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Make me Real 07 By ReddAlice
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Correction... (embarrassed I was told that Allan's son's name is spelt CHID! And his sister is spelt Celena. For the sake of my mind, I will continue to spell the characters the way I have in past chapters 'cept for maybe Chid...but I wanted to give deep thanks to my longest reviewer ever, and the detail and honesty they gave me. Thank you Shinji Ikari!!!)
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Chapter 07:
"Hitomi, come and play."
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Amano's sneakers kicked up dirt, he hadn't ran this much since he was a senior in high school, and his abs, hips, and thighs protested the exercise copiously. However, he wasn't going let the condition of his body stop him, no one in this or any other world could stop him. Except maybe one, but that was beyond his knowledge!
He used the hospital door to stop himself, and then sagged against the glass in pain. Amano rested his head on the window and gazed inside, the lobby was sparse, and empty, the only being an old nurse picking up a child's toy by a television in the corner.
To get her attention, he yelled, but when that proved fruitless he banged his fists on the bulletproof surface until the door threatened to fall from its tracks.
"Young man!" The nurse scolded through the door. "You can't be here, this is the visitor's office lobby, and if it's an emergency go to the 'e-m-e-r-g-a-n-c-y'...'e-n-t-e-r-a-n-c-e.' I am not accepting visitors through this access-way. I apologize for the inconvenience."
"It is an emergency, and I don't want to go around."
The nurse eyes Amano's heaving chest skeptically, then pressed a small white button off to the left, and the door whooshed open. "What kind of emergency do you have?" She asked.
"Kanzaki Hitomi! What room?"
"I'm sorry, no visitors past 9 pm unless your immediate family." The nurse repeated exasperated.
Amano shook his head, "No..."
"I'm sorry but unless you are imm-"
"I'm her husband, what room?"
The skepticism never ended, the old woman quirked a wool-haired eyebrow and frowned, the lines of her face creasing deeper. "Are you lying to me, son?"
Amano gave his best Boy-Scout-Of-Japan look, virginal monk's word of honor. "No ma'am. We've been married for one month, and I was just called at work that she was hospitalized. Where is she?" His conscious reeled, he hadn't told this many lies since... well never.
Again, the old nurse frowned. "Fine, but stop your double-dealing, lying doesn't suite you in the least! I'll check."
"Thank you!" Amano bowed gratefully, his eyes disappearing behind an appreciative and charming grin.
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Van laid his head down, his eyes bleary, and not quite awake. Had he fallen asleep? Why was his heart beating like a fleet of marching guymelefs through the Antartician ice fields?
His dreams were obsessed and becoming depraved. He seemed to be focusing on Hitomi, feeling her as if she was right next to him, but when he turned she was gone. His only company the chilled air of loneliness. Foreign scenes were being fed to him, when he woke his body was in an upset, but he couldn't remember why. The mere thing left to him being a few scarce images he saw through someone else's eyes.
Van looked across his study, his mind wandering back to a chaotic time when his life was being torn apart... yet then, his existence felt full. He was sitting behind a hand crafted desk of the darkest wood from a near by forest of Fanelia, it seemed wrong to be so domesticated. Would he grow old behind this chuck of wood?
There was an instance when he kissed the sky, Hitomi wrapped aside in one arm, the other hand steering the reigns of a God. That moment wasn't long ago, but it appeared so distant now, now that he was king, now that She was haunting his dreams leaving his skin hot.
"Van...sama." His study door creaked open, the sound forcing his hair on end. Standing with her hands clasped in front of her night gown, stood his small cat friend, her hair tucked behind her ears, and her fingers twisting in the fabric of her clothes.
"Merle? It's late."
Merle shook her head and stepped in, closing the door quietly behind her. "I can't sleep, I'm scared."
Van stood up, his brow furled. "Why?"
"I'm having bad dreams... really bad... bad dreams."
The king ran a hand through his tousled black hair, "About?"
"Bad dreams..." Merle said walking and shaking her head, her eyes were half closed. Stopping before Van, Merle stifled a sniffle. "Things are going so wrong, bad bad things are happening. Make them stop, Van, help me..."
Startled Van grabbed her thin arms; she had never called him just Van. Who was this? "Merle? What's wrong?"
Merle lifted her head to give Van a startled look, blinking away the tears that had been violently brimming. "Van-sama?" Merle whispered confused.
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Amano starred through the small window into Hitomi's room. Under her father's snoring head, Hitomi was sleeping, unconscious. The lime colored light of the emergency room was sickening, its ghastly glow highlighting her pale skin, and swollen face, making the veins under her flesh visible. It made him ill to see, it was grotesque, yet he could scarcely pull his eyes from the scene.
Inhaling deeply, he pushed open the door as quietly as he could, but God would have him sneaking around in such a manor. Mr. Kanzaki ripped out of his chair, his eyes wide and bewildered. "Who's there, what? Hitomi?" He looked down at his daughter, and then finally to the intruder. "Who are you?"
Amano bowed deeply, "Mr. Kanzaki, my name is Amano, I'm a friend of Hitomi's from school."
"A boy? Hitomi isn't taking visitors, she's very sick you know, and I don't want her sorting with the likes of boys."
Amano felt a nerve in his lip twitch, "I'm very concerned for her. Please, let me stay."
"No." The older man hissed in a whispered. "She's very ill, physically and mentally, please leave or I will call security. I don't know how you got in here, but go out the same way."
"She's not mentally ill." Amano defended, standing up to his full height proudly. He dwarfed Hitomi's father by several inches, and hoped that it would impress upon Mr. Kanzaki that he needed to listen.
"You're young, you're foolish, and you know nothing. Go!"
"I know she says she went to Gaea! That while she was missing, she went to Gaea; she went to a different world! I believe her. I saw her get taken away by a boy with black hair!" After we were attacked by a dragon... " I saw it, and I am not crazy. She's not either."
Mr. Kanzaki bared his teeth like a wild beast. "What would you know? Illness runs through her mother's side of the family! This is the last time I am going to warn you! Leave!"
Amano shifted a small look back towards the door, and then drove forward passed Hitomi's father to the side of her bed. He took Hitomi's right hand, which had been dangling off the edge of the mattress, and held it. Talking to her under his breath, he could feel her pulse in her wrist where his fingers rested, and in his mind he remember the day back in the school infirmary.
One. Bud-duh
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I'm lost... so lost... everything is so dark...so bleak... everything is gray...
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Two. Bud-duh
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Dark... These dreams... are empty...where was the color? Oh, that's right... I can't dream color.-----------
Three. Bud-duh
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But why is it empty here? Why is it so vacant? It shouldn't be. No, no it shouldn't be. Am I awake?-----------
Four. Bud-duh
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Am I awake in this void? Up. Black. Down. Black. I'm blanketed here.
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Five. Bud-duh
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I hear someone... very far away. "Hello? Hello? Hey! I'm here! I'm right here!"-----------
Six. Buh-duh
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"I'm Alone here! Help! Van? Amano? Dad? MOM!" I'm all alone here... "Can anyone hear me!" I'm all alone... "Mommy... Daddy... Help me..." I'm all-alone in this darkness... "Gramma... save me..." I'm all alone... or am I? "Van!? Is that you?" Something is there... "Stop that. Come out. I know you, whoever you are, are there!" I'm so scared... "Please, this isn't funny!" Who is it? Who's there... This feeling... it's so strong... so dreadful... and so powerful. Maliciousness, cruel and potent... Anger... vivid waves of it... I feel you, whoever you are. "Van! Van!? Help me!" I hear someone close. Someone right next to me. What is this noise? It hurts my head! What is this sound! It's me. I'm screaming. I can't stop screaming.
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Four. The shrieking noise that ripped from Hitomi's mouth startled Amano to the point of falling back against the hospital wall. "Hitomi!" She was screaming like a child, a terrified little girl, and it made Amano's blood turn to ice. "Hitomi!"
In his fear for her, he didn't notice nurses fill the room, or Mr. Kanzaki flanked by security guards, and his shivering wife.
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He had watched her for several minutes, his eyes crystal shards in his head. Was this to be the beginning of a long road of obstacles?
Allen locked the bedroom door as he left, a burden strapped to his back; leaving his younger sibling sprawled asleep on the bed. He couldn't foresee the future, not like the only other woman who preoccupied his mind, but he new this, whatever this was, was going to be difficult.
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"This is ridiculous!"
Mere feet from Hitomi, Amano was escorted from the room by hospital security and turned over to the police for breaking hospital policy, stalking, and possible kidnapping charges. It didn't help that he couldn't find his passport, or any valid form of ID, or that his parents had relocated again to Okinawa and were on an ocean cruise to take a vacation from all things technological and time consuming.
"I'm not a stalker!" Amano protested, his voice a shrill rasp from the continuing interrogation. "I want to leave, please."
"Sure thing, as soon as we contact a relative of yours who can positively ID you."
"You have got to be kidding."
"Why would I be kidding?"
"My parents are on a cruise, I'm an only child, my Uncle Nobu is dead, and my parents bought my grandparents a villa off the coast of France. Who could possibly ID me?"
The officer smile became condescending, "A cell can be very accommodating."
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A jittery maid brought Van and Merle tea in the cold dinning hall. "Sire, muh-lady..." She bowed, nearly dropping a glass pitcher, and scurried down the hall into the night.
Merle watched with wide eyed, why was the lady so scared? Was she afraid of Van? She fixed her Lord with her observations and monological questions. Questions she could never ask him.
Van was sitting slumped in his chair; his gaze was watching the steam rise from his cup, his expression soft and concerned. Perhaps even exhausted? What was going on? When she woke up in the King's office, she had been startled and crying, and Van offered her tea to calm her nerves before he sent her back off to bed. Years ago, the young King wouldn't have been concerned with things like that, Merle had a nurse-maid to do such things, and make up for the family she had been snatched up from at infancy.
You look like you hurt, Van-sama. You look so hurt. Please be okay. Why have you been so moody? Are you stressed? If you tired of being king, give the kingdom to King Chid. We can go east to the big mountains, and live there with normal people. Small villages, normal people... She hungered for the normalcy she had briefly touched upon when Fanelia had burned, and she had escaped her nurse to traverse the mountain in search of her King. Before gruff guards had picked her up, she had been starved, and once in their custody beaten... but before they had laid a hand on her she had tasted wild fruit native to where she had been born. Merle had chatted with travelers and passed through the smaller villages under Van's rule. She looked like everyone, and everyone looked like her, young men even smiled in her direction, and naively she had turned up her tail, but even that didn't sour the experience. If Van's father, the late king of Fanelia, hadn't swept her up as a gift and friend for his son, she would have known all of those strangers. She would have been a stranger, and never met Van. Towards the end of her journey, Merle had isolated herself from Fanelia citizens, ashamed of her treacherous thoughts. She loved the king she worshipped and the life he had given her, and loathed herself for her short-lived lechery.
When Van had plucked her off that horse, and tended to her wounds in Austoria, she realized that her bastard fantasies had been ill gotten. How could she have done such horrible things, such as enjoy her expedition, when her savior was in turmoil? She owed him so much. He who had protected her from the mob of angry men so long ago... He who saved her...
After the girl from the mystic moon left, Van had settled down into an existence befitting of a king. He led the reconstruction of his kingdom, worked till his sweat turned to blood, and seemed satisfied. Time trickled by like a cool creak over rocks, and everything grew to be effortless and ordinary. Only in the past couple of days had cracks begun to surface, and Merle felt less than secure. She had a feeling Van felt similar, that the wilder of the Dragon smelt change in the air. The last thing she wanted was change! She had been finally content! No war, no Hitomi, no fighting, no psycho melodramatic gender benders to wreak havoc... (wait! "Van-sama..." She whispered watching his face change with thought.
Van looked up to see her surveying him, "Yes, Merle? Are you feeling better now?"
She nodded somberly; he was thinking about her, and Merle put her life on it Hitomi didn't even cast a moment's breath in their direction, or his... "I'm worried, Van-sama, you don't look so good. Are you still having bad dreams? Are they about Hitomi?" She couldn't refrain, and regretted her lack of discipline immediately.
His eyes went cold. "I'm fine." He dismissed in something like a hiss. Van stood up, leaving his drink untouched. "Finish your tea and go to bed."
Stunned by his belligerence, Merle stared after him with an open mouth.
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Hitomi swung around in circles looking in each direction before her, her fear a burning knot of bile in her throat and she screamed. The blackness was fading and in the dusky veil she could see something materializing. A woman? A girl? In such strange clothing! Who? Hitomi couldn't stop screaming.
She choked and slumped down to her knees, her cries coming out garbled. Hitomi coughed and blood gurgled from her lips and oozed down her chin into her shaking hands. "Someone..." She gagged.
Someone was there, a woman's laughter sweeping Hitomi up in a gale of clamor. "Stop it!" Blood flowed from between her gaping mouth, a river of red, into huge pools of oily liquid around her body, spilling down her breasts and stomach.
Retching, she couldn't cry out, she could only allow fat tears to roll down her cheek and swim amongst the coppery juices that spewed from her throat. "Ba... Bah...Bahn..." She heaved.
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Again, and again! In his resting hours Van would fling himself from his covers enraged, or crying. Van tore up from his sleep, the color red staining his vision.
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Hitomi felt the rush of blood, the sound in her head as if savages were beating the living shit out of her eardrum like some sacred instrument used to wake the dead. And wake the dead it did. Everything was fuzzy, and blurring, and her eyes hadn't even peeled open yet.
"She's waking up now, she should probably stay her a couple of days to rest and to make sure none of the medications we gave her will react poorly to the injection she was given by- ah... one Dr. Takatori."
"Yes bu-"
"Don't concern yourself Mr. Kanzaki, your Brother-in-law Maddox and I were pals all through school in New York. I talked to him on the phone, and he's brought me up to speed on what's going on as far as we know, and I promise I'll take personal care of her. The hospital is more than capable of caring for her."
"I suppose so, Doctor. But-"
"No buts, Ms. I will see to it she is well cared for, so go home and take care of yourselves. I don't want to be putting your whole family up here."
"It's all my fault, I-"
"Now ma'am, please. None of that here! Go home. I will see to it that you're escorted and I will call you late tomorrow afternoon, or if anything notable happens."
Hitomi wouldn't open her eyes if she could to watch her parents pushed out the door, rather she lay awake and still for several hours, her body paralyzed and numb.
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The officers had left Amano in the dim light of his cell, everything was gray, and toneless, and he felt the mood of his atmosphere nipping at him.
By the very nature gifted to him at birth, Amano was an optimist, and when his semi-passive nature took a back seat to that optimism, he could be quite the bright-eyed-bushy-tailed monster. However thus far Amano had been less than exceptional. His meeting with Yukari, seeing Hitomi...
Hitomi surrounded by a maelstrom of negativity, her body was like an empty sheath. Hitomi a ghost! And now she was lying in a hospital bed, her face swollen and blotchy, a breathing tube crammed down her throat, and I.V. sprouting from her arm like branches. He would carry the memory forever.
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Hitomi...
Her name sounded like a cool autumn whisper that traversed her flesh, each tiny hair on her neck and arms standing abruptly on end.
Hitomi... It was a woman, a soft and haunted sound of someone calling her.
Hitomi... The syllables were drawn out softly, and longingly, resting on the 'i' and teasing through the rest of her forename.
Hitomi... Come to me...
"Come where?" Hitomi asked.
Hitomi... Come to me...
"Where? Where are to me...
"Where?" She pleaded, her mouth dry.
Hitomi... I want you.
"What do you want from me?"
I want you... Hitomi...I want you to come to me.
"Why?"
Hitomi... I want you to come to me. I want you...
"Come where?" Like the hair on her arms and neck, Hitomi felt her senses peak drastically, making her head ache. That someone? Was she speaking to her? Or was she falling over the edge faster than she had thought.
"Come play with me."
Hitomi's eyes split open. Nothing. From side to side she looked, horrified at the thought of someone sneaking up on her in her vulnerable state, but no one was there. She was alone, like before in her dream. Partially relaxing back into her pillow, Hitomi's eyes dropped to the blanket, and her breath yanked from her lungs.
Her thin blanket was severely wrinkled at the end of the bed, crumpled into impressions of fists, rusty colored splotches where fingers had been pulling her blanket from her bed.
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Like the body falling and fading into the shadows, Allen felt his heart sinking deep into the black chasm. Together they disappeared into the darkness.
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TBC... "The Dark Halls Between…"
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Ending Note: Hey... MMR has been up for over a year! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY EVERYONE! - Ahem... I did this whole chapter in two week ends. Working in a chocolate factory to peddle money for school, and I'm trying harder than ever to give you your stories. So keep me posted, review, and talk with me! I love your encouragement. And... THANKS to everyone who has stuck by me.