/watch?v=AN72_SVbETA
They all had their past demons. Some were obvious, some were admitted, and some had been buried so deep they may never have been cut out.
But as they all woke, dressed as they had been on the worst day of their lives in a room with elements of their worst memories, the deepest of each person's wounds were reopened. And the worst of it wasn't that they couldn't forget the past.
It was that the only member of their team to not be present was the one who they were all currently angry with. She was not here to share in their pain.
And that seemed the worst kind of betrayal.
After a weeks' long argument, it was no surprise that when Agent Sora Reid did not appear in their shared Hell, they wanted nothing more than to hate her for it, even though they knew they never could. After all, she was like their little sister. Their desire to hate her and scream at her persisted with their desire to love and protect her as they would any member of the team. Though they couldn't be faulted.
Her own Hell, unbeknownst to them, was not far away.
Her brother had been a pianist. He had taught her, and then he had died. It had torn her apart. She refused to speak for months after that, only pressing the keys on the piano repeatedly until she had convinced herself that playing those songs, those melodies she had seen Deemo- had seen Hans- play in that second world would not bring back her brother who meant so much to her.
Their father, trying to look out for them (at least, that was what he had told her), had sent them to Japan to live in the care of one of his dear friends. Hans at four, and Sora at three. Hans had been nine when they met, but he had always been kind to her. She had latched onto him in that foreign place where she didn't understand anyone and where she could barely hope to find her way home.
Before, in that house by the forest, he had taught her and their Japanese foster-siblings (that was how they viewed each other, though no one was really certain what was going on in the misty and labyrinthine world of the adults).
She had been six, Hans twelve, when the accident happened.
She had been six, Hans twelve, when she learned that nothing was forever.
She had been six, a mere six, when her mind could not overcome her body.
She was six years old when Japanese became a language so serious to her, she could not speak it without a deep meaning. Without meaning and believing wholeheartedly in every word she said.
She was seven when she was sent back to America.
And she was only nine when another person left her life. This one less shattering than the last, but just as numbing. And, yet again, she began to silence herself, barely speaking more than necessary. This time, taking the American name of Samantha.
She had, at least, to try. To try and allow herself some form of social interaction.
She owed it to her brother.
She owed it to the memory of Japan.
And so, at age nine, she promised herself with the scars of a death and abandonment.
"Hansu no tame ni, watashi wa keizoku sa remasu."
"For Hans, I will continue."
And she did. She lived her life. She made her way to the BAU, where she found new brothers, and even sisters. She found something akin to her life as a child in Japan.
But she could never forget that day in midwinter.
She could never forget the next Sakura blossom season.
She would always remember putting that garland of cherry-blossoms on Hans' grave the day before she left, just over a year after his death.
They had held together, had fought to find a way out of this place. This place that reminded them of their own pain and suffering.
All the doors but one had appeared like the room of JJ's sister. She couldn't stand to let them open them, for fear that she would have to repeat that day. None of them had even suggested it after she flinched when Agent Prentiss had touched the handle of one.
The only other door was a large, ornate door with an indiscernible could find no way of opening it. No handle was present, and all attempts to push it open ended with them exhausted against it.
There were no windows. There seemed to simply be a clear roof, as everything they threw up to find an opening out was returned with a loud thud as the objects struck the roof.
Then, there was a lilt of sound. Barely audible. The large door creaked, revealing a long hallway, a pinprick of light at the end, and the melody echoing down.
Agent Prentiss had noticed them first. Series of six pictures, each with the beginning of their moments. And as they walked down, they could recognize everyone except the girl at the end. The little girl with large, brown eyes and awkwardly cut brown hair. The girl in the white and black dress, gloves on her hands and a patchwork stuffed cat in her arms. The girl who lived in Japan, and who followed the tall, blonde boy around like a lost puppy, with a look of total admiration.
And as they walked further, all of them slowly were faced with that moment in time. All except her, as she kept her eyes on the strange six year old.
And as she watched her pictures, she couldn't help but flinch as the boy she followed pushed her behind him. As he took the strike of the oncoming traffic.
And, furthermore, as he died holding her tight, despite her seeming to be dead as well.
And, at the end, they saw themselves. Their current selves, in the same clothes they had been before the Unsubs had taken them and forced them into this state, or world. Whichever it was.
.
.
.
And there.
At the end of the row.
The last picture was of Sam. The same girl they had been angry with for days, weeks, even.
Only, under her picture, was the word "Sora".
And under her name, a small treble clef, and a date.
The same day their fights had started.
The same day they had begun to push her away.
It had caused them all pause as Emily tried to run back, see the pictures again. She hadn't even given an explanation.
But the door seemed to have followed them as they walked, a silent stalker in the night of the hall.
"Prentiss, what's up with you?"
Morgan had helped her up after she fell, having been knocked down after running into the door.
"That picture- the girl who died in those pictures back there- they were Reid."
The team looked at the picture, Rossi reaching out to touch the date, his finger brushing the treble clef.
The surface of the picture shook. It was as though a pebble had been dropped in water, and the images replayed, this time as they had been in life, but without any sound. The little girl, following the boy, speaking to him in silent movements of lips.
The little girl clutching tightly to that same stuffed cat.
The truck speeding into the agents' vision- the truck lurching into her brother's vision.
Suddenly it was hazy, until things cleared and they saw a little girl in a too large hospital bed.
There was something about the silence that made it harder to watch. Something about seeing a six year old's face contort into uncontrollable anger and despair, as she clutched at the windowsill, like she hoped things would change if she could just see outside again. Like he would be down there on the sidewalk, coming to visit her.
And then it sped up. It showed all of Reid's life to them. The good times, few as they were, and the bad. The blossoms she left on the grave, the goal-post, her graduation, her college days, her training for the FBI, and her introduction to Gideon and the rest of the team.
And then, it stopped. A picture of Reid, looking around the age she had been when she joined the BAU, though likely some time after, standing at a grave.
She stood there, and there were no tears as she knelt down and touched the name, the patchwork cat being left on it.
Her back turning.
And then the next door opened further.
She was wearing the dress from that day. It had been thrown away, the entire outfit covered in blood and dirt and hanging heavily with the weight of bittersweet memories.
She hadn't thought when she touched the keys. And she hadn't thought when she opened her mouth, singing the same lullaby her brother had used with her for years until his voice changed. The lullaby he would still try to sing to her.
That same lullaby that had filled her words when she was nine.
That same lullaby whose promises she had left unspoken when she swore to continue. To continue living for the sake of her brother.
She had not paid the room any mind. She knew this room. She knew Deemo was likely nowhere to be found by this point, though he had certainly left his mark, the giant, thriving tree by the piano bearing an imprint of a hand within a hand. Hers, tiny and unassuming, under his long, impossible hand.
She was aware that she would have to leave. But she had felt Hans hold her here, when she was a mere six, and it wasn't until after that she had been forced to face the reality.
It wasn't until after that the Masked Lady had let her see the door behind the painting.
And now, sitting here at the piano and playing herself, there was a liberation of parts of her soul that had long since chained her emotions into her mind. She could feel things flowing and she could hear the stretching of the bark as she fed the music to the tree, its growth continuing, even without Deemo at the piano.
And there was a part of her that was growing with it. A brave part of her. A part that would not be chained anymore. That would express her opinion.
Perhaps I can live up to my promise, Hans.
"yubikiri genman
.
.
.
tonaeta"
They had seen many things here, but for some reason, there was something around that piano, that was casting a bright light. It hurt to look at it, and yet the voice seemed to coax their eyes toward it.
There was little information they could gather. The pianist was female, spoke Japanese, and they had their suspicions who was there.
And they still wanted to deny it. They wanted to believe that she was the same person they had known all this time. They wanted to believe she hadn't hidden this part of her. They wanted, desperately wanted, to go back to when their worst memories hadn't been on display for all to see.
So, instead of looking toward the piano and trying to discover the pianist, they instead looked at the edges of the room.
Two more doors, one on the left, and one on the right, the left moving up and the right down, decorated the edges of the room. As they moved a bit, they lost focus on the piano.
And, as the song wrapped around.
As the song winded down.
As it danced to an end.
The light faded, and they saw her sitting there, a calm look on her eyes, despite the watery replaying they had seen in the picture frame looping just above the lid of the piano keys.
The tree wrapped around the piano had long vines twining around her arms. Steadily, they unwound, stretching around the room, instead, forming a way out.
As she stood, glancing to the vines, she instead walked to the left, treading softly.
Silently.
Up the stairs, and to a small library, Prentiss following shortly after.
A single mask sat on the desk.
Picking it up, she bent the edges until it shattered, leaving instead the petals of small, white flowers blowing around her, some catching in her unruly hair.
Walking to the fifth door that had been open to them, she disappeared through it, leaving behind not a trace of her except for the small treble clef printed delicately below each person's wrist in a thin, vine-like script.
By the time the rest became conscious in their world again, she had already been awake for hours. She had sat with each of them individually for an hour, maybe more. She hadn't kept track, if she was honest, reading and waiting for them to wake.
She was sure this was how it was when she had been unconscious for so long after the accident.
When the first one did awake- Garcia, as it happened- she was sitting across the room, next to Prentiss.
"Who was that boy?"
Sora smiled lightly.
"A dead man with a living spirit."
The light from the window seemed too bright, in that moment.
Or maybe, Garcia's mind whispered, it's just the peace of the moment.
"Just promise me, you won't let his memory die. Okay?"
Sora's smile faded a bit.
"It never has."
.
.
.
yubikiri
.
genman
.
.
to
.
na
.
.
eta
.
.
.
Fin
Updates for Against Gehenna will resume next week.
~endlessnotebooks