Dreams of the Planet: Unleashed
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NarutoxHarem
SergexLeena
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''Normal Speech''
Inner Thoughts, Dialogue, or reading passages from books and scrolls
(Quick Notes and Messages or Echoes.)
(Dark over lapping echoes)
''Boss Summons, Demons, Dark beings speaking, Demonic/Angry characters Speaking as well as extremely Dark spells and Magic.''
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Story Start
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The sun hung high up in the late afternoon sky as it continued to scorch the lands of the earth with its intense heat while it cast the rays of life on to the natural flora that every other living thing on earth so depended on. The flying seagulls and birds continued to soar through the clouds and the skies, squeaking and chirping and declaring their existence above all living. The waves of the sea continued its routine of advancing and receding from the shores of the beach, filling the silence with sounds of serene splashes as its waters washed up the sands.
Everything around Serge was black.
What were these beautiful sounds? Was this heaven? It had to be. He must have died in all that hellish water that crept over to drown him. It was finally over. Death had finally claimed his soul, after having slipped from his deadly clutches twice.
So this was what it felt like to die?
He would never see his mother again. He would never see his father whom he hoped so much would return to him; and everyone else at the village again. It was all over. But at the very least, he would never have to go through again one traumatic accident after another, survived each but waited for yet another to come. Even if he were to be destined by fate to end his suffering in death and begin more in the next plane, he was resigned to it. At the very least, ghosts and spirits don't die. Or so he heard.
"What are you doing there, boy?" came a voice that surprised Serge. "It's dangerous to sleep out here."
He struggled to open his eyes against the hot, glaring sun. A familiar view of a white, silky beach unfolded itself in his vision, one that seemed to tell him that he was well alive. He sat up. His head spun as wildly and quickly as the skies in his vision were, verifying that his cerebral components functioned as they would, under such conditions. He shook his head hard, tried to regain soberness, only to see his vision blinded by flashes and shattering into fragments of dazzling colors. It took a while before the dizzy spell cleared, and when it did, Serge let out a sigh before turning to look towards the voice on his left.
It was an old man Serge recognized; one of the Arni villagers, one of the quiet elderly folks, whom he didn't know well. He never came up to Serge for a talk. Serge never did either. These two men could never hold a full conversation. Uttering half a word to each other was already too much for them, let alone asking each other's names.
"You alright, boy?" asked the old man. "What on earth are you doing lying down, anyway? For a second there, I thought you might have been a dead body, washed ashore."
Serge looked around for Leena, but she was nowhere to be found.
"Where's" - Serge choked - "where's Leena?"
"Where's Leena?" the old man asked in surprise. "You are the only one I see. Are you a friend of Leena's?"
Serge gazed back at the old man, surprised that this old man was not only talking a little more than usual today, that he was also a little more forgetful.
"I believe she's in the village, baby-sitting. Well, I'd best be on my way. Anyway, if you're looking for Leena, you should stop by the village. You know, you shouldn't be playing here, boy. Wouldn't want anything to happen to you, now."
The old man left with a smile.
Serge looked up into the sky, gazing beyond its dome of blue. His mind wandered and wondered. He could not comprehend the strangest of encounters that he had just experienced. He saw the strangest of visuals that did not belonged to this world. He heard the most familiar of noises that should have ended more tragically than a blackout. The third encounter with Death and he escaped. It had him within its grasps but it refused to take him, as if it were bitter for the past failed attempts, and that it deemed necessary to taunt and toy with his body, soul and mind. Yet, there should be no reason why it did such.
Exhausted, he surrendered to the mystery, relieved himself of the heavy thoughts and decided to call it day. There was nothing more important now than taking a good rest.
He picked up his swallow and left for home.
"Welcome to Arni!" said a voice that greeted Serge as he stepped through the entrance into his home village.
The sudden hospitality of the fellow villager stunned him, as did the surroundings that Serge's sense caught on to. Laid all over the roofs of the Arnian huts were beautiful flowers and colorful drapery. Gone was the hanging of dried fish that symbolized luck, the tradition that every Arnian had faithfully kept. The air smelled different with that of fresh green grass, and tinted with a teasing fragrance of lavender. The intense heat made breathing suffocating, a condition Arni never experienced before.
He had only been gone for less than half a day, but the village had undergone a major facelift. There were to be no celebrations anytime soon, not any that Serge knew of. Even if there were, Arni never had the tradition of decorating huts with flowers. Even if it had been decided so, it was impossible to transform the whole village into such in that short a time. But the surprise quickly faded. He found no reason to think deep into the Jacks that were springing up from the boxes one after another. He only had his mind on his bed.
As he walked back to his house, he met Una who gave him a cold shoulder when normally Una walked up to Serge to initiate a quick chat. Una always had something new to say, no matter the time of the day, no matter how busy he was with his chores. Baffled by Una's indifference, Serge decided to call out to him.
"Hi," Serge greeted.
"Hi! Whoa, that's some weapon you've got there," said Una, pointing to Serge's double-bladed swallow.
"Oh, sorry," Serge apologized. He was puzzled at Una's reaction what should have been a usual sight.
"Are you new here?" asked Una, an eyebrow raised.
"What?" Serge expressed his surprise, wondering what Una could have meant. "Anyway," he calmed himself down. "Is Leena back?"
"Leena? I think she's at the pier, baby-sitting. Are you a friend of Leena's?"
Something was amiss.
"What are you talking about? She was with me at the beach earlier, but she left me there."
"I know I know," Una said, waving his right hand in expectation. "My sister still needs to work on her temper and those tantrums. Wait a minute, are you her boyfriend?" Una looked at Serge cheekily.
"No. Why are you acting so-"
"No? Just a friend then?" Una asked with a curious shrug.
"What are you talking about? Is this a joke?"
"This is no joke! My sister really needs to work on her character," Una said, then sighed as he shook his head. "I'm sure if she gets herself a boyfriend, she'll act a little more ladylike."
"I-"
"Hey, look. I've got some chores to finish, so I can't talk to you. Bye!"
Una turned away from Serge and walked back to his house. Serge, who was still exhausted, shrugged and dismissed everything as a major conspiracy, a huge prank that would be revealed to him in due time, when the whole village would "surprise" him, and then everyone would drown in their own earnest laughter, before beginning the party proper, whatever it was.
He entered the hut.
Gone were the beautiful, decorative carpets laid over the raw wooden floor. Gone were the beautiful curtains that his mother hung on both sides of the two windows in his house. In their places instead, were clotheslines from which dirty rags and cloth hung. And the familiar, clean and dusted living room with a healthy yellow ambient from the sunlight was no longer. In its place instead, was a dirty, cobwebbed, smelly sty with a gray, gloomy look. A hammock hung near a window at the end of the living room.
The exhaustion found a reason to leave him, to leave behind a sudden void in his mind with which he could not think. The transformations made him anxious, his palms sweat and his teeth chatter. He stormed up the stairs anxiously to his room, hoping to see, hear and smell something - anything - that was his home.
What he saw brought no surprises, only a soft, numb shock that didn't quite make him scream but instead made him drop his jaws, completely dumbfounded. His bed was missing. In its place, were a few rotting crates on which a layer of dust had caked. Gone was the huge, round, yellow carpet his mother bought several months ago. In its place instead, was a cracked, wet, bug-infested floor that he spent so much effort to clean yesterday. Gone were the potted plants that he arranged in his room yesterday. So were the beautiful round shelves and his favorite collection of shells from Arni's beach, as was his rocking chair that he spent at least a half hour everyday, rocking his thoughts away on.
A jumble of emotions stirred in his heart and a string of queries and hypotheses now flooded his mind. What was going on? Who did all these? Was his home robbed? And the most important question: where was his mother?
He breathed in deep, gathered his thoughts and composed his emotions. He laughed foolishly at himself and lauded his villagers for having pulled off such a stunt so well-engineered that it had him fooled, but not for long. Serge skipped down the stairs to the living room after deciding that he would inform everyone that he had seen through the joke. It was time for the act to stop, for the curtains to rise.
A stranger in his thirties, walked into the house.
"Huh? Who the-" the man asked, squinting at Serge. "What are you doing in my house?"
"What?"
"My house isn't a playground for you kids, alright?" the man said dryly. "Go play outside."
"What? But I live here!" Serge explained.
"Huh? You live here?"
"Yes! Together with my mom!" Serge replied truthfully.
"Your mom?"
"Yes. Marge. Did you see her?"
"Marge? Who the heck is that? I've lived in this house for five years now, but that name doesn't ring a bell."
"But I have never seen you!"
"I have never seen you either!" retorted the stranger, unimpressed.
"I am Serge. And I live here!" he asserted firmly.
"I have never heard of this name before!"
"But this is my house!" Serge was a little impatient at the stranger who obviously failed to have the facts correct.
"Whatever with all your gibberish. Just get the hell out of here," said the man, just as impatient.
He walked towards Serge and shoved him out of his way.
"Hey, wait a minute! I live here!" Serge shouted, as the man walked to and rested lazily in the hammock at the end of the living room. "And where have you taken my mom to?"
"I said I don't know!" the stranger roared furiously. "You are such a pest. For the last time, I say, I've never heard of any Serge or Marge."
"But I..."
"Get out of here! I said!" roared the man, fury written on his face. He jumped to his feet, dragged Serge and threw him out of the house onto the grassy ground in the village. Serge fell onto his side, as the stranger slammed the door shut.
The commotion earned the noisy attention of his fellow villagers. Their eyes on him fell on his burning, flushed face, some in sympathy, most with wary. He swallowed, perspired, got to his feet, not daring to lift his head up to face the people who was family to him. They kept a distance from Serge and his menacing swallow, circled him and watched him as if they were watching a clown making a fool out of himself. They whispered and gossiped among themselves, eager to offer their most bizarre speculations about what happened before their eyes. No one came up to Serge to offer his or her counsel, as much as he had hoped. No one stepped out to direct the end of the theatrical drama that had been so real, so unpretentious, that he was beginning to be convinced that it was no joke.
His heart ached and his eyes watered. He tried to approach the villagers, but they avoided him like frightened roaches in the dark that scurried away from a burning torch that moved towards them. He looked for his mother but she was nowhere to be found, nowhere in the crowd. At least, though, she was not among those who stared at him as if they stared through him. He saw a faint glitter of hope at the pier. His childhood friend was standing there with her legs wide part, babysitting the kids like she was, early this afternoon. His eyes saw her back and that striking red dress that she wore today, but he saw a beacon as if it were calling him home. As he made his way to the pier, the crowd of villagers opened a path, as if seeing off a well-respected captain proudly making his way towards his ship.
But Serge was not proud. He was heartbroken.
The sky was clear and hopelessly cloudless, forecasting many more days and, perhaps, weeks of brutal heat. The sun burned through the consistent blue undeterred, baking the earth and its waters. The breeze was light, but hot, stifling and stinging to the unaccustomed nose. It seemed that even the weather was remarkably different.
Leena was standing near the edge of the wooden pier and gazing out into the oceans. She was fanning herself with one hand, wiping her forehead with another, hissing and cursing the weather all at the same time. Serge strode towards her, his back wet from the heat and the desperate need for answers. The creaks on the plank turned her head towards him. She looked at Serge, looked at his weapons and stepped back. Sensing her uneasiness, Serge stopped, five steps away from her.
"Leena-"
"How did you know my name?" she demanded.
Caught unawares, his heart fell, just as his jaw did. Words were getting stuck at the lump that had gathered in his throat. Soon, one too many strings of syllables struggled to get through that he found himself stammering uncontrollably.
"I... No... It's... There's... What's..."
His eyes misted. Her expression softened.
"Could you please put that down, it looks... er... dangerous," she requested, pointing to his swallow.
"Sorry," he apologize and quickly put the weapon down as he was told.
"How did you know my name again?"
"Leena, please," he urged with a stuffy nose as he eased forward towards Leena.
"Who are you? Have we met somewhere before? Are you from Termina?"
Her seriousness was driving him beyond desperation.
"Leena, please-"
"Hey, you!" interrupted Ricky, who was treading water in the sea, his finger pointing crudely at Serge.
Serge froze, looked around in confusion and then looked at Ricky.
"Yes, you!" Ricky shouted. "Don't be trying to pull any moves on our Leena, you jerk!"
Now, his fellow villager called him a jerk.
"Don't be silly!" she shouted. "Don't go swimming out too far now, you hear!"
"Ooookay! Gotcha!"
"Kids," she said, shaking her head. "I guess kids will be kids. Don't worry about them."
She turned to Serge and studied him from top to toe, and so did Serge, studying himself intently from head to toe. Where she looked, he looked and adjusted, not knowing why he did so.
"Hmm. You know? You look a lot like the boy who used to live next door to me."
Hearing Leena talk about "the boy next door" in the past tense only made Serge more frantic. The only "boy" who lived "next door" to Leena could only be Serge himself.
"What was his name?" he could not help but ask.
"Why?" Leena defended. "Why do you want to know his name?"
"Tell me what happened to him."
"'What happened to him?' Why do you want to know? It's really none of your business, you know?" she snapped.
He was stunned. For seventeen years, she had never spoken to him with a tone so alien, so terrifying that he found himself once again lost for words. For a short moment, he felt as if he was just pushed off an edge and free-falling from the sky. His heart pounded not from the fear of death, but from the fear of losing a friend. When that moment was over, he felt as if he had plummeted into a tangled net of emotions, bound in desperation and hopelessness, caught between heartbreaking pain and the inexplicable demeanors of his villagers that he had been trying so hard to believe was a joke.
Leena turned away from Serge and gazed blankly beyond the seas.
"That boy... he died," she said and paused, as if dramatically. "He drowned." She paused again. "When he was very young." Another pause. Each seemed to get longer by orders of magnitude. "This all happened ten years ago. Soon after, his mother passed away, too."
"He drowned. His mother passed away. Ten years ago." That sounded too familiar to him. Did he not nearly drown ten years ago? But was he not eventually found and saved? That was the only reason why he could have survived till today.
"I was still very young back then," she continued. "So I don't remember too well, but my mom says his name was..."
Serge closed his eyes, held his breath as he braced himself and waited for an eternity for the answer.
"Serge."
"But I'm Serge!" he opened his eyes, cried out instantly and pointed feverishly to himself.
"You're Serge? Oh, stop that!" Leena retorted. "That's not even funny! The boy is dead, don't you understand?"
"That's impossible! That cannot be true! You are lying! Is this a joke? Tell me this is a joke. Could you all stop it! I have had enough! I've really had enough!"
For the first time, he let it all loose. His voice broke like a young boy who wailed for attention and insisted his sanity to a grown up who did hear but did not listen. His words boomed through his cords, past the lump that had mysteriously cleared, as if exploding in one breath all that he had kept to himself and all that he had been mum about for the past seventeen years of his quiet life.
"Why would I lie about something like that? You think I would be so cruel to make this up?" she snapped furiously. But her eyes were red with sadness.
His shoulders slumped. The lump returned.
She turned to the ocean again, and flicked a tear from her eye.
The net tightened. Its web ate into his heart. Not only was he unable to escape the clutches of it, he was cast a cold spell that seeped into his bones and chilled him out from within and froze him.
The curtains lifted, the roles inverted. He was now the actor who stood on the stage of a fictitious world, telling a fictitious story to the real world. By the very remarks of his childhood friend, he had been cast out of her world as an extraneous soul. There was no joke, unless he was one. If there were any, it had been carried too far and too absurdly insensitive to whom it was played on. No sound man or woman would do such a terrible thing. At least he knew his own villagers would never.
All that he remembered, held dearly to his heart, or simply took for granted had been taken from him against his will - the discarded traditions; the ground-breaking fashion that came in lavenders and embroidered fabric and hung from the roofs of the village huts; the absence of the stubborn fish odor that would have taken weeks, if not months to rid. Even his mother's life had been robbed from the memory of these people, who were not as much unfamiliar to him as he was stranger to them.
He died ten years ago, but he was standing here, after living out ten full years with his mother. His memories were still intact, fresh in his mind as if they had transpired yesterday. His physical body, which had eaten, drunk, breathed, was still alive and had grown past his supposed death at the age of seven, to a young adult of seventeen. Trapped in the net of emotions, he could work out the disjunction, the contradiction, the paradox of his existence and his death that provided a certain consolation: that it was the world and not him that had violated the laws of the universe. Trapped in the bigger net of reality, he was unable to shrug off that which manifested before his eyes.
"That boy. I guess I kinda liked him," Leena said and bit her lips. "If that boy were still alive today, I wonder what would've become of us?"
Serge could only do so much as to stare onto the planks of the wooden pier. The lines of thoughts hung like threads in his mind, with loose ends that could not be connected, and a great tangled mess that could not be freed.
"Sure is weird," she said, laughing softly at herself. "Why am I opening up to you like this? I only got to know you today."
A short pause followed.
"Well, I guess there's no use thinking about the past," she continued. "It's not like Serge is going to come back. Mom always tells me I shouldn't dwell on a lost loved one."
She breathed in deeply, let out a sigh and looked down as she used her feet to try to dig out a stone stuck in between the wooden planks. When the stone came loose, she kicked it into the water before turning to Serge.
"Actually, why don't you go visit his grave site?" she suggested. "You can find it up on Cape Howl. No one's been up there in a while."
A grave site. Serge nodded like a zombie.
"Well, I still have some chores to finish. Sorry I blew up at you like that," she said apologetically. "Goodbye, stranger."
"T-Thank you." Serge struggled.
Leena shook her head at him with a smile.
He picked up his swallow and walked back to the village out onto the little beach beside it, slouching and head hanging low, utterly devastated.
He sat down on the burning sands, knees folded to his chest. The heat cooked his bottom, burned his bare arms, but he was contented to be stung by the pain in mind and body with a warped sense of pleasure.
He was still a disbeliever. He found it difficult and refused to accept all of it. Part of him believed, or perhaps, hoped that it was still a joke. He was bitten by a panther-demon at three, nearly drowned at seven, nearly drowned again today, and now the whole of his village had turned against him. He realized that he was stranded, left all alone in a world he didn't belong. There was no one to turn to, no one who was willing to offer a listening ear. His mother was gone. Leena was just as good as. He had no friends, no family, no place left to call home.
Tears welled up in his eyes.
"Where's everyone?" he asked quietly as he rested his forehead on his knees and started to weep. "Where's mom?"
Serge opened his eyes. His head still rested on his knees. The tears had dried but his cheeks were sticky.
He must have fallen asleep, he thought. He lifted his head and turned to Arni. He hoped that it was a terrible nightmare that he had just woken up from. He hoped to see the Arni that he was so familiar with, the Arni that didn't sport decorations on their huts, the Arni that hung fish, the Arni that would welcome him with open arms and treat him as family.
He saw otherwise. His hopes were dashed.
So he had drowned after all, ten years ago, at Opassa Beach. The dreaded past had caught up to him and devoured his world and everything clean of him, save for his mortal being. But, what was he to make of the memories of early today, yesterday and the past ten years? This proof of survival that remained fresh in his mind was without a doubt a contradiction to the story told by Leena. Contradictions, paradoxes and the likes cannot exist, like the two sides of the same coin that cannot face up, not at the same time at the same place. He could not have died ten years ago and stand upright ten years later today. Some event must have triggered the change as such. Determined for the answer, he recapped the day's events.
He had woken up this afternoon and had himself lectured by his mother for breaking the promise to meet Leena. After leaving home, he had headed for the Chief's for his daily morning prayers before he headed to the pier to meet up with Leena. She had told him to collect scales for her necklace, to which he had gladly agreed. He had proceeded to the Lizard Rock, but not before making a detour to Cape Howl. At the Rock, he had caught a Komodo lizard, but had ended up being hunted by the mother lizard. He had slain her in defense and had proceeded to the beach to wait for Leena.
He jumped up to his feet. His depression receded and the recollection slapped him awake. A mysterious, omni-present voice of a lady, had called out to him, as if in beckon. Water from the sea had crept up hellishly to him, swallowed him whole and gladly knocked him out. When he came to, he found himself in a world that had changed, defaced beyond his recognition.
It had to be that! The strangest of things had streamed into his life like a long river, the most surprising of surprises turning at one meander after another, and the most devastating cascading like rapids at a waterfall. But, the meanders must have a first; the river had to start somewhere. And Serge was convinced he knew where.
Wasting no time, he picked up his swallow and ran to Opassa Beach.
The sky that remained stubbornly cloudless was a smooth gradient of burning orange to a dull, doleful grayish-blue. A star or two peered through the edge of the orange radiance, its light pale in comparison to the evening sun that was due to set in about an hour, turning on its unforgiving heat to another unfortunate part of the world. The sea breeze was slow, almost stagnant as the relative land and sea temperatures gradually reversed as do the direction of the breeze.
The impression in the sand made by Serge where he lied unconscious earlier today still remained. It was the same spot where he stood and was swallowed by the water that crept up to him.
There had to be something here, although he didn't know what to expect. He inspected the sand for visual differences between where he lied and elsewhere. He found nothing of interest. He bent to feel the sand with his bare hands for textural differences. He felt none. He used his swallow to dig and probe into the sand. Still, he discovered nothing. He pulled out Red Element beads and cast fires all over the sand. Balls of fire erupted but they burned at nothing. He cast Whites, lending its holy strength to uncloak the unholy. He cast Blacks, forcing the invisible to cast its shadow. He cast Blues, Greens, Yellows, but the Elements did nothing more than visually demonstrate its expected arcane effects. He exhausted his ideas, but he saw nothing revealed that might have offered the slightest answer to his doubts.
Serge decided to try to reenact the event, aware that this might introduce more changes. But stuck in such a world as this, there could be no change worse the past erasing him from it altogether. With nothing else left, his life mattered naught. On the other hand, he might just win a chance to turn his village back to the old, turn strangers to friends. He might just win his life back. It was a gamble, only it wasn't. The risks involved weren't risks, for he had all to gain, and nothing to lose.
He stood at the same spot where he did earlier today, swallow on the sand beside him. He waited for the mysterious voice and the swirling waters. Nothing happened. He shifted his body slightly to the left. He waited again. Nothing happened. He tried standing around the spot, changing his position slightly each time. Still, nothing happened. After several tries, Serge finally gave up and fell to his bottom, almost resigning to the cruel twist of fate.
He died ten years ago. This parasitic thought played and replayed in his mind, as if his own mind tried to compel him into accepting the popular version of the "truth." But part of him still couldn't believe it, or rather, refused to believe it. Part of him still hoped that it would all be a joke, a dream, something he would wake up from.
He heart wrenched and his eyes started to water as he looked out into the evening sea, thinking of everyone in his village. He recalled the years he spent in Arni. He recalled how his mother tried to coax him into talking every dinner, and how he was always secretly impressed that she always had so much to say. He recalled how Leena always cooked, and how it was customary to start the creation of a new dish with burnt ingredients. He recalled the carefree days as being part of the three-member "gang," when he learnt how Una always liked to badmouth his own sister. He recalled the new-year festivities that brought the whole community together in merry celebrations that were all about having fun feasting and enjoying watching others make a lot of noise.
Homesickness never felt worse than it did now.
Serge made up his mind and wiped his tears clean. The situation was unacceptable. He wanted to have all of his memories back as realities. He was not about to become a fictitious character in an unbelievable tale, an actor in a made-up world, a joke for others to laugh at. Something or someone stole everything away from him. Whatever or whoever it was, he would find means to have the change reversed at all costs. He would start his investigation at his own grave. He might find more clues there, he might not. But anything was better than sitting around and hoping for things to right themselves.
Charged with determination and a fresh face, Serge stood up, picked up his swallow and headed over to Cape Howl.
