Author's responses:
-To TRF: Thanks again for the kind comments, specifically, to the only reviewer for this chapter, Tanya-san. ^_^
-To DarkCatXX: Yes, it's kinda sad that you're the only reviewer (on FF.net), but at least someone reviewed at all. And that's all that matters. Thanks. ^_^
In any case, yes, it's a bit confusing (Especially the part about the girl in the river; I really don't know where that came from, but I guess I had to throw in a bit about a nightmare SOMEWHERE...), but hopefully, it'll clear up eventually. Er, hopefully. ^_^;
-To the rest of you: I'm surprised, FF.net. Not one of you cares to comment on how odd this all is, nor do any of you wish to make grammatical/storyline reviews or recommendations to a psychiatrist. And of course, no one's guessed the reason why I chose Meowth as the Pokémon Bill turned into. (Yes, there's a reason for that. Cyber cookies go out to whomever can guess what it is. ^_^) I could rant and rave about the originality of something like How Bizarre compared to the hybrid/new trainer fics (which there seem to be a lot of nowadays) and make myself look egotistical, but you'd be bored, and I really don't feel like lashing at the moment. -_-
In any case, here's a new chapter, and here's to hoping that I get SOMETHING in return for it...
Further note: The title came from "A City With No People," the framework story in the manga Chobits, by CLAMP. The idea for the construction of the city, however, came from "invisible ci7ies," a comic at clubph34r.com. I don't actually own either, and they belong to their respectful owners. ^_^;
---
Night Three: A City With No People
Bill sighed. Stopping for the night, as he finally found out right then, was utterly, utterly pointless. He had forgotten that he can't sleep. Not while trapped in his own dreams. After all, he was ALREADY asleep, wasn't he?
He stared up at the stars through the leaves of the great, umbrella-like tree he lay under. The branches spread out above him, shading both him and Morpheus like a giant parasol. He sighed and sat up before looking over one furry shoulder at his godly companion, who slept silently in the grass beside him. Bill never thought that Morpheus, being a god, needed sleep, but then again, it somehow made sense. After all, Morpheus received no mental rest from that dream world. Only Bill did, despite how ironic that fact might be.
"Ugh," Bill moaned as he brought a paw to his head.
He wished nothing more than to have a dreamless sleep, as he had always done up until then. He groaned again as he realized that this wish wouldn't come soon too near in the future.
With another sigh, Bill pushed himself off the ground, onto his hind legs. He walked a little further away until he was out from under the umbrella tree. He glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping Morpheus, wondering if it was indeed a good idea to leave him there. Bill shook his head and turned forward once more, walking aimlessly through his dream world. He only hoped he would be able to find his way back.
He eventually found himself walking north, towards a grassy ledge overlooking a plain of flowers. (Or were those Bellossom?) He glanced over the edge, into what seemed like a grassy eternity miles below. Carefully, he sat himself down on the edge of the earth, gazing with a forlorn look out into nothingness. As the "sun" rose (most unusual, considering he was still facing north), he saw something spread out over the horizon.
"Hmm?"
He leaned forward and shaded his eyes with a paw. He could have sworn he could see a dark-colored city rising up, as if attached to the sun itself.
"What do you see, Bill?" a voice suddenly asked him.
A startled gasp sprang from his throat, and Bill found himself tumbling off the ledge, landing flat on his back on the grass just feet below. He sat up and held his head with a paw as Morpheus floated down to join him.
"I would appreciate it very much if you never did that again," Bill said to Morpheus.
The god chuckled.
"And to answer your question..." Bill stood up and turned towards the north, leading the way towards the city. "I saw something this way. I'm positive it's a city, but in this world... Who knows?"
Morpheus only smiled like the Cheshire Cat, though Bill didn't see this. Instead, the young researcher ambled on, towards the city without much thought. He listened to nothing; the entire world seemed to have a habit of falling silent at the strangest times. Yet, this didn't bother him. It allowed him to have a clear mind to think. Think about what, exactly? Faded things. Things he could barely remember and things he was reminded of when he saw each object.
For example, the wooden doll from the circus had a youthful disposition. If this was true, then could it be that Bill had missed something in his childhood? Lost something that was supposed to mean something to him? He frowned at the thought, for he was unable to answer his own questions. And what was worse, when he thought he had the answer to one question, a thousand more inquiries popped into mind. It was endless, and it plagued his mind like nothing else.
All of a sudden, he felt pavement under his hind paws. He looked up to find himself at the edge of the bleak city that seemed to lack an end. The city had nothing in it but tall skyscrapers, each one made of glass, each one having silver cogs and gears turning just behind the glass. Bill walked through the desolate streets, looking about, as if he was expecting something. He felt Morpheus' presence by his side but didn't look up to confirm the god was there.
"What is this?" Bill asked, half to himself.
"Another fragment of your mind," Morpheus responded. "Just a thought or a long-forgotten dream just waiting to remind you it is still there."
"Where are all the people?" Bill inquired.
"People?"
"Yes..." The Meowth slowly nodded. "Why is it that every place we go to is empty? Where are all the people inhabiting these places? Are they not to be symbols in my mind as well?"
"Perhaps the idea of a lack of people itself is a symbol," Morpheus implied. "What do YOU think it means?"
There was a long pause. Bill couldn't think of an answer right away and so let moments of silent air pass between himself and his companion.
"It means... I am alone," Bill finally responded.
"Are you?" Morpheus asked.
"Sometimes I feel that way," Bill replied quietly with a shrug. "I never felt I could fit into society well. I had only one real friend growing up, and that's caused me to shut people out later on, I suppose."
Bill paused and looked at the rosy sky. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
"There must not be people here," Bill added, "because there are few people in my life."
Morpheus smiled.
"I see you are beginning to understand," he said. "However, you have far to go before you figure... EVERYTHING... out."
Bill didn't respond to this. Instead, he found himself walking forward, straight towards a random building. He could have sworn that he heard a music box playing, and as he walked closer to the building before him, it grew louder. He stood in front of the building and looked up at the endless wall of glass, higher than he could fathom. After awhile, he dropped his gaze and pushed through the revolving glass door with Morpheus.
Inside, he found nothing. The cogs and gears seemed to have been painted onto the windows, though they still turned rather slowly. The entire room, large and gray, was completely empty, save for a music box made of a dark wood in the very center of the room with a picture and a leather-bound book next to it.
Bill approached the music box and watched as the tiny ballroom dancers inside spun on a glass circle. He knelt down, transfixed by the music box, especially after recognizing the tune. Somewhat involuntarily, he began to sing to the tune very softly, in almost a whisper.
"Far away, long ago
Glowing dim as an ember
Things my heart used to know
Once upon a December..."
He could have sworn he had heard a girl's voice from above sing with him. He brushed aside the thought as he glanced at the other two items in the room.
The first was a picture within a picture frame made of the same wood as the music box. Under the glass pane of the frame was a picture, and certainly, he remembered this one as well. It was of him when he was younger, dressed in the school uniform of one of the academies he had attended. Next to him was the blurred vision of a young girl about his age. He couldn't exactly see her face, but he knew that she was smiling.
Confused about this, Bill turned away from it, picking up the leather-bound book. He opened it to read the text on its yellowing pages, but he found none. Instead, he found pictures of him and that girl, all of which were oddly moving, as if there were instead videos on each page. Bill watched, transfixed, as he glanced at the girl with the straight, light brown hair that came to her chest. On each page, he watched her read, sit by a river, laugh, perform funny little dances for him, and most of all, sleep in his arms. His heart began to ache as he looked at her.
He turned to the last page of the book and found the girl again, this time, in the bleak whiteness of a hospital. She lay on the bed, staring up at him as she held his hand. Her wine-colored eyes set in her round face, clearer than they were on any other page, stared into his for what seemed like eternity. Then, he heard her voice.
"Bill, I don't have much time left," she told him.
He heard his younger voice respond. "No! The doctors... they said they can do something to help you... if you can just hold on. Please, Alice... Hold on!"
She smiled. "Thanks for being a good friend to me, but I just can't..."
"No... Please, Alice," he whispered.
"Sorry I couldn't keep my end of our pact, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to keep yours," she continued. "Can you lean in a bit closer?"
He nodded and leaned forward. She pulled herself up a bit and kissed him on his cheek. He pulled away, tears in his eyes as a hand drifted up to touch the spot she caressed with her lips.
"Alice," he murmured.
She smiled. "Don't worry, Bill. I'll be okay."
With that, she closed her eyes and the picture froze. The present Bill placed a paw on the picture and looked at it with great sadness as his other forepaw drifted up to touch his chest.
"Who was that, Bill?" Morpheus asked.
There was a long pause. Bill didn't answer right away; he was too busy trying to hold back his emotions and to bury his memories again. He shut the book as well as the music box and left them all side by side. He stood up and began to quickly walk back towards the door.
"No one," Bill finally said. "She was no one."
"Is that so?" Morpheus questioned.
Bill didn't reply as he trudged out of the building. All he desired was a few sweet moments without her dark eyes burning into his mind. No, he didn't want to remember her. It took him years to build his life without her; he wasn't going to let good parts of it fall apart because of one glance.
He continued through the city, trying to find the other side. He refused to acknowledge Morpheus' presence, as if gruffly ignoring the god would make the Meowth feel better. At last, he realized he couldn't do such a thing forever and so stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and knelt down in the shadows created by one glass building, bending his head down as he shut his eyes tightly. There was a long period of silence before he finally spoke.
"Why did you bring me here?" Bill sneered.
Morpheus didn't answer. It wasn't that he didn't KNOW the answer; it was just that he chose not to respond. Bill looked up at Morpheus with wide, vexed eyes.
"What's the point of tormenting me like this!?" Bill demanded. "Do you find some sadistic amusement in all of this!?"
"I'm not sure I know what you mean," Morpheus responded. "But perhaps if you calmed down and told me what might be troubling you, then--"
"I'll TELL you what's troubling me!" Bill interrupted in anger as he stood up and clenched his paws into fists. "I was perfectly happy before this whole ordeal, and now...!"
He cut himself off and looked away. He felt somewhat bad about the outburst, and he knew he already said too much.
"I get the feeling that this 'Alice' is more to you than just 'no one,'" Morpheus muttered.
"I don't want to talk about it," Bill said softly.
"Why not?" Morpheus questioned. "Wouldn't that make you feel bet--"
"I don't want to talk about it!" Bill snapped before walking past Morpheus, continuing down the road.
Morpheus only sighed and shook his head.
---
Bill journeyed through the labyrinthine city, unable to find the exit. Often times, he would wind up at the same building he started at, the one with the music box still playing inside. On the other hand, for all he knew, every building had one.
"What sort of place IS this...?" Bill muttered bitterly.
Morpheus didn't answer. That was good; Bill's question was only a rhetorical one.
Bill continued on, listening to the music box's melody play over and over again, slowly driving him insane. He couldn't stand it anymore, but he couldn't escape it. Perhaps that was another sign.
"Alright!" he shouted before collapsing on his knees. "I'll tell you all that you want to know! Just stop playing that wretched music!"
Morpheus looked down at Bill in surprise, but he said not a word.
"Alice," Bill began as he sighed, "was a friend of mine. A good friend. One of the few people I had ever bothered to get close to. She was funny and sweet as well as invisible to society, just like I had been. There. I've said it."
The music continued to play, as if it knew that the Meowth was leaving something out. He covered his cat-like ears and groaned, bending forward in pain, though he refused to say anything more. At last, he snapped again.
"I loved her!" he yelled.
The music ceased. It heard what it wanted to hear. Bill was left, cold and shaking.
"Bill?" Morpheus addressed.
"I loved her," Bill repeated, as soft as a quivering whisper. "It was young love; I'll admit that. And often, she would do something that would irritate me because she was a bit on the clumsy and naïve side... But... I don't know. I shouldn't even think like this."
"Why not?" Morpheus questioned. "Love is love, and all mortals are prone to it. If you fall in love, you shouldn't be afraid to express it, especially if you know it is true. Was it true?"
"I don't know," Bill admitted. "I never got to find out."
"What happened to her?" Morpheus asked.
This simple question from Morpheus caused a period of silence to grow between himself and the young mortal. Bill sighed, reluctant to answer at first. He remained kneeling on the ground, forepaws in front of him and head bent down, allowing him to stare at the ground in sorrow. At last, his lips moved.
"She died."
Morpheus said nothing in response.
Bill rose to his hind paws but kept his head lowered. "The doctors said they couldn't do anything for her. The cancer went undetected for too long, and it spread. Most of her organs couldn't even operate by the time that she died. She was in so much pain, but she never said anything about it."
A smile drew across his lips, small and unsure.
"Before she fell ill... Whenever I returned home for a holiday vacation, we would always go to a river in a park in the heart of Goldenrod," Bill recalled. "We... used to sit out on the grass together and watch the water Pokémon go past, and then... We would talk about whatever came to mind. She would talk about going to the public school in Goldenrod or about whenever she went to live with her father in Violet City for a few days or about odd little things that would always, somehow, make me laugh."
"And how about you? What did you tell her?" Morpheus asked.
Bill looked up at the gray sky. "I told her... about what it was like at the academies I went to or about my family or about..."
He trailed off. There was a period of silence as his gaze fell again and his smile grew a bit wider.
"We made a pact together," he said. "As soon as we both turned nineteen, the both of us would part ways for one year. She would travel to all the places all over the world that she's always wanted to visit, and I would take leave to find myself and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. After that year, we would meet each other again and tell each other all about what we found on our own, separate journeys."
There was a long pause before Bill's smile faded. As he remembered the pact, he turned around sharply to face Morpheus with wide eyes. It was then that things became clear to him.
"You came at exactly 12:01 in the morning on the day of my nineteenth birthday, right?" Bill asked.
Morpheus smiled and nodded.
"And... You took me away... to take leave to find myself, didn't you?" Bill questioned.
This time, Morpheus nodded.
Bill's eyes grew wider as he put it all together. "The pact. You knew about the pact, and you're forcing me to keep my end of it!"
At last, Morpheus said something. "Correct."
"Then..." Bill stepped backwards a bit. "I have to meet her at the end of this year! Does that mean I'm going to die!?"
Morpheus sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't answer that, Bill. That would be something to ask the Fates, not the god of dreams."
"Oh my god!" Bill exclaimed quietly in his fear.
Bill shook his head vigorously at the thought, then realized something.
"It's... only a possibility, right?" he asked Morpheus.
Morpheus looked to the side and up in thought before nodding.
"Yes, only a possibility," the god agreed.
"It may or may not happen..." Bill released a sigh of relief before chuckling. "There's a possibility I'll die in a year, and I'm laughing about it, regardless of how great of a chance that is. I suppose that simply shows how my standards have dropped over time."
Morpheus grinned at the black humor. Neither he nor Bill noticed a shadow lurking around the corner just beyond them, glancing at both the god and the young Meowth.
---
Ellie walked into the house right then. She had stopped by the hospital to visit her brother after school. Well, more like look at him. All she basically did was stand there for a few minutes in silence, watching as her brother struggled to maintain life within his gradually deteriorating body. She remembered looking at his paling face before touching his cold hand. A shiver ran through her body then (and now) as thoughts of death played through her mind. Right then, she took her hand away from his skin and ran out of the room without a word to anyone. And she didn't stop running until she reached home.
She quietly pushed closed the door and took off her shoes right there. She shifted the weight of her backpack slightly before walking slowly through the house. She walked up a flight of stairs and down the hall in silence, passing by her parents' room to get to her own. It was then when she paused and dropped her backpack in the hall, then turned and walked back to the doorway of her parents' room, gazing inside.
There was her mother, sitting on the bed, looking at a photo album as she held back tears.
"Mama?" Ellie finally said.
Her mother looked up with glistening eyes.
"Ellie, I didn't hear you come in," she said quickly as she closed the album and put it aside.
Ellie looked at her mother, then at the album. She recognized the fact that it wasn't the wedding album she had found just days after her brother did all those years ago. With that thought in mind, she glanced back up at her mother's face.
"Mama, why are you crying?" Ellie asked.
There was a long pause before her mother held out both arms.
"Come here," she responded.
Without any further questioning, the little girl walked forward and into her mother's arms. The mother picked her child up and placed little Ellie on her lap as she wrapped her arms around the child in a protective embrace, as if the moment she let go of her daughter, Ellie would be snatched away from her by an unseen force.
Thousands of things ran through the mother's mind right then, all of which she wished to at last spill into the open. She wished to talk about how much she wanted her husband to be with the family and her son to be well. She wished to talk about how stressful her job as a dance instructor actually was. She wished she could say exactly how she felt about everything. But most of all, she wanted to tell Ellie that the doctor had called and said that her son and Ellie's brother might never open his eyes again.
But she held all this back. No, she didn't want to tell anyone, especially the eight-year-old sitting in her lap. No, she'll keep it to herself and hope that if she just fought and struggled like life dictated that all humans would do, then things would get better someday.
With that, the mother held her little girl in her arms and burst out crying.
---
Final A/N: And thus, I kick myself for both bringing up another tragic, young death (Ack! I thought I had enough of those with Tess's death in Warp Series! _) and for taking Bill out of character once... twice... multiple times... O_o; Then again, I can get away with the latter because it's not like any of you actually KNOW Bill's character to begin with... unless you've actually read my ramblings on my fanshrine to the guy. XD; That said, until next... time... ^_^;
-To TRF: Thanks again for the kind comments, specifically, to the only reviewer for this chapter, Tanya-san. ^_^
-To DarkCatXX: Yes, it's kinda sad that you're the only reviewer (on FF.net), but at least someone reviewed at all. And that's all that matters. Thanks. ^_^
In any case, yes, it's a bit confusing (Especially the part about the girl in the river; I really don't know where that came from, but I guess I had to throw in a bit about a nightmare SOMEWHERE...), but hopefully, it'll clear up eventually. Er, hopefully. ^_^;
-To the rest of you: I'm surprised, FF.net. Not one of you cares to comment on how odd this all is, nor do any of you wish to make grammatical/storyline reviews or recommendations to a psychiatrist. And of course, no one's guessed the reason why I chose Meowth as the Pokémon Bill turned into. (Yes, there's a reason for that. Cyber cookies go out to whomever can guess what it is. ^_^) I could rant and rave about the originality of something like How Bizarre compared to the hybrid/new trainer fics (which there seem to be a lot of nowadays) and make myself look egotistical, but you'd be bored, and I really don't feel like lashing at the moment. -_-
In any case, here's a new chapter, and here's to hoping that I get SOMETHING in return for it...
Further note: The title came from "A City With No People," the framework story in the manga Chobits, by CLAMP. The idea for the construction of the city, however, came from "invisible ci7ies," a comic at clubph34r.com. I don't actually own either, and they belong to their respectful owners. ^_^;
---
Night Three: A City With No People
Bill sighed. Stopping for the night, as he finally found out right then, was utterly, utterly pointless. He had forgotten that he can't sleep. Not while trapped in his own dreams. After all, he was ALREADY asleep, wasn't he?
He stared up at the stars through the leaves of the great, umbrella-like tree he lay under. The branches spread out above him, shading both him and Morpheus like a giant parasol. He sighed and sat up before looking over one furry shoulder at his godly companion, who slept silently in the grass beside him. Bill never thought that Morpheus, being a god, needed sleep, but then again, it somehow made sense. After all, Morpheus received no mental rest from that dream world. Only Bill did, despite how ironic that fact might be.
"Ugh," Bill moaned as he brought a paw to his head.
He wished nothing more than to have a dreamless sleep, as he had always done up until then. He groaned again as he realized that this wish wouldn't come soon too near in the future.
With another sigh, Bill pushed himself off the ground, onto his hind legs. He walked a little further away until he was out from under the umbrella tree. He glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping Morpheus, wondering if it was indeed a good idea to leave him there. Bill shook his head and turned forward once more, walking aimlessly through his dream world. He only hoped he would be able to find his way back.
He eventually found himself walking north, towards a grassy ledge overlooking a plain of flowers. (Or were those Bellossom?) He glanced over the edge, into what seemed like a grassy eternity miles below. Carefully, he sat himself down on the edge of the earth, gazing with a forlorn look out into nothingness. As the "sun" rose (most unusual, considering he was still facing north), he saw something spread out over the horizon.
"Hmm?"
He leaned forward and shaded his eyes with a paw. He could have sworn he could see a dark-colored city rising up, as if attached to the sun itself.
"What do you see, Bill?" a voice suddenly asked him.
A startled gasp sprang from his throat, and Bill found himself tumbling off the ledge, landing flat on his back on the grass just feet below. He sat up and held his head with a paw as Morpheus floated down to join him.
"I would appreciate it very much if you never did that again," Bill said to Morpheus.
The god chuckled.
"And to answer your question..." Bill stood up and turned towards the north, leading the way towards the city. "I saw something this way. I'm positive it's a city, but in this world... Who knows?"
Morpheus only smiled like the Cheshire Cat, though Bill didn't see this. Instead, the young researcher ambled on, towards the city without much thought. He listened to nothing; the entire world seemed to have a habit of falling silent at the strangest times. Yet, this didn't bother him. It allowed him to have a clear mind to think. Think about what, exactly? Faded things. Things he could barely remember and things he was reminded of when he saw each object.
For example, the wooden doll from the circus had a youthful disposition. If this was true, then could it be that Bill had missed something in his childhood? Lost something that was supposed to mean something to him? He frowned at the thought, for he was unable to answer his own questions. And what was worse, when he thought he had the answer to one question, a thousand more inquiries popped into mind. It was endless, and it plagued his mind like nothing else.
All of a sudden, he felt pavement under his hind paws. He looked up to find himself at the edge of the bleak city that seemed to lack an end. The city had nothing in it but tall skyscrapers, each one made of glass, each one having silver cogs and gears turning just behind the glass. Bill walked through the desolate streets, looking about, as if he was expecting something. He felt Morpheus' presence by his side but didn't look up to confirm the god was there.
"What is this?" Bill asked, half to himself.
"Another fragment of your mind," Morpheus responded. "Just a thought or a long-forgotten dream just waiting to remind you it is still there."
"Where are all the people?" Bill inquired.
"People?"
"Yes..." The Meowth slowly nodded. "Why is it that every place we go to is empty? Where are all the people inhabiting these places? Are they not to be symbols in my mind as well?"
"Perhaps the idea of a lack of people itself is a symbol," Morpheus implied. "What do YOU think it means?"
There was a long pause. Bill couldn't think of an answer right away and so let moments of silent air pass between himself and his companion.
"It means... I am alone," Bill finally responded.
"Are you?" Morpheus asked.
"Sometimes I feel that way," Bill replied quietly with a shrug. "I never felt I could fit into society well. I had only one real friend growing up, and that's caused me to shut people out later on, I suppose."
Bill paused and looked at the rosy sky. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
"There must not be people here," Bill added, "because there are few people in my life."
Morpheus smiled.
"I see you are beginning to understand," he said. "However, you have far to go before you figure... EVERYTHING... out."
Bill didn't respond to this. Instead, he found himself walking forward, straight towards a random building. He could have sworn that he heard a music box playing, and as he walked closer to the building before him, it grew louder. He stood in front of the building and looked up at the endless wall of glass, higher than he could fathom. After awhile, he dropped his gaze and pushed through the revolving glass door with Morpheus.
Inside, he found nothing. The cogs and gears seemed to have been painted onto the windows, though they still turned rather slowly. The entire room, large and gray, was completely empty, save for a music box made of a dark wood in the very center of the room with a picture and a leather-bound book next to it.
Bill approached the music box and watched as the tiny ballroom dancers inside spun on a glass circle. He knelt down, transfixed by the music box, especially after recognizing the tune. Somewhat involuntarily, he began to sing to the tune very softly, in almost a whisper.
"Far away, long ago
Glowing dim as an ember
Things my heart used to know
Once upon a December..."
He could have sworn he had heard a girl's voice from above sing with him. He brushed aside the thought as he glanced at the other two items in the room.
The first was a picture within a picture frame made of the same wood as the music box. Under the glass pane of the frame was a picture, and certainly, he remembered this one as well. It was of him when he was younger, dressed in the school uniform of one of the academies he had attended. Next to him was the blurred vision of a young girl about his age. He couldn't exactly see her face, but he knew that she was smiling.
Confused about this, Bill turned away from it, picking up the leather-bound book. He opened it to read the text on its yellowing pages, but he found none. Instead, he found pictures of him and that girl, all of which were oddly moving, as if there were instead videos on each page. Bill watched, transfixed, as he glanced at the girl with the straight, light brown hair that came to her chest. On each page, he watched her read, sit by a river, laugh, perform funny little dances for him, and most of all, sleep in his arms. His heart began to ache as he looked at her.
He turned to the last page of the book and found the girl again, this time, in the bleak whiteness of a hospital. She lay on the bed, staring up at him as she held his hand. Her wine-colored eyes set in her round face, clearer than they were on any other page, stared into his for what seemed like eternity. Then, he heard her voice.
"Bill, I don't have much time left," she told him.
He heard his younger voice respond. "No! The doctors... they said they can do something to help you... if you can just hold on. Please, Alice... Hold on!"
She smiled. "Thanks for being a good friend to me, but I just can't..."
"No... Please, Alice," he whispered.
"Sorry I couldn't keep my end of our pact, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to keep yours," she continued. "Can you lean in a bit closer?"
He nodded and leaned forward. She pulled herself up a bit and kissed him on his cheek. He pulled away, tears in his eyes as a hand drifted up to touch the spot she caressed with her lips.
"Alice," he murmured.
She smiled. "Don't worry, Bill. I'll be okay."
With that, she closed her eyes and the picture froze. The present Bill placed a paw on the picture and looked at it with great sadness as his other forepaw drifted up to touch his chest.
"Who was that, Bill?" Morpheus asked.
There was a long pause. Bill didn't answer right away; he was too busy trying to hold back his emotions and to bury his memories again. He shut the book as well as the music box and left them all side by side. He stood up and began to quickly walk back towards the door.
"No one," Bill finally said. "She was no one."
"Is that so?" Morpheus questioned.
Bill didn't reply as he trudged out of the building. All he desired was a few sweet moments without her dark eyes burning into his mind. No, he didn't want to remember her. It took him years to build his life without her; he wasn't going to let good parts of it fall apart because of one glance.
He continued through the city, trying to find the other side. He refused to acknowledge Morpheus' presence, as if gruffly ignoring the god would make the Meowth feel better. At last, he realized he couldn't do such a thing forever and so stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and knelt down in the shadows created by one glass building, bending his head down as he shut his eyes tightly. There was a long period of silence before he finally spoke.
"Why did you bring me here?" Bill sneered.
Morpheus didn't answer. It wasn't that he didn't KNOW the answer; it was just that he chose not to respond. Bill looked up at Morpheus with wide, vexed eyes.
"What's the point of tormenting me like this!?" Bill demanded. "Do you find some sadistic amusement in all of this!?"
"I'm not sure I know what you mean," Morpheus responded. "But perhaps if you calmed down and told me what might be troubling you, then--"
"I'll TELL you what's troubling me!" Bill interrupted in anger as he stood up and clenched his paws into fists. "I was perfectly happy before this whole ordeal, and now...!"
He cut himself off and looked away. He felt somewhat bad about the outburst, and he knew he already said too much.
"I get the feeling that this 'Alice' is more to you than just 'no one,'" Morpheus muttered.
"I don't want to talk about it," Bill said softly.
"Why not?" Morpheus questioned. "Wouldn't that make you feel bet--"
"I don't want to talk about it!" Bill snapped before walking past Morpheus, continuing down the road.
Morpheus only sighed and shook his head.
---
Bill journeyed through the labyrinthine city, unable to find the exit. Often times, he would wind up at the same building he started at, the one with the music box still playing inside. On the other hand, for all he knew, every building had one.
"What sort of place IS this...?" Bill muttered bitterly.
Morpheus didn't answer. That was good; Bill's question was only a rhetorical one.
Bill continued on, listening to the music box's melody play over and over again, slowly driving him insane. He couldn't stand it anymore, but he couldn't escape it. Perhaps that was another sign.
"Alright!" he shouted before collapsing on his knees. "I'll tell you all that you want to know! Just stop playing that wretched music!"
Morpheus looked down at Bill in surprise, but he said not a word.
"Alice," Bill began as he sighed, "was a friend of mine. A good friend. One of the few people I had ever bothered to get close to. She was funny and sweet as well as invisible to society, just like I had been. There. I've said it."
The music continued to play, as if it knew that the Meowth was leaving something out. He covered his cat-like ears and groaned, bending forward in pain, though he refused to say anything more. At last, he snapped again.
"I loved her!" he yelled.
The music ceased. It heard what it wanted to hear. Bill was left, cold and shaking.
"Bill?" Morpheus addressed.
"I loved her," Bill repeated, as soft as a quivering whisper. "It was young love; I'll admit that. And often, she would do something that would irritate me because she was a bit on the clumsy and naïve side... But... I don't know. I shouldn't even think like this."
"Why not?" Morpheus questioned. "Love is love, and all mortals are prone to it. If you fall in love, you shouldn't be afraid to express it, especially if you know it is true. Was it true?"
"I don't know," Bill admitted. "I never got to find out."
"What happened to her?" Morpheus asked.
This simple question from Morpheus caused a period of silence to grow between himself and the young mortal. Bill sighed, reluctant to answer at first. He remained kneeling on the ground, forepaws in front of him and head bent down, allowing him to stare at the ground in sorrow. At last, his lips moved.
"She died."
Morpheus said nothing in response.
Bill rose to his hind paws but kept his head lowered. "The doctors said they couldn't do anything for her. The cancer went undetected for too long, and it spread. Most of her organs couldn't even operate by the time that she died. She was in so much pain, but she never said anything about it."
A smile drew across his lips, small and unsure.
"Before she fell ill... Whenever I returned home for a holiday vacation, we would always go to a river in a park in the heart of Goldenrod," Bill recalled. "We... used to sit out on the grass together and watch the water Pokémon go past, and then... We would talk about whatever came to mind. She would talk about going to the public school in Goldenrod or about whenever she went to live with her father in Violet City for a few days or about odd little things that would always, somehow, make me laugh."
"And how about you? What did you tell her?" Morpheus asked.
Bill looked up at the gray sky. "I told her... about what it was like at the academies I went to or about my family or about..."
He trailed off. There was a period of silence as his gaze fell again and his smile grew a bit wider.
"We made a pact together," he said. "As soon as we both turned nineteen, the both of us would part ways for one year. She would travel to all the places all over the world that she's always wanted to visit, and I would take leave to find myself and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. After that year, we would meet each other again and tell each other all about what we found on our own, separate journeys."
There was a long pause before Bill's smile faded. As he remembered the pact, he turned around sharply to face Morpheus with wide eyes. It was then that things became clear to him.
"You came at exactly 12:01 in the morning on the day of my nineteenth birthday, right?" Bill asked.
Morpheus smiled and nodded.
"And... You took me away... to take leave to find myself, didn't you?" Bill questioned.
This time, Morpheus nodded.
Bill's eyes grew wider as he put it all together. "The pact. You knew about the pact, and you're forcing me to keep my end of it!"
At last, Morpheus said something. "Correct."
"Then..." Bill stepped backwards a bit. "I have to meet her at the end of this year! Does that mean I'm going to die!?"
Morpheus sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't answer that, Bill. That would be something to ask the Fates, not the god of dreams."
"Oh my god!" Bill exclaimed quietly in his fear.
Bill shook his head vigorously at the thought, then realized something.
"It's... only a possibility, right?" he asked Morpheus.
Morpheus looked to the side and up in thought before nodding.
"Yes, only a possibility," the god agreed.
"It may or may not happen..." Bill released a sigh of relief before chuckling. "There's a possibility I'll die in a year, and I'm laughing about it, regardless of how great of a chance that is. I suppose that simply shows how my standards have dropped over time."
Morpheus grinned at the black humor. Neither he nor Bill noticed a shadow lurking around the corner just beyond them, glancing at both the god and the young Meowth.
---
Ellie walked into the house right then. She had stopped by the hospital to visit her brother after school. Well, more like look at him. All she basically did was stand there for a few minutes in silence, watching as her brother struggled to maintain life within his gradually deteriorating body. She remembered looking at his paling face before touching his cold hand. A shiver ran through her body then (and now) as thoughts of death played through her mind. Right then, she took her hand away from his skin and ran out of the room without a word to anyone. And she didn't stop running until she reached home.
She quietly pushed closed the door and took off her shoes right there. She shifted the weight of her backpack slightly before walking slowly through the house. She walked up a flight of stairs and down the hall in silence, passing by her parents' room to get to her own. It was then when she paused and dropped her backpack in the hall, then turned and walked back to the doorway of her parents' room, gazing inside.
There was her mother, sitting on the bed, looking at a photo album as she held back tears.
"Mama?" Ellie finally said.
Her mother looked up with glistening eyes.
"Ellie, I didn't hear you come in," she said quickly as she closed the album and put it aside.
Ellie looked at her mother, then at the album. She recognized the fact that it wasn't the wedding album she had found just days after her brother did all those years ago. With that thought in mind, she glanced back up at her mother's face.
"Mama, why are you crying?" Ellie asked.
There was a long pause before her mother held out both arms.
"Come here," she responded.
Without any further questioning, the little girl walked forward and into her mother's arms. The mother picked her child up and placed little Ellie on her lap as she wrapped her arms around the child in a protective embrace, as if the moment she let go of her daughter, Ellie would be snatched away from her by an unseen force.
Thousands of things ran through the mother's mind right then, all of which she wished to at last spill into the open. She wished to talk about how much she wanted her husband to be with the family and her son to be well. She wished to talk about how stressful her job as a dance instructor actually was. She wished she could say exactly how she felt about everything. But most of all, she wanted to tell Ellie that the doctor had called and said that her son and Ellie's brother might never open his eyes again.
But she held all this back. No, she didn't want to tell anyone, especially the eight-year-old sitting in her lap. No, she'll keep it to herself and hope that if she just fought and struggled like life dictated that all humans would do, then things would get better someday.
With that, the mother held her little girl in her arms and burst out crying.
---
Final A/N: And thus, I kick myself for both bringing up another tragic, young death (Ack! I thought I had enough of those with Tess's death in Warp Series! _) and for taking Bill out of character once... twice... multiple times... O_o; Then again, I can get away with the latter because it's not like any of you actually KNOW Bill's character to begin with... unless you've actually read my ramblings on my fanshrine to the guy. XD; That said, until next... time... ^_^;