[ 4 / The Shade ]

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[ Interlude 1 - Van ]

I thought life lasted forever once, when I was younger, I lived only for the day, not for tomorrow. I didn't know the future, I didn't comprehend its meaning, or its purpose. But it became a great part of my life as I grew older. Then one day, it became clear to me that life took everything way, and death took everyone you loved. I was only seven when this became reality, by then I was stuck in a transition between being a prince and a king, but still remaining a child in all of it.

Everything in my life changed when Folken disappeared. Suddenly I was pushed into the position of being the first heir to the throne. Responsibility became my burden, I could no longer be just the unruly youth of the palace, instead I became something else. Not more, but not less. I was no more worthy of being king than I was a full-blooded human.

I kept it inside instead.

I hated them all, every single one of the scholars, all of the sword trainers. I even hated my family. They were the ones who brought into me all the responsibilities. It was my father's fault he fell in love with my mother. It was my mother's fault she fell in love with a king. It was my brother's fault that he was a coward. Sometimes, when I was alone -- which was often -- I was glad all three of them had died, but Folken hadn't.

I hated them because they left me alone.

It was easier just to die.

So I did.

* *

It began with a shadow.

It was quivering figure against the night... gentle, thornless, perfect. It was like starlight, softened into dullness, stirring as the crestfallen sea does against a shore; an isolated murmur of life within death. Alone... I brought my arms around me, trembling as a cold breeze brushed against me.

The shadow stood underneath twin moons. They were white and perfectly formed, pinned against a black ocean, as tiny blue gems shone with them. A gleam of slanted silver kissed everything, livid and wanting, seducing everything into its glow. The shadow remained, undaunted even by light.

I was tired... so very tired. I wanted to lie somewhere and find some peace, I would curl up in a hole if I could, but there weren't any holes big enough for me. I knew this place. A woman told me about this place. The Shade. It was beautiful, always a gentle night, but all things here were an illusion. Despair made it beautiful... it fed upon misery.

I saw a massive oak tree to my right, wary of the shadow, I moved towards the casualness of it. To rest against it, just to close my eyes and sleep, leave the rest of it alone. Just leave me alone...

I slumped against it, bringing my arms to cover my stomach, unconsciously deciding to curl up against it. The bark was rough, but it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, all I cared about was going to sleep. I closed my eyes, trying to give my body some warmth.

I may have slept for a few hours, a few days, even months. I couldn't comprehend time anymore, but I could never give myself the warmth I desperately needed. It was a futile task, for warmth was impossible if you were dead.

It was cold here. I opened my eyes sleepily, looking down at my quaking hands. My fingers... they were beginning to turn blue, I could even see the ice starting to form at my fingertips. A sigh of my last remaining warmth departed from my lips in a white cloud.

The shadow... it was closer, still fearless of the moonlight. I might have told it to go away, I might have threatened it, but I had no strength left in me to fight. I felt completely drained of life, it seemed so, considering how I couldn't even hold myself anymore. If it were true, that the Shade ate your misery to keep itself strong, then that might've been what was happening to me. It was sucking the anguish out of me, not even leaving me with anything good. I gladly gave it all my despair, but it was giving me emptiness in return.

I didn't even know why I was here anymore...

Shivering violently, I curled up into a tighter ball. It was only then that I couldn't stop the droplets falling from my eyes. The tears were warm, so full of heat, maybe enough to stop me from turning into an icicle. I wept myself into unconsciousness, but the soft heat fled just as quickly, and I had nothing to grasp on to.

When I came to, the shadow had come even closer to the oak tree that I used as my grave marker. I could see the undistinctive outline of its body, a blur of colors all meshed into one, like an impressionist's painting. It was almost inviting if it weren't for the cruel aura it carried within itself.

It remained unspoken, despite the gentle hum that came from it. As I thought I would pass out, it did speak. In a voice that I couldn't quite place, it had been somewhere between reassuring yet spiteful, foreign yet familiar. I could only describe its voice as trusting, like a diamond.

[Why are you always alone?]

I managed to murmur some vague thing like, "I prefer it that way."

[Why?] the shadow asked in a curious tone, it sounded faraway, like there were miles between us. [Why would one want to be alone? Don't you want your friends to be around you?]

"Stupid questions..." I answered faintly, as my eyes closed, sleep threatening to invade me.

There was a long pause, as I was about to doze off, it spoke again, [you died like that, didn't you?]

"Yes," I answered with some degree of slurring. "I've always been alone."

* *

[ Interlude 2 - A Conversation ]

"Van's lost so much blood. I don't know if he has enough to sustain his body. His mind is telling him to heal the wounds, the effects could be devastating because his body is still trying to cope with the sudden loss of blood. It's almost impossible to tell how much stress he's going through."

"Couldn't you just give him a blood transfusion, Milerna?"

"The doctors and I discussed the possibility of it."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Allen... he's part Draconian. The structure of his DNA and blood cells are different from ours. Even if we found the right blood donor, there's an eighty percent chance that he will reject it."

"But the transfusion would help him last a little longer, wouldn't it? Until we know what to do, at least."

"Yes, it could. But it's risky, there could be complications in the process. We don't know the structure of Draconian DNA, it's unthinkable of what could happen to him. His blood type is uncommon, so there is no way we can find the right blood donor."

"Dammit. There goes plan A."

"Did you have a plan B?"

"We were still working on that one. There has to be a way, we can't just let this happen. Without him..."

"I know, Allen. We all will."

"How much time does he have?"

"Allen, listen to me. No, please, don't turn away. Just listen to me. Sooner or later, Van's body is going to collapse on itself, with or without the blood transfusion. There's not even enough time to find him a donor..."

"What are you saying?"

"He can't take any more of this -- look at me -- he's beyond our help. It's over."

"...No. You're wrong."

"I know how you feel. I feel it too... I don't want him to die anymore than you do! I care about Van too, dammit, but there's no more hope left for him. All we can do is pray that he leaves us without pain. We've done all we could for him, we have thought of every potential way to save him, but it's been in vain, now we have to let him go. So don't make this harder than it already is..."

"Milerna... please don't cry."

"I don't know if I can tell Merle or Hitomi. How am I supposed to tell them Van is dying?"

* *

[ Interlude 3 - Hitomi ]

"I hope you can hear me. I wanted to tell you a few things, but it's hard to know where I should start. I'm not every good with words, everything comes out wrong, what I feel sounds different when I say it.

"What I wanted to say was that I never meant to say Allen's name... I don't even know why I said it in the first place. All I think about was you. How you were going to be my first kiss, how your arms felt like they were made for me to fit into, how your touch made me tingle all over. I only read about those things, I never realized how true they could be.

"I thought about it all the time, when I faced you, I remembered how you reacted. The sudden emptiness in your eyes, how that spark of life just died inside you, and I felt so scared. I couldn't think right. Everything happened so fast. I called for you, I wanted to explain what I felt, what you made me feel. But you never gave me a chance...

"So I pretended as if it never happened. Whenever you looked at me, you're face would darken as if by a shadow, and your eyes would narrow into slits. I was scared of you. Of what you might do if we were ever alone, and all I could think about when I slept were your eyes, how cold they had become.

"I wasn't thinking of Allen. I thought about you. Only you, because you made me feel something deeper that the infatuation I had with Allen, because your single touch made me feel a million different things at once. I don't know if it's possible, but I think you touched my soul, my very being, that night when you held me. I'm sure of it.

"But words alone can't describe what I feel for you, so I'll show you instead..."

* *

I woke up to a sudden warmth on my lips, almost like a kiss, slowly fading into my skin. I thought about the possibility of someone saving me from this place, but when I opened my eyes, there was no one there except for the shadow. I wondered how long it had stood there, how it could have endured the agony of standing in one place for so long, without moving or sitting, and still have the strength to stand. I was impressed by a fraction, but even that knowledge couldn't keep me awake long enough to stare in awe.

Then I heard the whisper that came after the warmth, "I'm not going to let you die."

The voice was silky, a feminine tone of worry, one that I hadn't heard before in the longest time. I didn't know why it touched me, because I couldn't remember anything besides the moment I came here. The shadow swayed a little. Then it straightened immediately after. It knew no weakness.

I noticed the ice that started to form at my feet. The second thing I noticed was my teeth were chattering uncontrollably, but I still didn't care about either of it. My eyes remained heavy with tiredness.

[You're finally awake.] It said in that same soft tone that I couldn't quite trust, yet it still left the produced the same reassurance, as if I were just a child to console who woke up from a nightmare.

"What do you want?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, sounding as if the wind had spoken. My hands turned into fists, just to keep them from shaking as fiercely as they were. I wanted to stand, but the ice kept me in place. I didn't think I could even stand anyway, my body felt like it would break if I moved about too much.

My entire body hurt like hell.

[Many things are wanted, but I'd settle for you,] it replied. [Look at what you've done for me. Look at the world.]

I looked.

The world was luminous, like a giant pearl bathed in a radiance beyond that of the moons, the night ripped across the sky without apology. I instantly knew what everything was, the emptiness in its beauty, this was the misery that I once held in my chest. Every breath had gone into this air, travelling to better this place. So it was true... the Shade drank your pain with delight, knowing that it would reinforce what it began with, knowing that it could make itself more seductive to the unwary. My pain was written on the stars, each constellation was my anger, each perfectly kindled fireball was my hell. And I had so much of it, too much, enough to feed an entire world. Even the shadow looked as if it had more depth, a darker light, like a purple flame. It had more substance, a finer outline, I thought it was beginning to take a form.

I didn't know whether to start crying or laughing. The coldness, the dreamless landscape, the vacant full moons staring down upon me, leaving me, abandoning its purpose. If happiness was bitter, then it was what I felt at the moment of discovering this new tomb, beautiful and dark, empty and lit. I was going to be covered in ice, a statue against an oak tree. What the hell was I supposed to do?

[It rips you apart, doesn't it? You see through its tranquillity and see it for its evil,] it spoke again in a strange tone between gentle and cruel. [You have so much to offer us, yet you're so young. How can you have this much suffering when you've barely even begun to live?]

"Go away," I murmured quietly, closing my eyes again. "I don't have time to answer your dense questions."

Sleep.

It was all that mattered, not the coldness, not the quickening paleness of my skin, not even the ice that had slowly begun forming around my waist. I didn't care about what was happening to me, as long as I could slip back into the black oblivion of dreamless sleep, nothing existed there, I was safe from feeling anything. I hoped I wouldn't wake up next time.

[Yes, go there,] it whispered to me, so close that I could feel it breathing down my throat. It wasn't heat, it wasn't even cold, it felt like needles were being stuck deep into the nape of my neck. [You feed us everything you have when you sleep. This is what you wanted, wasn't it? To be without emotion. Soon... you won't have to feel anything ever again, Van.]

That demolished any idea of sleep. It said what I didn't want to hear: my name. The memories came flooding back into me, what had happened, who I was, my responsibilities to people, the promises that needed to be kept. I couldn't do that to them.

"No."

[Wha--]

"I'm not going to feed you," when I said it, it didn't make sense, the words from my mouth but didn't reach my brain. It was like I was running on auto-pilot. "Or whatever you psychopaths plan to do to me. I'm not going to be apart of it."

I forced my eyes open, looking at the sudden form it was taking... me. My mirror image was staring down at me, with a look on its face that told me it was either bewildered or scowling. Its eyes were darker, its hair moved as the wind passed it, half its face was covered in shadow. But the shadow quickly developed my shape, and I couldn't speak again until I got past the shock.

I spoke further, pushing my strength, this time with more determination, "I have a promise I need to keep. And people who need me to be their king. I can't run away from them, no matter how much I bleed, or hurt, or cry, because I have too much to live for to abandon them like my family did to me. So I won't, whatever you do. I'm not going to be like my brother or my mother..." my voice laboured, I raised my eyes and looked at it dead in the eye. "I'm not going to be the source of anyone's pain."

"It's too late for you," it - no, he -- had adopted my voice now, a half-smirk twitching from the corner of his lips. "Can't you even feel the fading energy? You're dying, Van. It's too late for you, even your friends have forsaken your pathetic life."

He thought he was triumphant, smirking like he was superior to me, because I was covered by a sheet of ice. But it didn't mean I was trapped in it.

I lunged at him, the ice breaking from under me. My fist caught him square on the jaw, sending him stumbling backwards, his body landed on the pearly ground with a solid thump. I stood weakly, my legs felt like they were made of jelly, they weren't supporting my weight firmly, but at least I knew I was standing.

"If I have the will to live," I growled at my identical impostor. "Then that's all I need."

He laughed, even his damned teeth were flawlessly white. The mirth in his laughter was real, something I never heard come out of me -- although it wasn't technically me, but my voice -- before, and something that made me fear the worst. My courage faltered for a moment, before my hands turned into fists.

"Interesting how a human can just turn like that," he said softly, bringing a hand to his lip to brush off the blood. "I've underestimated you, that's for certain, but I need you dead so that I can live."

I swore at him, which resulted in more laughter.

He stood up and brushed himself off, while I tensed up for his attack, instead he spoke again, this time in a entirely serious tone. "Just go back to sleep, Van. There's no need for pointless violence, you're going to die anyway, do you understand? Anything you do to me is useless."

"Maybe," I answered, surprised that my voice was as steady and calm as it was. "But at least I'll die knowing that I didn't go down willingly."

"You humans," he finally sneered, his anger flared up in his eyes. "So arrogant of your superiority."

"What are you going to do about it?" I baited him, but his eyes glazed over as if he had been sedated. I thought he lost his mind when he started laughing again, it caught me off guard, but just as quickly, he stopped.

"Pain can't be felt by you, it's already been drained from your body," he said, I swore he would've been dancing in glee if he hadn't kept himself in check. "Why bother trying to reward your insults? I think I'll just let you die in peace, better to have a soul that's less violent."

"Coward," I cried after him but he vanished before my hands reached his neck to strangle him.

At first I stood there, enraged by his absence, then I started to feel weak again. All my stamina faded as a breeze pushed past me, leaving with a feeling of total resignation. I swayed a little trying to move forward, to press through the barren air, but instead, it crushed me.

The moons went on shining in their eternal state. The stars began bleeding with light. My body felt too heavy for my legs, and then I knew it was true -- I was dying. The pearl of the earth was begging me to surrender to it. And gladly, I did.

It took a moment of infinity to reach the ground, feeling the impact of my body against it, how distant it seemed. I began shivering began, so I curled up again and waited to die. I suppose I was happy that it was going to end, but the image of Hitomi and Merle stuck with me, how much I owed them, but never getting the chance to show what they both meant to me. Merle for never abandoning me, because no matter how much I couldn't give her the love she wanted, she always stayed by my side no matter what the circumstance. Hitomi for loving me... because I heard her words, felt her kiss and wished I had been there to kiss her back, wherever she was.

They dimmed into my memory. They were a vanishing dream of goodness.

"Good-bye," I whispered to the ground, closing my eyes for one final time. I didn't lead the life I wanted, but at least I knew Hitomi and Merle loved me.

And I loved them back... but I wish, with all my heart, that I had done more--

[But you never will, will you?]

* *

Cruel way to end this chapter, huh? It's my style, I guess. (Phantom Angel... please don't slap me.)