Within
A fanfic by Miss Matched and Baniigaaru
AKA: Whatever we decide to change our name to.
Disclamer: It's called FANfiction for a reason, folks. We only own this twisted little plot.
Such an odd experience greeted him when he closed his eyes. A cacophony of sound, light and movement, as if he were moving into a different plane of existence entirely. He felt a comforting warmth cover his whole body, like a gentle embrace, and he felt as if some sort of change had swept over him. This feeling subsided moments later, and he found himself on the same stone he had been on before. The Interpreter woman was still sitting, back to him, though now she sat with her legs crossed in front of her instead of to the side.
"I thought you said proof would come in the morning!" Arnold exclaimed, still frightened by his whole encounter with Susie. The Interpreter laughed.
"I'm not one to assume you'd be so easily persuaded..."
"But...how..?" Arnold asked, kneeling next to the girl, trying to get a glimpse of her face.
She shied away, hair covering her face. "Don't. I-I don't want you to see my face.."
Arnold looked confused then sighed, subjecting to the girl's wishes. He looked to the floor. "Why is this happening to me?"
"Destiny." She whispered simply, her fingers sliding across a smooth edge of her cream frock, back and forth, back and forth across the pale pink trim.
"But what if I don't want to go along with Destiny?" He said. "What if I want to be rid of this....gift..." He hesitated around that word.
"One has no control over destiny, dear Arnold." She explained, "Destiny owns you, your own life isn't your own."
Arnold didn't answer. The girl did have a point. "I don't care! I never asked for it though! Can't Destiny pick on someone else!?"
"Before you took your first breath, this gift was placed in you. I hardly can call it 'picking on you'"
Another intelligent point. Arnold got frustrated. So this is how it felt to be on the other side of his speeches.
Arnold took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "You have know idea what this is like! I-I don't want to see the pain and the hurt that like that of Mrs. Kokoshka. Maybe things like that are hidden for a reason."
"Maybe they aren't." The girl said to him. "Maybe that's why you have the Gift. Don't you want to help people deeper than what you do?"
Arnold looked down at his hands, and fidgeted a bit. She had hit a nerve, she could tell. The Interpreter continued.
"When you look past the smile into the inner turmoil, maybe you can find the root of the problem. Maybe you can make someone genuine. Help them find their voice or their place, or heal a broken heart." This last part was spoken a bit forlornly.
He brought his head up. "Are...are you okay?"
She turned her body, though her face was still away from him. She reached out, and gently touched his face. He saw open wounds aside scars and bruises on her arms, and some broken blisters on her fingers. "Hold my hand." She whispered, and he did. What he saw was not what he felt, what he felt was a flawless, smooth limb.
"Sometimes, matters of the heart are the most brutal." She explained, her voice still an ever soft whisper.
"You really think," Arnold said, voice halting, "That I can help others with this..."
"Curse? Gift?" The girl said, smiling from under her hair. Arnold stood still. "Call it what you will, Arnold. It is all the same underneath." She laughed shortly, "And yes, Arnold, with this... curse, as you so kindly put it, you will help more people than what you thought could be possible. More than you could dream..." Her posture improved after that, and she cleared her throat. "Now, my job begins. Tell me what you saw in place of Susie."
Arnold looked down, it was too sad to put into words. It was like he didn't even know this woman that he'd known and looked up to for most of his life.
"I see.."
He looked up. "what??"
The girl smiled. "Your thoughts. You project them loudly."
"...What does that mean?"
"It means you have very strong psychic energy. Good in a Revealer. Be glad. Truth be told, you could develop that talent to help you."
He shook his head. Everything seemed to be in such a world-wind, too much information at once. But at the forefront of his mind now was Susie. He cleared his throat, and kept steady eye contact with his hands clasped in his lap.
"What does it mean with..Susie..?"
"Tell me what you say, Revealer."
".." Arnold ignored what the girl called him, "She had pale skin. And-and white hair, with this scar on her chin, and these horrible bags under her eyes." He stopped to shudder from the memory. It was so bitter.
The girl nodded. "Sounds fairly depressing."
"Fairly?" He choked out. "I've never seen anything like it!"
The Interpreter was silent for a moment. "I sense from you that she's still relatively young... early thirties I'll assume. An idealist. She married at a young age when she fell in love for the first time, never really knowing how the man was like when the charm was gone and the honeymoon was over... Am I getting this right so far? I'm new at interpreting, I need to make sure we're on the same wavelength."
"....." He seemed speechless.
"How-how did you know all that?"
"Well I'm not sure if I got all the facts right. The charm could've stopped after the wedding for all I know." She sighed and looked at her rock.
"Like I said, I'm new at this as well. I just accepted the responsibility much easier than you."
Arnold looked up at her in a new light. She couldn't have been much older than him, if at all. She too, looked around thirteen. She was probably as scared as he was, not quite sure what she had gotten into. He shook his head, and his thoughts drifted back to Susie.
"Thoughts back to Susie." She said, her voice indicating a smile on her face. "Good." She paused, thinking again "I see the marriage withering, the beauty leaving because of a lack of communication. She had to grow up so soon, too soon, if you ask me. Suddenly she wasn't a girl anymore. She was a woman with a husband to support... she wants it to be an equal relationship, she wants it to be like how she always dreamed. Like I said, an idealist. You see the bags and white hair of premature age and worry, and you see the scars of a relationship gone bitter, like a bad medicine."
He was again speechless. "How..?" He couldn't believe it. If this was new to the job, how come he couldn't get used to the horror of what happened to Susie?
She shrugged. "I guess fluke."
"Now here's your part. I'm not too good at human relations, mind you, so you're on your own. How are you going to fix a broken life?"
Arnold looked at the floor... which was nothing. He looked up to the ceiling ...which was nothing as well. "Mrs. Kokoshka is having trouble with Mr. Kokoshka?.." He furrowed his eyebrows and smiled. The answer was so simple. He had did it before and could do it again.
Looking up, Arnold smiled for the first time that night. "I think I know what I should do!"
"That's great." The interpreter exclaimed. "And just in time too. It's 6:14 and 50 seconds on Monday morning. You're alarm will be going off any sec---"
*RING*
Arnold woke up with a start as his alarm rang. The covers were a mess, some draped down onto the floor. He looked down, he was still in his clothing from the day before. "Hey Arnold, hey Arnold, hey Arnold." The incessant alarm continued; Arnold tiredly slammed down his hand down on the miniature clock that looked like him.
He took a deep breath, and pressed a hand up to his head. He didn't feel himself, and for good reason. He was changing, and his outlook on the world was going to also. He looked up to his skylight, and an old familiar smile spread across his face. There was beauty in this world, he noted as he watched a vibrant sunrise, its reds and golds blending in with flecks of lavender and green. He climbed upwards, enjoying the cool feel of the metal bars against his palms. The window opened and he breathed in the dewy air. This was his place. The place he could relax and hide. Arnold sat down against the glass, smiling gently at the world's eyes. He spotted against the golden red of the sky a bright white. He squinted his eyes and realized it was the morning star twinkling at him.
"I guess it's too late to say 'star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,' huh?" The cawing of seagulls was in the distance. "I thought so." The star seemed to be telling him something with all it's twinkling. "But why did it have to be me? Out of everyone in the world.....me.."
The light seemed to flicker a bit slowly then, more of a wink, or perhaps a nod, then fade out of sight.
Arnold nodded to the silent answer. "I get it." He looked down through the window and saw the rumpled covers of his bed. "Susie must've brought me up." The sudden picture of the aged Susie, the one that seemed so angsty stuck in his mind.
He sighed and laid back, and breathed in the air again. Today the masks would be removed. Today..he looked up, was the dawning of his new life.
"It's gonna be one of those days.." Arnold mumbled under his breath as he opened the window and went down his ladder to get dressed for school.
________
The same sunrise shone through another window on the other side of town. Dark brown eyes observed the morning ritual, it was something he did every morning, and took it's beauty for granted sometimes. He slipped a dark brown sweater on as his eyes drifted lazily over the scene. Had it really been nine months this day? It boggled the mind, as it hadn't seemed so long. But it was, how could he forget the time and instant when he had discovered his destiny... that he was a Revealer?
He looked up sharply, there was a noise coming from behind him. Then nothing. Deciding to pretend that he hadn't heard it, he continued on with his morning activities. He walked over to his dresser, and picked up a brush. As he did so, he looked up into the mirror. He fingered a bruise on his cheek carefully, though he knew it wasn't truly there. Pondering it's meaning, he looked above himself in the mirror. Sharp, piercing green eyes met his own chocolate ones. He whirled around in surprise.
The room was no longer his own. It was a rich, luxurious room with thick maroon carpet that you could dig your toes into. Warm shades of brown accented the fine, cherry wood furniture. He realized he was no longer standing, but sitting in a wooden chair. The wild eyed woman stood in front of him, grinning.
"Hello, Nick." A cool voice from his Interpreter welcomed him. She slid over to the boy, circling him slightly with a smirk gracing her lips.
"..Tiana." He stated, surprised. "I was about to go to school. Why did you summon me?"
She pushed a few stray strands of thick, black hair behind an ear, then stood behind him. Her thin arms wrapped around his shoulders as she spoke to him. "Nicholas," She whispered, "I brought you here to prepare you, for this morn, a most daunting challange awaits you."
"What kind of challenge?" He smirked, already ready to face it head on.
"A new Revealer has been... well, revealed." She moved to a chair across from the boy. "He seems quite strong, though..." She pursed her lips, "Though I don't trust his heart!"
"I see." Nick replied, furrowing his eyebrows, "What do you see in his heart, my dear Interpreter?"
"....competition...evil..something that would corrupt your destiny as we know it." She adjusted her fine black lace frocks as she spoke. "And you, dear Revealer, are destined to shine, and overcome all adversity. This gift was given to you so you could conquer everything."
"Everything.." Nick echoed smiling at the carpet and then to the black ceiling. "Everything."