Chapter Two: Part one
"Close your eyes, so many days go by, easy to find what's wrong, harder to find what's right..."
-Breaking Benjamin, "Dance with the Devil"
Flynn Scifo could hardly breath.
It was as if the entire world had frozen and nothing seemed to move. The rain no longer bothered him, the fact that he was encased in mud didn't matter anymore and the swift jolting pain in his stomach didn't faze him. His mind was stuck on a wheel that had stopped turning. His brain had locked itself, barred itself as time wrapped itself in ice.
He didn't understand.
He wasn't dead, he didn't die six years ago, he was still alive, this Flynn knew for a fact. Nothing else could account for the fact that he was here, breathing; he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. The numbing rain grazed against his skin, Flynn could feel it all. The ebbing pain that pinched his stomach and the shock that his brain was desperately trying to run its gears through…
Cumore was lying. Cumore was wrong.
"I'm not dead." Flynn growled, though it came out only as a whisper... more like he was surprised than angry, "I'm right here..."
"I don't know what rock you crawled out from, but it's the end for you now... you'll work in this camp till you die. Now, tell me your name."
The captain barely heard what the man had said. It wasn't true, something was amiss, something wasn't right. There had to be a logical explanation for what was happening now-
"Forget it," Cumore sneered, "we'll just call him Flynn for now... throw him into the cabin with K-18. That common rabble could use a new 'friend'."
Several knights replied positively and Flynn only half felt himself being dragged off.
He didn't notice the bleak scenery, the wooden shacks and the eyes that were peaking out of the poor excuses of windows in each house. He didn't notice the place becoming more condensed or the fact that he was being dragged deeper and deeper into the messy mud streets of the camp. Never once did he comprehend the way the slanted roofs of the shacks bent in the wind, giving off hints of the buildings unsound structure. He didn't even notice the ruins of washed out wood that stood erect in the mud. The twisting wreckage that had probably been someone's house, now sat in silence as the weary day went on. It wasn't till he was sharply thrown into a timber house that he became aware of his surroundings.
From inside, the rain could still be heard making pit-pat noises against the wood. The wind wheezed as it weaseled its way into the cracks of the house, and the air was musty.
There were two small mattresses to one side of the shack, and a small coffee table sat in another corner. A metal bucket was in the third corner, and the last corner was bare. The room was small, and smelled foul, moist and disgusting, the wooden walls having a few boards loose that would shake in the wind, allowing water to pool on the floor in small moist coves.
Flynn gawked at the small living space, his mind barely catching up to his body as he heard the door close solidly behind him.
His thoughts wandered as his eyes roamed the inside of the building again. He let his eyes linger on the holes and puddles, the bed and the floor, not really taking anything in. It was like his mind was still stuck outside in the rain, although he could only hear a whisper of the pit pat from the inside.
Taking a shaky breath in, the blonde tried to calm the rapid beating of his heart. Whatever was going on, his body wasn't handling it well, and it was all the captain could do to stifle the effects of a panic attack before one hit.
No more Imperial Knights? Even he was supposedly dead?
He took more breaths in and out. There was nothing he could do to stop himself. A full fledge panic attack settled on him and he desperately heaved in and out in some sort of attempt to cease the fear rising in his chest.
"Hey," he heard close beside him.
The voice sounded wavy, like it was vibrating alongside the rhythmic yet rapid beating of his heart.
"Hey, you okay?"
Flynn squeezed his eyes shut, willing everything to stop… and so it did.
The world around Flynn was black. Drifting in and out, it seemed like everything had slowed down to a snail's pace. Pieces of his memory floated by on waves, and somewhere deep inside his psyche, he knew he needed to grab them, hold on to them with all of his might.
So he'd reach a hand out, his fingers touching the cold endless rain that washed through his thoughts, desperatly trying to hold on to the pieces… then he'd miss.
He'd try again and miss again. It was like he couldn't grasp something that was now out of his reach.
No, it wasn't really out of his reach. It was more like it was in a different spectrum all together. Somewhere far off, the memories floated together and he was unable to catch them.
Deep inside Flynn's heart, he felt sorrow build up. It bubbled underneath something so dark and sinister, yet he couldn't place it in the slightest. Something was masking the sorrow as much as it was building it up.
It burned his lungs with each shallow breath, and ultimately, the coil of the unknown emotion boiled against his throat…
His mouth…
Flynn sat up quickly. The darkness disappeared in a flurry of bright lights and the blonde was barely able to fling himself up before everything that had settled inside of his stomach forcefully came up.
His body arched in as he threw up, the lost contents of his stomach rolling across the floor.
Lightheadedness swarmed him as he desperatly attempted to regain composure, but to no avail. Minutes later after gagging and sputtering, his cotton filled head heard a yelp from inside the damp room. Moments later, a ridged pat on the back aided him as he coughed out the last of the bile in his stomach.
It was terribly confusing. The blonde fought with himself as several questions rose inside him. Who else was inside the room with him? Were they friend or foe? What was going on?
Every nerve in his body screamed at him to fall back down and go to sleep, but he forced himself to turn a bit to the face of the man who sat behind him.
Although squatting, Flynn could tell that the person was no more than a teenager. The teen had brunette hair that hung in his face, oddly cut. Some of the patches of hair were so short they stuck up in rough spots across his head. His clothes were nothing more than rags from what Flynn could see, but it was the teen's eyes that really caught the blonde.
Eyes that seemed to have once been a different color, that had once probably glittered and sparkled with emotion, were gray, as if the rain had washed his very identity away.
Flynn's body was numb and his mind still tingled from previously, but somewhere inside himself he managed to speak,
"Who are you?" It was nothing more than a whisper, and a part of the captain wished he hadn't been so weak at the moment.
The teen stared for just a half of a second longer before responded, caution in his voice,
"K-18."
It was hardly a name but the blonde decided not to argue with it. Somewhere deep in his memory he recalled Cumore saying something about 'K-18',
"What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here? You're the one who's throwing up in my cabin," there was a harshness in his voice that made Flynn wince, but there was also a tone of concern, like the teen hadn't always been that unkind.
Choosing not to bother with pleasantries and political politeness, Flynn pushed forward,
"Cumore sent me in here, that's all I really know."
The brunette turned his head away with a 'tsk',
"Cumore."
Somewhere inside the teen something was bubbling but there didn't seem to be enough energy to put that sensation into action.
Flynn wanted to continue a dialog with the other inside the room but wasn't sure how exactly to continue when the teen wasn't paying attention. He cleared his throat for a moment, causing his entire body to tingle.
Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to clear his throat just after he'd thrown up…
"Excuse me?"
K-18 turned his head,
"What?" Again with more brutality than it seemed the teen could muster, "what do you want now?"
"I just wanted to thank you for helping with… this." Flynn motioned half-heartedly towards the mess he'd made.
"Just don't think I'm cleaning it up too. It already stank in here and you freaking out and spewing chunks on the floor didn't help." The teen pulled away and wandered around to the small table in the corner. He sat there, resting against the side of the wooden cabin.
"Yes, I know," Flynn commented.
Silence filled the room and for the first time since he'd woken up, Flynn heard the pit pat of the rain against the roof. It seemed harder than before, blowing with a cruelty that would make any person who dared wander out into it regret the decision. Shuddering, the captain pulled himself up a bit more, resting his back too, on the wall with the mattresses underneath him.
Flynn wanted to talk more, but the subject of what he'd just thrown up was not a pleasant one, and rather than figure out how he was to go about cleaning, he wanted to know just what in the hell was going on.
"Excuse me?"
The brunette seemed tired of talking even though they hadn't been talking for that long,
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm not exactly sure where I am…"
"That really doesn't surprise me."
Flynn paused a moment at that, but never the less moved onwards,
"You see, I just…"
"It's rude to continue on in a conversation when I don't even know your name."
Again, Flynn paused. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to talk to this person. They were hot and then they were cold. Was there not equal footing he could get onto to have a decent conversation with the teen? It wasn't like he had much of a choice though. He'd have to reveal his name.
A memory of Cumore's mocking laughter built up in the captain's head as he whispered his name out loud,
"Flynn Scifo."
Something between a laugh and a chuckle came out of the brunette's mouth,
"Well, you certainly look like him."
"Please, tell what is going on!" Flynn demanded, anger building in his face. Was it really a trick, a sick game? That was what he really wanted to know.
"Going on?" K-18 asked, "in case you haven't noticed, the world is in slavery all thanks to Scarlet." The teen seemed disgusted with the name, as if it were an actual bad taste that he couldn't get out of his mouth, "it's his fault that everyone's here, it's his fault that the capital-"
"What happened to the capital?" Flynn gasped. The gears in his head were finally working again and he began to process what the teen was saying. Scarlet? Cumore had said that name before…
"You don't know? You must have been out of the loop for quite some time," he mocked, "the capital was destroyed six years ago when Scarlet invaded the city."
"No, that's not possible," Flynn shook his head, denying the entire subject, "I was just in the capital. There wasn't an invasion going on and it certainly wasn't being destroyed…"
"You really don't know what's going on here, do you?"
Flynn felt a wave of denial as well of a wave of courage flood his system. Of course the capital wasn't gone, of course it hadn't been invaded. He felt like he'd just spotted a hole inside the twisted story Cumore had come up with. Regardless of his reasons, the rival captain had set up this elaborate hoax.
Small anomalies tugged at his mind, such as the floating rock in the basement or the burn that still existed on his hand, but the denial swallowed those. Certainly there was something that explained the entire mess…
"I'm afraid you don't. Like I said, I was just in the capital-"
K-18 cracked a smile full of cynicism, "you really don't get anything… this is the capital."
Everything froze.
Flynn found he was unable to speak. Perhaps it was another part of Cumore's elaborate lie? Somewhere inside of him though, spoke the truth. Cumore couldn't think up something that complicated just as that simple explanation would not clarify anything. He was somewhere where reality bended and gave way to the impossible.
Whatever he wanted to call it, a dream, the future, insanity… he was there.
The brunette continued on as if Flynn's entire world hadn't shattered around him,
"Scarlet initiated a large scale assault on the capital and before anyone could do anything to stop him, he'd taken it over. Three days of barricades lead to thousands of innocents being slaughtered as Scarlet waited for Ioder to get the guts to stop him."
Flynn said nothing.
"Ioder had no choice but to come out of hiding," K-18 continued, "Though the council and the knights who remained after the initial attack didn't want Ioder to go, he insisted. A treaty was signed saying that if Scarlet stopped killing the innocents, the Empire would belong to him." He grew silent for a moment, a grave expression crossing his face. To Flynn, it seemed like the harsh exterior he exposed most of the time trembled as the teen remembered, "then Scarlet killed Ioder."
"He defied the treaty?" Flynn whispered. He felt his skin go ashen. Inside his soul he could feel a dark inkling, the one from earlier, in his subconscious, bubbling back up. Everything inside his body was numb and a pain burned from his heart.
K-18 was leading up to something…
"After he killed Ioder, Scarlet went on to murder the entire council, all of the knights, and made a public display of killing those in power in front of those who were left alive in the public quarters."
"He killed them all?"
"Yeah. He claimed that he wasn't violating the treaty at all because everyone he killed hadn't been innocent, and with no one there of authority to stop him, he did as he pleased."
For a moment, Flynn could see a softer side of the teen. He seemed weaker, more vulnerable, and in a way, childlike, but regardless, K-18 persisted,
"He was the one who publicly executed Flynn Scifo," the brunette gave a light wave towards the blonde, "and he killed the Commandant, the highest member of the council… even Princess Estellise was-"
Flynn cut him short,
"He murdered her highness as well!" Something deep within the captain snapped and he stood up. His mind begged him not to but it was to slow. Flynn immediately felt lightheadedness swarm him and his knees buckled a bit as he tried to keep his balance.
K-18 stood quickly, stepping around the mess to help the blonde.
"What are you doing?" A mix of concern and anger filled the teen's voice.
"He… he killed the princess?" Perhaps that was the thing that made him the angriest, but by far, was not the worst, "he almost killed the entire capital off! Even his Imperial Majesty Ioder! How could that happen… how dare he!"
As odd as it was, Flynn felt upset for what had happened. He'd taken an oath to protect the capital and it's citizens and yet, all of that had happened?
"It was six years ago!" K-18 shouted, "it's all in the past!"
As if an electric current jolted through his body, the captain felt a chill cool his body. It tingled like fire but it deadened all of his nerves beyond compare. The past? It was strange to hear of the era he'd just come from as 'the past'.
"Yes…" he stated quietly. He refused to try and make sense of it. There was no helping the situation he was in at the moment, so fighting it didn't seem the productive thing to do.
K-18 hesitated, as if it was odd to hear such words from someone who'd, just a few seconds ago, been enraged,
"Anyways," he began again, "soon after the events in the capital, Scarlet went to take on the entire world. It wasn't long before the Union fell to him as well. Every city belonged to that man in the span of a week."
"A week?" Flynn muttered in disbelief. He squatted down again, with the help of the teen. "How is that possible?"
"No one knows. Most people who would have an idea were killed during Scarlet's take over. The only people who survived would be in the rebellion."
Cumore had brought up the rebellion before, but Flynn decided not to ask about them. Just by looking into the teen's gray eyes, the blonde could tell that he honestly didn't believe a word of it. Perhaps to K-18, the idea of a group living in freedom was to painful to imagine when he was stuck behind a gate.
"What does that mean about the people enslaved in these camps?"
The brunette gave a humorless laugh, "it means we're all prisoners of war I suppose." He didn't add more to the subject and instead wandered back to the spot he'd previously occupied. "I don't really care what you want to call yourself here, but you'd better drop the 'Flynn Scifo' thing. Scarlet never took kindly to liars."
"But I'm not lying."
"Well, Flynn Scifo is dead, so you're not telling the truth either."
"Did you see him die?"
"No, I wasn't in the capital that day, but with the bloody massacre Scarlet used to take over, I doubt he'd left someone like that alive."
Flynn didn't feel like arguing with the teen. It was a pointless debate; he was no more 'Flynn Scifo' than the one that died six years ago. For all he knew, he was really in the future and a 'future him' didn't exists.
The only thing that made the blonde's blood boil though, was Scarlet. K-18 was obviously not very interested in learning more about where the man had come from, and was very much not interested in making the ruler angry, but that was all Flynn wanted to do.
"Scarlet doesn't like competition then?" Flynn stood quietly, the wooden boards of the floor squeaking and the mattress giving a sigh as he removed his weight from the ground.
The brunette jumped up, instantly startled,
"What are you planning to do?"
"What should be done by someone with my name."
"You don't have to do anything!"
"I am Flynn Scifo, regardless of what you say. As a knight, I made an oath to protect the city and it's citizens. If I can't do that here, than I'm not fit to be a knight."
"Do you want to die?" K-18 shouted, "Because that's what'll happen if you try to go against Scarlet."
"Perhaps dieing would remove me from this hell I'm in."
The teen said nothing to that. He stared blankly as Flynn left the cabin.
Sure it didn't make any sense and it was practically suicide, but if the blonde sat around for one more minute after hearing the things he had, what would it say about him? He had a code of honor he lived by, and even in his 'normal time' he wouldn't have stood for it. With a brave façade, he marched through the door and into the outburst of rain.
Mud circled around him, houses of every shape made a long narrow road for him to follow. He marched, as he would have as a knight, towards the area he'd been dragged from. No one else was in sight, but that was probably for the best.
"Scarlet!" Flynn screamed before he could stop himself, "Come out of hiding you coward!"
As he shouted those words, eyes peeked out from the broken windows of the cabins; all of them gray, but each carrying a different emotion.
Anger, wonder, fear, worry, shock, happiness… The captain saw more than he could count, but now he knew he had an audience.
"Where are you Scarlet!" He yelled.
The pit-pat rain muffled most of his cries, which only encouraged him to scream louder,
"Come out you bastard! Show yourself!"
The person who arrived was not the person he'd been calling for. Cumore arrived, a cluster of knights following close behind.
"Well, well, if it isn't Flynn Scifo."
The crowd around him laughed a bit as the rival captain's joke.
"You're not who I was asking for."
"Scarlet doesn't come for such pesky problems…"
Flynn narrowed his eyes,
"Show me where Scarlet is…" The emotion from before, from deep in his subconscious began to come forth again. It simmered underneath his skin, heating the surface so he could no longer feel the numbing pit pat rain.
"I think I can handle you just fine." Cumore waved his hands and his group of knights circled the blonde. Swords drawn, they closed in.
"You're going to kill me?" Flynn questioned, humor lacking in his voice. He felt venom in his words that he'd never felt before. They obviously had some effect on the rival captain, because a scared look set into his brow,
"Kill? No… no I'm not," he spoke with false confidence, "I'm not going to have you killed, but by the time I'm done with you, you'll wish you were dead."
A/N: Reason it took longer than planned to release this chapter? Because I had to almost completely rewrite this chapter. I have, for the most part, this entire story typed up and somewhat edited, but I had never liked how I'd written this and the next chapter. I never rewrote it though, because I couldn't think of a better way to write it... until I had posted the first chapter. Then an idea clicked in my brain, and I'll probably be adding a bit to the story (things I had thought about but never commited to paper). Hopefully it won't take as long to type the next few chapters. This is part one and I'll get part two out as soon as possible. After this and chapter three get out, it should be adding parts in, but never rewriting an entire chapter.
Thanks for your patience! As always: read, enjoy and review.