I lit a candle
in remembrance of you
It softly flickered
as your memory shined through
As the wax trickled down
I thought of days gone by
Of how much I miss you
And then I began to cry
I lit another candle
And watched it slowly burn
I can't believe you're gone
That it had to be your turn
As the wax gathered
so did my memories
Some were a little hazy
seemed more like dreams
The wax turned hard
and so did my heart
Realizing we will never be together
but forever apart
I blew out the candles
In the dark I reside
Forever to be lonely
in your memories I hide
---
Chapter One
In the Beginning of the End
1
Those memories I have of the time before all of this happened are anything but black and white or tinted with a light brown like the color of a canvas. The talking, the laughter, the screams. none of them echo throughout my mind as though they are lost in a void of space deep within my mind. The bloody stains on the perfect white cotton clothing are not faded and discolored. My memory was not wiped like that of a page in a sketchbook. Though I wish it had been. If we had no memories of it, then maybe we could all go on peacefully. Or maybe we could all just be dead. Would that not be so much better?
Sometimes I think it would be. I want so badly to die sometimes. yet I want so badly to live on. They say once you hit rock bottom that you cannot go any deeper. But some people are so determined to make things worse, to put people through even more suffering, that they would go and get a drill to make the hole deeper. Like a time paradox, it can never end. I never thought it could go on like this, but it has. Which is exactly what I told him as we sat atop the dust colored escarpment, and he listened attentively. We never had anything better to do than talk after it happened, anyway.
---
"It's too bad all of this had to happen." He said finally, after a long period of wrenching silence. "If my mother hadn't been taken also, she could make another time machine. We could go back and stop all this from happening. . Or maybe she could at least help us erase the horrible memories. the screaming. that's what always haunted me the most." He fell quiet when he noticed none of us where really listening all that much.
"A time machine is what caused all of this." Marron whispered, standing up on the edge of the cliff created in the first hit. "As long as I didn't remember any of it and as long as none of the ruins where here to remind me, then I wouldn't care." She finished as she allowed herself to eye over the ruins of the city we had all once lived so happily in.
I mentally followed the path of her staring and caught a bit of moment down in the ruins. Nothing ever moved down there. unless death could move. That was all that was down there anymore. The giant heaps of gray twisted metal and cement made it look like a war zone and the dirty, yet creamy dust that had settled on everything made it look like a moonscape. That might be why the survivors called it the War of the Moon. Though this was anything but the moon and it had certainly not been a war. Just a bunch of missiles from an unknown land. "What do you think that is?" I asked her in a hushed town. There was no way it could be anything human and could hear us, but I still felt the need to be quiet.
"Who cares?" Goten asked from his spot in the dirt between Trunks and me. I looked down at him in surprise. He had changed so much over the last three months. He was just as carefree, that was for sure, but I always pictured him as being someone who would be trying to save the world and such in a situation like this. But he was doing anything besides that. All he really actually did anymore was sit atop the cliff with us and look down at the ruins hoping it would somehow all just disappear and we could all wake up making this turn out to be one really horrible dream. I doubted he wanted to go back down there anyway. not after what happened the time before.
Save me, please!
"But we can't see you. just. we're trying, keep yelling, we'll find you!"
I can't hold on any longer, please, please. I always loved you Goten.always.
"Damn it! Don't do this! If we can't find you at least tell us who you are!"
.
". Please.hold on. keep yelling. we can't find you unless you do."
.
"- so that's not a possibility." Trunks had been saying. I immeaditly diverted my stare away from Goten and back out over the ruins. I had no idea what Trunks had just said, but I did not really feel like it was very important. Not until he looked up and spoke to me, anyway. "It looks like you get to break the vote, Pan. Marron and I want to go. Goten and Videl want to stay here. What about you?"
I nodded meekly. Flashbacks never haunted me like they did Goten and Videl while we wondered the ruins, so I really had nothing to say against it. "Sure, let's go."
"No!" Marron suddenly cried, backing away from the edge of the cliff that led down into the crater. "No, that's not a person. it's not an enemy either." She turned and buried her face in Trunks' chest, whom became quite confused and shakily put his arms around her. At the look I gave him, he just shrugged. "It's him again, Trunks. He's down there again." Marron was rambling on. "I can't stand it anymore, when'll he go away? He has to stop looking for her. someone has to tell him she's not down there."
"Um, alright." Trunks responded, lifting his arms away from Marron. "Me and Pan will go and. tell him. You can stay here with Goten and Videl."
Marron released her hold on his torso and backed away, tears visible in the corners of her eyes. She nodded reluctantly and looked away, back over the crater. Turning back towards the ruins as well, I could still see signs of something moving down there.
---
I walked along the path that had been created the first few weeks after the missile strikes, absently pushing away anything that got in my way. Trunks walked in front of me as we made our way towards a strange sound being emitted from the south end of the ruins. It sounded almost like a hollow howling. and something smelt very badly. I had thought maybe it was an animal down there dieing or something, but taking into account what Marron had said (even though it made no sense), I kind of doubted it. "Trunks." I began, my own voice sounding unfamiliar to me as it echoed off the insides of the ruins. "What was Marron talking about when she got all hysterical back there?"
"Gouku." Was the only word that came out of his mouth and the seriousness of it made me stop dead in my tracks.
A young girl of about six years old sat in the foldable chair in a completely white room. She was visibly pale and her skin barely clang to her bones. Her hair was a dull shade of faded yellow like a fabric that had been left in the sun a little too long. Her eyes where a shade of blue that also looked dulled like the yellow of her hair. She wore a bright red dress that made the dull colors of her features look extremely out of place and made it so that she stood out immensely in the completely white room.
The expression she wore on her face was emotionless. Her mouth formed a straight line across her face. If one had looked into her eyes they would have probably said they thought her to see right past them and into the nothingness beyond.
A door behind the place where she sat opened and in walked a man with a white lab coat on. Silently he shut the door to the room behind him and walked inside, taking his place in front of the girl. A shiver ran down his spine as she brought her face up and her expression met his. Those cold, emotionless eyes of hers seemed to read everything about him through his circular, wide-rimmed glasses.
He quickly broke away from eye contact and looked down at the clipboard he held in his hands. As he scanned the clipboard he spotted the patients name. "Hoshami Abe," He read aloud as he looked back up at the patient.
Her eyes quickly moved away from his, but the expression on her face didn't change at all.
"Hmm ." The man glanced down at the clipboard and began to read aloud her symptoms. "Emotionless, eating disorders, mute," On the last one he looked back up at her and away from the clipboard. Then more to himself than to the tape recorder he held in his other hand, he repeated, "Mute."
Hoshami's faded blue eyes met his again as he gazed at her. Her cold stare sent another shiver down his spine as, once again, he turned to the clipboard.
Again, he read aloud. "Possible causes for symptoms - Orphaned as an infant."
He met her gaze again and this time was able to tolerate her cold stare. "That's not so bad."
For a few moments he just stared into her dull, lifeless eyes until suddenly she spoke. Her voice was soft and raspy as though she was an aging old woman. "They think they know everything."
This caught the man off guard and he quickly broke the gaze as he looked into the space behind her head. "What did you say?"
She said nothing else.
---
"Did you just say. Gouku?" I demanded, choking in surprise. None of us ever spoke of, let alone joked about, the ones who had not survived the strikes. Goten had grieved so much over the loss of his Mother, his Father, his Brother, and Paris. Videl was equally upset. Trunks never said anything or had shown any sign of sorrow for his Mother or Father, or had Marron, but I always knew they where both just hiding behind masks of lies. Lots of lies. I was extremely fortunate to at least have my mother still alive. "Trunks," I yelled at him when he stopped walking instead of answering. "Please don't tell me you just said Gouku."
A wind began to kick up, blowing around the creamy gray dust that covered everything around them. Trunks' hair, which had grown out to his shoulders again, blew around his face in locks. The way he stood there, not saying anything, allowing me to watch his hair blow like that and his jacket ruffle dryly in the wind reminded me so much of someone I had known before, that I took a step back from him in alarm. ". Please answer me Trunks."
He nodded and turned to face me. His face was expressionless as he did so, but looking into his eyes it showed me that he was far from having no emotions at the moment. "You heard me right, I said Gouku. Haven't you ever heard Marron crying at night? Talking about how she hears `him' looking for her. how `he' is not dead yet? She came to me one day in tears after I asked her about it and told me she was referring to Gouku by `him'. Do you know what that would mean? There's still hope." Trunks choked on his words and lowered his head so I could no longer see his eyes. Then he fell silent.
Then it hit me. That's why; unlike Videl and Goten, Trunks and Marron never spoke about the grief they suffered around the rest of us. They had been up late at night talking together. discussing their problems. And that was when I realized there was a whole side to Trunks that I had never known and probably never would know. The Trunks I knew was a bunch of lies. the smile he wore on his face was automatic. "You miss your parents more than any of us probably do, don't you?" I asked, instead of inquiring further about Gouku. "You'd do anything to have them back, wouldn't you?"
"That's right. I would. I'd give my ability to live and to have ever existed if I could just have them back. all of them." Trunks answered, lifting his head so his eyes met mine. This time I had no need to read them. The tears in the corners of his eyes told me everything I would have ever needed to know. "Anything so I can say none of this happened. I want so badly to forget it all. I even talked about killing myself at one point and that's what Marron says Gouku did. I don't know how but. but that's what she says. And she says that's why he still remembers everything. Because he was trying to get rid of his memories. So I lived on miserably and. I don't know. I just want to find him. I want him back. because if he comes back, then at least part of it is erased from my mind."
Without saying anything I nodded and looked down at the ground. I could hear him shift position as he turned and kept walking on.
---
"Marron." Goten asked as the three of them that remained sat on the edge of the cliff. "What was that stuff you where saying when you grabbed Trunks like that. about a man down there looking for somebody?" He turned his head so he could look at her when she neglected to answer. She sat how she had been since Trunks and Pan left. curled in a ball, clutching her knees, her chin atop one leg. Marron's face was tilted downward so he was unable to see her eyes and it was beginning to bug him.
Videl put a hand on Goten's shoulder. Alarmed, he turned around to look at her. "Leave her be." She whispered. "I don't think you can do anything about it, but it looks sort of like she's having a mental breakdown. I don't know what to do in situations where people are strange like that, but I have a feeling all you can do is make things worse."
Goten let out a short sigh and turned back to the ruins. He mentally noted how much, like all of them, Videl had changed since the incident. He remembered her as being so stubborn and insistent. like back when she had begged Gohan to teach her to fly. Goten knew if she was still how she used to be that she would probably have gotten up, kicked Marron sideways into the crater, then scoffed, saying she was weak and unworthy of living anyway. He guessed maybe losing nearly everyone really did have unthinkable changes on them all. "Videl," He whispered. "Do you miss Gohan?"
Videl was taken completely off guard by this question, and almost chose not to answer him. When he turned to look her in the eyes though, she could see that he was dead serious. They never really talked much, seeing as neither of them paid any attention to each other, but she supposed it could never hurt anything. "I do. Very much. but I always told myself after the death of my mother that I wouldn't cry ever again. that I wouldn't let my memories or emotions keep me from fighting on and living my life. When the missile strikes happened, I almost gave up on that promise. I almost gave up on living all together." She finished with a sigh.
"I know how you feel." Goten assured her, although at the time she was reluctant to believe that anyone could possibly feel the pain that she felt. "Everyone thinks I miss Paris, but it's not true. I never liked her much anyway. I just always felt really empty inside and everyone told me it was because I needed someone to live my life with. so I found someone and made do. Though I never felt anything towards her. . I was just. living a life of lies, I suppose." The stare he gave her as he said this made her feel as though he could of pierced stone with it. "You really did love my brother, huh?"
Videl nodded. "I did. And I still do. I would never have traded anyone in the world for him." She paused for a moment, than went on. "You know what, Goten?"
"What?"
"I don't think he's dead, either."
in remembrance of you
It softly flickered
as your memory shined through
As the wax trickled down
I thought of days gone by
Of how much I miss you
And then I began to cry
I lit another candle
And watched it slowly burn
I can't believe you're gone
That it had to be your turn
As the wax gathered
so did my memories
Some were a little hazy
seemed more like dreams
The wax turned hard
and so did my heart
Realizing we will never be together
but forever apart
I blew out the candles
In the dark I reside
Forever to be lonely
in your memories I hide
---
Chapter One
In the Beginning of the End
1
Those memories I have of the time before all of this happened are anything but black and white or tinted with a light brown like the color of a canvas. The talking, the laughter, the screams. none of them echo throughout my mind as though they are lost in a void of space deep within my mind. The bloody stains on the perfect white cotton clothing are not faded and discolored. My memory was not wiped like that of a page in a sketchbook. Though I wish it had been. If we had no memories of it, then maybe we could all go on peacefully. Or maybe we could all just be dead. Would that not be so much better?
Sometimes I think it would be. I want so badly to die sometimes. yet I want so badly to live on. They say once you hit rock bottom that you cannot go any deeper. But some people are so determined to make things worse, to put people through even more suffering, that they would go and get a drill to make the hole deeper. Like a time paradox, it can never end. I never thought it could go on like this, but it has. Which is exactly what I told him as we sat atop the dust colored escarpment, and he listened attentively. We never had anything better to do than talk after it happened, anyway.
---
"It's too bad all of this had to happen." He said finally, after a long period of wrenching silence. "If my mother hadn't been taken also, she could make another time machine. We could go back and stop all this from happening. . Or maybe she could at least help us erase the horrible memories. the screaming. that's what always haunted me the most." He fell quiet when he noticed none of us where really listening all that much.
"A time machine is what caused all of this." Marron whispered, standing up on the edge of the cliff created in the first hit. "As long as I didn't remember any of it and as long as none of the ruins where here to remind me, then I wouldn't care." She finished as she allowed herself to eye over the ruins of the city we had all once lived so happily in.
I mentally followed the path of her staring and caught a bit of moment down in the ruins. Nothing ever moved down there. unless death could move. That was all that was down there anymore. The giant heaps of gray twisted metal and cement made it look like a war zone and the dirty, yet creamy dust that had settled on everything made it look like a moonscape. That might be why the survivors called it the War of the Moon. Though this was anything but the moon and it had certainly not been a war. Just a bunch of missiles from an unknown land. "What do you think that is?" I asked her in a hushed town. There was no way it could be anything human and could hear us, but I still felt the need to be quiet.
"Who cares?" Goten asked from his spot in the dirt between Trunks and me. I looked down at him in surprise. He had changed so much over the last three months. He was just as carefree, that was for sure, but I always pictured him as being someone who would be trying to save the world and such in a situation like this. But he was doing anything besides that. All he really actually did anymore was sit atop the cliff with us and look down at the ruins hoping it would somehow all just disappear and we could all wake up making this turn out to be one really horrible dream. I doubted he wanted to go back down there anyway. not after what happened the time before.
Save me, please!
"But we can't see you. just. we're trying, keep yelling, we'll find you!"
I can't hold on any longer, please, please. I always loved you Goten.always.
"Damn it! Don't do this! If we can't find you at least tell us who you are!"
.
". Please.hold on. keep yelling. we can't find you unless you do."
.
"- so that's not a possibility." Trunks had been saying. I immeaditly diverted my stare away from Goten and back out over the ruins. I had no idea what Trunks had just said, but I did not really feel like it was very important. Not until he looked up and spoke to me, anyway. "It looks like you get to break the vote, Pan. Marron and I want to go. Goten and Videl want to stay here. What about you?"
I nodded meekly. Flashbacks never haunted me like they did Goten and Videl while we wondered the ruins, so I really had nothing to say against it. "Sure, let's go."
"No!" Marron suddenly cried, backing away from the edge of the cliff that led down into the crater. "No, that's not a person. it's not an enemy either." She turned and buried her face in Trunks' chest, whom became quite confused and shakily put his arms around her. At the look I gave him, he just shrugged. "It's him again, Trunks. He's down there again." Marron was rambling on. "I can't stand it anymore, when'll he go away? He has to stop looking for her. someone has to tell him she's not down there."
"Um, alright." Trunks responded, lifting his arms away from Marron. "Me and Pan will go and. tell him. You can stay here with Goten and Videl."
Marron released her hold on his torso and backed away, tears visible in the corners of her eyes. She nodded reluctantly and looked away, back over the crater. Turning back towards the ruins as well, I could still see signs of something moving down there.
---
I walked along the path that had been created the first few weeks after the missile strikes, absently pushing away anything that got in my way. Trunks walked in front of me as we made our way towards a strange sound being emitted from the south end of the ruins. It sounded almost like a hollow howling. and something smelt very badly. I had thought maybe it was an animal down there dieing or something, but taking into account what Marron had said (even though it made no sense), I kind of doubted it. "Trunks." I began, my own voice sounding unfamiliar to me as it echoed off the insides of the ruins. "What was Marron talking about when she got all hysterical back there?"
"Gouku." Was the only word that came out of his mouth and the seriousness of it made me stop dead in my tracks.
A young girl of about six years old sat in the foldable chair in a completely white room. She was visibly pale and her skin barely clang to her bones. Her hair was a dull shade of faded yellow like a fabric that had been left in the sun a little too long. Her eyes where a shade of blue that also looked dulled like the yellow of her hair. She wore a bright red dress that made the dull colors of her features look extremely out of place and made it so that she stood out immensely in the completely white room.
The expression she wore on her face was emotionless. Her mouth formed a straight line across her face. If one had looked into her eyes they would have probably said they thought her to see right past them and into the nothingness beyond.
A door behind the place where she sat opened and in walked a man with a white lab coat on. Silently he shut the door to the room behind him and walked inside, taking his place in front of the girl. A shiver ran down his spine as she brought her face up and her expression met his. Those cold, emotionless eyes of hers seemed to read everything about him through his circular, wide-rimmed glasses.
He quickly broke away from eye contact and looked down at the clipboard he held in his hands. As he scanned the clipboard he spotted the patients name. "Hoshami Abe," He read aloud as he looked back up at the patient.
Her eyes quickly moved away from his, but the expression on her face didn't change at all.
"Hmm ." The man glanced down at the clipboard and began to read aloud her symptoms. "Emotionless, eating disorders, mute," On the last one he looked back up at her and away from the clipboard. Then more to himself than to the tape recorder he held in his other hand, he repeated, "Mute."
Hoshami's faded blue eyes met his again as he gazed at her. Her cold stare sent another shiver down his spine as, once again, he turned to the clipboard.
Again, he read aloud. "Possible causes for symptoms - Orphaned as an infant."
He met her gaze again and this time was able to tolerate her cold stare. "That's not so bad."
For a few moments he just stared into her dull, lifeless eyes until suddenly she spoke. Her voice was soft and raspy as though she was an aging old woman. "They think they know everything."
This caught the man off guard and he quickly broke the gaze as he looked into the space behind her head. "What did you say?"
She said nothing else.
---
"Did you just say. Gouku?" I demanded, choking in surprise. None of us ever spoke of, let alone joked about, the ones who had not survived the strikes. Goten had grieved so much over the loss of his Mother, his Father, his Brother, and Paris. Videl was equally upset. Trunks never said anything or had shown any sign of sorrow for his Mother or Father, or had Marron, but I always knew they where both just hiding behind masks of lies. Lots of lies. I was extremely fortunate to at least have my mother still alive. "Trunks," I yelled at him when he stopped walking instead of answering. "Please don't tell me you just said Gouku."
A wind began to kick up, blowing around the creamy gray dust that covered everything around them. Trunks' hair, which had grown out to his shoulders again, blew around his face in locks. The way he stood there, not saying anything, allowing me to watch his hair blow like that and his jacket ruffle dryly in the wind reminded me so much of someone I had known before, that I took a step back from him in alarm. ". Please answer me Trunks."
He nodded and turned to face me. His face was expressionless as he did so, but looking into his eyes it showed me that he was far from having no emotions at the moment. "You heard me right, I said Gouku. Haven't you ever heard Marron crying at night? Talking about how she hears `him' looking for her. how `he' is not dead yet? She came to me one day in tears after I asked her about it and told me she was referring to Gouku by `him'. Do you know what that would mean? There's still hope." Trunks choked on his words and lowered his head so I could no longer see his eyes. Then he fell silent.
Then it hit me. That's why; unlike Videl and Goten, Trunks and Marron never spoke about the grief they suffered around the rest of us. They had been up late at night talking together. discussing their problems. And that was when I realized there was a whole side to Trunks that I had never known and probably never would know. The Trunks I knew was a bunch of lies. the smile he wore on his face was automatic. "You miss your parents more than any of us probably do, don't you?" I asked, instead of inquiring further about Gouku. "You'd do anything to have them back, wouldn't you?"
"That's right. I would. I'd give my ability to live and to have ever existed if I could just have them back. all of them." Trunks answered, lifting his head so his eyes met mine. This time I had no need to read them. The tears in the corners of his eyes told me everything I would have ever needed to know. "Anything so I can say none of this happened. I want so badly to forget it all. I even talked about killing myself at one point and that's what Marron says Gouku did. I don't know how but. but that's what she says. And she says that's why he still remembers everything. Because he was trying to get rid of his memories. So I lived on miserably and. I don't know. I just want to find him. I want him back. because if he comes back, then at least part of it is erased from my mind."
Without saying anything I nodded and looked down at the ground. I could hear him shift position as he turned and kept walking on.
---
"Marron." Goten asked as the three of them that remained sat on the edge of the cliff. "What was that stuff you where saying when you grabbed Trunks like that. about a man down there looking for somebody?" He turned his head so he could look at her when she neglected to answer. She sat how she had been since Trunks and Pan left. curled in a ball, clutching her knees, her chin atop one leg. Marron's face was tilted downward so he was unable to see her eyes and it was beginning to bug him.
Videl put a hand on Goten's shoulder. Alarmed, he turned around to look at her. "Leave her be." She whispered. "I don't think you can do anything about it, but it looks sort of like she's having a mental breakdown. I don't know what to do in situations where people are strange like that, but I have a feeling all you can do is make things worse."
Goten let out a short sigh and turned back to the ruins. He mentally noted how much, like all of them, Videl had changed since the incident. He remembered her as being so stubborn and insistent. like back when she had begged Gohan to teach her to fly. Goten knew if she was still how she used to be that she would probably have gotten up, kicked Marron sideways into the crater, then scoffed, saying she was weak and unworthy of living anyway. He guessed maybe losing nearly everyone really did have unthinkable changes on them all. "Videl," He whispered. "Do you miss Gohan?"
Videl was taken completely off guard by this question, and almost chose not to answer him. When he turned to look her in the eyes though, she could see that he was dead serious. They never really talked much, seeing as neither of them paid any attention to each other, but she supposed it could never hurt anything. "I do. Very much. but I always told myself after the death of my mother that I wouldn't cry ever again. that I wouldn't let my memories or emotions keep me from fighting on and living my life. When the missile strikes happened, I almost gave up on that promise. I almost gave up on living all together." She finished with a sigh.
"I know how you feel." Goten assured her, although at the time she was reluctant to believe that anyone could possibly feel the pain that she felt. "Everyone thinks I miss Paris, but it's not true. I never liked her much anyway. I just always felt really empty inside and everyone told me it was because I needed someone to live my life with. so I found someone and made do. Though I never felt anything towards her. . I was just. living a life of lies, I suppose." The stare he gave her as he said this made her feel as though he could of pierced stone with it. "You really did love my brother, huh?"
Videl nodded. "I did. And I still do. I would never have traded anyone in the world for him." She paused for a moment, than went on. "You know what, Goten?"
"What?"
"I don't think he's dead, either."