I wake with a start, my heart pounding. Was that gunshot I heard only in my dream? Or was it from this nightmare I'm living?
Two more shots ring out in rapid succession. Obviously not just a dream.
I leap out of my bed, wrenching the door open and sprinting down the corridor, glancing quickly into each open doorway looking for signs of trouble. That is something we most definitely do not need right now.
I slide to a halt at the door to the common room, where Heero had set up his computer. Its screen is darkened, shut down for the night. As is Heero. For good.
I stare numbly at the sight before me. Duo is half-sitting, half-lying on the couch, arms outstretched, hands clasping his gun. It's still aimed at Heero. Or rather, what's left of Heero. His body is no more than an empty shell, now, incapable of surviving the single shot to the head, let alone the two through his chest. Its chest. Heero is gone.
"What happened?" I demand of the only other living person in the room. He shifts his blank gaze, directing it towards me. The rest of his body remains frozen. His face is an expressionless mask. He does not answer.
I step around Heero's corpse, kneeling before him. He stares at me, unblinking eyes wide with shock. I raise one hand and slap him across the face. Startled, he almost drops the gun. I wrestle it out of his grip with one hand, resting the other lightly on his shoulder.
"What happened?" I repeat my question. "Why?"
The first is blatantly obvious; but the second...
"He... Heero..." He falters, voice and hands trembling. "Relena... I..."
I close my eyes, turning my head away slightly. So that was it. Relena. I should have known. I had been aware of her visit earlier this afternoon, but dismissed it from my mind, thinking it just another attempt by her to seduce the perfect soldier Heero Yuy. A futile waste of effort. Heero was perfect for his role in this war; no amount of persuasion on her part could ever have had success. He was pure of spirit, following his heart into battle, and winning, despite all the odds.
He was perfect. Was. How ironic that it was his heart that killed him - but I guess that's the price of loving death. I would that he could have followed another path... one that could have kept him alive.
I open my eyes to gaze down on his still body, his blue eyes frozen forever unseeing.
"Oh," I hear a soft voice from the doorway. "Heero's dead, too?"
Too?!
I take a deep breath to steady myself, then raise my gaze to the figure standing in the open doorway.
Quatre. Half wrapped in a robe, hair ruffled from sleep, drying blood dripping down his chest, and tarnishing his golden hair. Quatre. And blood. Lots of blood.
"Trowa?" I manage to ask.
"He's dead," Quatre replies simply, his words and tone that of a child. A tear escapes from one eye, streaking down his cheek. He lifts bloody fingers to wipe it away, leaving behind a smear of red, staining his flesh with its guilt. He stares at his moist finger, mesmerized.
Two of them. Two of them. Quatre and Duo. Trowa and Heero.
I always knew that there would come a day when one of us would no longer be able to maintain our duties in this bitter conflict; it was simply a matter of time before one of us snapped under the strain. I had always thought that I would be that one. I have always been weak, cowardly, where the others have always been strong. Quatre's optimism, Trowa's apathy; Duo's enthusiasm for life, Heero's for death... The four of them complemented each other, giving each other strength - while I was the useless fifth wheel.
Two of the wheels are broken, now, and past repair. A cart may travel on three wheels - but the strain would be all the greater. Why should it travel at all? Has it not come far enough? To press on would surely mean to become stuck in a rut... Such, after all, is life.
I stand up, leaning forward, reaching behind Duo to grasp the end of his braid. I loop it round his neck and pull it tight, bracing him against the wall behind the couch with my shoulder. He struggles, gasping for breath, fingers clutching at his braid.
"Wufei! No!" Quatre is behind me, trying to pull me off Duo. Unsuccessfully.
I still hold Duo's gun in my left hand, caught between my stomach and his. I twist my body slightly, turning my arm - and pull the trigger.
I hear a moan behind me as Quatre falls to the floor, soft in comparison with the sound of the gunshot. I ignore it in favour of concentrating on Duo's flushed face. His eyes are bulging, his face distorted as his open mouth yearns for breath.
Slowly, every so slowly, his struggles cease - dying, as he himself is. I wait until the gleam of life has left his eyes before relaxing my grip, lowering him back down to the couch and closing his unseeing eyes.
"Wufei..." I turn my attention to Quatre, lying dazed on the floor in an ever-growing pool of blood. He clutches at his stomach, his eyes pained. "You... killed... Trowa...?"
His gasped question freezes my blood, as I realize...
I kneel swiftly at his side and try to stem the flow of life from his body, knowing that it's already too late; he's lost too much blood...
"I'm sorry," I tell him, uncertain whether he can hear me or not. His eyes are closed now, his pulse fading fast.
My hands are as bloody as his, now. More so. I have done something that I swore I would never do.
Justice was all I wanted to give to this world, and now I have taken it away; just a piece of it - but so much, too much.
I lift the gun once more, aiming it at my own head. It will give me a swifter death than Quatre's...
No.
I place the gun down beside Quatre's stilled body, and walk out of the room, out of the building. I will not permit myself such a quick and easy solution.
There are worse things in life, than death.
[MirrorForest - http://www.geocities.com/rhionae/ ][rhionae@hotmail.com]