Sorry that this was added again, but I was having some difficulties with my other chapters.
Darkest Before Dawn
Chapter 54
Tails' POV
I could not sleep. It was late into the night though the light from the sun had been shut out many hours ago. It was eerily quiet – only the monotone, continuous clicks of the clock filled my dark room. The mattress felt like a stiff board, and my pillow would not allow my head to lie upon it comfortably. I was tangled in the itchy sheets. I tossed and turned; my mind full of lists and thoughts that insisted on building a barricade between me and the pleasures of sleep. I tried every method I could muse up to break down the wall. I counted sheep, heartbeats, and even the clicks of the clock. But I guess the only thing that counts is the fact that I am not able to go to sleep.
My thoughts always seemed to drift to the fire and Keita's insane grin with his words about the dream world. With this, my lists only grew longer. They consisted of how to kill him brutally (and rather cruelly), and also with more foreshadowing of Keita being Shikyo's secret identity. Though he did speak to me for a few minutes and gloated when he said that my suspensions were correct, Keita refused to talk to me when I tried to summon him. I clenched my fists. He had to be the most pathetic living person I have seen. The sooner he died, the better. I was a bit surprised at myself for thinking that, and silently noticed that I have wished a lot of people dead lately. I pushed it out of my mind though. That could be thoughts of another night – if I have another night to think, of course. It was always a possibility that I was only brought into this to make people believe he, as Ai, wanted a person that looked exactly Keita to have an "alibi", and now that he did not need one, I might no longer be wanted. It was a scary thinking that I could now perhaps be on his hit-list along with Ero, Soran, and the others.
After a while, I gave up on sleeping. It was just going to be another restless night.
I could hear noises from the room next to mine – Kage's. I have not seen him since our discussion in the meeting room and did not plan on seeing him soon. It was nothing against him – I was simply afraid that if he looked upon me, he would instantly believe I was Keita and go into a panic attack. From what I have heard from Amy, he was already shaken up and, quite frankly, Soran and Ero were the only ones keeping him from jumping out a window or just giving himself up. She kept reassuring me that Kage understands the difference between Keita and I (he had obviously seen a difference between Shikyo and her, after all), but we looked exactly the same. Amy had her divergences. I just hope he does not assume I am avoiding him because I think he is dirty or something…
I sat up and sighed clutching the sheets tightly. I hate insomnia. After deciding that sitting in the dark for the next few hours was not in my best interest, I slipped out of bed and dressed myself rather lazily. It was not until I walked out into the hallway, which had finely dimmed lights, that I noticed that my slippers were entirely different colours. I shrugged it off – no one had time to look down at my feet to see my mistake, so there was no use in changing them. I stuffed my hands into the warmth of my sweatshirt's pockets (despite the heaters running full-blast, it was still cool) and headed down the pathway aimlessly. I gave a short wave to the skeleton soldier that was standing outside of Kage's door, but quickened my pace when I noted that it was glaring at me with daggers that could easily kill. I glanced down at my watch while rounding the corner to find that it was 2:55 A.M.
I pushed open one of the double doors to the ballroom with my entire body, not taking the time to reach out my hand and handle the door properly. I glanced up so that I could see where I was going, but stopped in my tracks. Before me was one of the Guardians. It stood almost lifeless and did not seem to take any sort of heed to my presence. I could hear its hideous, loud breathing echo in the room as it dripped a black ooze from its body onto the white marble floor. Dull, red eyes stared down at the mess it was making with mild interest. It flexed its claws with a kind of anticipation that I could not correctly place. The large tusks that hung from its mouth shimmered from the light that came from the diamond-made chandelier, reminding me of just how sharp they were. It was either just me, or it was almost as though the dangerous creature was purposely placed there by someone.
I carefully, and close to silently, backed myself into the door, which began to push itself back from my weight. Since its attention was obviously elsewhere, I attempted to slide back the way I came unnoticed. My hopes grew high as I was halfway out of the room, but I froze when its eyes fluttered up from the floor onto me. When its breath rose up an entire pitch, I could tell that it recognized me as its target with a rather large amount of excitement. The chameleons looked as though they went off of movement to track down their victims, and I was praying that the Guardians did the same. But the Guardians were Keita's "Perfect Creatures" – they have to be more advanced than her lower (or, possibly, lowest) minions.
My hand, which was already in my large sweatshirt pocket, grabbed the arm of the pistol inside tightly. I had almost decided not to take it along with me. When the creature let out a high-pitched scream, I whipped out the pistol and shot it. I slowly opened my eyes to find that I had completely missed it. The Guardian was not happy about the act of self-defense and launched itself at me swiftly. I wanted to escape through the door (which, quite possibly, the creature could not open), but something pushed me completely inside the ballroom and slammed the door shut. I had no time to open it once more because the Guardian was too close to be ignored.
It cried in aggravation when its claws dug through the wooden door instead of my flesh. Its rebound took a moment, but it was not long enough for me to get to the other side of the room and to the other pair of doors. I glanced over my shoulder to find that the Guardian was making another move to tear me apart. My speed increased, but the only thing the pace helped with was my failure. I skidded across the black ooze and fell backwards. The liquid substance burned. I rolled out of it to stop the smoldering pain, but most of it attached itself to my back. I was able to raise myself onto all fours, but had to jump back down on my stomach to avoid the creature's enormous claws. It tried to stab me with its tusks, but was unsuccessful. Its recoil was faster than expected, and as a consequence it sliced me in the back. Most of the black liquid flew out with globs of my fur, but some leaked into the wound. I tried to stand up and face the Guardian, but I could not bend my back because each time I did the ooze deeper into the cut.
I fell down onto the ground in my own blood (and the ooze) when the creature took another swipe at my head. I spun onto my side and held my gun towards the Guardian shakily. It was intrigued by my blood that was splattered all over the floor. I wanted to shoot and kill it, but had a feeling that I was going to miss.
Suddenly, and quite surprisingly, Soran's Ten Commandments sprung into my mind. No hesitation. As though it was instinct, I pulled the trigger.
The bull flew through the air and barreled into the Guardian's forehead.
It gave out its last mournful, siren-like cry and fell to the ground. The black liquid that I had come in contact with earlier was now flowing out of its head and began to slowly drowning its body. Even though the doors to the ballroom flew open, I sat in shock and did not dare to remove my eyes from the Guardian. It was not surprise that I killed it – no, I was very happy about that – but I had discovered a disheartening fact.
"Tails," Amy cried as she rushed to my side, "are you alright?"
To her distraught, I shook my head. "No…" I glanced at her, but then returned my sights back upon the black heap of black ooze, which once was the hideous beast. "I'm on Keita's hit list."
I pushed open the glass doors that led out onto the throne room's patio. Word got to me that the armies were moving out, but I was not sure whether to trust it or not. After all, Kage has not talked to Shiematsu since yesterday, meaning that the dragon had no idea what was happening. I leaned over the railing and below to the city, which was overall in bad condition. Below the World Army soldiers were moving out of the golden gates and out into the dangerous, deadly world. "Where are they going?" I asked myself aloud.
"North," a voice answered, "towards Mount Meteor. We had a conference today with Soran, and he said that Keita's lair lies in the abandoned mine channel there."
I glanced behind me to find the General in a heavy and rather noticeable leather jacket. I had remembered that there was a mine on the mountain, but when I had seen it there were trucks and men coming to and from it. "When I saw that mine," I said, "there were workers and everything. To have a large machine there and hundreds of prisoners had to have taken more than a month or two."
"We looked at the map layout and found that there was a large portion of the mine that has not been used in around a hundred years. It is blocked, but by looking at what spiritualists can do, I do not think a boulder or two could have been any sort of difficulty for Keita."
"Of course… it was large enough, there was enough noise for the Machine's functioning to be covered up easily, and it was close to home." To tell the truth, I felt as though I should have thought of that before. There was no sort of lead other than it being close to Descentmet, so I guess at the same time it was a wild guess. I just could not believe we passed right by Keita's lair though without any kind of intricacy.
Our conversation was cut short by a call for Faron. Douglas rushed over to Faron and me. He was carrying a flamethrower clumsily in his arms. "I figured out a way to modify the flamethrowers already made to release pressurized water instead of fire. It's an easy adjustment. If you will give me a troop of soldiers or so, we can have it done by tonight."
Faron took a quick glance at the flamethrower and replied, "I could do that. Pull out any troop you see fit for this – just make sure it isn't one scheduled to go north."
He attempted to salute him but almost dropped the prototype water shooter. So instead he simply nodded and hurried off to start working on the other flamethrowers that needed to be transformed.
"Why are you going north anyway?" I asked. "I understand that Keita's lair is there, but I am sure you are smart enough not to order them to raid it. Your army will be gone before you even knew it was fully formed."
"We believe that the mountain is where most of his troops will come from once the War begins. We will be able to face him head on. We are sending a great amount of the Dragon's troops out soon. We just cannot communicate with him until Kage gets out of his self-pity fiasco though."
I was going to defend Kage to the best of my ability, but our conversation was cut off by a soldier who flew through the doors and yelled, "Sir, you have to come see this."
We walked inside to find that all the soldiers in the throne room were tense. The King, which was sitting in his seat for the first time in a week, had on a determined, non-faltering face though I knew that he was just as anxiety as his inferiors. I pushed through the crowd so I could see the conflict. Walking inside the room through the doors were Guardians. They seemed to have no plans to attack as they lined the wall that held the two doors. Inside walked a figure which was cloaked in black. He lowered his hood and his read eyes landed upon me.
I growled. "Hello, Shadow."
Kage's POV
(All Portuguese and French will be translated in his point of view)
I tapped my pen against the desk furiously. The map of Hatsu that had been laid out before me was so marked up with ink that I could no longer make sense of where Shiematsu and I agreed to move his forces. We had, for the most part, decided the positions yesterday, but after we were disrupted, we never got to finalize it. I raked a hand through my hair. I felt like slamming my head against the table, but that would reopen the wound on my head. It was annoying having a bandage rapped around your forehead anyway. It was the same with the neck. I rubbed the white felt hoping that it was no longer wet with blood. A small smile developed on my face when it was dry.
For the first time in twelve hours, Soran and Ero left me. Soran had to because he was plotting out what he remembered of Keita's lair, and the rabbit was only gone for a few minutes getting me something to eat. I had not been left alone, though. One of the Dragon's guards was standing at the door making sure that I would not do something stupid during Ero's absence. I did not see why they cared.
The door flew open, and for a moment I thought it was Ero, but instead it was one of the black skeletons. It bowed to me. "Milord, we believe one of Shikyo's legions comes to declare war on this country. We will escort you to the throne room at once."
"Declare war?" I asked irritated. "I thought we declared war when they started… you know, killing us and whatnot." I sighed when I did not receive a response from the guard. "Give me a few minutes to get ready. And tell Shiematsu would you? He should make an appearance even if this conversation will be in English."
"Yes, milord." It bowed once more and left the room along with the guard that had been standing in here before.
I grabbed my cloak with a growl. This was going to be a long-ass day.
Tails' POV
"I am, of course, so happy to see you again, Miles," the black hedgehog told me with a mad glint in his red eyes. He was not truly joyous to see me, especially since he does not remember who I am to him, but he rather was content that I was in the room and did not have to be sent for. The nervous, yet excited twitching of his left hand informed me that he was in a hurry and anxious to start whatever he was sent here to do. His mission was obviously not to kill us – if it was, the Guardians would be ripping us apart by now. His eyes landed on Amy, who was standing behind me for protection. His grin turned to a frown and he looked at her with disgust. "Miles," he asked, "do you really think that it is appropriate for somewhat that is so favored by Lord Keita to be running around with a whore?"
I did not think Shadow's words would affect me, but I felt anger rising within me. The image of ripping off his head built itself in my mind and, to be truthful, I liked it. I did not care that only months ago he was one of my very good friends. The pink hedgehog grabbed tightly onto my hand and moved further into her haven behind me. "What are you here for?" I asked him coldly and with ignorance.
"Why do you think I pay a visit to this place?" He replied with another question.
"Keita related, obviously," I answered in the same tone as before. "He always sends his lackeys around to do his dirty work for him. Where is he, Shadow?"
The grin that had developed on his face from his last comment slipped off his face and he looked down upon me as though I was his inferior. "He prepares his armies. I have been sent here to declare war against Hatsu and the World Army. So if you would so kindly have everyone sit down so I can begin. Of course, I would like Master Kage to be here if would allow your slut to go fetch him."
I simply turned away and dragged Amy along side of me. I did not want to be hostile about his commands because of the Guardians, but I also would not let myself willingly obey them. The members of the World Army hesitatingly took their seats upon the steps that led up to the King's throne. I spotted Ero, who must have wandered into the room out of curiosity of what was happening. I led Amy over to him and we took our seats next to him. I mouthed the question of Kage's location, and he shrugged. Oh well, Soran was probably with him.
"The black kitsune, girl," the black hedgehog growled while his eyes seemed to burn right through Amy's flesh. She reluctantly began to stand, but I pulled her back down to my side.
"He's busy," Faron told him as he calmly lit a cigarette. He was the only one that reminded standing, but Shadow apparently did not mind. "And I am pretty sure he would rather not see your ass. Actually, I don't want to see it either. Just say what you are going to say and leave."
As though it was on que, the throne doors bust open and in walked Kage with a lone soldier of the Dragon. I was not expecting him to have such a determined look or possess as much control as he did when he whipped passed the hedgehog (and making sure the end of his cloak hit him in the face) and sat down beside Amy. The soldier followed him closely and stood near him. I glanced over at him to see if he was really alright. A smirk dented his features as he impatiently tapped his fingers against his knee.
Shadow was pleased. With a clearing of the throat, he began. "King of Hatsu, Advisors of the Army, and my master," (with this he glanced at Kage), "I bring word from my Lord Keita in Babylon. On this day, he declares war upon every country in on this planet. He will take no prisoners nor will he accept compromises. None of your citizens will be spared. His armies are being prepared as we speak and by dawn tomorrow the attack will begin. He is hoping that your pitiful soldiers will put up some sort of fight so this war at least a little interesting and will not last for just a mere hour. But we are both regretful to say that wish will probably not be granted."
No one from our side spoke. I do not think it was because we agreed with him about his last state, because many people were angry about his remark, but rather because we had not a word to say that was worth the time to mutter. We all knew that Keita did not want to keep any of the normal citizens of Mobius alive and that he did not want to compromise. The fact that his armies would be ready at dawn, though, had me (and I am sure many others) worried greatly. We had expected a couple days notice, not a twelve-fourteen hour one.
"Oh, do not look so surprised," he laughed as though he read our minds, "dawn is further away than you think. The darkness that will reign over this world tonight will be the longest you have ever seen. And you are already moving your useless troops, aren't you? To Mount Meteor, I presume. His troops are not coming from there – I will give you that much. Actually, he wants this fighting as far away from his lair as he can because he is inviting some special guests there just before dawn." He directed his sight towards us (we were sitting just in front of King).
"Joy," Kage said dully. "What are we going to have? A dinner party? I'll make sure to bring my famous casserole. Everyone says it is just delicious."
"It will be no such thing, I'm afraid," the hedgehog replied. It seemed like he took Kage's sarcastic question seriously. "I am sure, though, that there will be some sort of feast awaiting you. Does rabbit sound good? Or how about cougar? They are both on the menu. Maybe even hedgehog…" He stepped towards us. "He would love for you all to be there – especially you, Master Kage." Shadow got close enough to him to make us tense up. "He hasn't been able to truly hold you in so long."
He reached out to touch him, but the skeleton soldier that stood close to him morphed itself into a giant, black lion. With a ferocious roar, it slashed at him. Shadow was only able to avoid it because of his fast reflexes. The lion did not try to attack him again because it was satisfied that the hedgehog had moved away. Kage was surprised that this had happened (since, of course, only the Dragon could morph and he had not realised it was really Shiematsu by his side), but gained confidence and rapped his arms around the shape-shifting Dragon's dark mane. "Oh, afraid of my dragon?" He asked him mockingly. "He loves me and will not fail to bring this army of Keita's down."
Shadow growled. "You cannot hide behind your Dragon forever. His armies will only increase the time of this war slightly – nothing more. And none of his servants will be allowed in to Babylon."
"We do not need him there," I told him. "We can take care of Keita ourselves."
"He will be happy to see you all," Shadow said with a smirk. "And he will be joyous to know that the rest of you will be in the field tomorrow. Your deaths shall be hasty and brutal." A rumble from the Dragon grabbed his attention. "Not even a Dragon can stop it."
Soran's POV
I adjusted myself on the hard, wooden bench in an attempt to become comfortable. My fingers lingered just above the white and black piano keys. I paused for a moment, reviewing the notes of the song in my mind. Then, with confidence, I gently pressed on the keys and began to play. Its sound leaped down the black, grand piano's pedestal, slithered across the marble floor, and bounced off the walls with extreme force. The blood that had not yet been cleaned off the ballroom floor slightly moved with the music. A real smile unfolded on my features as I added a complex cord to the combination. I knew that I was supposed to be present in the throne room during Keita's declaration of war, but I was stressed and needed some time to myself. Gospel music always eased my soul, even though I would never dare to go into a church to hear it.
"Isn't it a bit too early for Christmas music?" A voice asked me mockingly.
I was not in the mood to argue, so I answered, "It is cold enough to be." I continued playing despite Atreyu's breath scampering down my neck. I tolerated his presence for the time being, but when he tried to sit down next to me, I kindly asked though there was a threatening tone to my voice, "Atreyu, please do not infest my seat with your maggots - it is rather unhealthy." I smiled up at him but made sure that I was clear enough so that he would take my word seriously.
The rat remind standing, thankfully. His judging eyes burned through my flesh, much like the holy water that had drenched me yesterday afternoon. I ignored it. He had no right to even start accusing me of any misdeeds when he had so many of his own. "You smile as you are innocent," he observed carefully. "But are you really? No, obviously not - you wanted to forget something, but I do not know what it is... Oh, wait, yes I do! You --."
"What are you doing here?" I asked him coldly. I peeled my eyes off of him and returned my sights upon the piano showing that it was important than he was. "Are you not supposed to be snickering in the corner as Shadow delivers Keita's word of war? Or will being there increase the suspicion of you?"
"No," he answered simply. "I believe you are a more important matter... After all, you were the first one other than Kage to touch my master in any sort of manner - weapon or otherwise."
I let my fingers slip from the keys. I glanced up at him with a playful expression. "Are you saying that I am a threat?"
"Yes."
I could not help but chuckle and take in the moment. Me, actually considered a threat to the almighty Keita? I should feel honour instead of laughing about the situation (this thought with sarcasm, of course). Atreyu gritted his teeth. He was annoyed that I was mocking him so. I turned my body more towards the rat and asked him, "Atreyu, may I ask you a serious question? What are you doing here anyway? You obviously have not accomplished anything." Then I added rather coldly, "Unless it was to get onto my last nerve."
"It was to get rid of you, the rabbit, and the pink hedgehog, but now Master wants to deal with all of you himself. Now I am here to find out every weakness I can about each one of you so that each individual can be tortured correctly. The only piece of valuable information I can find for you is Slacks, or perhaps your family, but they are all already dead. What a shame."
I growled. I did not like how he threw around Slacks name aimlessly and disrespectful and brought my family into this. "Then why did you allow that Guardian pass through the gates earlier this morning?"
"Master wanted to see if Miles could really use that gun. And the other Guardians that were here were brought in by me on my accordance. I had to record your fighting techniques - but, Soran, yours are a tad bit odd. It more seems like torture than anything..." Then he sarcastically mused, "I wonder where you learned that from."
"Come, I want to show you something," I said to him. I stood up from the black bench and walked around him to the open side of the piano. He hesitated, but followed. "See," I told him, "each note has a different pitch. If they all had the same, the piano would not sound nearly as pretty." I motioned him to look closer at the strings that were tightly attached to the keys. He did not notice, but I kept my eyes on his fingers, which were tightly gripping the side. "Fighting techniques are quite similar." With rapid speed, I withdrew my head from the inside of the instrument and slammed its hood upon his fingers. He screamed and tried to pull them out, but I was able to lift myself up onto the top and sit upon his little limbs before he could. "Oh, dear Atreyu, what is wrong?" I asked mockingly sweet. "You used to be not so stupid - you know that everyone is in the throne room hearing the proposal of war. No one can hear you. That hasn't changed."
"I have told you before, and I will tell you now," he hissed. "If you kill me I will make sure to bring you down."
A wicked grin spread across my face. "But, what if I no longer care about my fate." I pushed down on his knuckles with my cane. They cracked, but the most rewarding part was to hear a whimper escape from the rat's lips. "You see," I informed him, "I have nothing to live for. My family is presumed dead, Slacks was killed, and Kage is most definitely accounted for. Perhaps I could have lived since you were alive, but why would I torture myself with living simply because a traitor is?" I shifted my weight so that I was directly on top of his fingers. "You stand as though you are innocent," I mocked, bringing up the words he told me only a few minutes ago. "But are you really? No, obviously your not - you betrayed not only me, but Slacks and all of the subjects in that place!" I shoved the butt of my cane into his stomach and made him gag on his own breath. He staggered, but was able to stay on his feet.
"I betrayed Slacks? Soran, you have it totally turned around. You --." He stopped in the middle of his sentence to see what I was doing. I carefully, but rather harshly, was tearing off the string from the bottom of my pant leg. I spilt it into four fairly large pieces with my teeth. "What are you doing?" He asked me dully though I could tell there was some fear in his voice.
"There were four Guardians you sent here, right?" I asked him. I waited until he slowly nodded before I stared to tie the string tightly around four of his fingers. "See, my technique... is symbolic torture - if I have time to issue it, of course. If not, I simply used whatever is closest to me." I hit his head with my cane so that he would stare at his fingers. "When the blood circulation is cut off from any sort of limb, it will turn numb. Then, they will turn purple. And finally, after it is done for so long, POP! Say good-day to your fingers, Atreyu, because you will not walk out with them on. (1)"
He freaked and began to jerk away. I laughed at his futile attempts. I returned to work off another string off of my pant leg. I do hope that I do not ruin them completely... but maybe this is worth it. "Willingly betraying someone is a sin, you see. What I did was… entirely different." I started to lose myself in the depths of the question of whether what I did was really all that dissimilar or not, but I let that question drift to the back of my head. I had a rat to deal with before I start doubting myself. "And for a sin, I have learned, you must be punished."
I ripped the rather large string off of my pants and examined it to see if it was long enough. "I am not mad about the Guardians," I told him, "because they did not particularly hurt anyone that I care about nor – nor am I utterly distressed about the incident in Hell (though this is somewhat for that), but allowing Keita to enter this place…" I rapped the string around his neck. "Atreyu, that crossed the line." I pulled the string tight enough so that it was slowly suffocating him and would not break. I flung the remains behind his neck and held the ends up as though it was a noose. "If I had not been in that hallway, Kage would have been gone. Even if Ero went into that room, he would have never known that your master was there. I am not ready to lose the last person I care for, and though now you seem to understand, I must make myself clear." I pulled up the makeshift noose to he would gag on it.
He tried to communicate with me, but his words came out as hoarse breaths. I looked upon him in satisfaction. I had not been planning to kill him when we first started our game, but now it looks as though the tables have turned. There was no way he was going to come out of this room alive… I pressed the bottom of my cane against the middle of his ribcage.
It took me a moment of observation, but I was able to note what he was trying to say. "He is not going to bring you back again, Atreyu," I informed him. "You were not even worth rising from the dead the first time. I just have to wonder how a genius – yes, I say genius, despite my deep loathing against him – would have even muster up the idea of bringing such a traitorous beast back to the land of the living. You are no use to him and you never will be. He sees that now. If he did not, Guardians would have flooded the room to retrieve you. Pity. I guess your master does not give a shit about you after all. Good-day, Atreyu, and thank god for it!"
With that said, I pulled him up far enough so that he was dangling off of the marble ground (even though his fingers almost were ripped off in the process). I plunged my cane into his ribs and watched with a grin as it pushed through his body. His eyes dilated and his breath heightened for only a couple seconds, and then he was nothing but a dead corpse. I pulled my cane out of his body and let him drop carelessly. His body was slowly being covered in blood as he hung by his fingers from the piano. The look on his face was priceless.
I reached over to the other side of the piano and grabbed my tea. I took a sip as I thoughtfully observed him. And, as I stared down at him, maggots slowly began to crawl out of his wounds. "Now, Atreyu, you go to a land much like our own – where no one can hear you."
Tails' POV
"You all do know you do not have to go to his lair," Faron told us.
Shadow had left several hours ago. Most of the troops in Hatsu were already gone and, within the walls of the city, the citizens are safe in underground bomb shelters. This was the first time the general has been free, but I was surprised that he even was. He and Kage had not been seen since Shadow left and still a lot had to be done. We found a shock afterwards – Atreyu had been killed. It was not like the usual way Keita went about murdering, but it had to have been him. I felt sorry for the rat that had so graciously helped us, but we did not need the translation to the book now. War was upon us and information about dream worlds would not help us.
I shook my head. "No, we have to go. He is even sending an escort to us an hour before dawn. He wants us there, and we are not going to disappoint him." I looked down at my gun, which I was polishing. "Anyway, I think some revenge is in order."
"You will not be coming back, you know."
"I don't think any of us will, General." I replied. "Tomorrow is the end of the world as we know it."
Amy, who was sitting next to me, said nothing. Even Soran, who did not seem to be bothered by the fact that Keita wanted to "eat" him, did not make a comment. But Ero said, "But it's not over until it's over. There is still some hope though, right?"
"Probably not," Soran answered dully while looking into thin air, "but did we even have hope in the beginning? We do not need hope – we need a miracle."
And, silently, though I kept my composure, I desperately prayed for one.
(1) Though it seems like a popular myth, if the circulation from a small limb like a finger or a toe is cut off for so long, it can actually fall off. Bigger limbs are harder to do this for. Doctors in the 1800's use to remove fingers and toes like this.
Hello, everyone! I hope you had a merry Christmas and will have a very happy New Year. I am sorry this chapter took a while, but I had surgery on my knee. Vikidin and morphine is not good for the mind I tell you.
Again, I must talk about yaoi (oh no, the hated word). Most seem to be taking it quite nicely (and this, I thank you for dearly), but a few seem a bit worried. I must remind you that this is completely one-sided. Believe me, Kage is not exactly happy that Keita's the one that has been doing this to him. And the reason that Keita likes Kage this way is because of a mental-illness that made him obsessed with him. This, in itself, poses a question: Is Keita really as evil has he first appears, or does the fact that he as an "incurable" (for spiritualists) mental-illness justify his actions? If he did not have OCD, he would have married Ai and they would have lived happily ever after. Kage just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. So, yeah, all yaoi is one-sided. Oh, and this won't be "immature fan-girl" yaoi either. This is an example for "immature fan-girl" yaoi:
Random Guy #1: I hate you.
Random Guy #2: I hate you, too.
Random Guy #1: Wait… you have the same shirt on as me.
Random Guy #2: You're right (moment of silence). Wanna have sex?
Random Guy #1: Even though I absolutely hate you, yes.
(Have sex)
Okay, that was a bit exaggerated, but you get the picture. This isn't going to be anything like that. Keita is a crazed psycho and Kage is a sad, poor victim. (Gives Kage milk and cookies).
Thank you, Dax, for sending that review so I could make fun of it. I've always wanted to do that. But oh, please, do not insult me on things that you have no evidence of. Your Bible comment was the only inappropriate thing in your review. Everything else I completely agree with you on.
Happy Holidays,
Kelsey
