a/n: I think this is the first time I've done an after-the-end type of thing, but I was so compelled to do so here. SPOILERS. (Obviously).
I have all these ideas about what will happen that I couldn't keep them all bottled up. Pairings vary and I basically just let my mind run away with me. Hehe. There shouldn't be any SUPERCRACK couples. Everything is canon, although with minor charaters I take a little more liberty. (If you absolutely must know, it is HajixSaya, but since other pairings get some attention in canon, they get attention here, too). Nothing too far-fetched in the chain of events here – however much I might want to bring Solomon back from the dead (weeps).
This will be a multi-chaptered fic, though I have no absolute plotline in mind. At any rate, it shouldn't be too long. Just a few chapters. The first half of this chapter is a prologue-thing, and the second half is more action.
Read, enjoy, REVIEW:D
Thirty year is a long time, she dreams.
It's funny. You can never really remember too many of your dreams, but sometimes you have cohesive thoughts. Not everything is flying penguins or loved ones back from the dead or sisters who can love each other.
She dreams of her father– his last minutes still haunt her, his last words still in her heart. And oh, oh, Riku - his face, crumbling, making her cry in her dreams. He was too young, too loving. He should not have died. And his laugh, in her dreams, makes her feel lighter than she's felt in years. How many years has it been out there? Oh, maybe not years, but a while. She doesn't really know or care. She doesn't realize it, but that's what her sleep is for. To cleanse her; to give her some feeling of carefree lightness between periods that are the most vivid – both tragic and happy – times of her life.
When she gets so far in dreaming that she's begun to forget who she is, she starts slipping away from him. And into a time where tanned hands hold her fragile, blood-stained own, where a foul mouth (she used to tell Kai he shouldn't say such things in front of... what was his name again? The little one she loved so much?) was such a taken-for-granted comfort to herWhere sparkling oceans and sun were all part of her; when she still felt human inside. And later, his hands became as bloodstained as her own. They never did shake. They held hers till the end. He was with her to the end, wasn't he? This boy? What was his name again? The man that she loved so much?
Almost simultaneously, she dreams of a time when she was young and in love – a fanciful love, a love at first sight, a love that represented a part of her she would like to keep but, unlike her… what was it? Oh, family. Unlike her sense of family, she had not managed to retain her innocence. And still, she could see his smile and feel him leading her in a dance. Remember the way she was always reaching for but never quite taking his offers. Offers that led her from her path, from her goal, but ones she would wished, with all the innocence left in her, to take. She never could, and his offer still stood. (Hadn't he died? Wait, she hadn't seen him die. Did he die? Yes, of course he did. Shouldn't she have been there?)
For a long time, it seems she's in darkness. For a long time of that long time, these are nightmares. She's in the dark. She's trembling; scared. She's the girl she was before she was a chiropteran in her last life.
Someone, though, is holding her. Steady hands, part of the darkness that she can't see – but at the same time, they are the only things keeping her. There is music playing in the background. So familiar. So familiar. It makes her ache with longing.
She holds at the man in the darkness closer, till he's torn away from her and she's crying again.
And in the end, there is only her and her sister and a gentle breeze.
And suddenly, she's waking up.
Hazy voices:
"Saya? Saya?!?"
"Eh?"
"Saya!"
"Daddy Kai, is that our auntie?"
"Saya!!!"
Her eyes flicker open. All she sees is the darkness of her cocoon - no wait, there's a slant of light... a rip. Did she make that rip?
Without even thinking her hand reaches out and she rips through completely.
She fells herself clatter to the ground, and sleep comes again.
She's waking up.
Her eyes flicker open, and she finds that she's on a bed.
She sits bolt upright.
A young man comes in, with tan skin and crumpled brown hair and green eyes. He's smiling tentatively, but altogether he looks scared.
Who is he?
She notices that someone is holding her hand. She looks around.
Her heart leaps, and she has no idea why.
But all she can do is blink. There's a thing called words, but they are not hers to use. But… she knows. This is the man in her darkness dream, who was missing.
Two heads peak in. They look kind of familiar. She feels a kinship to them.
She glances down. Oh. The pattern on her bedspread is pretty; there are flowers. She begins to trace them, completely absorbed in their beauty.
She feels empty, somehow.
She feels light and hollow and thoughtless.
There's conversation over her head:
"She shouldn't be up this early… should she?"
"No."
Footsteps, someone entering through the doorway. A voice much different from the other two.
"Kai?"
Just the slightest gritting of teeth. "You put the twins in their room, right?"
"Those darlings are wondering what's going on with their auntie. They didn't understand she was about to wake up." Pause. "So. Saya's awake. Early."
"Yes. You should know… what's going on?" Worry. "Is there something wrong with her?"
"No," the deep voice tells him, "he has no more idea than I do."
The first voice sounds impatient, almost ready to snap. "Then what the hell's going on?"
There's silence around the room. She would be bored, but instead she has the bedspread to entertain her. She doesn't even listen to what they're saying.
And suddenly, the man beside her slips his hand out of hers. She looks up and takes a good look at him. He has calm, almost emotionless green eyes that are currently flecking with something she feels she alone can see.
There is one breathe, one heartbeat, before what happens next.
He takes out a knife and stabs himself in the palm. The blood. She smells the blood, the dirty metallic scent. It smells delicious, but she dismisses this thought. It lingers disturbingly.
The dark man hasn't flinched, even as red pools out into his palm. But the man with the worried voice jerks his arm out, a flimsy barrier between the dark man and her.
"Wait," he says quickly, his voice jerking like his body, "your blood will awaken her, right? What if she… what if she goes crazy?" His voice shakes just a little, and had she been more astute she would have noticed that he's almost been pushed out of his wits by what's just happened. But she's not listening, nor is she tracing patterns in the bedspread. She's staring at that blood… that revolting, tantalizing blood.
"It wouldn't make any difference at this point," the third man interjects, almost carelessly. As though he's seen it all before. But there's a tinge of interest. Her situation is singular, and so his voice grows more serious. "Put your arm down. There's only one thing to do." He nods at the dark man. "Haji."
The first man shakily lowers his arm, looking nervously from the dark man to her.
The dark man nods, not taking his eyes from hers. She's not looking at the bedspread or the blood anymore, she's looking straight back at him. Wondering where she's seen those eyes before, why those eyes make her heart pound, and why she feels so elated just by his presence.
He shuts his eyes briefly and sucks in the blood. She feels envious.
Next, he leans toward her. He puts some of the weight on the bed, and it creaks in the silence.
He lowers his mouth to hers. She lets him. She doesn't quite follow what's going on, and just blinks once before he again shuts his eyes and presses his lips to hers.
His lips part, and she cant taste the blood that flows through. She swallows, or she'll gag. No, that's not true. She swallows because it tastes right.
Her eyes shut. She presses his lips harder, and sucks in the last ounces of blood.
Suddenly, her eyes snap open.
She remembers.