Forbidden Dreams

By ebacusta

Chapter 1

Her Kindness

I don't quite remember who she was. All I know was that it was girl, with a soft skin and voice that resonated with true emotion. I'm not quite sure how she got there, where I was. I don't remember ever meeting someone like her on the ship. When I think about it, often despite myself, I'm glad she was there when she was. That she listened to what I had to say, I don't know how I could have kept hold of my humanity if she hadn't… Humans need someone to listen and sympathize with them… but I had no one, until she came along. And I have to admit… that I am strangely…grateful.

I stumbled through the hall, fighting the urge to sink to the ground in my pain. I leaned heavily against the wall, my fingers clutching at it but not being able to pass through and therefore pressing desperately on to it. With each step I took, a noise so loud that it sounded like being next to a freight train with no covering rang through my head and every other part of my body felt like it was being stabbed multiple times. My vision was getting ever more blurry. But convincing myself I had to be close, I pushed forward.

I guess I wasn't quite as close as I thought, or maybe I didn't have the will to go any farther because I finally gave into the urge to fall to the ground and just lay there praying to God the pain would fade. But then again, I guess it is too late to be praying to him after all the people I've killed. But I never made impact with the ground like I expected too. Instead, I fell heavily into someone. A girl. I could tell from her chest, and the softness of her skin as she held on to my arms. Even still, though, I could not make out her identifying marks other than the color of her hair, and even then I wasn't quite sure. Blue I think. A soft sky blue, but blue nonetheless. Her voice was soft and filled with concern when she spoke.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" she asked, regarding my incessant shaking and twitching. Involuntarily I clutched at her clothes, desperate for anything to pass my pain on. She flinched as I grabbed her arm instead and squeezed but said, "Are you heading to your room? Do you need some help?"

I wanted to tell her no. But nothing came out and she pried my fingers off her arm and swung it around her shoulders so that she was supporting my weight as she dragged me down the hall. I kept telling myself that now was the perfect chance to choke her so she'd release me and I could make my escape, but for some reason, the kind nature I sensed from her prevented me from doing it.

"You're one of them aren't you?" she asked as we went through a doorway. "One of his experiments." I wanted to strangle her for calling me "one of his experiments." But I couldn't bring myself to even pry my fingers from her clothing as we sank to the ground together. She leaned against a wall letting me dig my fingers into her skin.

"Why…?" I gasped as I struggle to knock myself out somehow, so I could escape from the pain.

She was silent a minute. "You're right. I'm sorry, I shouldn't call you that. It was rude of me. And you experience enough pain as it is." Her voice resonating with sadness and remorse. "What's it like?" she added softly. What did she think it was like? Watching me suffer in front her.

"Hell."

"How rough. He doesn't treat you right. Why would you ever agree to work for him? He's a terrible man, self-centered and all. Just look at what he puts you through for his own selfish reasons. Why do you choose to put yourself through this pain so constantly?"

"I don't… have a choice… He is the one who holds my release from the symptoms," I said. What did she think I'd stay if I had it my way?

"Why don't you? I've heard some say it was your background, and he rescued you from something… What was your childhood like?"

Immediately I thought back to the facility. Where I had trained, and fought fellow children such as myself. Why did she want to know?

"Alone… hostile," I found myself saying. "Filled with constant competition and the need to rise above the rest to survive." What was I doing? I didn't even know her, and yet I was telling her things I'd never told anyone before. Why did I feel so connected to her?

"How awful," she whispered truly meaning it.

And then it all came out. "I was born as one of the Earth Alliance's child soldiers. Produced in a tube, my only purpose was to train and become a good soldier with skills comparable to those of a Coordinator. I was to be able to pilot Mobile Suits and cause mass-death to the Coordinators, but at the same time be expendable, so if I was to die it would be of no real loss to the military."

"Child soldier… you can't be serious," she gasped. And then I was crying. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe partially because of the pain I was enduring but partially because of the pain I'd already endured. Since when did I show that kind of emotion?

"The Earth Alliance though, tossed Orga, Kuroto, and I onto death row, because one day we became overly hostile and began attacking the Doctors as well. We killed a few of them, and the Earth Alliance deemed us to homicidal to be safe," I whispered. "I didn't want to die. Can you really blame me though? For doing what I did. Killing the doctors that cursed me to such a terrible fate. Do you know what it's like being doomed to die before you're even born? Even really given a chance at life?" She remained silent, but her hand drifted to my forehead and began stroking the hair out of my eyes, wiping the tears off my face as they mixed with my sweat. I continued, "And then he came along."

"Azrael?" she asked.

"Yes, and he said that we would be free from death row, if we agreed to assist him with some research," I said. I was silent for a while as the tears fell. Finally I said, "It hurts so much. I try to remind myself that life is better than death and therefore this pain is better than death. But really I'm already dead. I never got a chance to live in the first place."

The room was silent as I tried to stop being so emotional. My body still shaking from the withdrawal I was feeling that know seemed far away. Finally, a whisper met my ears. "I'm sorry…" I shifted to look at her though I couldn't see much. The only thing that alerted me to her tears was when a few of them dropped onto my face. "You've been through so much… and you didn't deserve to be."

"What are you talking about?"

"You are a kind person at heart. At least I'm sure you would be if the only thing you had been taught from your birth hadn't been the way to kill. For someone like you… no… for anyone to have to go through what you've been through isn't right? How can someone like me even begin to empathize with you? Nothing I could imagine could compare to the pain you've been through, and… it's just not right. I want to protect you. I wish I had the strength to."

"What do you mean?" I asked confused. My tears drying up.

"Someone as young as you should be looking ahead at the dreams he's going to accomplish as he grows up. Not waking up each day, knowing that your only mission is to fight to the death and if you survive until tomorrow your mission for the day is complete. That's not right. I want you to be able to have dreams. And I want to be able to protect them. The three of you deserve at least that much."

"Yeah? But what would be the point. Because in my case, they would all be forbidden dreams. My forbidden dreams."

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So what do you think? Do you think I should do another chapter? And if so, do you want a romance to sprout? I was going to leave it at this, but if you guys want it, another chapter certainly is swingable. So please tell me what you think. Leave a review.