Of Emotions and Hot Pepper Sauce
My first venture in Fanfiction, so bear with me :)
Typo's and mistakes are completely mine.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
A boy dies and a war starts.
...
Except,
well except the boy never died, did he? He died once. He existed once, but he doesn't anymore.
Confusion plays across your features.
If you had had eyebrows, you would have frowned.
Never get involved. That was the only rule all along.
But you did.
That one fatal moment in which you distracted Walter from the other side, in that particular instant, you got involved.
Everything after that is just a blur of implications from that singular event.
As a child, the girl had an imaginary friend.
Her stepfather had started beating her around that time and because of that she had often sought refuge in a field further away.
A field of beautiful white tulips.
It was there, in that field, that saw him for the first time. This boy.
He told her she could change things. That she could dream a better world. Make a better world. - "You gotta try something, right?" -
She had believed him.
Later that night she shot her stepfather.
And she shot him again.
And again.
Yes, she still remembers his words.
But the thing she remembers best about this boy are his eyes.
Three weeks after the creation of the Bridge between the universes, she sees those eyes again.
If the boy never existed, he wouldn't have been taken;
the cracks in the skin that separates both universes would never have been made;
the war between them would never have started.
Some people would have lived, others would have died.
You are cataloging all these impossibilities created by the disappearance, or rather, inexistence of this boy.
One boy, only one little boy has created this immense paradox.
The universes aren't in balance when the boy exists, but they aren't in balance either when he doesn't.
This boy has been such a big part of this convoluted equation formed by intricate webs of consequences, both obvious and unforseen.
And now you can only come to the conclusion that without this boy the result of the equation is completely and irrevocably changed.
The word 'mistake' haunts the back of your mind. You don't know how to begin fixing this mess.
The dreams begin 3 weeks after the Merge of both universes.
She begins to see this man, who looks vaguely familiar; even though she is sure she has never met him in her whole life.
But if she has never met him, how can she know his hopes, his fears?
How can she know every subtile nuance of the color of his irisses?
How can she know that he never really completely managed to forgive his father?
That nightmares came to him around the age of 7 and never really left?
That one rainy afternoon he visited his own grave?
Or most importantly, how can she know how his touch feels on her skin?
No, she has never met this man, but she is sure that once, once she did.
Words - "Sometimes what we wake up, can't be put back to sleep again" - echo from a long forgotten memory.
The dreams continue.
You realise now that you forgot to take something into consideration while erasing him from existence.
The boy wants to exist.
He wants to have been real.
You begin to understand you won't be able to fight the momentum that the boy has created.
- "Traces of him continue to bleed through" -
The boy will come back eventually.
You leave Reiden Lake.
A firefly flies over your shoulder.
As a child, the girl had an imaginary friend.
But maybe he wasn't imaginary.
- She stelps the blood coming from Walter's eye while telling him about her dreams -
Maybe he was real.
One day, a man emerges from where a boy has drowned.
And the man remembers.
The man remembers everything.
- "Who are you?" -
The world not.
You will see the boy again.
You will have been ordered to eradicate him completely from existence, to make sure he never returns.
But you can't.
The world he has given up, the world he has lost, isn't the same as the world he got in return.
The people living in that world neither.
And as you observe this man, like a stranger who fought to exist in a world that no longer really needs him, it hits you.
An emotion.
- "It's what they call feelings" August had told you before dying -
Compassion.
Sometimes, in certain moments of weakness, the boy thinks back.
He thinks back to another timeline, to another universe.
- "You belong with me" she had said -
He thinks he should have known that his story had never been about belonging.
All of his life he had been torn between two universes, one where he should have belonged, but he hadn't; the other where he shouldn't have belonged, but he had.
Eventually, it hadn't mattered much.
He doesn't belong anywhere anymore.
But still, he can't seem to regret his decision. Not if it means she's alive.
Because if he was ready to risk existence for her,
wouldn't it only be fair if he was willing to risk his happiness too?
You never understood humans. You never understood why they had to make their lives so complicated by getting emotionally invested in others.
But while observing the boy, who is gazing full of longing at the girl, you finally understand.
(And you know the following comparison isn't perfect, but you still haven't found a better one.)
Emotion for them is like hot pepper sauce for you.
It burns, it scorches you from the inside out, but it is the only thing capable of making you feel alive.
You take off your fedora,
you never really liked felt anyway.
Never get involved.
That was the only rule all along.
You did.