---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: Into the Abyss
Summary: Hitomi comes back home to Earth a little too late...
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne. So no suing please! No infringement intended! Just borrowing the lovely characters of Escaflowne. This story, however, is mine. Oh and the short sayings. :) As for the songs, they are owned by their respective singers.
Etcetera: Thank you SO MUCH for the reviews!!!
Important Note: THINGS INSIDE [ ] are THOUGHTS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 5:
Darkness calls,
And I come.
Never mind that
He once held my death.
He is my refuge now.
- by SabrinaYutsuki(author of this fic)
Hitomi felt the hot, blue light penetrating her skin. It was an unusual sensation - painful yet comforting, like visions of a mother embracing an infant close to her heart as she gave her last breath on earth. The last time she had gone to Gaea, she recalled a gentler and cooler light taking her away.
She dismissed her ramblings and shut her eyes. Soon, the searing sensation was gone, and all that was left was a dull numbness in Hitomi's pale skin. She felt the ground beneath her, hard and cold and willed her eyes to open.
Green irises absorbed the atmosphere of Gaea.
She was finally back.
But was she really?
She looked around her and saw only the cold, dull grey ground beneath her feet, and the ominous dark clouds hanging above her. The bustling city of Asturia was nowhere in sight, nor were the lush forests of Fanelia anywhere near. The ground was not honored by the temples of Freid, and even the cold industrial city of Zaibach could have given her more hope than what she was seeing at the moment -- Nothing.
It was all black, grey, and dirty white and cold cemented ground with a lonely frail tree in between, years past its prime, leaves long gone and branches hanging loosely, as though they were anticipating their descent. And she, like a chameleon, blended into the background, her clothes dull, her face ashen with grief, skin pallid, her emerald irises the only color this world seemed to have...
Fear pounded against Hitomi's chest. If she was not in Gaea or Earth, where was she?
And more importantly --
Was anybody else there at all?
Her question was soon answered by a light nudge at her shoulders. A man had brushed past her gently, with his head bowed down in sullenness. One by one, dark figures appeared around her vicinity, first translucent then slowly, opaque.
And the familiarity of it all struck her hard.
She had been here before. To look for Van...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was the land of the unrest - a place where neither the dead nor the living roamed. Where souls who refused to leave the earth and gain eternal sleep roamed around, listlessly trying to remember why they were there... but to no avail. It was a place... where she belonged?
Hitomi shook her head and massaged her temples. Why was she here? Had she died? Her mind was bombarded with a flurry of thoughts and the emerald-eyed girl tried desperately to recall why she was here, and what she was supposed to do.
Suddenly, an image of a burnt carcass flickered in her consciousness.
That's right. She was supposed to go to Gaea to find answers for her mother's brutal death. Why had the light brought her here instead of Gaea? What was fate trying to do now? The questions were many, and the answers were nowhere to be found, probably floating in a void where she can not find them.
Tears started to well in her eyes again. The string of misfortunes had done nothing to harden her heart. In reality, she was still a vulnerable girl in a big, painful world. She knelt down and felt her whole body shake as the tears now fell once again.
She had caused her parents' death and was not being given the chance to atone for it. And she will probably be stuck in this limbo for the rest of her life. Throughout the grave-like land, Hitomi's sobs echoed through the space. And while her lamentation dragged on, and her eyes grew red and swollen, the wind howled as though it was crying with her, probably because it, too, wished to travel through greener pastures and colorful skies.
Unexpectedly, the monotonic weeping was punctured by a sharp cackle.
A cackle rich with malice...
Her blubbering stopped and she turned around wide-eyed, green orbs meeting with red.
[It can't be...]
In front of her was a man with messy silver hair, slightly longer than before, and eyes red as blood, as though they have absorbed all the bloodshed the man's pale hands had inflicted in the past.
"So bitch, we meet again."
"Di... Dilandau..."
Pale hands grabbed Hitomi's equally pale neck as he forced Hitomi to stand up from her position, while squeezing the little life Hitomi had left in her. Her face was now growing sallower from the lack of oxygen, her knees growing weak.
Despite the fatigue and the cramps that had a hold on her body, she slowly grabbed Dilandau's thin arms and tried to pry them off her. But it could not be done. He was being controlled by a long hunger... A hunger to kill. And it was making him stronger than he usually was.
She muttered a deep apology to her parents once again... And to her brother who will suddenly realize he has become an orphan, and closed her eyes in peaceful release.
It was then when Dilandau's senses came to him. He was no longer seeing the bitch from the Mystic Moon - the self-assured fighter... He was seeing a broken child... A child who was alone.
Alone...
Alone...
Alone...
Like he was...
Like he still is.
Voices started to call him and he abruptly let go of his hold on Hitomi as he placed his hands on his head, scraping his scalp in pain. His face first of desperation.
"I'm alone... So alone..."
Then of anger.
"NO DAMN IT NO!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
The emerald-eyed girl's first instinct was to run away.
But running away suddenly seemed like the worst thing to do.
She slowly approached him.
He needed help. And who better to help him than someone just like him?
The red-eyed albino looked so vulnerable in his current state, like he was a lost child...
No. Worse than that.
He was a lost man with no future to hold on to.
He was broken.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The emerald-eyed girl, with her pale, scarred arm, slowly reached out to his silver threads, shivering in fear, as though she was going to touch a ravenous beast. He might have seemed defenseless at the moment, but she knew him better. After all, she had been a witness to the insanity he was inclined to -- all those times he had almost killed himself just so he could suck out the life of Van and her... the bitch from the Mystic moon...
A bitch. It was such an insult, but the word no longer pierced her pride that much. Her pride had long bowed down to her inner belief that it was true. She was, in fact, a bitch. What else do you call a girl who has forsaken her family?
She set her self-loathing aside for another day. She had thousands of other days to do that, knowing that destiny did not want her to take the easy way out of her misery. Today, she would find out the answers she sought for. And she would finally find some solace, if only a little, in the fact that she had not abandoned those she loved.
How she would do that, she didn't know... But somehow, she knew the answers rested in this man who had found her and had inadvertently given her a glint of hope.
Finally, her cold hands felt his locks... They were unusually soft under her slightly calloused fingers. Seeing that the man made no gesture of disapproval, Hitomi moved her hands to his wobbly shoulders, and gave him a squeeze. The soldier's eyes widened in shock at the contact, feeling an aota of warmth lingering where her hand was. It had been a long time since he had been touched... A time before the bloodlust and the hatred. A time of cool breezes, rustling leaves, and majestic trees.
A time when he was...
His thoughts were held back abruptly like a dam does to a raging river. Pain seared his head and filled him with rage... Rage... Yes. That was all he lived for... Rage and hate and war... He turned around fiercely and grabbed a hold of Hitomi's neck again. This time, however, Hitomi closed her eyes with no intentions of struggling.
Seeing this, Dilandau got even angrier, and releasing his hold, spat out in disgust... "Why are you here bitch? And why didn't you just run away?"
Hitomi took a deep breath. It felt like Dilandau's cold, clammy hands were still squeezing her slender neck. Dismissing the uncomfortable sensation, she spoke calmly and truthfully...
"I don't know."
"You lie, BITCH. Tell me why you're here before I start ripping you in shreds!"
"I don't know."
Was that all she could say? She felt so dumb... So lost for words. But it was the truth. She didn't know. She used to be so sure of herself but her life suddenly experienced a metanoia* and suddenly, everything was so intermittent and unpredictable...
"Bitch! Don't give me that bullshit!"
The harsh words did not cause the girl to flinch anymore. Instead, she answered softly. "Why are you here anyway?"
And the other was suddenly lost for words.
Where was he anyway? Why did the question sound so profound and ridiculous at the same time? As though the answer for it was both obvious and obscure. The bottom line was that he didn't know either.
But his pride did not permit him to admit it.
"I chose to be here."
"You chose to be here? You chose to die...?"
Dilandau choked upon hearing those words and gulped... Chose to die? What the hell was this girl saying? Was it another of her cryptic Mystic Moon mumbo jumbo? Sweat started to form at the back of his silver mane, sending cold shivers down his lean body. He suddenly became very afraid. After all, the girl might have said a lot of rubbish but they were usually accurate rubbish. He was suddenly filled with so many questions... Questions that seemed to have hibernated somewhere deep in the dark recesses of his mind that he had completely forgotten them. And now he wondered how long he had spent in this place and how those questions were so easily forgotten.
It was a painful thought.
But he needed to know why he was here.
And he needed *her* to tell it to him.
[I'll ask her THEN I'll kill her] Dilandau thought and it caused him to inwardly smirk.
"Okay bitch. You win. I don't know a single thing you're talking about. Tell me what you know."
And his red eyes gleamed in anticipation.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"All the bridges in the world
won't save you
If there is no other side
to cross to"
~ world upon your shoulders by Silverchair
===============================================================================================================
*metanoia - a complete change
a/n: visit Silverchair's webpage : www.chairpage.com and buy their new album, Diorama! It rocks! hope you enjoyed the chapter! Reviews are very welcome! :D
ayanami yuy: thanks for the review! :D hehe... ill be pestering you again the next chapter i make...
saotoshi: says dramatically, teary-eyed you love me, you really love me... ahem... but enough of the drama... hehe... thank you so much for the review and for reading this fic as well as unexpected and i hope this chapter was just as great ... :)
niffer: thanks! yeah i know it's pretty sad what hitomi's going through but don't worry... there's a light at the end of every tunnel... :p forgive the cliche line... hehe
honeypot: here it is! sorry it took so long and i hope u enjoy it as much! thanks for the review! :D
===============================================================================================================
Title: Into the Abyss
Summary: Hitomi comes back home to Earth a little too late...
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne. So no suing please! No infringement intended! Just borrowing the lovely characters of Escaflowne. This story, however, is mine. Oh and the short sayings. :) As for the songs, they are owned by their respective singers.
Etcetera: Thank you SO MUCH for the reviews!!!
Important Note: THINGS INSIDE [ ] are THOUGHTS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 5:
Darkness calls,
And I come.
Never mind that
He once held my death.
He is my refuge now.
- by SabrinaYutsuki(author of this fic)
Hitomi felt the hot, blue light penetrating her skin. It was an unusual sensation - painful yet comforting, like visions of a mother embracing an infant close to her heart as she gave her last breath on earth. The last time she had gone to Gaea, she recalled a gentler and cooler light taking her away.
She dismissed her ramblings and shut her eyes. Soon, the searing sensation was gone, and all that was left was a dull numbness in Hitomi's pale skin. She felt the ground beneath her, hard and cold and willed her eyes to open.
Green irises absorbed the atmosphere of Gaea.
She was finally back.
But was she really?
She looked around her and saw only the cold, dull grey ground beneath her feet, and the ominous dark clouds hanging above her. The bustling city of Asturia was nowhere in sight, nor were the lush forests of Fanelia anywhere near. The ground was not honored by the temples of Freid, and even the cold industrial city of Zaibach could have given her more hope than what she was seeing at the moment -- Nothing.
It was all black, grey, and dirty white and cold cemented ground with a lonely frail tree in between, years past its prime, leaves long gone and branches hanging loosely, as though they were anticipating their descent. And she, like a chameleon, blended into the background, her clothes dull, her face ashen with grief, skin pallid, her emerald irises the only color this world seemed to have...
Fear pounded against Hitomi's chest. If she was not in Gaea or Earth, where was she?
And more importantly --
Was anybody else there at all?
Her question was soon answered by a light nudge at her shoulders. A man had brushed past her gently, with his head bowed down in sullenness. One by one, dark figures appeared around her vicinity, first translucent then slowly, opaque.
And the familiarity of it all struck her hard.
She had been here before. To look for Van...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was the land of the unrest - a place where neither the dead nor the living roamed. Where souls who refused to leave the earth and gain eternal sleep roamed around, listlessly trying to remember why they were there... but to no avail. It was a place... where she belonged?
Hitomi shook her head and massaged her temples. Why was she here? Had she died? Her mind was bombarded with a flurry of thoughts and the emerald-eyed girl tried desperately to recall why she was here, and what she was supposed to do.
Suddenly, an image of a burnt carcass flickered in her consciousness.
That's right. She was supposed to go to Gaea to find answers for her mother's brutal death. Why had the light brought her here instead of Gaea? What was fate trying to do now? The questions were many, and the answers were nowhere to be found, probably floating in a void where she can not find them.
Tears started to well in her eyes again. The string of misfortunes had done nothing to harden her heart. In reality, she was still a vulnerable girl in a big, painful world. She knelt down and felt her whole body shake as the tears now fell once again.
She had caused her parents' death and was not being given the chance to atone for it. And she will probably be stuck in this limbo for the rest of her life. Throughout the grave-like land, Hitomi's sobs echoed through the space. And while her lamentation dragged on, and her eyes grew red and swollen, the wind howled as though it was crying with her, probably because it, too, wished to travel through greener pastures and colorful skies.
Unexpectedly, the monotonic weeping was punctured by a sharp cackle.
A cackle rich with malice...
Her blubbering stopped and she turned around wide-eyed, green orbs meeting with red.
[It can't be...]
In front of her was a man with messy silver hair, slightly longer than before, and eyes red as blood, as though they have absorbed all the bloodshed the man's pale hands had inflicted in the past.
"So bitch, we meet again."
"Di... Dilandau..."
Pale hands grabbed Hitomi's equally pale neck as he forced Hitomi to stand up from her position, while squeezing the little life Hitomi had left in her. Her face was now growing sallower from the lack of oxygen, her knees growing weak.
Despite the fatigue and the cramps that had a hold on her body, she slowly grabbed Dilandau's thin arms and tried to pry them off her. But it could not be done. He was being controlled by a long hunger... A hunger to kill. And it was making him stronger than he usually was.
She muttered a deep apology to her parents once again... And to her brother who will suddenly realize he has become an orphan, and closed her eyes in peaceful release.
It was then when Dilandau's senses came to him. He was no longer seeing the bitch from the Mystic Moon - the self-assured fighter... He was seeing a broken child... A child who was alone.
Alone...
Alone...
Alone...
Like he was...
Like he still is.
Voices started to call him and he abruptly let go of his hold on Hitomi as he placed his hands on his head, scraping his scalp in pain. His face first of desperation.
"I'm alone... So alone..."
Then of anger.
"NO DAMN IT NO!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
The emerald-eyed girl's first instinct was to run away.
But running away suddenly seemed like the worst thing to do.
She slowly approached him.
He needed help. And who better to help him than someone just like him?
The red-eyed albino looked so vulnerable in his current state, like he was a lost child...
No. Worse than that.
He was a lost man with no future to hold on to.
He was broken.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The emerald-eyed girl, with her pale, scarred arm, slowly reached out to his silver threads, shivering in fear, as though she was going to touch a ravenous beast. He might have seemed defenseless at the moment, but she knew him better. After all, she had been a witness to the insanity he was inclined to -- all those times he had almost killed himself just so he could suck out the life of Van and her... the bitch from the Mystic moon...
A bitch. It was such an insult, but the word no longer pierced her pride that much. Her pride had long bowed down to her inner belief that it was true. She was, in fact, a bitch. What else do you call a girl who has forsaken her family?
She set her self-loathing aside for another day. She had thousands of other days to do that, knowing that destiny did not want her to take the easy way out of her misery. Today, she would find out the answers she sought for. And she would finally find some solace, if only a little, in the fact that she had not abandoned those she loved.
How she would do that, she didn't know... But somehow, she knew the answers rested in this man who had found her and had inadvertently given her a glint of hope.
Finally, her cold hands felt his locks... They were unusually soft under her slightly calloused fingers. Seeing that the man made no gesture of disapproval, Hitomi moved her hands to his wobbly shoulders, and gave him a squeeze. The soldier's eyes widened in shock at the contact, feeling an aota of warmth lingering where her hand was. It had been a long time since he had been touched... A time before the bloodlust and the hatred. A time of cool breezes, rustling leaves, and majestic trees.
A time when he was...
His thoughts were held back abruptly like a dam does to a raging river. Pain seared his head and filled him with rage... Rage... Yes. That was all he lived for... Rage and hate and war... He turned around fiercely and grabbed a hold of Hitomi's neck again. This time, however, Hitomi closed her eyes with no intentions of struggling.
Seeing this, Dilandau got even angrier, and releasing his hold, spat out in disgust... "Why are you here bitch? And why didn't you just run away?"
Hitomi took a deep breath. It felt like Dilandau's cold, clammy hands were still squeezing her slender neck. Dismissing the uncomfortable sensation, she spoke calmly and truthfully...
"I don't know."
"You lie, BITCH. Tell me why you're here before I start ripping you in shreds!"
"I don't know."
Was that all she could say? She felt so dumb... So lost for words. But it was the truth. She didn't know. She used to be so sure of herself but her life suddenly experienced a metanoia* and suddenly, everything was so intermittent and unpredictable...
"Bitch! Don't give me that bullshit!"
The harsh words did not cause the girl to flinch anymore. Instead, she answered softly. "Why are you here anyway?"
And the other was suddenly lost for words.
Where was he anyway? Why did the question sound so profound and ridiculous at the same time? As though the answer for it was both obvious and obscure. The bottom line was that he didn't know either.
But his pride did not permit him to admit it.
"I chose to be here."
"You chose to be here? You chose to die...?"
Dilandau choked upon hearing those words and gulped... Chose to die? What the hell was this girl saying? Was it another of her cryptic Mystic Moon mumbo jumbo? Sweat started to form at the back of his silver mane, sending cold shivers down his lean body. He suddenly became very afraid. After all, the girl might have said a lot of rubbish but they were usually accurate rubbish. He was suddenly filled with so many questions... Questions that seemed to have hibernated somewhere deep in the dark recesses of his mind that he had completely forgotten them. And now he wondered how long he had spent in this place and how those questions were so easily forgotten.
It was a painful thought.
But he needed to know why he was here.
And he needed *her* to tell it to him.
[I'll ask her THEN I'll kill her] Dilandau thought and it caused him to inwardly smirk.
"Okay bitch. You win. I don't know a single thing you're talking about. Tell me what you know."
And his red eyes gleamed in anticipation.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"All the bridges in the world
won't save you
If there is no other side
to cross to"
~ world upon your shoulders by Silverchair
===============================================================================================================
*metanoia - a complete change
a/n: visit Silverchair's webpage : www.chairpage.com and buy their new album, Diorama! It rocks! hope you enjoyed the chapter! Reviews are very welcome! :D
ayanami yuy: thanks for the review! :D hehe... ill be pestering you again the next chapter i make...
saotoshi: says dramatically, teary-eyed you love me, you really love me... ahem... but enough of the drama... hehe... thank you so much for the review and for reading this fic as well as unexpected and i hope this chapter was just as great ... :)
niffer: thanks! yeah i know it's pretty sad what hitomi's going through but don't worry... there's a light at the end of every tunnel... :p forgive the cliche line... hehe
honeypot: here it is! sorry it took so long and i hope u enjoy it as much! thanks for the review! :D
===============================================================================================================