Fushigi Yuugi not mine. Chichiri not either. -pouts-
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Up The River
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I can't stay away from it.
I've been following the river upstream for weeks. I hate the sound of it, and I can't bring myself to drink from it or bathe in it—I turn off and find a spring.
But I always get up in the morning, and go on following the river.
I don't know why. Eventually I'll end up in the mountains, but there's nowhere for me to go up there. I don't know what I would do once I got there—turn around and come back?
I can't sleep very much. Most days I walk until I'm too exhausted to think. But I still wake up almost every night—tears on my cheeks, my ruined eye smarting under the bandages I still have to wear, and one hand reaching out into the dark.
But even in my dreams, I never hold on to him.
On those nights, I get up and walk to the bank of the river. Even when it's too dark to see, I can hear it.
It tells me that there's a way back to them.
Painful, probably, but certainly no more than I deserve. It would be just. I never paid for my crime.
I recovered from my wound in the home of a family in a nearby village. They took me in and tended me as the local doctor hurried from house to house endlessly, trying to see to all the injured survivors of the flood. At first I was too deeply in shock to tell anyone what I had done; then, as the kindness of the young couple and the innocent curiosity of their two small children drew me gradually from my withdrawal, I was too ashamed and afraid to speak.
As soon as I was able to care for myself, I went away. I left them a letter of thanks, but it was still cowardly. They had given freely of themselves to me, without asking for anything in return except for my full recovery, and I didn't even stay to give them that.
But I couldn't bear it anymore—the compassion I didn't feel I deserved; the way they trusted me with their children, who had drawn me pictures and brought me flowers and shells and other little treasures of childhood that I had collected as a child myself. How would they look at me if they found out that their "friend" had killed someone who was as close to him as they were to each other?
I slipped out late one night, taking with me only one blanket and the clothing they had given to me. At first my only thought was to get as far away as I could; then I reached the river, cursed it…and turned to follow it.
I stand here on these nights, listening to the soft, insidious promise of the river. It draws me closest on the darkest nights; I stand on the very edge of the bank and close my eyes, waiting for the impetus to take that last step.
But every time, I turn away. Something calls me back—something very quiet, something very deep within me. When I can see the stars, like tonight, it speaks the most clearly, and it tells me that my journey has a purpose, that something important waits for me at the end of it.
I don't know if I believe it. I don't know if I want to; haven't I already proven I'm not to be trusted with anything important? But at the same time, I can't help listening.
I can't be far from the mountains now. I ought to be able to see them in the morning.
I'll get up when the sun rises.
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The End
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