I checked my fic and there was a flame review on it. It's gone now, I don't know how that happened so I had to take out all the stuff I had put in this chapter to get back at that person. Darn.
2. Forget me not
Wufei told no one of the strange wind as he and the other three pilots sat around Quatre's huge table for dinner. There was hardly any sound as the four war-waging teens ate. Though the food was delicious, no one really tasted it – they were all too deep in thought. Though their thoughts differed, they all had the same thing on their minds – Duo. All of them felt that they had in some way contributed to Duo's death. Heero was positive that he could have saved Duo. If only he hadn't hesitated… Quatre secretly believed that he should've been killed instead. After all, Zechs was originally going to have him tortured but since he was so well known and held a very high position on Earth's social ladder, Zechs had been forced to choose someone of… lesser value, to put it bluntly. Zechs could just as easily have tortured one of the other two, Wufei or Trowa, and he did, but they could resist the torture just as well as Heero so it aroused no sympathy in the blandness of the Perfect Soldier's heart. Wufei 'knew' that he could've taken out the soldiers that had held him. Even though they had been older and stronger in real life, in his mind, his martial arts skills could have prevailed, even without his katana. Then there was Trowa, who didn't feel terribly guilty, but was saddened by the fact that Duo was gone. He still felt, though, that somehow, he could have helped Duo. He was the oldest and tallest pilot and he had had a better chance at beating up one or more of the soldiers than any of the other pilots. So they all sat at the table, feeling guilty and making painful endeavors to eat the steadily cooling food on their plates. The silence was thunderous. It was storming outside but inside, there wasn't a thing to be heard. Finally, Quatre could take the silence no longer.
"So did you get any new missions?" Quatre asked Heero. Heero shook his head. Quatre desperately tried to think of something that Heero would actually have to respond to.
"So what will we do tomorrow?" he asked. Heero shrugged. Quatre sighed. He wasn't going to get anyone to talk. So he decided that he'd turn on some music. He got up and walked into one the various halls leading to other wings of the mansion. There was a large stereo system in it. He opened the CD changer with the push of a button and turned to find a nice CD to play. There were speakers positioned throughout the mansion, so he'd be able to hear it wherever he went. He found one of his favorites then turned to place it in the CD changer. It was closed.
"Huh?" Quatre stared at the device for a moment then pressed the button to open it again. It didn't open. "What's wrong with this thing?" Quatre furiously pressed the button again and again. Finally, the CD changer opened. Quatre placed the CD inside and pressed the play button. Soft music began to flow through the speakers.
"That's much better." Quatre said to himself. Smiling, Quatre turned and walked back into the dining room. The music was still playing peacefully when he sat at the table again. The pilots continued to eat. Suddenly the CD player went crazy. There was a dramatic screeching as the CD stopped then a jumble of sounds as the stereo sifted through various songs. Finally it settled on one.
"THIS IS MY LAST RESORT!" blasted through the speakers, shaking the floor it was so loud.
"Quatre, what IS that!?!" Wufei demanded, screaming over the incredible volume of the so called music.
"I don't know! That's not what I put on!" Quatre screamed back.
"Nevermind! I don't CARE what it is, just turn it off!" Quatre ran to the stereo he had just visited and tried to turn it off. It kept right on playing. Quatre unplugged it and still, it kept pumping out the racket. It stopped only after it had been shot several times by Heero. Everyone let out a sigh of relief. Quatre didn't mind the fact that his stereo had been destroyed; he could always buy another one.
"Well I guess we won't be listening to any music tonight." Quatre said. The lights went out. "Or doing anything else that requires electricity."
"The storm must've cut the power." Trowa observed. Thunder sounded outside and lightning lit up the hallway. They weren't sure, but the four boys thought they heard a rather high-pitched giggle echo through the building after the sound of the thunder had passed. They all looked to each other for an explanation, but nobody had an answer to the unvoiced question.
"Um, maybe we should light some candles." Quatre suggested. The others nodded in agreement and set to doing that. Though Wufei had strongly protested, his candles were taken from his room and spread throughout the mansion. At the current moment in time, he was walking around gathering his precious meditation tools, able to carry only two at a time because they were all lit and hot, melted wax was dripping from them.
"Ignorant fools." he murmured to himself as he found yet another of his candles. "Using my meditation candles for a stupid blackout. What kind of an onna needs light anyway? I can see perfectly fine without it. Have they no idea how expensive these are? This is an injustice. I shouldn't have to go around looking for my own possessions. Injustice…" Wufei was climbing a small flight of stairs and had almost reached the top when he heard a faint sound. He gazed around, trying to discern the direction of the noise but he couldn't figure it out. He shrugged it off and continued on but he heard it again – a light scraping sound like fingernails on a chalk board. This time, he was able to deduce that it had come from an empty guest room. 'I can go see what it was' he thought to himself. 'Or I can just ignore it, considering that it was probably nothing anyway.' Figuring that his candles were slowly melting into small puddles by that time, he turned in the opposite direction and resumed his search.
"Wufei…" a voice rasped. Wufei felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He whipped around, straining to see in the dark. It seemed as though he did need light, after all. "Wufei!" The voice repeated. This time he recognized it. It was Quatre. He relaxed then walked towards the room to check on Quatre. Wufei entered the room and saw Quatre trailing his finger along the wall.
"What is it, Quatre?" Wufei demanded, anxious to continue looking for his candles. Quatre turned his head to face Wufei. There were tears in his eyes.
"I can't stop…" he sobbed.
"You can't stop what? What are you doing?"
"I came in here to find some more candles…and I saw something on the wall…oh God, it hurts, Wufei! Make it stop! Please make it stop!" Wufei finally stepped forward enough for the candle's light to hit the wall and he finally saw what it was that Quatre had been doing. He was using his right index finger to scratch "4-get" into the wall. His fingernail was almost completely pulled off and blood stained the letters he had carved into the wall. Wufei nearly dropped the candle he was holding when he saw this. Quatre tried to pull away from the wall, but his hand wouldn't move away, it just kept tracing over the word. Wufei grabbed Quatre around the waist with one arm and took his arm in his other hand. Together they pulled until finally, Quatre's arm came free from whatever was holding it and they fell onto the dust-covered floor of the room. Luckily, Wufei had put down his candle first. After 'rescuing' Quatre, he stood, brushed himself off and picked up his candle.
"Thank you so much, Wufei!" Quatre exclaimed. "I don't think I would've been able to take that much longer."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You better bandage that." Wufei turned to leave but Quatre stopped him.
"Don't you think that was strange?" he asked. 'Of course I think that was strange' Wufei thought. 'Who wouldn't?' But would he admit that he had been freaked out by a crazy onna's actions to that very onna? No, not in this life.
"It was…a bit out of the ordinary." Wufei grunted then left the room.
*Um…I'd like to take this moment to uh…apologize to the person that wrote the first review. It has occurred to me that you probably weren't trying to be rude but that you were just trying to help. I'm still not changing the first chapter, but I will take your…input into consideration as I continue this. Sorry. Please don't stop reading my fic! I'm just a little sensitive. ^_^ '