To my readers, SKETTY24, HUGHLOVERX AND DOZA, who I all love uberrrr much, here's the next chappie D! I hope you like it )! And don't worry…chapter 88 is coming real soon (I'm writing it at the moment D! YAY!). once again, thank you so much for dropping by to read my fanfic )!
Chapter 87: Follow the white rabbit
Then he reached out and gently placed his hand over Yuriko's. "She'll be fine." He said again, in a more optimistic manner this time. Nothing would go wrong as long as Charles was with them. Charles would never let any harm come to her. "I'll see you when you wake up." He said as he gently squeezed her hand.
/"Have you found it?"/ The professor asked Yuriko.
/"Found what?"/ Yuriko asked. She felt as if she and the professor were the only two people in the world. The only thing she could hear was the sound of his voice and her own voice within the empty darkness of her own hollow mind.
/"The way home…"/ Charles answered.
/"I'm trying."/ Yuriko replied. Her voice slight shook as she concentrated her mind on finding that 'home' that the professor was talking about.
/"You don't have to try too hard, Yuriko. You already know the way home. You just have to look within yourself."/ He said firmly. His majestic and well-framed voice continued to echo within Yuriko's mind. /"You know the way, Yuriko."/ He added. /"You know the way. You've known it all this time. You just have to take the path to it."/ He sounded like a father, instructing his young daughter on what to do next.
/"But what if I take the wrong path? What if I go the wrong way? What if I lead myself astray? I don't want to get lost, professor. I…I just want to go home."/ She said. Her voice was faint and soft. There was a hint of fear in it.
/"Don't be afraid, Yuriko. You can never get lost. A person who wants to go home can never be lost. If you really want to go home, then you can. And you're the only one who can do that."/ He said. /"That's why I need you to take me there…because you're the only one who knows the way back home…You, and you alone."/
/"I want to go home."/ She said firmly, filled with determination. Then her voice grew louder, almost in a shouting volume. /"I want to go home!"/ She shouted. Her voice echoed louder in her mind. /"I want to go --- home!!!"/ She cried out again.
And right after she shouted her last word, she suddenly felt the world around her shatter, and then she fell. She found herself falling in empty eternal pit of nothingness. She was falling in the darkness and she couldn't see anything. She was just plummeting so fast, and it was so dark, and she couldn't hold on to anything. She was just falling, and falling. She shouted out the professor's name, but she heard no response.
Yuriko couldn't understand what was happening. Would she even step onto solid ground again? And where was she? Why was she falling? Where was the professor? Did the professor know where she was? Was he even still there with her? And if she reaches the end of this eternal pit of darkness, will she die? Will her body break?
And as she fell deeper and deeper into the darkness, she suddenly started to see images around her. She saw them flashing around her as she fell. She saw images, pictures, fragments of her memories on the walls of the pit. And soon enough, she found the pit covered with images of her past. Now she felt like she was plummeting in a well of pictures. The deeper she fell, the more pictures she saw, and it almost amazed her.
The pictures were all moving upwards so quickly, since was falling so fast, but she marveled at their sight. There were pictures of a young Yuriko, Logan, a young William, the three of them together. She saw pictures of a middle-aged Japanese man who reminded her so much of herself. There were so many pictures, literally passing right before her very eyes with every second that she fell. There were also pictures of her and Logan and William with an elderly man with graying hair. Those were definitely frozen fragments of her past. And she knew that she would see them again so real and so soon.
Then the pictures started to fade. The pictures slowly faded into a shining whiteness, and now, Yuriko was falling into a white void. She could see nothing but white around her. What was happening? Where had all the pictures gone? She couldn't help but wonder where this fall was going to lead her, or what she was going to see next.
Yuriko closed her eyes and waited for the fall to end. She felt her body helplessly plummeting into the eternal white void. She could feel her hair whipping against her cheeks as she surrendered herself to the empty pit. She never heard the professor's voice again, but she wasn't scared anymore. She was ready for wherever that fall would take her. Something inside her was telling her that she was on her way home. And home was where she wanted to be. She was going to see it again very, very soon.
Her eyes suddenly opened wide as she felt something solid against her back. It was soft and prickly at the same time. She was also surprised to see a blue sky above her. She looked around and found herself lying on a vast field of soft green grass. She sat up and observed her surroundings. Where was she now? She didn't even feel herself 'hit' the ground. It was just as if just appeared there from out of nowhere.
She was sitting on a vast field. The grass was green, the sky was blue and the wind blew gently on the rolling hills. The soft, green grass underneath her tickled her hands which were palm-down on the ground. The place seemed too good to be true. She could even see trees…cherry blossom trees scattered a few distance from one another. There were a few of them around the area, and they looked incredibly beautiful as the wind blew their blooming pink flowers off their branches..
Yuriko stood up and brushed herself off. Where was she now? Was this a part of her past? Was this home? And why did it look so utterly familiar? It felt like a place she had been to before. She placed a hand over her eyes and looked into the distance. There was a road that was so far away from where she was standing, and across the road were more rolling hills of green grass and cherry blossom trees.
Then she turned around, and saw the most beautiful cherry blossom tree she had ever seen. It was the most beautiful one in the area, and it stood out like a rose in a sea of daisies. And underneath the tree, was a little girl. She was running around the tree with her head tilted up and her arms spread wide. The cherry blossoms that fell off the tree fell on the girl, like rain, and she seemed to be enjoying catching them on her hands.
Yuriko furrowed her eyebrows as she looked at the tree and the little girl. The little girl looked so happy and so carefree. She seemed to be the living embodiment of the happiness that little girls should be able to have. And Yuriko also found the girl to be somewhat familiar. She could barely see the little girl's face from where she was standing, but she felt as if she had known that girl her entire life. She felt like she had seen that little girl's face countless of times.
She slowly walked towards the tree to take a closer look. She wanted to see the little girl up close. She wanted to see who that little girl was. Though deep inside, she already had a good feeling as to who that little girl truly was. And the closer she walked to the girl, the clearer the little girl's face became.
The little girl was Asian. The hair that flowed over the girl's shoulders was as black as the night sky. She had pink cherry blossom petals over her hair and her clothes, and some of those petals fell off of her as she ran. She had round, black, almond shaped eyes that were further slanted by her wide smile. And her lips were a mixture of red and pink. Her skin was off a tan color, that further justified her Asian history.
Yuriko was right about the little girl. That girl was none other than her. That was her when she was younger, probably when she was around five to six years old. She couldn't help but smile as she watched her younger self running around under the falling petals of the cherry blossom tree. Everything was picture perfect. It was perfect.
She was now standing just a couple of steps away from the tree. And despite the falling petals, she could see her younger counterpart so clearly. She wanted to walk within the shade of the tree and meet the young Yuriko, but she didn't want to disturb the child's moment of happiness. She just wanted to watch her be a happy little girl.
Then as the young Yuriko ran around the tree in front of the older Yuriko, the young Yuriko suddenly stopped in her tracks. Then she slowly turned around and faced her older counterpart. The smile on the little girl's face faded as she stared into Yuriko's eyes. Her face was void of any emotions as she looked at her older version.
Yuriko's eyes suddenly widened when she saw her young self looking at her. Why was the little girl looking at her like that? Why was the young Yuriko looking at her in such a ghostly way, as if the child had suddenly lost all of her emotions? The child wasn't sad or angry, but she wasn't happy either. She just stood there, looking at her, unmoving and unexpressive as the two of them continued to stare at one another.
Then the child's faint and hollow voice finally broke the silence between them. "I've been waiting for you." She said hauntingly. Her eyes stared deep into Yuriko's as she spoke. She looked like she was reading Yuriko inside out, judging her with her eyes.
Something about the child's voice and eyes disturbed Yuriko. She couldn't believe that she feared this image of her younger self. "What do you mean?" Yuriko asked, though she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the answer from that little girl.
"I thought you've forgotten about me." The little girl answered. Her voice was monotonous, and her young face was still void of any emotions. The only part of her face that seemed to move was her lips. And her eyes never moved away from Yuriko's.
Yuriko breathed in and returned the little girl's gaze. Deep inside, she knew what the little girl was talking about. "I didn't mean to forget about you." She said with an apologetic tone in her voice. "I didn't mean to forget us." She didn't know why, but she felt as if she owed the little girl something. She felt that by forgetting about her past, she had forgotten about the little girl that she once was.
"That's why you're here." The younger Yuriko said. Her young face remained emotionless. "…Because you want to remember. That's why you came back. That's why you made your way back home." She added. For such a five-year-old girl, her choice of words was profound, and her level of thinking was already that of a grown-up.
Then Yuriko realized that she wasn't really talking to her five-year-old self. She realized that she was actually talking to the embodiment of the past that she had forgotten. "I know you know that, because you are me. You are me, aren't you?"
"Correct." The child replied. "I am the you that you have forgotten, the you that you have abandoned. I am who you truly are, and who you want to be again." The child continued to stare into Yuriko's eyes and noticed a hint of doubt within them.
"But you are scared, aren't you?" She asked, in response to the look of confusion and fear in Yuriko's eyes. "You're scared of who you used to be. There's a part of you that's scared to see the person you once were. And it's not just about you, isn't it?" She asked.
The child's eyes seemed to pierce into Yuriko's. It was as if the child was the interrogator, and Yuriko was the helpless victim of the interrogation. Yuriko felt so trapped as she stood there in front of her young counterpart. She knew that the little girl could read her thoughts like an open book. After all, that little girl was her. That young girl was more of 'her' than she could ever be.
"You fear not only the past image yourself, but you also fear your past with him…" The younger Yuriko extended her hand to her side and Logan's form gradually appeared beside her. "…and him." She extended her hand other to her other side, and the young William's form appeared there too. Now, the little Yuriko was standing between both Logan and the younger version of Stryker's self.
Yuriko's eyes widened when she saw Logan and Stryker appear right before her very eyes. Logan and Stryker's forms remained still as they stood beside the young Yuriko. The two men's were open, but they seemed to be looking at nothing. They were more like statues than living breathing beings.
The younger Yuriko noticed the sudden change in Yuriko's face, and a faint, sly smile curled up the corner of her childish lips. "I'm right, aren't I?" She asked, looking at Yuriko with mocking eyes. "You are afraid to see your past with them, because you don't know what to do with your future with them."
Something about the child's haunting smile bothered Yuriko. And the way the child was looking at her made her want to jump out of her own skin. Her younger self was looking at her as if she could read the entirety of her soul. The child was looking at her as if she could read her thoughts, her dreams, fantasies, her fears and her desires. And what haunted Yuriko more, was the truth behind what her younger counterpart had said. Each and every word that the child had spoken was true.
Then the younger Yuriko timidly placed a hand over her mouth and a chilling giggle escaped from her lips. "Look at you. You're like a child." She said as she looked at Yuriko. "You can't decide which toy you want to buy." She said. A disturbing smile spread across her candy lips. "Admit it, Yuriko. You want them both. You want two men even if you have only one heart to love with."
She slightly tilted her head to the side and looked at Yuriko quizzically. "Don't you think that's unfair to them? Don't you think it's unfair, that both of them want something from you, when you can only give yourself to one?" Then the smile on her lips grew wider and she folded her little arm and snapped her fingers.
Right when she snapped her little fingers, Logan suddenly disappeared from her side, and reappeared right in front of Yuriko. But this time, Logan was naked. He had no clothes on, not even undergarments, and he was looking at Yuriko with loving, caring eyes. He was looking at her as if she was the only one he needed, he wanted. And his eyes were somewhat seductive, like he wanted to lure her to him.
"Isn't he beautiful?" The little girl asked. "Isn't he what you've always wanted?" She asked again. Her eyes intensely stared at both Logan and Yuriko.