In the Forests of the Night
A Hikaru no Go Ghost Story
This, as always, is for Imbrium. Thank you seems to be such an inadequate thing to say. But you always seem to know what I mean, even when I make a mess of it. I guess that's why you're so good at what you do, ne? ;)
And special hello and thanks goes to Eryne-chan, who read this and gave feedback, thus helping make it more readable. Hee, you rock!
Part 11a: Beating Hearts
There is no water, but it feels like drowning anyway.
The darkness engulfs him, thick and cloying. He chokes, clawing upwards, hands grasping and desperate. Above him, something glimmers faintly, like the moon seen through branches thick with leaves. But the light is very, very far away and dwindling with each moment. The pressure wraps around him like a shroud.
And it is cold, so very cold, a bone snapping frigidity. It is a coldness that digs into his leaden limbs, a coldness soaking down past the marrow. A coldness which burns, sharper than any fire.
The current is dark and deep; there is no shore in sight.
He is drowning, though there is no water, and each moment marks an agonized eternity.
"Hikaru!"
A voice? His struggles fade, and he sinks to stillness, listening.
"Hikaru! Can you hear me?!"
Pain!
He had forgotten pain ... how it can resonate like a heated wire, embed itself like sand into an open wound. It grinds away at him, bit and by cutting bit ...
"Hikaru!"
Pain! Pain beyond thought, pain beyond memory, pain searing him through. What is in that word that hurts so very much? Something that was important once, he thinks. Something he should know.
Something broken apart, leaving edged pieces all around.
The darkness is smooth and still, without sound nor form nor pain. Maybe if he does not move, if he lets the cold seep in, maybe there will be a solitary peace in drowning, after all.
"NO! I won't let ... Even if I have to . . . even if I have to ... again . . . Kami-sama, it's like w-water ... why is it like water?!"
Fear. There is fear in the voice ... in the shaking pauses and in the keening edge of each word, there is a soul deep terror so absolute that he finds himself responding, finds that he still can still tremble, too, though his own soul has long frozen through. Perhaps they both will drown in this river of endless dark . . .
Perhaps this is both their fate, scripted out from the very beginning.
"N-no! Not this time."
The darkness is like water, but something moves now... something is coming, something also caught in the deep current but fighting towards him.
"Hikaru, I'm here! Just reach out..."
But that way holds its own heartbreak, a different sort of drowning. There is pain there, he knows. There is hardship. And there is ...
"Hikaru! I know. I know how it feels, to drown in darkness. But you ... you heard me once, when I was the one lost. Hear me again. Just reach out! I can't ... we can't hold this much longer ... Can you hear me?"
There is something else, the most important of all things ...
And in the midst of the fragmented chaos there comes an awkward familiarity, separate of the pain, separate of the cold.
"Can you hear my voice?"
He has done this once before. Heard it once before -- a voice bright like a beacon in the darkness. But it seems a little off somehow, as if he is viewing it from the wrong end up. Shouldn't he be the one watching someone else surface back to the light?
"Hikaru! Just reach!"
Something flashes in front of him -- a fluttering of white against the black tide. A ... hand?
For a brief moment, there is something like a touch of fingers, of a grip enclosing his own.
And something much like light surrounds him ... or at least, if not of light, then something not of the darkness. Something warm against the cold, something shining and tremulous, uncrinkling into the corners of his mind and settling down, worn and smooth, as if it had been there all along.
"Can you hear my voice? Can you hear me?"
He has done this before. So he knows what to do now.
"I ... I hear you."
"Hikaru?! Hikaru! ... Kami-sama . . ."
The darkness no longer feels like water but like black veils falling away to reveal the sun.
"I give thanks ... "
And he surfaces into the light.
to be continued in part 11b
A Hikaru no Go Ghost Story
This, as always, is for Imbrium. Thank you seems to be such an inadequate thing to say. But you always seem to know what I mean, even when I make a mess of it. I guess that's why you're so good at what you do, ne? ;)
And special hello and thanks goes to Eryne-chan, who read this and gave feedback, thus helping make it more readable. Hee, you rock!
Part 11a: Beating Hearts
There is no water, but it feels like drowning anyway.
The darkness engulfs him, thick and cloying. He chokes, clawing upwards, hands grasping and desperate. Above him, something glimmers faintly, like the moon seen through branches thick with leaves. But the light is very, very far away and dwindling with each moment. The pressure wraps around him like a shroud.
And it is cold, so very cold, a bone snapping frigidity. It is a coldness that digs into his leaden limbs, a coldness soaking down past the marrow. A coldness which burns, sharper than any fire.
The current is dark and deep; there is no shore in sight.
He is drowning, though there is no water, and each moment marks an agonized eternity.
"Hikaru!"
A voice? His struggles fade, and he sinks to stillness, listening.
"Hikaru! Can you hear me?!"
Pain!
He had forgotten pain ... how it can resonate like a heated wire, embed itself like sand into an open wound. It grinds away at him, bit and by cutting bit ...
"Hikaru!"
Pain! Pain beyond thought, pain beyond memory, pain searing him through. What is in that word that hurts so very much? Something that was important once, he thinks. Something he should know.
Something broken apart, leaving edged pieces all around.
The darkness is smooth and still, without sound nor form nor pain. Maybe if he does not move, if he lets the cold seep in, maybe there will be a solitary peace in drowning, after all.
"NO! I won't let ... Even if I have to . . . even if I have to ... again . . . Kami-sama, it's like w-water ... why is it like water?!"
Fear. There is fear in the voice ... in the shaking pauses and in the keening edge of each word, there is a soul deep terror so absolute that he finds himself responding, finds that he still can still tremble, too, though his own soul has long frozen through. Perhaps they both will drown in this river of endless dark . . .
Perhaps this is both their fate, scripted out from the very beginning.
"N-no! Not this time."
The darkness is like water, but something moves now... something is coming, something also caught in the deep current but fighting towards him.
"Hikaru, I'm here! Just reach out..."
But that way holds its own heartbreak, a different sort of drowning. There is pain there, he knows. There is hardship. And there is ...
"Hikaru! I know. I know how it feels, to drown in darkness. But you ... you heard me once, when I was the one lost. Hear me again. Just reach out! I can't ... we can't hold this much longer ... Can you hear me?"
There is something else, the most important of all things ...
And in the midst of the fragmented chaos there comes an awkward familiarity, separate of the pain, separate of the cold.
"Can you hear my voice?"
He has done this once before. Heard it once before -- a voice bright like a beacon in the darkness. But it seems a little off somehow, as if he is viewing it from the wrong end up. Shouldn't he be the one watching someone else surface back to the light?
"Hikaru! Just reach!"
Something flashes in front of him -- a fluttering of white against the black tide. A ... hand?
For a brief moment, there is something like a touch of fingers, of a grip enclosing his own.
And something much like light surrounds him ... or at least, if not of light, then something not of the darkness. Something warm against the cold, something shining and tremulous, uncrinkling into the corners of his mind and settling down, worn and smooth, as if it had been there all along.
"Can you hear my voice? Can you hear me?"
He has done this before. So he knows what to do now.
"I ... I hear you."
"Hikaru?! Hikaru! ... Kami-sama . . ."
The darkness no longer feels like water but like black veils falling away to reveal the sun.
"I give thanks ... "
And he surfaces into the light.
to be continued in part 11b