For Granny, who will probably never read this and wouldn't like it if she did.
And for everyone who struggles to release what should be let go, and hold onto that which should never be forgotten.
May there be a light to guide you on your path, so that you may find your way.
"Maybe all the people who say ghosts don't exist are just afraid to admit that they do."
-The Never Ending Story (Michael Ende)
We don't get to choose how and when we die. Even when someone decides to cut the thin thread that binds life to this Earth, in their heart they are already dead, it is this death of soul that brings the destruction of flesh and bone which follows. When death comes, it does so in the time and place of its own choosing. The beginning and the end are the only points of life where we are without choice, when the cold hand of Fate lays itself upon our shoulder and removes all options.
It may not be our choice what happens to us, but what we do with what happens in our lives is our choice.
Pain.
That's what Sky Tate, SPD's Blue Ranger, woke to. Pain rippled through him, ticking down seconds in his head and tearing at him, leaving him disoriented and short of breath. The right side of his face felt stiff, a source of pain had sunk its teeth into him near the temple, and by the taste of the crusty substance at the corner of his mouth, it was also a source of blood.
He tried to open his eyes, but at first was unable to do so, his lids fluttered like moths trapped in a bottle, but he couldn't find the energy to actually force them apart so he could see. When he finally did, it seemed the effort had been wasted, for there was nothing to see. Nothing but darkness of a deep, ominous shade, for a moment convincing him that he had gone blind, until he realized he could faintly make out a shape, a phantom figure that was black, blacker than the darkness.
He opened his mouth to speak, for he knew this figure, knew it was no phantom at all, but a kind of monster, come to torment him for reasons that he did not understand, to make his life Hell for some sinister purpose whose details were beyond his ken.
But Sky found his mouth was dry, and it felt like some of the blood on his face had also gone down his throat, leaving it rough as sandpaper and giving even the air he breathed through his mouth a metallic taste. Blood from inside prevented him from breathing through his nose at all.
The only thing he accomplished was a thin, bird-like squeak. It was evidently enough.
In a rush, the phantom moved towards him and he flinched back on instinct from the hand which raised above his head, a silent threat of violence. But then he heard a snick sound, and a naked light bulb overhead clicked on. The raised hand grasped a glinting, polished chain which served as light switch. It held, claw-like, to the chain as though it belonged to a hawk with a rabbit in its talons.
In the new light, Sky found himself blinded in a different fashion, only when his sight returned to him he wished suddenly for the darkness to return. Baleful, glaring eyes hovered before him in a shadowed, sharply angled countenance, a scowling face aglow with malevolence, a hostile presence seething with hatred. At least in the dark he didn't have to see what had come for him.
"Why are you doing this?" Sky managed, shocked to hear the fear in his cracked voice, appalled by how much it shook, betraying what he would have liked to keep secret even from himself.
The fear was suffocating him, he was drowning in it. Or maybe that was just the blood in his throat. Terror had gripped him with hooks as sharp as the talons of the aforementioned bird of prey, was tearing at him with razor beak, ripping him open, leaving him more raw inside than any amount of external pain. The pounding in his head, equal measures fear and pain, beat out each passing second, forcing him to take note of the time slipping away at once more rapidly and much slower than he would have liked.
The figure before him offered up no answer, but merely grinned, the expression ghoulish in the bad lighting, punctuated by the continuous drip-drip-drip sound of water escaping from a metal pipe and pinging on the grimy concrete floor, the sound echoing hollowly.
Sky didn't remember closing his eyes, but he realized that he had and fought to open them again. He didn't want to turn away, to surrender to fear so deep he couldn't face it, because to do that was to admit to weakness, such weakness as he had never given in to before and did not intend to now.
Bleeding not withstanding, fear not withstanding, his status as captive not withstanding, Sky nevertheless refused to give in to the pain, because to do so was to admit that he was a victim, to admit to himself if to no one else that here he was not a Ranger, not a defender of Earth.
And that he could not -would not- do. Not now, not ever.
On opening his eyes, he saw that his captor had moved away from the pooling light, back away into the deep shadowy recesses of the room. He could see only faintly the outline, heard the clink of metal on metal, but the light-bulb overhead prevented him from being able to squint into the shadows and see what was being done. He supposed maybe he didn't want to know.
But there was one thing he did want to know.
"Why me?" he demanded, gratified to hear the fear overridden by a hot flush of anger, "Why did you pick me? Why?" it was the only question he wanted an answer to.
He didn't expect an answer, but he finally got one.
With surprising swiftness, his captor swung around toward him and practically flew at him like the Reaper towards a soul attempting to flee from Death, nearly punching him in the face with an object held in the claw-like hands, a flat, smooth object that was pressed up so close Sky had to cross his eyes to see it at all, but it was so up close that it was indistinct, blurry even.
"A photograph?" he asked, guessing.
He could make out colors. Pale, maybe pastel yellow, streaks of deeper brown, surrounded by green, light blue in a creamy-near white, bright red nearer the bottom of the photo.
"Her name was Amber Maitlin," the harsh, whispery voice snarled at him, each word an accusation, the whole sentence a violent attack, "She was sixteen years old. Do you remember her?" spit hit Sky in the face, the mouth of the speaker was so close to him, "Do you remember the girl you murdered?"
"Murdered?" Sky asked, incredulous, wincing as the spit struck near his eye, "I never killed anyone."
"Really?" the voice was sarcastic, but Sky was relieved when his captor eased back out of his face, "I suppose she died of natural causes then. A healthy, young, vibrant girl, just died all on her own."
"I don't know," Sky said earnestly, "I have no idea who she was."
"No i-.. no idea? No idea!?" the whisper was exchanged for a loud shriek, "You murdered her! You killed her and you have no idea who she was!? DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE!?"
Sky flinched as the accusation rang off the walls, ricocheting and reverberating deafeningly.
He could see the photo now. A blond girl with beautiful blue eyes, wearing a red dress in front of a green backdrop, a dazzling white smile on her lovely face.
Dead now.
She had been beautiful, yes, and her face was lit up with the kind of radiance that couldn't been applied with hours of makeup, but only from years of living with joy and laughter as the central themes of life. Lovely and probably funny in life. But Sky didn't know her face any more than her name.
"Who was she?" he asked, the throbbing in his head having momentarily knocked from his memory the fact that his captor had already given name to this face.
"She," the snarl became low, quiet, more dangerous as his captor slunk towards him, right up into his personal space, "She was the innocent girl you killed."
And then Sky's captor swept away into the darkness, which seemed to welcome and swallow him up. Not just to the corner this time, but up the stairs and right out of the room, through a door, leaving the photo face up on the floor, where it sank into the quarter inch of water standing on the rough concrete.
Amber Maitlin had been beautiful. But Sky didn't know her. He certainly hadn't killed her.
His attention was riveted to the photograph until he was distracted by the sound of someone, presumably his captor, returning and lugging something that appeared to be heavy. Thudding steps on the stairs, the product of boots on concrete, approached, and Sky's dark captor slid out of the liquid shadows, eyes ablaze with righteous or mad fury, but the box-like object he held in his arms was more frightening still.
It was the battery from a car, and Sky was smart enough to know what it was for.
"No," he spoke the word, but it lacked conviction, so he said it again, and looked into the eyes of his captor, desperate to see some hesitation, some uncertainty, some humanity in that savage countenance, but he found none, none at all, no remorse, no conscience, only hate.
"No! I didn't murder her! I didn't kill anyone! You've got to believe me! I have no idea who you are or who she was or how she died! I've never done anything to you! Or to her!"
With a thud more final and fatal than any Sky could have predicted, his captor set the car battery on a lumpy, mostly dry portion of the concrete floor. Sky felt that thud all the way to his core.
He knew then that there was no reasoning with this person, and that he had no hope of escape.
"I will make you suffer for what you've done," his captor said in an easy, reasonable, almost parental voice that clashed with the words, "You will suffer, and then you will beg. You will beg, like she never had the chance to. Beg me to make it stop, make it end. Beg me for your life."
"I haven't done anything," Sky said, but it wasn't to convince this maniac, not for any reason at all, not unless there was someone recording the events happening in the universe, someone taking down testimony for the inspection of some supernatural court complete with judge and jurors.
His captor ignored him, as if he hadn't spoken at all, busy setting up and talking.
"And when you're finished with your begging, when you're too broken even for that, when the only hope you have left is that you will die... then you will know. You will remember her. Then, and only then, you will die," there was a pause, where the baleful eyes glanced in Sky's direction, then he finished what he had to say, "Don't worry though. You will be dead by Christmas. I guarantee it."
A/N: Set post "Robotpalooza"
I don't normally make promises about my stories, but I feel somewhat compelled to where this one is concern. That promise is this: the entire story isn't so completely dark as the prologue nor so entirely devoid of anything Christmassy.
As always, this story is completely written. As per usual, I will upload one chapter per day (Barring anything out of the ordinary. I will attempt to give readers a head's up via A/N).
This was written for my entertainment, and is being published for yours. If you find yourself not enjoying it, then you should feel perfectly free to stop reading.
Heap praise or criticism upon it, whichever may suit you best. Or say nothing about it at all, if you would prefer.
Do feel free to point out typos, I check my stories before publishing, but I admit my imperfection and would welcome the opportunity to correct any mistakes I may have made.
While character/event facts stated in this story are not intended to conflict with any in the series, it should be noted that it had been three or four years since I watched the series start to finish at the time of the writing. For a lot of it, I relied on internet inquiries, and many of those were either nonspecific or possibly inaccurate.
As with last year's Christmas fic, all the chapter titles (aside from the prologue and epilogue) are lyrics from Christmas songs. If you want to know what one is, feel free to ask, as many of them have to be a little vague in order to apply to the story as well as avoid using the same song twice. So far, I haven't had to repeat, but if a yearly Christmas fic becomes tradition, it'll happen sooner or later. There's only so many Christmas songs out there :P