Sailor Moon:
"A Crossroad"
By: NeoMoon
Rated: PG-13
Its so dark out, he doesn't know why he's out, he doesn't understand what drives him, all he knows is that he is being pushed somewhere, someplace, and as his bike turns the bind in the road his eyes widen, and the bike comes to a screeching halt.
He can barely remember this place, but he knows it, he sees it in his nightmares, and instantly fears the answer that is plaguing his mind as he walks closer to the guard rail that is supposed to protect cars from going over the cliff. A silent sarcastic laugh passes his lips as his hands trace the top of the guard.
"Why here?" He whispers to himself as he fights back the onslaught of coming tears, as memories wash over him, sending him spiraling into an unwanted and scared past.
The churn, as lights blind him. He is sitting in the back sit of his father's new car, they were just coming back from a party at a friend's of is mother's. He can hear his father's cursing, the squealing of brakes and tires, the heart wrenching screams of his mother telling him "to stay down". He could remember the tears running down his face, as he screamed out of terror. He could feel his mother's soft hands holding him back in his seat, and in an instinct the sudden lose of gravity.
His head jerk up, he grabbed his helmet tearing off his head tearing hair and skin as he did. "No!" He screamed in pain, throwing the helmet over the cliff.
"Why did it happen, why?" He asks through the tears, his body falling limp against the rail.
He walks toward the bike slowly, to any who might have seen him, they might have thought him a man at the edge, his walk was slumped and slow, every step seeming to be a step closer to the end. To him it might have been so, since the beginning he had never experienced such as what had just occurred, even in the beginning when he had the dreams of the Silver Princess of the Moon, he not felt this drained or empty. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he straddled his bike and rode off into an uncertain future.
She stepped out onto the pouch, the night air feeling splendid as it caressed her face. She stared out over the grounds of the temple, and sighed at the amazement of its beauty, she wondered if its wonder would ever cease.
She can she him walking slowly toward her, he was shadowed, his features hidden, but she knew him before his face was even uncovered by the light of the moon.
"Darien!" She screamed, when she saw the look on is face, so drained, so devoid of life. She ran over to him, her heart racing out of fear, afraid for him, afraid for what might have happened. She was psychic, someone born with the ability to read minds, it was normally easy for her, but the force and intensity of the emotions washing over him were so strong she feared, she would be harmed physically by them. "What's wrong?" She asked, as she helped him to the pouch sitting him down and letting him lean against one of the many beams.
He stared at her, his eyes so blank, so clear, but one can say the same if they stood at the eye off a storm, and she could feel the storm in him, the raging questions, the ancient fears and memories, the remorse, and sadness. And finally in all but the time it takes for one to blink, it was all gone, wiped clean, and Darien lay on the ground, the psychic pressure building in his mind to much for even it's master to bare.
She was mad to say the least; it was to early for a phone call. She wiped some of the crust from her eyes as she pick up the phone. "What?" Her voice was, for lack of a better term, bitter. And she waited for an answer, stomping her foot and continuing to wipe the dust from her eyes. She was about to hang up when finally someone spoke.
"Ser, Serena?" The girl on the other end said, her voice shaking, desperate. "Serena you got to come to the temple, its." There was a pause, and Serena began to worry she had never heard her friend sound so scared. Finally she spoke again. "Something's wrong with Darien. He fainted in front of the temple. Serena something doesn't feel right."
She was awake now fully, the mere mention of her love's name had in rights destroyed her basic need for sleep. She never gave an answer, and in minutes she was off to the temple.
Rei waited at the steps the look of worry on her face, only made the feeling of dread spread farther into her mind, and strengthened its grip on her soul.
Rei didn't speak, she just turned and started back for the temple, that for Serena was the crushing blow.
Ami was there, watching over him. Serena could understand why she was there, she was the most knowledgeable among them, and her mother was a doctor. Ami rose to meet her friends. The worried look on her face was even more proof, another nail in Serena's soul.
She fell to her knees beside her love, no one spoke, words were not need, everything that they felt was conveyed with their hands resting on Serena's shoulders.
She gripped his hand, tears streaming down her eyes. She wished to God, to Jesus, to Buddha, to anyone that would hear her, and help her, that her love be safe. To her, at least now this was the most trying event in her young life.
Morning.
The sun was over the horizon; Rei woke slowly and hoped she had just suffered a nightmare. Unfortunately she had not. Serena was asleep, her head on her lover's chest, her hand still intertwined with his. Gray eyes stared at her, devoid of emotion, but crying out for help. Darien had awakened.
Rei jumped out of her chair; joy flooding through her heart, drowning all the dread and fear that had infested it. She could once more feel the cool spring wind through her hair, and once again she wished it were over. But when she looked at him, staring into the empty gray eyes she knew it wasn't over, that in fact it was far from over.
It was night again. He didn't remember how he convinced them to let him leave, he could remember their protest, he could remember his love, Serena standing in front of him, her soft hands on his chest begging him not to go, begging him to stay. Most of all he could remember pushing her away from him, and the cry of pain when she hit the ground.
He was at the bend again, the lights of his bike highlighting the guardrail, and the edge of the mountainside.
He had said he was coming back for the helmet he had thrown over the side of the cliff, he tried to convince himself that was why he was coming, and he knew he was lying to himself. He didn't know why he was here, all he knew was something was pushing him to this place, to this proverbial crossroad in his life. The question now was not how, but why, and he intended to find the answers.
He felt a soft hand on his chest, bracing him, protecting him. Serena's? No, different. He didn't know how, he just knew it was, and slowly the answer presented itself. "Mother." And slowly it change, till he could no longer feel the soft hand off his mother holding him back in his seat, but could feel his small chest as he held himself back into his seat, he could see himself as a boy, tears running down his small face.
"Don't be afraid!" Darien screamed to the boy he had once been, but the words, nor the voice were his, they were his mother's. He could feel her fear run through him, he turned, looking out of the window, could she the bright blinding white light, and then could feel the sudden lose of gravity, and the weight of the young Darien against his hand, then nothing, all was darkness.
He gasped, air flooding into his lungs, feeling sharp against his insides and slowly picked himself off the ground, he had collapsed. His body was soaked in sweat, and again he felt as if his life force had been sucked from him.
He leaned heavily against the rail, and looked over at his bike, it's light sending a shiver down his spine. He rested, regaining his breath, and then left as fast as he could. He wanted to be away from that place.
He had returned to the Temple, Rei standing at the foot of the stairs, waiting for him, his love Serena beside her. As they walked the stairs up to the temple, Darien could sense the dread overcoming his heart and gripping his soul. Voices whispered in his mind, telling him he was mad, telling him they were mad. In all the chaos one voice stood separate from the rest, his father's.
He was only about five when his father had told him about it. A place deep in one's mind, a special place were one could go to just "get away". Darien couldn't think why it had come back to him now, why he would be remembering something of little concern. That question was answered almost immediately. "My boy." His father had said. "Sometimes in this place shadows of the past can visit you."
The mad flicker in his eyes stunned Rei, as he turned to her, all she could think of, all she could even compare to those eyes was an enemy long dead.
"I need your help." His voice was hard and dry, like a man who has not had a drop of water for days. "I need you to help take me somewhere."
He could feel the fire's warmth on his face. He opened his eyes, and looked into its depths, ignoring the soft hand on his shoulder, Serena's hand. Rei kneeled down on the far side of the, putting it between herself and Darien. Softly she began to chant, and Darien could feel his body growing more distant.
He was back at the bend in the road, only he wasn't, he knew he was at Rei's, knew he was kneeling in front of the young priestess's fire. But he was here also, for this was what he manifested as his "special place".
"Sometimes in this place shadows of the past can visit you." Spoke his father from somewhere in the vast darkness.
Darien turned, looking for his Father, looking for something but nothing presented itself, he was alone.
"Will he be all right Rei?" Serena asked nervously, not turning her gaze from her lover's limp body.
Rei shook her head, and looked over at her friend, worry in her eyes. "I don't know, I've never done this before."
"What did you do?"
"Basically I just put him in a trance." She said as she sat down next to her friend.
He started to walk down the darkened road, there were no more voices, there were no "shadows", there was just this road, and all roads are mad to be traveled upon.
In the distance a pinprick of light appeared and grew larger with every passing second until Darien recognized it as a car, his father's car. It sped closer and closer, till Darien could almost see the figures in the car. It passed him, and he just stared as it did, to afraid to move, seconds there was the sound of screeching brakes, and twisting metal, the accident that had taken his parents, just occurred.
Everything fell silent, no screams, no sirens or voices. All was as it was, and seconds later he could see the pink prick of light traveling up the road.
He stood in the road waving his hands franticly, hoping the car would stop, but it wouldn't. In the back of his mind a small voice told him to move, but he ignored. The car got closer; he could see his father at the wheel. He closed his eyes prepared to feel the pain of the car hitting him, but it did not come, seconds passed and then came the sounds of the accident.
He screamed in pain and rage, falling to the ground, his knees buckling under unknown pressure. He cried, he screamed, and again, as if stuck on replay the pinpoint of light appeared in the distance.
It took everything he had, everything he was to pick himself up, to try to stop the accident from happening again, and as the car got closer he once more waved his hands for it to stop.
"Go there." His father spoke in his mind.
Darien turned, dropping his arms, he didn't understand why but he ran to the place of the accident and prepared himself.
It was quick. A lifetime of memories, a fragment of a dream that last an entire spell of sleep had taken place in all but ten seconds. His father's car came into view, followed seconds later by the blinding light of another car that swerved violently across the near road. His father's car swerved to avoid the other car but sent his car into a spin. Darien closed his eyes not wanting to see the rest, unfortunately he still heard.
The sounds of twisting metal, compiled with his memories were enough to drive a man insane, like a raging flood that insanity pushed him trying to drown him in it's chaos, he held on to the thin strand he had, a golden rope made out of thin silk. To his fortune it held, his love had keep him safe.
As he opened his, bracing for the worst he got a glimmer of light and swung toward it, being greeted by nothing save a voice. "The man was drunk." The voice whispered though a light breeze. "He was coming home from a party as was your own father."
Darien gasped for air as he awakened from the trance. The heat from the fire once more on his face. Serena sat next him, her arm wrapped around his shoulders. He wanted to smile, want to thank her, but his mouth had become dry, and barred the passage of words.
Days past, and those days past into weeks. Darien found himself thinking more and more of recent events, and as he thought of the tragic crossroad in his life he would always find himself staring at a small apartment complex that should have been condemned. As more time passed and the cool of autumn turned to the chill of winter, he discovered he stared at a peculiar door.
New Years Eve, a night that signifies the passing of one year and the dawn of a new year. He was to be at the temple within the hour to celebrate with Serena and the others, but he found himself in front of the apartment again, and eventually in front of the door he spent so long starring at. H e never knew why he came here, never knew what pushed him toward it, but he knew he was here, and that there was a reason. He sighed heavily, and knocked on the apartment door.
The man was not old, yet he looked it, he was a man aged by heavy drinking. Darien knew him immediately, as did the man know Darien.
"You?" The man said in a harsh whisper. "You're the boy." Tears slowly fell from his eyes as he gripped Darien's shoulders. "You're real, of thank god." The man slowly let go of Darien's shoulders and fell to his knees. "For so long I've dreamt of that night." He looked up at Darien with haunted eyes. "They would never leave me. The images, the screams. You, you were crying, clutching on to your mother as the paramdic's tried to put her into the ambulance. I remember you looking at me, I . . ."
"It, it's okay." Darien said, amazed he had said anything.
"No, no." Sobbed the man, shaking his head violently. "I, I took everything from you, and there is no way I can ever give it back."
Darien knelt down, placing a hand softly on the man's shoulder. "No, you can't. But you've given to much as it is."
"I'm so sorry." The old man sobbed.
Darien got to his feet and turned to leave. "You should be, but we forgive you."
"Th, thank you."
End
Okay it had a corny ending but as always by the end the story changed. At first I was going have some youma do it, but that didn't sound right. So please tell me what you think, it might help my damned talent burst free again, 'cause god knows I'm really in a slup right now with writing. Again please tell me what you think, I can be reached at neomoon@yahoo.com . As always, peace, love and meow-mix.
NeoMoon