Hello, guys. Time for chapter 5.
As I suggested in my AN at the end of chapter 5, this chapter is gonna be, um, slightly more serious than what we've had so far. So there.
Anyway, here's chapter 5. Enjoy.
He wondered.
He deeply wondered what to do now.
He wondered how he was supposed to even contemplate doing anything. Whether it made any sense at all.
Everything had been going just so nice and well, and now...
He felt like his life was over.
Miles Prower spent the next couple of weeks completely isolated inside his house. Not wanting to go anywhere. Not wanting to do anything.
He felt empty.
Granted, everyone else at Cocoa Island was beyond glad that the terror of the Battle Kukku Army on this island was finally over, and everyone was celebrating their regained freedom. But at the same time, everybody was sad that one of the island's inhabitants had to sacrifice her life for this freedom.
But none of them was even remotely as sad about that fact... as Tails was.
To say that he was devastated would be the understatement of a lifetime. No, he couldn't even move. Even look at someone, without immediately thinking about Cosmo, and instantly afterwards, thinking about the fact that...
...that she was dead.
And as is natural in that kind of situation, the occasions where Tails could be seen without traces of tears on his face, let alone with a smile, were extremely rare. If ever occurring at all.
Because he deeply wondered... how to move on.
Why move on.
In fact, the very next day after defeating the Battle Kukku Army, Tails finally tried to, somehow, get out of his house and go somewhere. Anywhere. Just... somewhere.
But as soon as he opened that door - nothing changed.
His first thought was that Cosmo wouldn't be there to greet him. That is what he set his mind to.
And that was what he continued thinking the entire time while being out. From the moment of opening his house's front door, all the while he was outside - at the nearest sand beach, going through Poloy Forest, as well as Polly Mountain and Caron Forest, among a lot of other places on this island - until he came back home and slammed the door.
Only to realize he felt no different.
And instead of doing anything, he stopped. And just thought about that very fact.
"No..."
He realized what that meant. The horrifying truth of exactly the effect that the recent events would have on his life.
That this would go on forever.
That he would feel like this for the rest of his life.
"No, no, no..." he repeated to himself, bursting into tears again.
Up until that moment, a small chunk of hope still existed in him, hope that eventually, his feelings would get better and he would be able to get on with whatever he had in plans for his next genius machine or vehicle or whatever.
But now, as this realization had come to him, such hope was lost.
He was now truly aware of the fact that this painful, agonizing feeling would last until he died, and there was nothing at all he could do to change that.
And with every passing moment, he felt increasingly worse about it.
So he did what only felt natural - he fell down on the floor, crying.
"Why...? Why... why...?"
Until he fell asleep, not caring about the time of day.
The next day, in an attempt as gullible as it gets, he tried the same thing.
More slowly this time, though.
Any other day, as soon as he felt like waking up, Tails would immediately get out of his bed, put his shoes on and start doing work or go out somewhere.
Not this time. This time, at the moment of feeling sunlight on his eyelids, the little fox decided to stay in bed for a little longer. Actually, some more than a little longer. He didn't even open his eyes, for that matter. For some time after getting physically awake, he just rested at the same place in his bed. No wonder. He had no reason to get up.
And so, he remained in his bed.
Eventually, though, he figured out that this would have him way to stiff, and therefore, he finally got out of bed. Barely managing to put his shoes on, he made himself another sandwich. He did not get to find out how this one tasted, though, because he didn't have the strength to take even one bite of it. He sighed.
Looking at his front door, he remembered the decision he made in his head, with a horrifying amount of reluctance. That he would try to go out once again.
Gullibly hoping this time would be any different.
As he reached the other side of his front door, he looked around him. At the same environment he had seen yesterday. The same one he had been looking at every time he got out of his house ever since he was born.
And he could barely stand the sight of it.
Because, just the same as he realized yesterday, Cosmo wouldn't be there.
And the same pain went through him all over again.
This time, though, he tried his best to fight that pain. To devote his mind to something else. So he proceeded forward.
Just walking around at first, he eventually chose to go to the nearest beach, to try and cleanse his thoughts there. When he came there, he sat down. He just sat down and did nothing else. He literally just stared into the sea.
Not too long after sitting down, his thoughts once again shifted to Cosmo. And everything seemed to go the same way like it did yesterday.
"No, not again..."
And the little fox did not have the patience - and more importantly, the will - to go through all that again. But there was no sign that anything would come to draw his attention away. And therefore, he didn't try to shift his thoughts away from her.
Continuing to just stare at the sea... he let it flow.
Wanting to assure himself that that would help.
And... it didn't.
As his sight was fixed at the enormous surface of water, all he could think about was how it would've felt so beautiful if Cosmo was here to see that sight with him, regardless of the fact that she had seen it numerous times.
If she were just here with him.
Just one more chance... to tell her...
"I would waste that one too, wouldn't I?"
He once again thought of the countless and countless chances he had. The countless occasions that felt like they were just made specifically for him to be able to simply... just... do it. Just simply tell her. Just come up to her, like that, and tell her.
And he wasted every single one of them.
And immediately upon realizing that, he felt even worse than he did the day before that. Because it was at that moment that he realized just how easy it was for him to get the girl of his dreams... and yet... he failed.
And as a consequence of such realization, he once again had everything he saw, touched, or even thought of, remind him of Cosmo.
So as he kept staring at the vast sea in front of him, he didn't make even the slightest shift in hi facial expression - tears came out of his eyes once again.
His hopes from earlier that morning - that it would get at least a little better - were in vain.
And just like the previous two days, he again wondered. The exact same thing - how he was supposed to carry on like this. How he was supposed to spend the rest of his life like this. How he was supposed to accept it, just so nonchalantly, that this feeling inside him would never change.
But instead of doing anything about that - because he was now well aware that that would be naive - he kept the same sitting position. For a few more hours, too.
After which he, even more hopelessly than before, came back home, shut the door, and laid down on the floor, while the inside of his mind went:
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Six months.
Six months passed in the meanwhile. Six horrible months, in which nothing of major significance - or even minor, for that matter - happened.
Six months in which the things going on inside the mind of a certain little orange fox were becoming more and more horrifying, and his soul more devastated than it had already been, all the while his physical appearance, unsettlingly enough - remained the same.
If you were to see him now for the very first time, you would never ever find it plausible that he has experienced a truly major tragedy, just by knowing how young he is. You'd never think that, despite his age, he has already gone through some horrible events in his life.
And yet...
That's just how it was. Every day the same. Barely making it through the day. Staring into the sea. Basically staring into nothing.
Painful.
Miles Prower did the exact same thing every day for the previous six months, desperately trying to convince himself that the thoughts in his mind were going to get better, desperately ignoring that he was proven wrong the previous day. Every day for the past six months.
In spite of all, every last one, of the occasions that he had faced that horrible truth inside his head, he still fought against it.
He did everything in his realm of possibilities to ease his soul.
Until one day - he didn't.
What precisely happened on the morning of that day was that Tails woke up calmly, with the same feeling and thoughts as he had been waking up with for the past months. Still hoping he would get better. Still trying.
He had no trouble doing his usual morning routine - including barely managing to eat something.
And then came the moment of him stepping outside.
And when he stepped outside - that was it.
He realized.
He realized exactly what he had been doing for the past six months. He realized exactly how naive and gullible he was all this time for thinking that all this sorrow, all this therapy for himself he had made up, all the time spent on the beaches or on the grass fields - would get him anywhere.
And with this kind of realization, Miles Prower did the only thing that seemed any logical.
He gave up.
This doesn't mean he just went back inside his house and didn't even try to do anything the whole day.
Exactly the contrary.
He did go further outside, through the flower fields and next to all the beaches and forests...
...to a specific location.
And the thing is - the specific location that is being referred to here - was a very high cliff.
And Tails didn't feel anything as he came closer and closer to the edge of that cliff. Not sorrow, not pain, not sadness, not grief... nothing. He felt nothing anymore.
This was it for him.
And as he took a look over the edge of this cliff, what he saw was nothing other than the vast, vast sea. Beneath the bright, cloudless sky.
For one short moment, this view looked beyond beautiful. Just the endless sea, together with the endless sky, stretching out beyond the horizon. Looking so peaceful. Feeling like there was nothing that could ever ruin this amazing view.
The one thing that Tails did feel was sad. Sad that he never stopped to admire this view more times than just this one.
But he didn't start crying, unlike many, many times before this.
He just watched the water flow around and the Sun shine brightly, without a smile on his face.
The next moment, he looked over the edge of the cliff, seeing its very bottom. Seeing the water right down there flow as well. But, unlike the rest of the water surface, this area looked... different. There was something about that particular place that just felt... right.
But not in a salvatory way.
As Tails turned his look away from the bottom of the cliff, he stood completely still - and closed his eyes.
For the few moments that followed, nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
Tails didn't force himself to move even slightly. He let something similar, but much different at the same time, happen.
He let the move happen on its own.
At one small, unnoticeable moment, he just suddenly lost a very small, tiny part of his balance. The only thing that could have naturally followed from this was that he lost the rest of his balance, and - without any sort of will to change his mind - fell.
With his eyes shut just as much as his soul - he just fell.
As he was getting closer and closer to the water, the only thing on his mind was Cosmo. How beautiful and wondeful she was. How he would never see her again.
How he would see her again.
And he dived in.
Suddenly, he felt all the water around him, getting on his skin and inside his nostrils.
He didn't fight this. The whole point of this was to not fight it.
The rest of his life would be spent mourning the death of a girl he loved so much. Why carry on?
He just embraced the impact this would soon have on him as he sank lower and lower-
And then he touched the ground.
Completely out of a sudden, he opened his eyes in utter distraction - and realized he was drowning!
Not the "I am done with this suffering" kind of drowning - the "I need to get out of here RIGHT NOW!" kind of drowning.
And so, he immediately began to swim upwards, in total panic, total fear, in absolute fright! No, no, no... what was he even doing?! How did he even think of such an idea?! Yes, he was beyond devastated and without a will to carry on, BUT THIS?! No, he had to get out of that water RIGHT NOW!
So, he swam, and swam, and swam, barely able to hold his breath, still way below the surface level, his level of need to get air increasing rapidly. Every moment now could be his very last.
But as seconds passed, he ran out of air more and more quickly, despite being closer and closer to the surface-
And then he got out!
Instantly catching a much needed breath of air, he felt extremely relieved that he was surrounded by breathable air again. But at the same time, he felt shocked! Shocked that he actually attempted something like this!
How could he have this to himself?! What was going through his mind?!
"Oh, right..." he sadly remembered what it was that went through his mind. Who went through his mind.
"Cosmo..." he remembered her again.
And this was the moment when he came to yet another terrible realization. This one was even more devastating than any of the previous ones.
There was no escaping this.
He would have to hold on like this. He would just have to hold on like that.
Until the day his heart gave up.
And upon that realization, he just looked forward, at whatever was in front of him. At nothing, actually.
He once again lost all the strength, or will, to let a sound out, to let a tear escape his eye, to look anywhere else.
He began walking forward. Not in any specific direction (and definitely not back home), not trying to get lost either, and not even anything between those two. He just walked. Aimlessly. No, in fact, in a manner even more abstract and deluding than just "aimlessly".
He just walked. He literally just walked. Not doing anything at all other than walking.
And then he stopped.
And closed his eyes.
He didn't think about anything. He just held his eyes closed. And he held them closed for a good few minutes.
Until he felt willing enough to open them.
After a while of looking at the direction opposite from the cliff - he looked back at the cliff.
And no, he didn't think about doing that again.
But he still came back at its edge.
And as he stood there, all he did, again, was looking forward. Straight into the same beautiful sea and the same, now cloudier sky. And still - yes, still - despite all the confirmation of otherwise, he wondered the same thing. How to escape this.
How to escape something which there was no escaping from.
The answer? There is no way.
He thought about it. He thought about all that deeply. He thought about Cosmo, her beautiful voice, all the times they were together, how she looked so beautiful to him...
...how he lost her.
Granted, the thought of how he lost the love of his life had crossed his mind countless times before that. Granted, every time he thought about it, the thought was unbearable. And granted, every one of those times, he wished that didn't have to happen.
But this time - he collapsed.
He just fell to the very ground on top of the cliff he was standing, his knees firmly hitting the ground, not caring about the damage it might cause to him.
And this time, out of the purity of his heart and his soul - he burst into an endless stream of sobs.
Yelling at himself internally, asking himself hundreds of questions in silence - all he could do outside of his head was sob. And sob. And sob. Finally able - or forced by nature - to let everything out.
And as if on cue, he felt a water drop fall on his body.
And even though he didn't pay much attention to it, he let a few more drops, straight from the sky, fall on him.
It started raining.
As the rain fell straight down on all of Cocoa Island, and so on Tails too, the poor little fox felt the rain pouring down on him as though it had come from inside his own body.
Drenched in the water that looked and felt like it would never stop, he just laid and cried, as he saw his tears mix with the raindrops on the ground.
He could feel it all. He could feel the grass beneath him getting moist. He could feel the thunderous sky, and he wasn't even willing to get away from there, no matter the damage it might cause to him. He could feel the wind and the trees being waved around by it.
But this time - he embraced it.
He embraced every single one of those sounds, every single one of those dangerous sights, and everything else that nature was ready to throw at his face, as he wept, and wept, and wept. He didn't even wish for anyone to come and take him away from there. Quite the contrary... he wished to stay there. He wished to stay like that, surrounded by the horrifying - but beautifully so - acts of nature that were going on around him.
It felt like his sobbing and pain and sorrow was what summoned the rainy clouds in the first place.
And it was at around this very moment that all the pain, sorrow, and exhaustion, caused Tails to lose all his consciousness - and fall on the ground with his whole body.
After that... he fell asleep.
After what felt like an eternity - or even ten eternities - Miles Prower woke up.
He looked around. It was, obviously, the same place where he had spent almost the whole previous day. Seeing that, he also realized that he had actually spent the entire night here. The thunderous clouds and the wind were gone now, though. The sky was bright again. And...
He felt fine.
No, really.
He genuinely felt fine.
He sighed in relief.
It was like all of his agonizing feelings, all that he had to go through for the past six months - was finally gone.
He looked around again. The birds were chirping. The sound of the sea was peaceful again. Not only did Tails not feel like he had any reason to burst into tears - he felt nothing even remotely like that.
He took a deep breath of fresh air, and exhaled with vast alleviation.
He felt glad that he was alive.
Perhaps a day like the previous one was exactly necessary for him to be able to regain the feeling of stability. To be able to feel... good again.
He smiled.
With that soul-curing realization, he got up on his feet and, with ease in his mind, headed back home.
And that was chapter 5, including the quite obvious reason I rated this story T. I really hope you liked it - same goes for the whole story, actually. Now I only have the epilogue left to write for this. If you liked this story, please leave reviews. See you.