Chapter 7: A Lunatic's Lament
"Wakey-wakey…"
I opened my eyes and saw an orange blur amidst a gray backdrop. After blinking a few times, my vision cleared to reveal it was Slash, scantily-clad as ever, with only his grass skirt and ever-present face bandage shielding him from the chilled air of the laboratory. How he didn't seem to feel the cold was beyond me.
"I was wondering when you'd come to! I mean, seriously, I go through all the trouble of bringing you here and you couldn't have the decency to get up on time?!"
"Please, like you're one to talk about decency! Now, tell me, why did you bring me here?!"
"…My, aren't we feeling a bit feisty!"
With one flick of the wrist, tight cuffs clamped around my limbs in the metal chair I apparently was sitting in. While I vainly struggled to break free, the orange-haired youth continued on.
"I said I wanted to speak with you, didn't I? So why don't ya take a load off and sit down for a bit… Oh wait, you already are…"
His voice trailed off in a jaded chuckle.
Despite his physical appearance, I found it very hard to swallow that this person, if one could even call him that, was the same mayor of Wildfire I knew.
"Who are you and what have you done with Slash?!"
He glared back at me with a look of smug derision. "Heh heh heh… How naively optimistic of you… I am Slash! I'm not some creature taking on his form, or some evil spirit possessing his body, as I'm sure you're probably thinking right now. What you see before you is the one and only me!" He paused for a brief moment. "Hmm… Actually, that's not entirely true…"
"What do you mean?…"
"This might take a while, so how 'bout ya kick off your shoes and make yourself… comfortable…"
Turning his back toward me, he snapped his fingers and my shoes instantly disappeared… along with the rest of my clothes.
"H-hey! Why did you?!… Wait, how did you…"
"It's elementary, my dear Azure! Right now, you're under the influence of my recently-completed dream manipulating machine! With it, I can control everything that happens! Hopefully this time 'round, you'll actually stay put!"
He turned back around and looked at my face flushed with embarrassment.
"…Oh, very well."
He snapped his fingers again, and my clothing was restored to its rightful place.
"Personally, I don't get what the big deal is. It's not like it's anything I haven't seen already." Before I could protest in indignation at his sardonically smiling face, Slash began his tale.
"Before arriving here in Wildfire, I used to live in a faraway city. It was in a colder climate, with warm weather seldom occurring outside the summer months. I lived with my parents on the third floor of an apartment building."
The background behind him shifted to depict the very scene he had just described.
"I'll admit, it wasn't always bright and sunny, both literally and metaphorically, but I was nonetheless happy with my life there. Happy, until three years ago, that is…"
Just then, I could discern a glimmer of sadness in those icy blue eyes of his.
"It was during the summer of that year that my father had contracted a horrible disease. Though I was by no means some wide-eyed idealist, I persevered in the optimistic belief that he would one day recover. Time passed on by… days… weeks… months… And then one day, it looked like all our troubles were over as the disease was seemingly cured! …But we only had received a temporary respite, as the same terrible affliction returned with a vengeance a few weeks later. By that point, it had worsened to such a degree that it was declared incurable. Distraught, my mom and I had banked our hopes on a miracle happening to fix all this… But alas, that miracle never came. It was on that cold, dreary February morning that my dad died…"
The background scene changed again to show a long-haired bespectacled woman weeping over a hospital bed, in which laid a gaunt man with jet-black hair. Despite the events leading up to where I was now, seeing this scene before me made me tear up a bit.
"All I could do at the time was stand there, hold my weeping mother in my arms, and attempt to console her… I felt so helpless and pathetic… But it was there that I decided that I wouldn't take this lying down. It was then that I vowed to find a way to bring my dad back to life."
The scene then shifted to a dimly-lit room, not unlike the makeshift workspace used when Lucky and Chadder went under the knife.
"I set my sights on being able to transfer a mind over to a different body. After I conducting several experiments on rodents of the non-anthropomorphic variety, I was able to achieve that goal. But the real test was yet to come: putting my own mind in a new body I created myself. I'll admit it was a bit risky, but having done all that research, I was confident that it would work. And as you can see, those risks I took paid off, resulting in the person standing before you."
As tragic and compelling that story was, I didn't see how any of this had anything to do with what he commented on earlier about not being the only one of him.
As if reading my mind, he continued on to say, "…Have a little patience, I'll get to the end eventually, just… sit tight." After a small self-indulgent chuckle, he resumed his tale.
"I then moved on to researching the matter of furthering the body's natural regenerative capabilities past the normal rate. With this knowledge in my repertoire, I hoped it would bring me one step closer to achieving my ultimate goal. However, one of my experiments went awry and left me with a cut that would never heal."
Just as he said that, the orange-haired youth lifted the bandage that covered the bridge of his nose. He let the wound bleed for a little while to prove his point, before reapplying the bandage.
"It took me no small amount of time to perfect that project, but I managed to pull it off. Having achieved that, it then dawned on me that my old body was simply laying around, just being preserved and I didn't have an inexhaustible supply of hair dye and contacts to mask my new body's natural orange hair and blue eyes from everyone else I knew. So I took the liberty of synthesizing a replica of my own brain using brain scans as blueprints. After that deed was done, I placed that brain inside my former body and then, well…"
A dreadful feeling of realization slowly welled up inside me. It couldn't be… Slash's old body given life once more… That being…
"It was me, wasn't it?!"
"Very astute there, Azure! That's right! In essence, you are the other me!"
It was at that point my whole world turned upside down, shattered, and was done away with in a fiery explosion. After the nightmares, the betrayal, and that astonishing revelation, I couldn't do much of anything but sit there slack-jawed and stare out into space at the one who essentially created me.
Undeterred, the orange-haired progenitor continued speaking to my half-listening consciousness.
"All your vital signs were stable, but there was one problem, you just wouldn't wake up! I suppose that was to be expected considering I myself am quite the late riser, but laying there for days in a dormant state was getting ridiculous! With my cosmetic stockpile dwindling down to its last remnants, I told my mother that I was moving out. It was a tearful farewell, but I had to go through with it. I couldn't let anyone else find me out. Not after I had gotten this far. So I packed up everything and went out the front door… It was a long and arduous journey… You wouldn't believe how hard it was stuffing you into a bag and carrying you all the way to the train station without raising any suspicion!"
He paused for a second, perhaps awaiting for a reaction out of me, but he received nothing but a blank stare.
"In any case, I took the next train headed for a town named Wildfire, a warm secluded beachside town that I saw in a travel brochure once. I entered the train, bag full of you in tow, only to see that the car was completely empty, save for one indigo-furred anthropomorphic feline. As I took you out of my very spacious backpack, the crimson-eyed cat struck up a conversation with me, asking various questions. Though strangely, not a single inquiry pertained to the slumbering kid I had unloaded. When I had arrived at my destination, I left you in the care of that cat Rover until the day you awoke."
"B-but… what about… the nightmares… L-Lucky… Chadder… and me?…" I was still in a mind-shattered daze, trying to recover from the bombshell of information that had been dropped on me, but I still had to know.
"Ah, yes… I suppose I do owe an explanation for those. All the so-called 'nightmares' you all experienced were all terrifyingly real. After perfecting my regenerative capabilities, I had to see if those same attributes could be given someone else. In your absence, the other villagers in the town would have to suffice. Lucky, my first test subject in Wildfire, was ironically not so lucky, as his right eye never grew back. However, Chadder and the others who came after him fared much better, making a complete recovery after their ordeals. I'll admit, it was a bit difficult seeing them in excruciating pain, but I found that adopting the persona of a crazed mad scientist certainly helped things along. And then, the day finally arrived when you came here to this town."
The fiery-haired kid reached across and grabbed his shoulder like I saw him do once before.
"After weeks of eagerly anticipating your arrival, I was filled with elation that you finally woken up! As I showed around town, as you undoubtedly remember, I felt like I had made a new friend. Someone I could feel at ease with. Someone I felt I could open up to. There weren't very many people that I could say that about. …But, I had to remind myself of the reason I brought you here. To help me in the research of resurrecting my father. The night after your house was built, I steeled my nerves and brushed myself with the reflective body paint that you had a hand in helping perfect, in the hopes you would never find out it was me that was doing the things I was about to do. Assuming the mad scientist persona, I took my crudely-fashioned blade and, er, cut it loose."
I was expecting another self-indulging chuckle at yet another one of puns, but Slash maintained his somber expression.
"When I saw you the next day, I was overcome with guilt at the aftermath of my deeds. Though your wounds had healed, it was obvious that you were still in pain. I did everything in my power to help you recover; I didn't want to see a friend of mine to continue to suffer so much…"
He then turned around as his voice broke on that last sentence. Pausing for a moment to regain his composure, he continued on with a twist of sorrow and rage in his voice.
"But you just had to go investigate, didn't you! I was hoping you wouldn't stick your nose further into this whole thing, but you couldn't help yourself! …You just couldn't try to forget about it like everyone else… Now look where it's gotten you!"
His sudden burst of strong emotion snapped me back to full awareness. I wanted to give a response, but I had no idea what to say.
"As much as I liked you, I couldn't let anything stand in the way of my goal! Which is why, inside the walls of town hall, I resolved not to let you interfere."
He turned back around and looked me straight in the eye, slowly walking closer.
"…As much as it pains me to do so, I'm gonna have to stop you right here and make you forget that any of this ever happened."
The next thing I remembered was extreme pain…