Anochecer
Part I Insomnio
He was running through the maze the forest had become
bellow his feet. Running to save his life, as fast as his tiny feet could
take him. Or to end a life. The branches of the trees that continuously
hit his face had broke his lips. Small, bloody scars ran up his face. His
eyes, blood shot and wide, looked at the forest, hardly taking anything
in. He was tired, scared and hungry.
He had been running forever.
The young boy gasped, his mind thrown out of the momentum
his feet were taking. He stopped slowly, his hand reaching for a branch
to steady himself. The voice he had heard was growing louder. Coming closer.
It sounded like the one making the voice was also running, perhaps from
the same nightmare he was escaping. The young boy closed his eyes, searching
with his trained ears for the source. He opened his eyes sharply, his breath
lost, as the one making the noise shot out of the bushes before him.
The young boy swallowed his scream, his eyes widening.
A young girl, her hair all tangled with weeds, her feet bare, her shirt
half torn around her body, ran out of the bushes. She didn't see him, for
she was concentrated on getting away, and smashed into him. The boy felt
her weigh hit him fully, sending him to the floor. She gasped, her lovely
eyes narrowing slightly and finding him.
He would have said something, told her to get off from
him, told her to watch where she was going, but his brown eyes had shifted
to blue unwillingly, his breath lost. She was looking at him silently,
her own mouth mute. He staggered to get up, his limbs feeling all torn
and broken, like one of the trees that was burning in the distance. Back
home, where all was Hell now.
She got up from him, helping the boy to his feet. She
blushed slightly as their hands met, only briefly, and stood back, her
long, dark hair blowing in the soft breeze. Sweat fell from her brow to
her lips, dark rivulets of ashes mingled with her sweat, just like they
did on his own. Her scared eyes bore into his own, his filled with similar
fear, and smiled softly. The boy looked at her silently, his short, dark
hair hanging in wet rings over his eyes.
Taking a small step towards her, he reached out a hand,
small and insignificant, towards her. He spoke, hardly a whisper.
"What is y-"
He was not allowed to finish, for the bushes where she
had come from began to move violently, the sound of booted feet erupting
from the surroundings. The girl, her eyes still looking at the boy, sprang
from her place, her bare feet taking her fast, away from there. The boy
cursed, his voice small, as he was taken back by the new figure that smashed
at him from the bushes. An old woman, her face haggard and brute, ran out,
her hands bloody. Her eyes, filled with madness and wickedness, bore into
him. She raised her old hand, a large, sharp knife in it, and smashed it
at the boy. She, old yet strong like an ox, pushed the boy aside, her eyes
feverishly looking at him. Her knife had torn the boy's shirt, sending
a long scar down his chest. The young boy cursed her, his eyes darkening
as he looked up at her.
"You saw a small little girl run this way, boy?"
The boy swallowed and held his chest, his eyes looking
at her with hatred. She, the eldest woman back home, had sold the country.
Her signature had been found in the documents that the Fed patrol had posted
in the city. Her own hand had doomed many of the young children that now
lay dead under the feet of the powerful Mobile Suits that had brought Hell
into his home. The old woman, foam falling from her mouth, staggered in
her madness, and reached for the boy, but he stepped back.
"Tell me where she went, Heero," she said. "You saw her,
I know so."
The screams of the people grew louder, far off, in the
maze of trees. People running, like him, and crashing blindly through the
foliage, only to find someone like this woman to kill them. Heero stepped
away from her, his eyes narrowing like a wolf, and his breath becoming
shallow like a beast. His feet sprang to action, like the little girl's
had done, and he dived blindly into the bushes before him, away from the
old woman, her mouth open wide with curses.
"Heero, return!" she yelled at him, but he didn't listen
to her, he only kept running. His eyes were full of tears, his soul full
of shame, but he'd find her again. That small little girl, small like him,
lost and alone. Like him.
The small boy smashed into countless rocks, his small
body horrified out of his wits, his eyes wide with fear, his breath coming
in gasps. His chest ached terribly, the blood in his temples mingling with
his sweat. He heard the voices of people grow louder, then shots rang out.
Horrible, loud shots, like the sound of huge beast devouring humans. The
scream of the men filled the chambers of his heart. He was going insane.
His small body crashed through the trees, his feet broken
by the weeds and grass that cut his skin, and fell into a pool of water.
Dark water that filled his nostrils as soon as he fell inside. Heero yelled,
his head aching, as the water filled his ears and mouth. He staggered to
his feet, his mind spinning, and tried to get out of the pool.
Unknown things swam past his legs, his skin caressed by
dark fish softly. Other things that were not fish began to caress it as
well, sending shivers up the boy's spine. He cursed, his small hand reaching
into the murky, smelly water and pulling his feet free from the algae that
trapped him. Something shot out of the water at his hand, biting his fingers.
Heero yelled, his hand shooting up again.
Leaches had become attached to his legs and he was desperate
to free himself from the water. He drew in a ragged breath as he struggled
out of the pool, smashing at the animals to get them off. The animals fell
to the fungus, leaving red streaks of blood on his legs. The boy fell to
his hands into the wet mud, and crawled off as fast as possible. His hands
stung, but his mind kept telling him to keep crawling. Keep running.
The mud threatened to swallow him, but he pulled himself
up, cursing himself, and broke free. He gasped as he hit something soft
with his tennis shoe. Soft and delicate.
Heero screamed silently as he saw what it was he had hit
emerge slowly from the mud. He fell backwards, his eyes wide, his mouth
frozen in a mute scream. There, in the mud, lay the body of a dead child.
His face, just like Heero's, looking at the sky, his eyes frozen in death.
His skin was dark, full of leashes, and gooey, but he was intact. A huge
wound lay over his left shoulder.
Heero retched, holding his sides, and closed his eyes.
He let his body lie there for a long time, his mind and soul sinking in
the mud. Sinking into death, like the other child. Sinking... sinking...
(c) 1995 Gundam Wing (c) 1997 Team Bonet.
No part, or whole, of the fiction may be copied. To do so is to end up
in jail, with the others who have tried it before. Have a nice day.
Anochecer
By: Team Bonet