Chrono Cross Second Journey

Fan Novelization

Book 3

1 Lost Child of Time

Serge fell head into the ocean after being cast by a force that threw him far beyond the shores of Opassa Beach. Fear was the desperation that drove his arms thrashing and legs kicking, but soon fatigue became the weight that dragged him under. After mouthfuls of water he had drunk and choked upon, he began a long fall toward the depths below. For long moments he held his breath as he watched above him the afternoon sun scattered by the waves of water. Gradually his heart pounded violently against his chest, as if in protest and in threat that it should cease to work if not duly fed. Against his will the tautness in his chest burst and gasped through his nose the cold of water. Pain seared and in his eyes a disarray of colors burst.

There and then into twain his vision split.

On the one side he saw distorted shapes and stars of blue, green, red and yellow smear his world. Like an axe that clove firewood, the pain in his chest clove his mind asunder. Thereafter, numbness slowly overwhelmed him and all sense of mortal pain slowly departed. Down and down like a feather he continued to drift, at times riding on the wild currents that swept him here and there. A school fishes swam past, veering and twisting about his helpless body. It was then a distant hope lingered in some corner of his eroding mind as he imagined they would in their effort lift him up into the surface above, lift his soul from death. But soon the living left the dying and hope left behind a vacant darkness. Irony was his last fleeting thought...

On the other, he was dragged by his neck and dragged up to the surface. There he choked and vomited and the day's breakfast expelled from his guts. He was dazed, confused and traumatized. When at last he reached the safety of the shore and was put gently lying down, he stared blankly at the clear blue skies above him. His head swam and his world swirled, until long moments later when gulls soared past the heavens above and recited in their voices a chorus of gentle poetry did he return to consciousness, his confusion dispel. This instant, he became aware of a young lady leaning close to him. Her drenched ponytail of blonde glistened in the afternoon sun, and from it seemed to drip the gold of honey. With sorrow and grief she regarded him, and seawater and tears washed her rugged face.

She spoke with a weeping voice, "Everything is all right now. Goodbye, Serge. Goodbye..."

Weariness sat heavily on his eyelids and slowly they shut the world from his eyes. As the words of the lady slowly faded into soft silence, he felt an ache throbbing with the very beat of his heart. Darkness embraced him with arms that could not be seen, but still he tumbled down a long tunnel, depthless and bottomless. And as he did, floating in his mind were the memories of this sorrowful young lady, her gold ponytail and her face that touched his heart with familiar warmth. He found bliss priceless and unspeakable, where unlike the beauty of the blossoming rose, or the joy of another's touch, they could be put into words. He found the bliss simple yet divine, above all levels of being, beyond any state of mind. But like all good things, they must come to an end. And to the end they came, as the memories there shattered and like broken glass the sharp fragments of its pieces hurt him.

Serge peeled his eyes open but darkness was all he could see, save himself. He felt his head split by a pain so terrible, so excruciating. For the moment he did nothing but let pass a short moment, till his head was clear, his mind sober. He struggled to sit up but his bones ached and strained so that he fell back. Then, he tried to rub his temples with his finger but felt instead a prick at his flesh. And when he examined his hands, he found that he now used paws rather and what pricked him were the tip of his sharp claws. For a long while he thought he now was in a dream, and from it he would soon wake. But after the long while passed, he began to recall vaguely the Sacrament, and he began to understand he was now in a nightmare from which he could never walk, a nightmare that now had trapped him within this hideous shell.

Like the flames of fire that licked at one's skin, pain suddenly seared intensely his abdomen. Blood still oozed, though slowly, from the wound of the dagger Kid had given him; and tears trickled for all the hurt his fragile heart had to bear. No more he could see her smile or hear her speak or under the twinkling stars of the night hold her in his arms tight, and where and when he could have prevented this miserable end he had failed. To the enemy, he lost Kid and both lost his friends save only the memories of them, intangible, untouchable. Overwhelmed with despair, he curled and pressed his arms against the wound and wept until sleep would steal him into another dream that he hoped was beautiful and never would wake from.

He was not certain how long it had been but he never did sleep. The world of slumber would not take him, and would instead seal him behind the doors of torment, ensnare him within a prison of truth. The physical hurt had subsided and the wound had closed, but in him the emotional hurt still lingered. Lost of will, dried of tears, he could cry no more but suffer worse in silence. He allowed himself to sink into dejection, and denial. He must be in hell, he was sure, for dark was his world and empty silence was all he heard. He was dead and he desired to stay as such. Most of all, he deserved such a fate, no more cruel than that of Kid's.

At length he eyes began to see, through a darkness that slowly melted, as if the dawn of a new day broke in this hell. As he lied curled in misery, the vision of a world appeared before him. Above him was a sky drab and pale, like the cheerless gloom of a clouded day. He lied on a dark footpath that, like the shadow of a snake, wound and spiraled and rose and fell and straddled by vast plains of gray, of monotony and of dreariness. There was no horizon as he eyes could tell, for the ground and the sky blended together in a great mass of gray. As if he looked through the thick of mist, the world seemed faded and washed. As if he looked through glass poorly made, the world and that long, dark path seemed twisted, distorted and above all else unreal. Then, an uncanny oddity troubled his eyes, for they could perceive no depth: no near and no far. And how long in distance the footpath led he could not tell, as if the world in his eyes were flat like the painting on a canvas.

When he rubbed his eyes with his paw to clear his vision, to observe this distorted world in better light, he had instead stuck between his lid strands of fur. He tried to blink and peel off the grim reminder that once more told him he was no longer human. But however hard he tried, the fur remained stubbornly stuck. Until he eventually gave up and decided that he would close his eyes from the desolation, and wait patiently until when the end of time would come and take him and all things living.

But then came to him this burning question: how long would it take for the end of time to arrive in a place where time told nothing of its presence? No sun climbed over the grey heavens, no moon hung from the gloomy skies, and nothing moved in this twisted world cast beyond the realms of sanity. Thus, it made good sense that he should shorten the wait and seek to slam his head against the floor till it cracked and all its worthless contents within spill. Or he should walk off the dark path and let himself fall off the sides to a bitter, smashing end. Or peel his wound open and let him slowly bleed away his life. There he did not stop, but went on pondering of the fastest way to die, until came a point when he had ideas too many that he did not know which would best, swift and painless. And to complicate his reasoning, he knew not if in this surreal world passing on to another plane was not amongst the rules of its nature, and dying a second time was wishful thinking. At this, he gave up once more, and concluded with the all common logic left in him that dying was pointless. Convinced that his mind had exhausted all possibilities, or that the possibilities had exhausted his mind, Serge continued to lie with his eyes closed.

The feeling of exasperation began to chew into his heart. And quickly through his veins it spread and engulfed him whole. His fingers began to twitch and his legs tremble, and harder and faster they did, as if in a moment he would explode and all over his soul would be scattered and forever lost in this miserable place.

It was then he heard a voice calling from a distance, and in the faint murmurs it seemed to call his name.

"Lynx! Lynx!" it softly said.

At first he imagined he must soon be falling asleep, and wandering between slumber and consciousness voices from the dream world must have been calling for him. But moments later, he the heard the same voice again, louder and clearer, but playful and in the gloom of this world sounded familiar.

"Ooh-la-la!"

That instant, the feeling of exasperation left him and when once he became capable of sound reckoning returned, he understood it would have been moments more before insanity would claim him. Silently glad that he had survived the awful struggle, Serge opened his eyes and sat up. Around him he looked, and about the twisting and shadowy paths he scanned, but little he could ascertain the direction of the voice. As flat as this world seemed to his eyes, the sound came from nowhere it seemed to his ears. Curiosity tickled his mind and anxiety raced with the beating of his heart. Then, he rose to his feet and strained his ears in hope that the voice would speak once more.

"Lynx! Will you stand there forever?" said again the unique voice of Harle. And the voice of Harle was that much Serge could be sure. For a while he wondered the reason for her presence here where no living thrived and the dead could not bear one moment longer before the waves of insanity would drown beneath their crushing power any mind. But soon his mind drifted to where her question had beckoned, as if it clung to her words like it were a lifeline cast to him amidst stormy seas. Yet, he knew little of how to reply, for even if in his eyes he saw the dark, endless paths that he could walk, surely to no good they must lead.

What can I do? Serge meant to say, but from his feline lips and tongue those clumsy words tripped and tumbled so that it sounded like "Art an I who?"

"You could leave this place, dear!" said the voice of Harle.

By the firm counsel of her words, she gave him strength and hope. But the fact that she called him Lynx was little encouragement for him. There's nothing I can do. If I can leave here. And while he struggled to articulate the words, they came out eventually slurred and even to his own ears, incomprehensible. "Airs arfing I an who. If I an reef here."

"O, there're tons of things you can do, but only if you want to in the first place!" said Harle, who seemed to have little trouble understanding him. "And first of them all, you should stop talking like that."

Serge took a long while to ponder, as if by being in this world it had numbed his senses. He opened slowly his mouth and then shut it. And then again and again, he opened and closed it as he loosened the muscles in his jaws. He felt the dryness cracking on his cheeks and the stretching of which set one layer of facial fur gruesomely grinding upon another. Then, with an effort that he found painful and laborious, as if he bore on his back many sacks of wheat and grain, he spoke at last.

"I should really stop talking like that."

"There! Give yourself a pat on the back! Now, walk yourself to the end of the road. I will be waiting!"

Walking on his new legs was to Serge a terrifying chore, and walking on a path that seemed to lead nowhere was to him fruitless endeavor. Already he was daunted by the winding and twisting road, by the folds on the lands that he must ascend and descend. Already he was tired that once more he should be led on the road already laid for him, without another option more to choose from. At this thought he kicked his feet into the ground and whipped up from it a thin mist of black sand. It must have been ink, he imagined, that lay the long, dark road before his eyes on a crumpled sheet of paper. But before the story even had finished, the owner of the quill had chosen to toss the page and him into a dump forgotten by time.

Finally, Serge dragged his tired feet. He pushed himself harder mentally than he had to physically. He trod on the path of the dark winding road, and with the rise and fall of the strange land he followed suit. Until came a point in time where he grew annoyed with conformity, and he wandered from the dark path into the straddling gray. Thereafter, he took the straight route and through the windings paths he cut towards its end as far as he eyes could see. His patience began to wear thin, for hours seemed to have past but the end was nowhere near, and Harle's voice never spoke. His steps became strides, strides became jogs and soon he found himself dashing across the distorted world. As he ran, he roared with his might and set loose from within him all his shackled emotions. As he ran harder, he listened with bitter pleasure the resounds of his mournful echoes.

Eternity must have spun a full cycle when Serge finally reached the end of the road, for it seemed to him countless generations had passed him by. And here he saw nothing but the vast emptiness of gray, and a long, dark trail behind him.

"Ooh-la-la! You are very late, non?" said Harle, and then, she appeared before Serge, floating on magic. Her motley costume appeared dull and gray. But bells that hung from the ends of her headwear tinkled gently in the silence, like soft, soothing music in the quiet of the night. "But I see more of you today than I have in the past ten years, Monsieur Lynx."

"What is it that you want, Harle?" Serge roared. "Why won't you let me die in peace?"

Harle gave an exaggerated gasp. "Does Monsieur Lynx want to die? What drives him to brink of such desperation, such despair? Tell me!"

"You are getting very annoying, Harle," said Serge. And with every word a painful struggle, he said them slowly. "Leave this place and leave me alone!"

"What a delight it is to annoy Monsieur Lynx! Every time I try to annoy him, he stares at me coldly. I am beginning to like you!"

Like a dancer, Harle wheeled gleefully about her toes. Gracefully, she floated down to the ground and with much respect she bowed before Serge.

"I can accede to only one of your commands, Monsieur Lynx. I will leave this place, but I'm afraid I have to take you with me!"

"I have no reason to go with you. And I am not your Monsieur Lynx."

"Tsk tsk tsk," Harle arched backward and wagged a finger. "Do you still believe you are Serge? Just look at you. No one in the right mind will believe you are Serge."

"As long I do!"

She raised an eyebrow, as if she wondered how he could not fathom logic and sense. And thus, she explained, with gestures of both arms animated beyond necessity, "It is simple: If everybody says that you are Monsieur Lynx, then--"

"Then, what?"

She leapt into the air and flipped a full three-sixty. As she drifted gracefully down to the ground, she said with murmur with all intent to tease and mock, "Voila! You are Lynx. That is who you are! That is reality! It's but a game! If you try to play a different set of rules and go against reality, it will surely crush you and it will kill you. And reality will continue to go on as if nothing happened: from yesterday to today; and from today to tomorrow. Reality marches on, leaving your crushed body behind."

She cast him an observing glance, but surely she must know that he was not convinced. Then, she shrugged with a look of indifference and suddenly she disappeared from where she stood. Amidst the gray, a figure soon appeared, one who donned the same clothes as the seventeen year-old Serge and the same red bandana. That instant, the real Serge raised his paws and poised himself for a showdown. But the image of the young Serge spoke and through his lips came to his ears the voice of Harle.

"In reality, you died ten years ago in the other world," said the image of the young Serge. "How can you say for sure this is the real you? Maybe for you it is evident, but... I wonder if you ever really were Serge? Furthermore, what was this Serge? A figure? A shape? A spirit? A soul? Where was this Serge?"

The real Serge did not quite know the answer and kept his thoughts to himself.

"Find the Dragon Tear, and you may rediscover yourself."

"The Dragon Tear? The artifact that was used for the Sacrament."

"Hmm? Did I say too much? How you exist is defined by how others accept you. Ask anyone and you'll know who you really are. But oops! You won't find anyone to ask I fear, not in this place at least! So come on, let's go. We don't have the time to be dawdling here, otherwise we may truly get lost in time! I can't afford to lose you just yet."

She seized his wrist and tried to drag him from where he stood rooted, but he resisted and wrenched off her grip. Then, she turned to him, tilted her head and regarded him with a look of puzzle.

"I am not going with you!" he exclaimed, but with none the urgency he would like to have mustered. His jaws were of those of a wild beast that needs taming aplenty. "W-Wherever you are taking me."

"I'm taking you home!" she said while she clapped her hands and waved him to her like she waved over a crawling child. "Come. Be good now! I'll buy you lots of sweets and candy. I'll throw in a few dolls and teddy bears if you'll just hold my hand and come with me."

"I don't deserve to be home, when all my friends are dead," said Serge as wistfully as he did ruefully.

"Oh!" exclaimed Harle, as if after so much he had to say she finally understood his feelings. "Monsieur Lynx is concerned about his friends, non? Will it do if I tell you, that they are still alive and kicking?"

Her words struck in his heart a chord of hope, and with the harmony of her tinkling bells it raised his spirits and lit a small glitter of light in his eyes. But still he regarded Harle cautiously, and wondered as he hoped if what she had just said was true.

"How can that be true?" he said softly. "I saw Kid--"

Harle bit her lips in deep thought. "The first will need more than a stab to do her in. The other two will wake from a nightmare at worst. Now, the last of the four... Hmm. He's the tricky one. Ah! I know exactly what to do with a retard. I'll leave him here to sulk till the cows come home. Goodbye!"

She waved and joyfully hopped away. With an unseen cord she tugged at his yearning and lugged it away with her. Precious little effort she had to spend to draw Serge away from the world that reeked only of lifeless stale. On his accord, Serge began to follow, and once more he found himself walking on a path already laid before his feet. What choice did he have in the matter, when Harle had clearly touched a soft spot in his heart? So it was that he must walk, for hours upon hours more, until she would lead him out of this world, back into the one from where he came.

Long was the journey his legs had to carry him through and still the end of it all could not be seen. Even with this new and sturdy frame, exhaustion and gloom quickly was wearing his strained mind. He tried to veer his stray thoughts away from Kid for he knew that there he could only find the burden of anxiety waiting to bear down on him. And rather than being fed constantly by the sallow gray of the world, he sought solace in the gentler memories of his childhood, his village and his friends behind his closed eyelids. But as the road went on for long miles after another, like an avalanche that rolled and swelled, Kid began to dominate the greater parts of his thoughts. Finally, he spoke.

"How is Kid?" said Serge. "Do you have news of her whereabouts and well-being?"

At this, Harle stopped and so did Serge. She turned and glowered and with a tone of displeasure, she reminded him, "I've come a long way here to save you, in case you forget."

"You... You have not done anything to her, have you?"

"What gratitude!" she frowned. "You're so very welcome, Monsieur Lynx!"

"I meant no offense, but still I would like to know."

"Don't mention it!" she waved, ignored Serge and continued the long walk.

"Harle!" called Serge stubbornly, but not a word more Harle would speak.

He hauled his feet and over the shapeless land he forged ahead. As concern began to ease and fears allay, his senses became deeply aware of the further oddities where he now walked. If he spoke to Harle when she was by common measure ten feet from him, she always took a while to reply, as if his voice traveled great distances between them. At times she looked very small, at times very large. Even if no depth he could perceive, surely she must be further or nearer. Yet he had made no effort to catch up or fall behind. Now and then a field of distortion would come between them both and Harle would suddenly seem twisted in figure. And when Harle seemed to walk a straight path before him, she would on occasion appear to have veered off left or right.

"What is this place?" he asked Harle

"The correct question to ask is: what is this time?"

Once more her riddle had him puzzled.

"This is a cleft that lies between broken continua of time."

"A cleft? You don't mean a big pit, do you?"

"Quite like that. Like a hole in time, a great, big irreparable hole. Plenty of them there are all over time, if you know where and when they are and how to get to them. Temporal disruptions, or time storms, from as far away as the stars may cause them to appear. And when someone meddles with time, they can also form. Some holes can bring the future to you, or they can bring you to the future. Some are like doors and can bring you to another place altogether. Some are as big as towns, some little as raindrops. You've seen the fog and all the ghosts? That must have come from some other place and time. But this particular piece here was born precisely when the future divided ten years ago."

"Is that why my vision seems distorted? It's like looking through water that doesn't move. Makes me dizzy just trying to follow you, but go not where I see you go. How do you know where to go?"

Harle stopped and turned.

"Don't you see that faint purple green in the distance?" she quizzed as she pointed. "Light could not bend as much I suppose. We may take the long winding route at times. But if we have it always in sight, we'll get to it in no time."

"I don't see anything. Everything looks bleak and grayish."

"Oh I see. It's your cat's eyes, dear. It's quite dark here, so that's why your vision is grayed out. But if you feel dizzy trying to follow, I could hold your hands!" she offered gleefully.

"N-No! No!" stammered Serge. "No, thank you."

"Suit yourself. As to why this place is such, I could not explain better than you just did yourself. There are more anomalies in this world beyond your comprehension, Monsieur Lynx. Many more of them you have yet to see."

"How often will I see things as unnatural?"

"This is Nature, Monsieur. And here we have a piece of art as a result of action and reaction."

"Hmm... I think I get the idea."

"You have to! I don't think I fancy repeating that. But I have a name for this place! Would you like to hear?"

"You gave this place a name?"

"Do I tickle you? I call it, Field of Chaos. Appropriate, no?"

"I'm not quite sure."

Harle chuckled. "Come! I don't know what time is it, but I know do we don't have much of it left!"

What felt like another several hours passed, and Serge's feet already had become weary. But slowly what Harle had said was a patch was beginning to take shape, and as they approached, light began to paint his vision in color and the world around him gradually faded into pitch black. A circle whose edges bled tones of purple and green hung against darkness, but through it was cast an image familiar. Red trees of the Ba species stood gnarled upon the banks of brown marshes, and here and there lay the long, moist shrubs of green and poisonous yellow. Rays of dawn fell through the riddled canopy, and over the muddy banks cast the swaying shadows of leaves. A thick mist lay over the marsh, and some it seemed had drifted their way into this world, so that all about the circular portal seemed eerily smoky. The colors seemed different from what he remembered, and now they looked less vibrant and all shifted in hue. But beyond that portal he could see depth, and for a moment he appreciated distance.

"Home," he said unconsciously.

His flesh grew increasingly sensitive to the warmth from the world beyond, and was to him the gift as of red hearth burning in the cold nights of winter. He was eager to forget his experience in this world where only darkness and the bitter chill prevailed. And so when he again muttered the word "Home," a smile came to his lips.

x

x

x

Six hours later by Serge's reckoning, they came at last to the boundary of the portal, and through it Harle stepped. He followed and found his feet settle gently on firm ground. Then he closed his eyes, let the embrace of the afternoon in a real world wrap him and let sink his mind into a hollow of momentary joy.

"Does this place look familiar to you, Monsieur Lynx? Do you need me to tell you where we are?"

"I already know," he said confidently. "The Hydra Marshes."

"But do you know which world we are in now? Yours? Kid's? Or another world altogether."

Serge opened his eyes and stared blankly at her.

"Ah!" she said disappointedly. "Just as I thought. This is your world, Monsieur Lynx, where you did not die ten years ago."

"It's my world!" he said and tears welled up in his eyes. His throat quivered until no longer he could withhold, and out came a drop trickling down his cheek. "Thank you, Harle!"

"Ooh," she hopped back and spread her arms wide. "I owe my life to Monsieur Lynx. In return of this debt, I'll do anything to keep his. Let's go, now. We must make haste and get to your enemy in the next world. Time and tide will not wait for you I fear."

Just a moment," he sniffed. "You say 'we?'"

Harle looked cross. "Yes, we, of course! We look for Leena and Glenn and that golden ponytail, and then we fight Serge."

"Fight Serge? You mean fight Lynx? Are you not working with him?"

"Ah!" she said in exasperation and with a smack to her forehead. "Monsieur Lynx forgets. I still am working with you, Monsieur Lynx, no? If you want to look for your friends, it is I who you need, and I who you must now trust. As always has been, even if you disliked it! So you had best get used to having me tag along."

"I-"

"No I. No you. And no buts! Lead the way, Monsieur!"

Here and now he found himself, like a soft tree in the wind, swayed by the possibility that her sincerity was true. But there in his mind seethed a flame that fed upon the fuel of distrust, so that at his ears and eyes it burned furiously. War broke out between one mind and the other, and its drums he heard pounded at his heart and ears. Alas, he failed to translate fear into voice and this would prove in the several hours ahead an internal struggle.

Hard as rock had become the feeling that he was the one who tagged along.