A solitary individual wandered in a strange, silent area. A vulnerable child in his early teens, he walked, searching for…..he didn't know.
He looked around in the darkness. "Hello? Anyone there?" he called. No answer. He shrugged and continued walking. An oddly unemotional response for a child terrified of the dark, but he was…numb, for lack of a better word. As if all emotion had been scooped out, leaving a hollow shell.
A sharp, crystalline noise sounded under his feet, cutting into his foot. He stopped and examined the glass shard. It was part of a mirror, remarkable only in that it was here, where-ever here was. He picked it up and put it is his pocket on a whim. He continued walking into the gloom. He saw a light, diffused with distance and headed toward it.
As he continued to walk, he kept stepping on shards of mirror. His feet were cut to ribbons. He was leaving a trail like a demented Hansel and Gretel, but he ignored the pain. Or couldn't feel it. He wasn't sure which. He knew on an intellectual level that he should be crying out with the pain, be unable to walk. Yet he felt nothing. Eventually he arrived at the light source, where he was greeted with a mirror frame. The glass was missing, with the exception of a shard about the size of his palm.
On an impulse he reached into his pocket and grasped the glass shard, slicing open his palm. He placed it next to the other shard, where it was cemented by his blood.
Long slender fingers smeared with blood….fingernails filled with gore…the smell of death overwhelming….
The boy gasped and fell to his knees. The images frightened him, though he didn't know why. Yet he felt compelled to find another shard of mirror, see what the glass would reveal. He had found what he was looking for, but what was it?
With these images, his nerves in his feet awoke, screaming their agony to his brain. He screamed too, the sound as lacerated as his feet. He fell onto his face and slipped from the world.
Unsusprisingly, the pain awoke him. Pupils dialated, he breathed in short gasps. He began to whimper in pain.
"How can you be my son? None of my blood was ever this weak!"
The boy's head spun around. "Who's there?" he cried.
"What? Don't remember me? You will soon. If you get enough shards that is. Although, I think it's more fun when I break them, don't you?"
Galvanised into action, the boy tore his shirt into strips and bound his feet with them. While this did nothing for the pain, it prevented more lacerations. He staggered throughout the darkness, collecting shards, cutting his fingers in his haste. The silence was only interrupted by a shattering of glass. After collecting as many shards as he could, he limped back to the mirror frame. He pulled the shards from his pocket and attached them to the mirror.
Playing with mum and dad….dad going away every year…..mum lying dead, I KILLED HER!!!…dad? Where are you dad?….running in snow……the graveyard….Death Emperor…..stealing pies….wrestling Sasha…..Clara, I KILLED HER TOO!….
The boy looked into the mirror which was incomplete. A fusion of Japanese and Russian heritage stared back at him, or at least as much as he could see. Long fingers reached out to the gaps in the glass, smearing them with his blood.
"My name is….." the boy paused, savoured the words then continued. "Yuri Hyuga! I have a name! I am real!"
"As real as I," replied a voice of a similar timbre. A figure of average height materialised, wearing the coat of a Japanese colonel, his features disguised by a fox mask. Yuri froze in horror, unable to run. The figure laughed and made one graceful gesture with one hand, petrifiying him. Literally. He then shook his head in disgust. "Well, aren't you a sorry end to the Hyuga line!" He gestured toward the mirror. "Like my handiwork? The sound of glass splintering, exquisite! Almost as exquisite as that young Soul Well. I did enjoy tormenting her, driving her to insanity. Did you wonder why your fusion ran? An insane Soul Well dies, torn apart by their captured spirits." Yuri gasped, the only action available to him.
"Shocked now? It gets worse. The souls do not escape from the Soul Well after death. Instead the Soul Well uses them as a magnet for other souls, pulling them from living bodies, which then explode. Not a nice death. The souls can never leave, can never plead their case at the Pearly Gates. In essence, they are damned. I'll be leaving now, so enjoy yourself! Just remember, your little friend will think of you as her murderer, so I would not recommend returning. It's your choice." Fox-Face, as Yuri christened him in his mind, threw a Soul Benediction on him, then dematerialised.
Yuri turned back to the mirror and placed his hand upon the glass. It slipped through. Startled, Yuri tried to pull it back, but was pulled into the mirror.
Here he was greeted by a stranger sight then a teleporting figure with a penchant for festival masks. The world seemed to be made of twisted glass pillars, seemingly melted by an extreme heat. The walls and floor were slick, as Yuri discovered when he slipped onto his butt. He picked himself up gingerly, then walked cautiously through the passageways created by the pillars. At the end of the corridors, he saw a wellspring of fluorescent water. Yuri reached into the wellspring, scooped some water into his cupped hands and drank. The world began to spin, and yet again Yuri fell on his face unconscious.
He opened his eyes to light. Real actual sunlight. Yuri would have cried if he wasn't so tired. He looked at his hands. No cuts. Yuri didn't comment. Would have taken too much effort. His head fell back down onto the ground.
I can sleep, just for a while, surely….NO! I can't just sleep here! I don't want to die just yet! Yuri dragged himself onto his hands and knees and crawled into the snow.
After about 10 minutes he stopped. He was unable to crawl any further and collapsed into the snow. Snowflakes fell onto his unfeeling form, melting on contact. Death Emperor made a desperate grasp for the wellspring of Yuri's power, but could not surface. Eventually he too stopped thinking.
Authors Note: I'm well aware that I can't leave Yuri in the snow, but how does he get out of this situation? Wait until next chapter and find out!(Evil Maniacal laugh, spoiled only by the wheeze and coughing fit, stupid 'flu!)The next chapter will be a little while, I'll probably post it on the 12th November. Sorry, but my finals are between now and there. After that…I've FINISHED!!!!!!!! No more school for this writer!!! 12 years of school completed!!! J
Oh yeah, thanks for the reviews, and if someone wants a job as beta reader, let me know!