…:Whispers:…
He did his best. But sometimes his best wasn't enough to stop the eternal fountain of pain and misery that seemed to well up inside him, screaming for an outlet. For some sort of release from the torment he endured.
Sometimes he just sat and thought. For hours on end he would sit and think, watching the relentless wind send the sand swirling about in endless torrents. Up, up, up it would fly above the desert planet, dancing along the wind…then come crashing back down to a harsh reality.
The darkness in the corners of his mind had been growing lately. The fear consumed him, forced him to wallow and weep in his own wretched hatred and revulsion. Murder and death. Destruction and pain. Tears and sadness. They all went hand in hand; all followed him about like fucked up little disciples following an even more fucked up deity.
And in that darkness he wept for those who were slaughtered. He screamed and cried and begged it all to go away. Oh how he dearly wished that whatever had made him would look down upon him in mercy and steal his very breath. The howling screams of pain and the wailing mournful cries of the dead were etched into his very brain. He could never forget them, no matter how much he tried.
The dull ache was enough to remind him of that.
Wolfwood often told him, almost pleadingly, that he couldn't put the sufferings of others on his own head. So the priest would sit with the outlaw on those sandy dunes and ramble on, speaking words of comfort and compassion. And most of the time it worked.
Almost.
He'd come to the conclusion long ago that he was defective. He looked at himself from a medical point of view: He was no more than a virus. A deceptive and dirty disease that warmed the heart, but slowly wore away the defenses and left you cold and dead, face down in the ever-swirling dirt.
Often he would contemplate the bane of his existence: his gun. In all senses, the weapon was contradictory. It was created for the sole purpose of destroying all human life on the dusty little planet. Never did its creator imagine it would be such a life saver, such a savior to those he had aimed to destroy.
But as it sat there, gleaming silver in the light, he thought of the secret it held within its depths; that whirring death trap of light and sound that made him sick to his stomach whenever he recalled it. By nature, the gun was malicious and vile. Yet he relied on it time and time again, saving himself and the others.
And he hated it. Yet he knew he couldn't survive without it. It had become a necessity over the years on that parched and withered excuse for a planet.
He dreamed for the day when he could discard it on the wasteland. He dreamed of the day when all of this…this sin and pain…this fear, this anger and sadness… and this hatred was swallowed up and forgotten in the sand. Forgotten, but not missed. Gone forever. When those thoughts in his mind, he could feel a small smile play at his lips. He felt happy because he truly thought someday he would succeed. But then the agonizing screams would return. Those haunting, dying screams that crept into the corners of his mind and fed on his ever-growing fear of reality and hatred of what he couldn't stop.
He tried to keep everyone away from him. The death cloud that seemed to follow him wherever he went had never relented before. He couldn't imagine it stopping now because of some silent wish that sat huddled and alone in the depths of his mind.
His companions.
Their constant reassurances were meant to help him. He knew that, of course. They used to make him feel slightly less cold inside. Slightly less scared, and less sad…less fucking helpless. Not now. Now their words twisted themselves into sweetly spun lies…sick, charming, little lies that burrowed their way into his head and wrapped their tendrils around his already shattered mind, whispering away. Always whispering.
It's not your fault, Vash.
It isn't your fault.
It is my fault.
It isn't.
You can't justify that.
And you can't save everyone.
I have to.
Didn't they understand?
He wanted to save both of them.
The spiders and the butterflies.
The humans and the plants.
It was all so twisted and distorted in his mind…he didn't understand what drove his twin to do what he did. He reasoned with himself that he probably never would, because Knives was evil. But then…he didn't quite understand what drove him ever onwards through the carnage of his own ruined and devastated life. He desperately wanted to understand not only his brother, but himself. He needed…no, he craved for the knowledge. He wanted to know. To understand. To know why he was defective. He thought he deserved that shred of comfort. But he knew the truth.
…he would never understand.
And in these times of confusion, he could hear Knives in his head, laughing at him; laughing at his way of life. He could almost see the amused smirk on his twin's face. It made him want to shout in rage, to break things in a childish rampage. He truly felt like he was trying for something unachievable. He could never change Knives, no matter how he tried. He couldn't even understand his brother's way of thinking, let alone change it.
You can't save everyone.
But he had to. He had to. He had to save Knives. No matter how it destroyed him, both inside and out.
He had promised her.
They say you need to pray if you want to go to heaven...
But they don't tell you what to say when your whole life has gone to hell…
I don't own Trigun and all that jazz, though I do hope you enjoyed it. Review!
:D