A/N: The third and last instalment to my first three-shot! Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for reading.
Answers in the Intermissions
Part Three: Asleep
There was a man.
But… can he really be called a man, if he couldn't die and you could see his hate for the world in the reds of his eyes?
But we'll just call him a man for the sake of simplicity.
The boy often wondered what could bring a man to the brink of insanity and indefinite power.
He had been human once. He had been a boy, alone in a world that was full of good, somehow. But life seemed to have taught him otherwise.
It was awful how so much hate and malevolence and violence could fit into just one seventh of a soul.
It was the girl who saw him first. She saw them both as she was taking her morning walk.
The day had started off optimistically, for there had been something in the sunrise that had whispered a change for the better to her.
Now she wondered why the dawn had lied to her.
They were facing one another, each with such a look on their face, unblinking, each knowing what was going to happen. Perfect calm.
Time seemed to freeze.
The girl remembered reading about how ones life flashed before their eyes before they died. She wondered why her life was flashing by hers right now.
She remembered the day when they had gone walking by a church cemetery, reading the inscriptions on the cracked headstones.
She remembered stopping by two in particular, and she remembered him asking her whether she would die if something happened to him.
She remembered placing a chaste kiss upon his lips and avoiding the question.
Now, she knew the answer to this question.
And then time happened again.
The girl knew that he couldn't die. She knew it more and more as a whispered "no…" left her lips.
Not if she could help it. No.
No. NO. NO!
She was screaming it now as tears blurred her vision and she blindly ran to him with this new adrenaline.
What did it matter if she tripped and fell? You just get back up again.
Struggling on.
Stumbling.
Running.
The man was angry. He had been betrayed - let down. And ultimate power leaves no room for betrayal and insecurities. Just elimination. Elimination, elimination, and one day…
The boy felt his presence; acknowledged him. He didn't run; it would make no difference. Then he saw her.
They all saw the whispered curse, the flash of light, magic, energy, death. But for one of them, they saw no more.
The man's lips curved to form a malicious smile of mirth. It was all a game; a fox hunt. Killing one today meant more left over for tomorrow's fun.
It was all a fun, fun game.
The boy knelt down onto the ground. He saw the blood staining what was left of the snow on the ground. How could he ever have found that pretty?
Numb.
And all the spells he muttered, the charms he desperately coaxed, they wouldn't stop the blood. And it pained him to feel so helpless as he watched the blood flow and its metallic tang filled the frigid air around them.
Pain. There it was again. Never satisfied, always hunting him down. Strangling him, suffocating, sinking, burying.
Pain and rage are a dangerous combination. Even more so were pain and rage and love.
He realized that he hated magic, then; for it had failed him - and because it could stomp out life like sand over a flickering flame, and because with a flick of the wrist and a few words, it could make things better or worse.
And it was all so simple and effortless and fast.
Life wasn't like that. It wasn't supposed to be. There shouldn't be a spell that cleaned away memories as easily as it could wipe away spilled blood.
There wasn't a charm that could get rid of your past and set your record straight. And there shouldn't be.
It was wrong.
They buried her behind the little church. He watched the casket lowered into the ground and couldn't help wondering if she'd finally found her destination.
He stayed there, alone in the cathedral long after the ceremony had ended. Long after the very last friends and family had left in their shiny cars wearing their expensive black robes.
The cathedral felt mystical, holy. The boy had always felt un-pure whenever he entered one – as if his every move was being scrutinized and written down to be filed away forever.
He saw the light coming in through the stained glass windows fade, and then brighten up, and then felt night come once more.
He realized that now, he knew what it was that could drive a man to that point of hatred and psychotic. He knew what could suck the humanity out of someone like a drinking straw.
It was the knowledge – and the acceptance – of the fact that for all the shiny packaging of life, you're always alone. There was no good in the world, no justice, no one to back you up. It was all a lie, a scam.
And in the end, it's survival of the fittest. In the game of survival, there is no room for love and laughter and companions and silly mistakes.
There was no point dreaming because you're just going to wake up anyways.
All there was were your guts, because there was no hope. And you know that you're all alone in this unforgiving world, where life can slip through your grasp like a wet bar of soap Sinking to the bottom of the tub.
Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Such a lie…
There was no right or wrong. And there were no happy endings.
A game of cat and mouse; you can run and you can hide, but you can't escape.
How could he live knowing that?
So he struck the window. It was too beautiful for this world anyways.
The boy saw the colourful glass shatter, saw each shard reflect a brilliant glint of sunlight before it fell to the ground.
He saw the blood before he felt it. But when the pain came, oh, it was such a welcome distraction. He picked out a piece from his wrist and saw more blood pour from the opening, all the while knowing what it meant.
From the dim orange of the sky the boy knew that the sun was rising. Or was it setting? He had lost track of time long ago.
He remembered how she used to talk about sunrises. And sunsets. She used to say that it was a reminder that life goes on. That everyday was a chance to start over and forget the past, because it disappeared the evening before with the setting sun in the West.
That was the beauty of life, she explained. You don't give up because tomorrow is a clean palate, open for new mistakes and new beginnings. Life goes on, even if yesterday's palate was a mess. That's all washed away now.
And as he numbly observed the scarlet streaks along his arm, the boy discovered that he didn't want to die. He wanted to see the next sunrise.
He couldn't feel it anymore. He couldn't feel anything anymore. And… he wasn't afraid of pain anymore. He was afraid of death. Dying.
It was getting hard to think now. The boy stumbled feverishly to her newly covered grave and collapsed against the brand new, smooth headstone. The fresh flowers placed there had begun to wilt, he noticed with clarity.
She wouldn't want him to die.
The muttered healing charms attempted came out as a garbled nonsense as he began to blubber and shudder. Then his body stilled as he realized why it wouldn't work.
It was because he hated magic and it had failed him. Why should it work now?
He began to feel peaceful. He was back at the coast where the waves continued to lap at him. And he was closer to her now.
He choked out a chuckle because it was funny as he watched his own blood run softly over the stone and become mixed in the dirt and become mudblood.
A solitary tear trickled across his face.
The next morning they found him. They buried him there next to her in the lonely little church cemetery.
He had nothing left to live for, they said. He loved her too much, that's why he did it. He wanted to die.
If only they knew.
Over the years many passed those two graves, but not many stopped to acknowledge them. For some, it wastoo painful a reminder of humanity. For others, it wastoo irrelevant.
Those who did, they shook their heads in pity, for what a shame - two promising… children… not yet quite grown up yet trying so hard to be. Maybe if they'd learned sooner that growing up was so extremely overrated… maybe if it had all gone differently…
But their speculations seemed to drift off there. What would have happened if it hadn't ended like this? Could it be that nothing would have changed? Or would a stitch in time have mended this torn quilt?
They wondered. They pondered.
They waited for an answer to it all – an answer to the age old question that the boy and the girl seemed to have found at last… just too late.
They're still waiting.
Fini
A/N: Well, there you have it. The end. I think I actually kind of like this chapter. Was it what you expected? Or was it twisted? Wrong?
Not going to bother asking for reviews. I know that it just puts people off wanting to, so it's kind of pointless.
I kind of played around with borderline insanity in this chapter didn't I?