This chapter is…Well, not one of the greatest, but I had to give you guys something. XD So here it is! It's a little different from the majority of my chapters, but I wanted to give you guys some reassurance after the last couple of chapters, with Jay and Caroline's sad past. So maybe this will turn out as good as I'm hoping. Fingers crossed! XD

You'll learn about two new terms—well, actually, technically one, bc you already know one, but it's good to have your memory refreshed. :3 But they're some terms and a little bit of mystery in there that is always nice to have in a chapter to keep you wanting more. :D

THE AUTUMN OF TWILIGHT

20. We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes

I am the past.

ECHOES AND WHISPERS OF past lives murmured throughout the concourse cave of shadows, a fair, solemn graveyard of calling made by the screams of some and the cries of others. This place is no place any mere man can wander to, perhaps to stumble upon in his adventurous hiking trip. It is a place within us as people, a place concealed in the darkest pits of our mind, a place only we can access ourselves. It opens itself up to us amid tragedy and vain, windows swinging wide for our souls to clamber through in need of an escape of humanity. Some, in life, spare plenty of their grievous moments buried inside of its dark tumors, its wretched glazed walls fixed with barely a brim of candlelight to shed for sight. But many, as perhaps you will be part of this majority's percentage, never find this place within themselves. They find a better, more preferred channel their brain can tune into, focusing purely on the positivity and the glass is half full theme of their life's song. That place is an oasis, a gorgeous, leisurely island within themselves. Yet some, as the small few I have mentioned earlier, never find that, instead sticking to what is referred to as The Cave and its lowly, cracked notes.

There is hope for some who travel deep within The Cave to hide away their grim sorrows, misadventures, and the sad companions, though hardly many suffer such ill fate as she has. Now, before you get confused with me and beg a question of whom it is I refer to, I must look you towards the last few gathering on the aircraft of a boat hidden in the shadowless desert. Look down on its glorified mast, upturned by the crew of clockwork now striding across its deck in hurries for immediate takeoff, as the young red-haired girl has ordered. The boat looks in well shape, don't you think? Its woods are plenty reinforced as compared to its earlier model, shaven down to a smooth factor and a seamless cut. The brains of just one, however programmed, can be rather magnificent! And ah, speak of the devil! Here she walks up the staircase leading from the lower deck, her silken white robes a-shine beneath the sun above. Now, from as high up here you may say I am mad, but looking to her, I already know what she's thinking. Hear me out before you scream a bowelful cry of your disbelief, my rambunctious friend! I am but nothing; I live in the past, the present, and the future all in one singular moment, all at once, all at same. However, I only exist in the past; I can see the present waiting below me, presiding to happen. I do not seek answers and I do not judge on decisions, I merely watch them and think of what could've been assumed better or believe in ways that have been handled rather well.

Now, as I have strayed from our delightful subject, I can hear just as she thinks. No, not hear; I know. It is a gift from both the gods and from my creator. I know the way she feels uncomfortable with her new self, yet that can be assumed by any mere onlooker, you counter. But ah! I know of how she is thinking of the best tactics on locating her father. Well, you say, that can be obvious, too. Still don't believe me?

I know of her secret.

Ah, you think I am just saying that to capture your attention? No, my curious friend, I am not just saying this for your benefit. I mean what I say; people of my kind have the gift and curse of the ability not to lie. I cannot fake you what I know, nor can I fake you what I think. I can see her anxiously running to the room full of technologies and equipment greater than I with a shifty gaze, an unsteady flush of her bloodless cheeks. The screen in which she looks at doesn't bear her desired results. It is most saddening, yet I know she will find the man she is looking for, the one she calls 'Father,' beloved for her soul. I can tell, yet upsettingly I cannot predict his whereabouts. My only skill on this earth is continued by my shattered legacy. I have purpose, my young friend, as an entity in gathering. I watch, I wait, I listen, I feel, yet I cannot say nor give advice to those I observe crucially in the midst of tenuous times.

I feel wistful while I watch these manmade people roam in tension while they set fire to the rockets that will eventually propel them into the sky. Up trots the two remaining ninjas from the original five, one barely clinging to his humanity and will to remain at his friend's side and the other feeling the weight of the world yet press on his shoulders once more through time. I wish I could help them, I really do, but with my lack of form I am unable to provide the services I feel I owe them, observing their adventures from afar rather than by their side.

I am the past. I linger as a remnant of them, a dedication to wars past, battles lost, victories well deserved, and above all, time. I am time now, nothing more, nothing less. I am only a relic. I am only a memory. And I am now forgotten.

I am the present.

I don't think there's any fairness in life, but that's just my opinion, I guess. Where's the fairness in the fact that you try your hardest to fight the traffic on the highway, only to arrive at the airport and find out that your flight just left the second you stepped over the security system. Where's the fairness in the fact that the one time you don't watch where your dog is going when you let him outside he runs away, and you find him three hours later with his guts on the other side of the road? Where's the fairness when the odds are eleven to your two and there's no way you're going to win the fight, especially when the other side has guns and knives and switchblades in each palm, and all you have is your bare fists, the one night you decided to sneak out of your house to go to the party down the block?

Yeah, I don't think there's fairness in the world. Especially not when you live in The Cave. Lords, is it cold in there, dark and dreary and completely consuming. You have no choice but to sink lower into the tides threatening to swallow you, since it's too difficult to battle the waves anyway. I've been through some pretty cold times, suffering death millions of times over in spans of just a couple of days, watching my loved ones go through hell just to do one thing without even the ability to lend a helping hand. It's torturous; I've considered slinking back into The Cave one or two times while watching, but really, that's not going to happen. I'd be a real sucker if I just walked away like that. As the past hovers above, the present stands with, leaning against the mast of the boat while watching those around him run with a certain anxiety to them that filters into the air quickly like a sponge exudes its inner liquids and whatever other crap clogs its pores. Well, not he; that he is actually I. But…WHATEVER THE MATTER…I watch solemnly. I feel what they feel as they feel it. I watch them run around. I watch Cole with a hard gaze, hoping he really isn't thinking what I feel him thinking, a premise of fearfulness he shouldn't react in. Though I know he can't see me, it doesn't take a genius to know that he's feeling me near. His heightened senses prickle at my presence like a cat hisses into the wind when it knows the unseen lingers closely. He glances at where I stand with furrowed brows. While the past no longer exists and has no form (though he's just as qualified as I am to have one,) I am the present, reacting equally with each second, my pure forms taking on the past as the milliseconds tick away. I hold true to what I feel I should look like, though that should probably be the wind, it's easier to walk around and maneuver quicker if you have feet capable of dragging you along.

I raise what would be an eyebrow at him although I know he can't see me. He stares into the air with a concentrated gaze until his name is called from beyond us. Lloyd calls to him, running across the deck with quick thumps of the hard wood beneath his golden boots, skidding to a stop at Cole's side. Since Cole is the only one left for him to hold on to, Lloyd clutches at him, a sign to me—the present—that he fears that he will be abandoned. "Cole," he breathes, as noticing the constipated expression of true teenage vampire angst rips across his face. "What's wrong?"

"I…you know what? Nothing. I just…thought I heard something." But nothing isn't explained at the way he throws a very daring, very knowing look at me, not meeting my eyes, but rather staring to my chin, I'd think. I give a wary sigh which passes off as a small breeze through the air, just a little shift of the atmosphere, but Cole turns backwards sharply. He knows I'm here—he just doesn't know it's me. Lloyd watches him with a quiet concern.

"I don't completely believe you. People who 'hear something' don't do that. What's going on?" He asks again, but Cole's nostrils flare, eyes narrowed in the spot I stand in. I watch as his normally grey eyes, in the shadow beneath his hair, turn a liquid, sharp silver, eyes reddening around their shape, dark circles gathering beneath them. His skin begins to pale, lips reddening. Lloyd lays a hand on his arm again, since there's no possible way to grab him from the rock formation shaped shoulder blade protections resting on his shoulders, and this time he looks really concerned—and really frightened. I feel upset that I've done something to disturb him, but can't do much about what present I have altered; the past, from above, gives a little groan at me that only I can hear. I glance upwards briefly before returning my gaze.

Cole's vampiric facial oddities begin to return to normal, since then allowing Lloyd to step into view, the inability to know that Cole remained a vampire—something I'd taken to shock myself—still a mystery to him. Unsuspecting, Lloyd snaps his fingers before the vampire ninja's face. "Hey. What's gotten into you?" He taps Cole's forehead, removing the steely gaze to him rather than fixed on myself. "Seriously, Cole, we need to focus. Kai—or, I guess, whatever he's called—has my mom, and he probably has Julien, too, and Nya, for that matter. We need to pick up the pace and snap back to reality. This is no joke."

"No one's laughing," Cole says quietly. He glances over Lloyd's shoulder to my colorless form. "I just feel…I don't think we're alone, Lloyd."

Lloyd glances warily behind him. "Let's not say that, okay? We all go a little mad sometimes; hearing things doesn't mean there's something lurking in the shadows. The Clockwork Army would sense something, too, and I'm feeling nothing. Come on, Cole. Let's go to Caroline."

I watch them leave, yet Cole continues to glance backwards at me, still unconvinced. I rub what would be my wrist with the intention of following, but the Past takes shape beside me. His voice is hidden by the wall of two different pieces of time between us, muffled, but I can still hear him. Only I can see what he truly is, and for that I am grateful; how weird would it be if I were looking into air, hearing the voice, yet seeing no one?

You'd say I was mad.

"You've got him suspicious," said the Past.

"Do I now?" I say. "Don't worry, he won't go anywhere with it. He's got to realize that Nya's captured sometime." Uncomfortable, I touch my ear. Or… "ear." Whatever.

"Obviously," snapped the Past. "Now, don't let him sense you any further past this point; we cannot let ourselves get in the way. We came here to a purpose; the Elemental Leaders obviously believed we could do some good by prolonging Lloyd's expansion time before he fights in order for robot Sensei to train him and Caroline."

"Sure," I quiver. "They had confidence we could put off—"

"Not we, Kai," murmured the Past. "You put off. I can only help you alter what has happened and what will."

"Sure," I repeat. I watch Lloyd and Cole through the wide window of the room where all that mechanical stuff I'll never understand is. "And don't you go misleading me, Zane; we can't afford to screw up."

Zane—the Past—ignores me. "Remember what the Leaders told us. We must help Lloyd into the war but not start it. Meaning, we cannot tell them about what treacheries lie ahead of them. They can't know about the Murder of One, nor the Final Sacrifice. They can't know."

I probably should be in there documenting life as it happens, but Zane's words have intrigued me, the utter of those two simple terms making me want to know more, and plague the minds of those around me with the knowledge of it that they can stop it, if they're witty enough to grab last of its antidote. But I can't. It's a gruesome thing to even have to entertain—but I can't go against the rules, or perhaps the whole outcome of this…thing will be whipped up into a really bad version of what it could've been. I stare into the distance for a moment, thinking of Jay. Then I realize, he needed a moment to himself. I just don't know how long that moment will last.

"I just…just really hope they can prevent, um, me from killing anyone else. I don't think I could stand any more of that." I shudder, a ripple in the wind. I half expect Cole to turn towards me and stare but he remains with a steady gaze on the flat screen in the room on the other end of the boat, watching images unfold before him with some meaning I didn't know, since I was standing out here.

"We cannot predict that," Zane murmured. "We can only fix what can be undone before it has even begun."

I nod, thinking hard. "They are the future," I repeat, thinking of the Elemental Leaders' words. "And all we are is relics."

"Relics," Zane murmured, forlorn.

I clench my "fists," feeling determination shed through me, lava burning heatedly beneath my skin. "But we'll do everything we can to stop the bad from happening—from our side of the realm."

Zane nodded. "Yes," he said. "We will. We have the power to help them as much as we can now."

"Even though they can't see us," I add, determined to make my point. "We will always be here with them."

"Always."

They will always be with them, indeed! Kai and Zane will do what they can to help Lloyd and the others get past all this crap, from where they are. :D BROTHER BOND! Don't we love those? :3

PS—thank you guys for your lovely nice reviews! I love you guys so much! SO SWEET! ^_^ Now, I would kindly ask you to review again and give me some feedback on THIS question:

Who do you want to hear about next? A) Misako, or B) Lloyd on his race to find her, Julien, and Nya.

(PLEASE) Let me know what you thought of the chapter, eat your veggies but NOT the green ones (they could be evil!) and go have an awesome day/night! Smile today for me. Laugh, because laughter is nature's medicine. :3

As always,

Kairi