Note Due to the fact that this story was far more serious and deep than we authors could have ever imagined, we decided to create a stand-alone fic. Title's still tentative until my fellow writers find the right title. (: [Prose Vanity here, by the way.]
Dark. Angry. Partially depressing. Clouded in mystery. Get ready, this is one hell of a roller coaster ride on the twisted minds of two hundred GA authors.
-:|:-
The Craft of Two Hundred
ONE
There was silence, and then his eyes opened. He didn't know who he was, what he was doing there, or how he got there in the first place; all he had in mind was her name.
Mikan… he thought, slightly panicking. Where's Mikan?
He slightly sat up, slowly taking in the surroundings all the while noticing that he was in a hospital. With the girl in mind, he fully got up, took the injections off his skin hastily and ran as fast he could, not even knowing where he was going at all.
Far into his running, however, he realized he was blind. Oh, he could see, and he could see clearly with his eyes, but the place was unfamiliar to him. It wasn't the same infirmary that he'd been to countless of times before.
Where was he, really?
And Mikan…
The name echoed throughout the membranes of his head.
He ran again, turning around bends, ignoring the curious stares being sent his way. He was clad in a white hospital gown with a bandage decorating his head. He winced as he felt a surge of pain.
Mikan, he thought as he aimlessly scanned the vicinity.
Without him realizing, he had stopped running and slumped down his weight on the wall. He tried to look at the people walking down the corridor, hoping to recognize even one. But each face he saw was unfamiliar. He didn't know them neither did they know him. All of them had the same blank look on their faces. They looked like ghosts to Natsume. He looked at the ground and tried to remember what had happened with him. He closed his eyes and tried to remember...but there was nothing.
What was going on?
He vaguely remembered being ordered to assassinate some terrorist called Bin Laden and then during his mission, Andou detonated the bomb meant to destroy the mansion the target was living in... That was it. Natsume couldn't remember anything else, and the more he tried, the more his head hurt.
He had gone through worse than this. He fought the pain and tried to remember the next part of the story. It had something to do with Mikan. He just knew it. Realizing his efforts really were futile, he forced his eyes open. His head started to spin, and the nameless people looked more transparent as each second went by.
The piercing feeling he had lingered in his head for few more moments. As he watched the crowd pass by, he suddenly felt so alone.
Then he made a decision.
It was as if all of a sudden he was in a trance. With slight difficulty, he pushed himself off the ground. He clutched his head and took a slow, zombie-like walk down the hallways of the hospital. In his mind he chanted Mikan's name over and over. His panic was slowly increasing.
He was making his way through the crowd. Twice he had bumped into people, but it didn't stop him. He was too indulged in thinking of Mikan and whatever the thing happening to her was. Sadly, all of the possible situations of her that he was thinking were all negative.
Natsume halted mid-step and thoughts of Mikan vanished for a moment. His head had once more taken its toll and he gripped it as tightly as he can as his vision was turning weird. He was starting to see black spots.
What's going on here? Where was Mikan? Why can't I move my legs anymore?
He couldn't take it anymore, so he just let the pain eat him and he fainted — in the middle of the street.
No one knows him, no one knows where he came from, why he's there; no one cares, no one understands.
Mikan Sakura could not understand the illness; retrograde amnesia, t'was what the doctor said earlier. What does that mean?She pondered on the thought, and seconds after, she received a call.
"Mikan?" it was Hotaru's voice; she sounded exhausted.
"Yeah, Hotaru?" Mikan asked, concern evident in her voice.
"Natsume. He… he's gone," was what she last heard before the telephone was dropped to the floor.
He can't be, she thought frantically, gripping the chair in front of her. This can't be happening!
Her knuckles turned white but she paid them no heed. She knew he would die one day, perhaps the first out of all of them seeing what his Alice was, but for it to be today…
Snap out of it, Mikan, she reprimanded herself. You knew it was going to happen today.
Still, she could feel the hot liquid going down her cheeks. She started shaking. No, she thought to herself as the tears fall. In his current state… He'll just strain himself more… A-and with his amnesia… Oh no!
Panic struck Mikan. She frantically pushed Hotaru aside and went out the door, trying to find the injured fire caster before he'd hurt himself even… more.
She asked everyone she saw on the hall, yet no one could tell her where he went. She'd asked about seven people already before she came to an elderly couple having a heated discussion.
"Please sirs! Have you seen a boy; about my age, dark hair, red eyes?" She was desperate now. She didn't care if she was interrupting them, she didn't care if she was rude, she just wanted to find him.
The elderly couple was pissed by her interruption. They told her in angry voice that someone passed them a while ago. They said he was heading somewhere in the northern direction. Mikan thanked them and hurried off to the direction they said he went. "Natsume!" She called over and over. She checked every room in the hallway going north and asked everyone if they saw him. Occasionally, someone would tell her that they saw a boy with his description going north.
She ran and ran until she came to a clear glass door that led to the outside.
No! He c-couldn't be outside… Could he?
She pushed the doors open, greeted by the disturbing noise as the cars passed by. He could not have gone that far, right? she mentally questioned. As she looked her surrounding, she thought she saw a boy with raven hair going into a deserted alley. "Natsume!" she called out, but the sound of cars were drowning her voice. She ran after him. But it was not Natsume at all.
She was now on the other side of the street, still tying to figure out where the raven haired boy went.
It stung to know she had lost him.
Left and right his eyes darted, trying to find where his memories, vague as they were, come from. Trying to recall everything, trying to piece together the puzzle in his head.
Well, for starters, he's figured out his name was Natsume… but his identity seemed irrelevant, as still his head only kept screaming one name: Mikan.
His feet brought him to an alley, where he faced a blank stretch of wall.
His brain throbbed. His eyes found splotches of blood.
He suddenly realized that it was his blood dripping. His head continued to throb in pain and that fatigue was overwhelming his body. He was walking so much but he didn't care because what he wanted to know is what had happened to him. The sight of the crimson fluid made his head reel and his stomach twist into knots - still he didn't know what was happening, or how it had happened in the first place.
Red,'he thought. As sickening and disgusting as my eyes.
He tore his eyes away from the bright liquid, but he never shut out its metallic smell.
Then he realized something. My eyes are...red...? I don't even know what I look like…
Mikan…
What if she's looking for me?
The thought of it brought him back to his feet. "Mikan…" he whispered to himself. His legs ignored the protests of his body as he continued forward. The determination to find Mikan gave him strength.
No matter how much willpower from the thought of the brunette brings him back from being idle, however, he cannot seem to fathom the vast possibilities that could lead to one thing or another. He does not know where to start looking for her, there was only one thing he remembers — Mikan.
Natsume considered all the places were the girl possibly could have drifted to. He tried to block all the negativities and locked in mind one thing that would keep him going: Mikan. But the struggle was much more difficult than he thought it would be. It was like his mind and his heart were going to fall apart anytime. The boy collapsed from the heavy pain burdening him.
And for the first time, Natsume Hyuuga cried.
The tears streamed hot, fast, slick… it felt odd, because he never cried. Or at least, from the remainders of his memory, he never found one in which he cried.
The hardest part of everything was this sickening longing to remember everything. A big part of him was screaming for release, screaming for a way to find the girl — but he didn't even know what he was searching her for. It was so damn complicated.
He slumped helplessly on the wall of the dead end as crimson liquid stained his hospital gown, sighing.
His eyes closed…
She ran and ran, and then she found him there.
Her heart stopped.
She watched as the crimson blood drip onto the cement ground. Her head started to spin. She ran towards him. She took his hand and laid his head onto her lap."Natsume, sweetheart? Open your eyes please," she whispered. She tried to control the sobs as the tears kept coming one after another.
She gripped onto his hand, hoping somewhat that could give him strength. This shouldn't be happening. They were supposed to get married in Paris. This is wrong, she thought.
She saw him slowly opening his eyes. Those familiar crimson eyes were staring at her with pain and confusion. "Natsume," her voice broke as she said his name.
But the more she thinks about it, the more it goes unreal. Flashbacks came rushing and are starting to chase each other in her head. T'was as if everything around her is a figment of her imagination, a piece of Wonderland, a parcel of Neverland-unreal.
Too bad it isn't.
And she had to face the reality that she was here, in this real world wherein everything didn't seem real at all. She couldn't wrap her head against everything that had just transpired and she wished, more than anything, that if she closed her eyes and pretended that it wasn't real, she could escape from this figment of reality. She smiled softly.
The smiled turned genuine when Natsume spoke her name.
"Natsume," she said in a whisper. The fact that he remembered her suddenly gave her strength. And she now only thought of one thing.
"I swear to God I'm going to get you out of here alive."
"M-Mikan," he whispered.
"Yes, Natsume?" she countered and cradled him fully.
"A-Am I dead?" he asked.
Then she leaned in to kiss him. "What do you think?" She chuckled softly. "Natsume, you're such an idiot." She suppressed a chuckle. "You think you're dead because you saw me? My… It's flattering to know that you thought of me as an angel…"
He smirked despite himself. He was glad he finally saw his angel again.
"Mikan..."
Blood spluttered from his lips and he screamed in agony. He felt as though his skull was split into half, his vision was blurry and his heart was pounding erratically on his chest. Her eyes widened and her brain lost track of the moment, and yet before consciousness had caught up with her, she found herself dragging him back to the hospital.
She cried yet again.
Fate loved to twist their lives, didn't it?
Mikan cried, wanting to ease his pain. As she saw him being wheeled into the emergency room, Hotaru came.
She felt weak.
"Help us, please," she croaked. Nurses who were idling at the counter started to move around. The nurses and doctors carried Natsume on the bed and pushed him to the ICU. During all these events, Mikan was beside him. She never did stop holding his hand.
Hotaru stayed alongside her the entire time, unable to speak, for words were scarce in her mind.
Outside, a man in a black coat swore loudly as he watched the fire caster being wheeled back into the hospital.
Plan A backfired.
"He's alive," he said to the person he was talking to on the phone. "But he won't remain that way for long… I'll make sure of that."
CREDITS
to the following
contributing authors
Prose Vanity
Ria Lee
nineprincess
Little Cute Girl
mishaa
Xythri
CreamConsumer
La Princesa Julia
XxblackwingsxX
Vione
peps-chan
rainypromise
Authors whose pen names I was unable to find
Joana Marie Sayon
Marilee Ignacio