at my work as an 'educational experience', which gets him out of some of his required extracurricular activities. His instructors really like the fact that he's 'taken interest in a career so early on'. They don't know that he's just looking for his sister.

Joshua sometimes tells me about his memories. Sometimes memories of before he went to the orphanage, sometimes memories of back when he and Rosette were children at the Seventh Bell, more that 750 years ago. He says that you were at that orphanage, not so long ago. He says that you were taken away at four, but because of the way adoption works now, neither of us know who it was that took you in. I saw you only once. The orphanage has records, and the last picture of you is at age three. Seeing as there have been no pictures since, somebody must be hiding a girl. That's against the law. I hope that it's not you hiding yourself, because I want to find you. This may sound stupid, but I'm wishing for at least one bad guy, one guy I can hate with all my soul for making me wait another 12 years.

To tell you the truth, that one picture of you has stayed on my computer for as long as I've had it. It was all that it took to start me thinking of you again. I can barely sleep at all, anymore.

Joshua and I, we walk around on Sundays, just so we feel like we're doing something to find you. It'll never work, I know it, so does he. But I couldn't go a day without searching, even if it is useless.

My eyes slide open. I have no idea if I fell asleep or not. I just closed my eyes. Either way, the error message I'm getting only happens about once every three or four years. Something doesn't match.

That's odd. Most people are documented extensively for their entire lives. Either someone just appeared out of nowhere, or this person has been hidden. Hiding someone like that is, of course, illegal.

The picture smiles cheerily, mischievously, at me. Sex: F, Age: 15, Hair: Blonde, Eyes: Blue. It's perfect. My coffee, knocked off the table, splashes painfully across my feet. At this point, I'm not about to care. A finger traces across the face on the screen, and a laugh sounds through the room. It takes me a minute to realize that I'm the one laughing, and I can't stop.

I suppose just this time, I'm not going to pass this one up the ladder. I'll deal with this case on my own, and it'll pass off beautifully as Joshua's 'first experience in the field'.

I can't wait to tell him.

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I'm overflowing with creativity! … or should I say weirdness. This story is… VERY different. General concept not so much as the stupid details, but hey! I can be different sometimes too!