I'm going to tell you about my father now. I knew him, I knew him very well. Unlike most of my kind, drifters, I was well aware of my past. We lived on what everyone had called 'the last farm'. Beyond our land was the wild. It was a hard and rocky area that my dad never successfully tilled. Before I ran away, when I was still scared of him, I blamed the way he was cause of the land. It would make anyone short tempered, I'm sure of that much. But I never saw him work on it nearly as much as I saw him telling me to. And heaven help me if he ever caught me doing something wrong, even if I would never find out what wrong it was that I'd done. He didn't drink, I think more because he couldn't afford to than anything else, and that kind of exposed him. There were no excuses, he was just a mean and ugly man. Eventually I ran away when I was about six or seven. It was almost an unconscious act, fueled the basic instinct to survive because I most assuredly would die there if I didn't leave. After that, I was free from him, and now I was free to hate him. That hate fueled most of my young life. In the end, it would be my father who saved me from becoming what he was.
I woke up in the bathroom groggy, weak, and scared. How long had I been out? Didn't matter, it was a minute if it was a year. I was still leaning against the bathroom door and she was still on the other side. I couldn't hear any sign of her presence, but that mattered squat. I knew.
I knew I was going to have to get up, clean myself off, unlock the door, open it and see her standing before me. I'd have to open my mouth and sounds would have to come out that would be just in the proper order and tone to get that horribly dismayed and worried look to leave her face. It seemed a very daunting task in my condition.
Hah! As if my condition made a difference.
I sat there awake for a long time, waiting for the moment to pass. When it did not, I got up, and went to the sink to wash my mouth and chin of the remnants of regurgitation. It turned on the faucet.
"Locke!" Celes cried out with surprise. It sounded like she had just woken up from a bad dream.
The sound of rushing water gave me away. I ignored her and continued to wash myself. What could I say? After I was finished I turned to the door and stared at it.
"Locke? Locke, are you okay?" She was pretending to sound calm, but she wasn't doing a good job of it. Her voice wavered and I could almost hear the screaming panic that was being suppressed. "Locke, say something."
I needed to say something fast.
"Locke?" I was suddenly aware her voice sounded hoarse. Had she been screaming already?
I opened my mouth.
"Locke please. Speak to me." Her voice became a whisper-like wheez. No, she wasn't going to panic, she was going to cry.
My mouth stood open. I didn't say anything.
"Locke why…why won't you talk to me?" She was breaking down. I was going to lose her.
I grabbed the knob and opened the door before I was even aware of what I was doing. There she was, but for that first instant I wasn't aware of her. I kinda just saw through her. Then there she was. She still looked like she did before I conked out, but I wouldn't notice that till later. All I saw then was her face, and then I remembered what I needed to tell her and why. That made things a whole lot easier cause now I knew what to do. I walked up to her and held her tight and she held me tighter.
I didn't want to let go, but I knew I had to. I gently pulled her away and looked into her eyes.
"I made a promise to you."
She nodded her head. We walked hand in hand to the bed and sat down next to each other. I didn't know how to start, so I just started.
"I think I know now what is happening to me."
"How?" She inquired. It startled me, I didn't expect her to say anything while I tried to do this. I don't know why.
"I had another episode…"
"When?"
"Huh?" She sounded really intense and I didn't know why. What did it matter?
"When did it happen?"
"Uh…it happened…" I found myself having difficulty switching gears back to that, still puzzled as I was as to why she cared. I had it when we… The realization hit me and I hoped it didn't show.
"Locke, when did it happen? Tell me."
"It happened…" I understood why it mattered to her. But what would I say, should I say, could I say? Our most intimate of moments and I was in another world and she didn't know. What did it mean to her?
"Locke!"
"After we…I ran to the bathroom because it was happening to me and I knew. I tried to fight it and I thought I was winning. I was talking to you, but I couldn't really hear you then it took over." I said it all almost in one breath. I was actually surprised that I was able to think it all up right there on the spot.
"Oh…" Celes looked down, with a thoughtful look on her face. I was gripped in fear and anticipation. Please let her believe me. "Okay." She said no more and that just unnerved me more.
"This time, it was different. I think I saw a vision." I said quickly. I didn't want to give her time to think anymore about that, it wasn't what this was about.
"What happened?" She sounded like she didn't know what else to say.
I took a deep breath and told her what happened. As I spoke, I felt the slow fear boiling up, very slow and quiet. It was like the memory of the fear I'd felt when the attack hit. Unconsciously I grabbed Celes' hand and held it and that slowed it down. When I was done, the fear was gone. I looked down at my feet, having no idea now what to do.
"Who was he?"
I looked up at Celes, surprised and curious. "Didn't I say?"
"No." she replied and her expression seemed to mirror my feelings. "In fact, I thought it was odd. You talked like you knew him, but you never mentioned a name."
"I didn't know his name." I paused, considering that. "I'd always just called him dad." I didn't really think much of what I'd said, so distracted as I was by the fact that I didn't know my own father's name, and I think it was a long time before I was aware of the long silence. When I did, I looked to Celes. She looked back, her eyes wide with disbelief or shock, I really couldn't tell.
"He…was your father."
"Yeah." I replied nonchalantly, but inside my stomach was turning. There was one more thing I needed to do. "I guess I never talked about him huh? Not much reason to, he was an ugly sonnafabitch."
"No." Celes replied quietly. "No you haven't…"
"Celes…" I stalled there for a moment, suddenly aware for the first time truly what I was about to do. This was something very big to me and she was never a part of it until now. I was about to make her a part of it. "Celes, I…" I took a deep breath. This was so big. I didn't know where to begin, or rather I didn't know where the beginning was. I closed my eyes.
"I was fifteen, and after wandering the wilds as a bandit my travels eventually brought me back to the northlands and to Kohilingen. That didn't mean anything to me, it wasn't a homecoming. I'd never been to the town in my entire life and it was just another place to steal peoples' money. It was at the pub, overhearing conversation between two old men I'd never known that I found out I used to live around there. I knew because they mentioned my father's farm. He was still alive and more than that, had made a moderate success of the place. That is to say, he could live off of it…barely. I left the pub before hearing anymore from them and left town in search of the farm. In all my year, the only time I'd ever been off the farm was the day I ran away and that was almost a decade ago, yet I knew exactly how to get there."
I looked at Celes and she had this strange smile, she obviously had the wrong idea about what was going to happen. I turned my head. I didn't want to see her expression when I was finished. "I found it and it looked completely different. It was smaller for one, but also it was greener. The rocks had all but disappeared and the fields were actually planted with sprouts of vegetation in rows everywhere. The house was the same however. Being held up seemingly on my dad's will alone. But he wasn't alone anymore. I heard dogs barking and soon enough, saw them charge at me, barking wildly. I brought out my dagger and braced myself, but they were too quick. They knocked me to the ground and began to lick my face. I got them off me and got up, but they still jumped up and down, tails wagging and tongues flapping." Celes gave a little giggle and my stomach twisted something awful. "I stared down at them for a long while and noticed my knife was still in my hands." Celes made a sound, like a gasp that had been slowed down. Just a really slow intake of air. I didn't dare to look at her.
"I killed the first one quickly so that it only let out a small yelp before it was gone. When I turned around to the other, it was just sitting there wagging its tail. I hesitated for a moment before killing it. I did it so quickly, it didn't even have time to make a sound. As it fell to the ground, I heard a voice and looked up to see my father running towards me. I got up and took out a small throwing knife I had in my boot and threw it at him. It hit his shoulders and he fell on his back with a cry. He was maybe twenty yards away as I ran towards him. He had already taken out the knife from his shoulder and was trying to crawl away from me on his back by the time I was on top of him. I pushed away his good arm and grabbed what little hair he had left and yanked it back so that his neck would be fully exposed. I brought my dagger across his neck and slit his throat. I got up and walked away. I went to a stream a few miles away, washed myself and my clothes and then went back to town. I left the next day and didn't come back till a year and a half later."
I said no more and stared down at the floor. I didn't look to Celes, but now I didn't care. There was a cold detachment that I began feeling as I told her my story. Now that it was done, I just didn't care about anything.
"Did…did you…feel anything?" Celes sounded odd, but I couldn't think of why. I didn't try to.
"No."
"But…why?" She was crying. I didn't care.
"He did something."
"What?"
"I don't know."
"Locke…why? Why didn't you feel anything?"
That broke the spell. I looked at her and she stared at me with tears in her eyes. But they were determined eyes. She wanted to know. She knew. She understood. She asked the question that deep down I'd been wanting to ask myself ever since then, but was too afraid to. Now I had to answer it, for her. Maybe something inside me knew it'd be easier that way. It still wasn't easy though, and there was a long pause before I spoke.
"I hated him. I mean I really hated him, beyond anything you could imagine. I could feel it always, just under the surface and it was powerful. It was so strong, it could take my mind away from me with such ease, yet it always stayed there, under the surface. I held it back, I don't know how really, but only barely. I vented it out in other ways, desperate to keep it down. I became one of those violent youths that hang out in back alleys, waiting for a victim to show my anger. Then I go to that inn and hear about my dad and I could feel it coming, that old hatred racing toward my mind. Then it just disappears.
I think…I think it was something like shock. My mind didn't couldn't stop the hatred, so it just shut down. It just…I just didn't care. I couldn't care. If I felt, then all I would feel would be that mind taking hate. So I didn't feel anything.
My mind began to work like a machine, as a kind of cold calculation of events ran through my head. They were cold approximation of future events. Facts with no emotion attached. My mind would start up again and the hate would drive me insane. I would begin to kill and torture anything I could grasp right then and there till I was stopped, restrained and killed. There was no other path for me unless I got rid of that hatred before my mind started again. There was only one way to satisfy it."
I stopped and waited. I didn't think it was a very good explanation and I felt embarrassed and disappointed that something this important hadn't been handled better by me. Yet the feelings seemed distant…unimportant. Something else occurred which I needed to focus on. I knew that somehow, but I couldn't say what it was.
"But, you killed…you…"
Celes' voice shocked me to a state of utter bewilderment. The voice was hers, but I'd never heard it before. It was quiet and hushed and pitched in an odd way. She sounded somehow very young, like a child. She was scared of me. I looked up at her and saw her face, her body, her posture…
No, she was utterly terrified of me.
A kind of slow, sludge like feeling of despair came over me. It was slow and moved with the same speed as the realization. It was and utter loss of hope, reaching a point of no return on a trip to hell. Something from her had been taken from me then that I would never, ever get back. She'd remember tonight, remember the fear, for the rest of her life and nothing I could do would ever change that.
"I…please…I wasn't in control anymore…" I felt my eyes burn with tears and my throat felt gummy and hard. "I just rushed through before it was too late. I didn't want to lose myself to that thing inside me. I had to, I had to. All because of that hatred."
I sobbed openly now. I couldn't think of anything to say anymore. I couldn't think. All I could do then was feel and it was only sorrow. It had happened. What I had feared the most had finally happened.
I had lost Celes.