Sow the Cornfield, Reap the Future

by Tiffany Park

Fei Wang Reed dreams about the future where his plans for Yūi's ultimate death in Seresu fail, so he alters his actions, and Yūi's upbringing, to ensure the outcome he desires. The future does, indeed, change course, and at first all seems to be going swimmingly. However, Fei Wang Reed has neglected to take some important factors into consideration.

1. Chapter 1: Header and Disclaimers

TITLE: Sow the Cornfield, Reap the Future

AUTHOR: Tiffany Park

CATEGORY: Drama, dark fantasy, horror, AU. Crossover with the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life."

SPOILERS: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Chapitres 150 through 172.

RATING: R

CONTENT WARNINGS: Violence, blood, dismemberment, three decapitations, grotesque transformations, character deaths, two human monsters, and zombies. But at least there are no bad words...

SUMMARY: Fei Wang Reed dreams about the future where his plans for Yūi's ultimate death in Seresu fail, so he alters his actions, and Yūi's upbringing, to ensure the outcome he desires. The future does, indeed, change course, and at first all seems to be going swimmingly. However, Fei Wang Reed has neglected to take some important factors into consideration.

STATUS: Complete

ARCHIVE: Please ask first

DISCLAIMER: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and its characters belong to CLAMP, Del Rey Ballantine Books, Random House Inc., Kodansha Ltd., Funimation, and probably a whole bunch of other people and companies I know nothing about. The Twilight Zone was created by Rod Serling, and ran on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The episode, "It's a Good Life," first aired in 1961 and was adapted from the short story of the same name. It was written in 1953 by Jerome Bixby. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Knowledge of Fei Wang Reed's true wish will be helpful to the reader in a couple of places, but it's not terribly important.

While this is a crossover, I have done my best to make it understandable even if the reader is unfamiliar with the Twilight Zone episode or Bixby's short story.

The Twilight Zone did a pretty faithful adaptation of "It's a Good Life," but there are a few significant differences between the episode and Jerome Bixby's short story. This story is mostly based on the episode, but I've also included some bits and pieces (heh) from the original short story. Additionally, I have made some changes to accommodate putting Yūi into Anthony Fremont's place (for example, Yūi can't read minds, but Anthony could) and to move the world of Peaksville, Ohio into this alternate TRC storyline.

For those interested, the episode can be viewed online at sites like Hulu and YouTube. The short story is also available at a number of places online. Neither requires much of a time investment (the episode is only 25 minutes long, and the story takes even less time than that to read through), and both can be easily found with Google or some other search engine.

Happy Halloween!