AN: Hi! I'm Angel Baby! Long time lurker, first time poster. (For MD:TAS, anyway. I have a REALLY LONG and sort of bad Digimon story.) Tell me what you think, ok? Read on!
Bittersweet
"Happy Hatching-Day!"
They're very naïve, aren't they? Much more so than I am, I think more than I ever was. Then again, I don't remember what I was all that clearly. I could be wrong.
I look surprised and I smile and they're satisfied.
Whips sound, ricocheting off rocks, walls…people. Cries mingle with the smell of blood to create the familiar atmosphere of death.
"Do you remember where you were this time last year, little bro? This is a real step-up, isn't it?"
"Sure is!"
Huh. If only he knew.
Pain. Intense, all consuming.
Work harder.
Was there ever anything before pain?
Pull faster.
No. There couldn't have been.
Agony.
Don't dawdle.
Blood, sweat, gasping breaths of desperation.
They weren't coming.
Work or die.
Despair.
"I mean, if the Resistance hadn't come for you, you might've spent your seventeenth Hatching-Day in a camp rather than tucked away in a Shelter. You sure are lucky!"
"Yeah. I guess I am."
The rolling depression and shadows of pain are settling into their appropriate grooves in the pit of my stomach.
I wonder vaguely as my mask falters if everyone in my generation is like me. I wonder if all older brothers are like mine.
I wonder if Wildwing really knows and is just playing along because he can't handle the truth.
Does he really believe I was in a Shelter that day?
"Today's the day, duck. It's your turn. We're gonna make every inch of your pathetic hide ache. Aren't you excited?"
"What do you wanna do today?"
"Dunno."
Doesn't matter. Never mattered. Will never matter again.
Pain!
Agonizing, stomach churning, absolute, total pain!
Oh, God.
Make it stop.
The memories are bitter. Someday I'm sure they'll make me bitter, too, and I don't think I can prevent it.
Wildwing, when I hate the world, will you still call me your brother?
"What was the Shelter like, kid? I was always fighting and didn't get to see one. Was it nice?"
Do you really think I'm going to answer that, Duke? You of all people should have guessed by now that I never saw one, either.
Why do they hate us?
"We were thinking of having pizza at some point today. Not all three meals, of course, but at some point. Do you want some for dinner or lunch? We can go out for tacos if you want for the other meal. I put my foot down on breakfast, though. That's gonna be your dose of health for the day. What do you think?"
I didn't get to eat anything last year. I was so hungry and so empty and so hurt I couldn't even throw up.
What did I do? I wasn't that bad, was I? I never killed anyone, I said I was sorry when I messed up.
What did I do to deserve this?
Mom! Dad! Wildwing! Anyone!
Please…
I don't want to die.
"Heh. Look, he's still mostly asleep. Only Nosedive can pull off something like that."
They didn't teach this in school. They never said I was going to be ripped from my family and tossed in a mine before I was old enough to legally join the military. They never said I was going to fight a war.
I hate this.
I hate this.
Living sucks.
Why don't they just kill me?
"Hey, Nosedive. You ok?"
No. No, I'm not ok. No, I wasn't in a Shelter. No, I didn't lie to you. I wasn't in a Camp. I was in a mine. A mine was so much worse. Those of you here who were captured only stayed in Camps.
Camps were a resort compared to the hell of a mine.
Why didn't they just kill me?
I want to die.
I'm ready to die.
I have watched most of the kids from my school that I knew die.
I am ready to die.
Why won't they just let me die?
"You don't look so great. Maybe you should go back to bed. I can wake you later, if you want."
There were only teens in the mine. Only kids around my age who were strong and had lots of life still in them.
That's why the Resistance didn't know the mine existed.
That's why my generation was hit so hard.
No one will tell you why, but I can.
That's why.
Mom is dead.
Dad is dead.
Wing is fighting, but he'll die too.
Maybe we'll meet up again after I go.
I wish I could go.
I'm sick of this.
"Nosedive, what's wrong?"
I laugh. Not vocally, because I think that would worry Wing even more. But inside, where I remember what he doesn't even know existed, I laugh.
That is such a stupid question.
Life carries on.
The pain continues.
Eventually, our pain unites us.
Eventually, our disgust at the entire thing boils over.
Eventually, we take the mine.
Our losses are heavy, though.
There were over two hundred.
Now there are seven.
There are no more Saurians, though.
That's a definite plus.
"Nosedive, talk to me!"
Can't. Would love to, but can't.
Actually, no, I wouldn't love to.
Wildwing must never know about the mine.
I don't think he'd understand and I don't want him to pity me.
I hate pity.
We don't know what to do now.
So we're free.
So we've done it.
So…now what?
We decide to doctor each other's wounds.
When my turn comes, they look surprised.
Why haven't I died yet?
I dunno. I guess I just haven't.
My brother is alive somewhere.
Maybe that's why.
"Snap out of it, Nosedive! C'mon, talk to me!"
Maybe that really is why I didn't die.
Because I could remember, as I gasped in an existence that was defined by pain, happier times. I could remember Mom and Dad and Wildwing. I could remember the sweet, simple times.
Maybe that's why.
We hid the identification numbers they had imprinted on the undersides of our wrists with scraps of cloth we had found in the Saurian med-bay.
Then we said goodbye.
They are going to find the Shelter.
They want me to go with them.
I would, but I need to find my brother more than I need to recuperate.
I'm not surprised that they understand.
We don't wish each other luck because we know luck doesn't exist. We're the ones who make things happen, not luck.
But we do wish each other speed.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm just…reminiscing."
That's life, isn't it? That's the point of living. Surviving the hard times to revel in the good. That's why Wing'll never know, not if I can help it.
If he thinks my life has been all sunshine and roses, so be it.
That's one less thing he has to worry about.
I found Wildwing. He's in a Camp. He's going to be transferred soon. If the Resistance is going to get him, it'll be then.
So I let myself be caught.
It's a short reunion.
He calls me dumb, because I was captured, but he's hugging me as he says it, so he probably doesn't mean it.
I don't wince when the hug makes my back bleed again.
Canard hasn't changed and he doesn't want to recognize that I have.
We still have a healthy loathing for each other.
At least Wildwing doesn't mind.
"You were pretty spaced. What were you remembering?"
"My last Hatching-Day."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"What was it like?"
"Back then, bro, every day was pretty much the same."
"Oh yeah? Even at a Shelter?"
"…Yeah."
"How were they alike?"
They'll never know. This is our secret, the seven of us who bear these numbers with as much dignity as we can.
There was only one mine, after all.
I have survived it, left only with those other six and my memories as proof.
But Wildwing will never know that.
"Bittersweet."
"What?"
I smile and wink at him as I stand so maybe—maybe—he'll be able to shrug my answer off as another joke. I know that I mean it, and that's all that really matters.
Right?
"Life was bittersweet."
The End
AN: ^^;; I offer no excuses because I have none. It just…bothered me until I wrote it. Not my best Mighty Ducks work, but certainly the only I have posted here. What do you think? Review!