Hi! I want to thank Cat, Amon's Angel of the darkness, AnimeReviewer790, Nora, In True Meanings, and OneHellkat for my first reviews ever! I almost blasted through the ceiling when the little orange word review appeared beside my story! Sorry about the length of the story and the time it took to update it...hehe. I'm not very good at coming up with ideas and when I do it takes years to get them down onto paper. I've also been really busy at school lately. --;

Warning: This fic contains spoilers on the last episode of the series (well sort of anyways). Read at your own risk.

Just to clarify things, the prologue takes place before "that day".

Chapter 1

Painful Memories

Look into my eyes,

Stained glass windows to my soul.

Look into my eyes,

Filled with concealed emotions.

Look into my eyes,

And see my heart,

Beating an unsteady rhythm,

Broken.

That day. That was a day I'll never forget. Its events shall never evanesce from my mind, remaining forever firmly implanted there, permanent inscriptions in steel. Days have passed since that incident occurred, yet it feels as if it was yesterday. Ever so vividly, the happenings constantly replay behind my eyes, like a broken record, over and over and over, never stopping, torturous. Obsessions.

I try to forget. To block them out, to let myself go on living like before, but no matter how hard I try they remain. They persistently strike blows to my heart. I bleed. Scratched and gashed, my chest invisibly heaves out of pain. The flow of red liquid doesn't stop, trickling down into my limbs, poisoning my very being with its bitterness. I hopelessly try to wrap my wound with a tourniquet of indifference, but no mere bandage can heal what I feel inside.

Why. Why must it be so? Why must I be incapable of suppressing these thoughts? That day...is all I think about. The moment, where everything changed, where my denial ceased, where I finally admitted the way I felt inside. I at last made sense of my emotions, admitting to myself that I did indeed feel, that I was capable of more than indifference and anger. That I care about something, or even...someone. Yet it took something so fierce and so awful to make myself give in to the truth. The time it took for that to happen haunts me. A reaper above my head, unmoving, feeding off my very soul. I find myself lost in a cruel world without a purpose.

Lost without you.

It was too late. I could solely admit it to myself now, for to you it could no longer me admitted. No matter how dearly I desired to let loose my confessions, to scream out in honesty, it was impossible. You left me, or so that is what they say. You went to a place where I cannot follow you, a place beyond my reach as a human, beyond the fingers of my grasping hands. My eyes, deprived of your sight, wither away in their sockets. I am blind without your figure, wandering a dark labyrinth filled with dead ends. I try to run, to escape this place I have been condemned to, without result. No light await me at the end of the tunnel, or so it seems.

I hate myself for allowing my soul to get close to yours. I thwart myself for my weakness. I knew too well how caring for someone almost always leads to pain, yet I let myself fall for you none the less. Longing for your presence, I now discover how much I...

How much I truly need you now that you're gone.

It plagues me that if it wasn't for me you would most likely still be by my side.

We were running, running from a situation which would face both of us with two very different paths. We walked through a maze of underbrush, together; I took one way, but you took the other. I'll never forget the way you looked back at me, the way you stopped in your tracks and froze before me. I wasn't sure, being unfamiliar to sentiments, but for a moment I think I saw concern in your eyes. You called my name. That was the last time I heard it roll of your tongue. Your words supported my assumptions: you cared.

I told you to move, to keep on going, but you waited for me to catch up; you waited a second too long. Debris was whipping through the air, smoke and flame withered all life in their path, yet you still waited. I was screaming now, yelling for you to save yourself, fury burning through me, caused by your foolishness. By now, your perfect face was scratched and slightly bleeding, darkened by soot, you hair soiled with filth. You were so preoccupied with my welfare that you didn't notice the loosening beam above your head.

It is the last thing I remember before I went out cold, your frame being crushed by that rafter, you letting out a yelp of pain, so unfamiliar to my ears. It sounded through me, vibrating, paralyzing. You were pinned to the ground, but as I reached out to help I was plunged into darkness, pulled into the realm of unconsciousness by a sharp pain on the back of my head. I fought wildly, needing to free you from your suffering, but to no avail. I looked down as the earth flew towards me at a painful speed, and I made contact with the ground.

OK. So this chapter was mostly emotion and flashback, at least it was longer than the prologue (I broke a personal record ). I can hear you all screaming: "Oh no! Another Post-factory fic!" alas, it is. Do not sue me, review me :)