Note: UARGH! Sorry about yesterday's post! Since I have a prologue, the whole chapter count is off by one. Apparently that was just too much for me yesterday and I posted THE WRONG CHAPTER. I didn't mean to give you chapter six before chapter five. ;; We'll try this again? Oh yes, and I can see your hits, but I'd like your thoughts too…so please review, won't you? 6
A Sense of Dark
Chapter Five
by PenguinKye
October 12, 199X—9:20 AM
Don't wake up.
Don't wake up.
It's such a pain to be alive. I remember now, it's such a pain. So if I remember, why am I waking up? Why am I not dead when I know it wouldn't be so bad as living?
Someone's voice, which has taken up residence in my brain, tells me not to be stupid, because no one knows whether death is better than life until they've died and found out firsthand. They tell me that, as far as they know, no one has ever returned from the grave to tell us all about it, and even if they did it might be subjective—a completely different experience from one person to the next. There is no way to know what death is like until you are dead.
I don't understand why someone is telling me this, or even more, why there is someone in my brain when it should be that they can't get through my blocks. I don't understand why I feel heavy, like I've been buried in books, or why even though I'm opening my eyes, everything stays dark. I don't understand why I hurt so badly or who I am or what I'm doing wherever it is that I am. I don't understand the colour wheel or algebra. I don't understand how just three notes make a chord, but only hundreds of fibers make a cord.
I think I'm a little bit delirious.
Someone walks into the room I'm in and explains one of my troubles by turning on a lamp.
I see the face of the walker and it is someone I know, though at the moment I'm too dizzy to know who it is. It is a boy. He looks serious and worried and at me. He's holding water in his hands.
"Schu?" he says, and it's to me, but I am trying to understand what he is holding. Ah. The water is in a glass, I realize. That would explain why it isn't dripping.
"Hi, Nagi," my voice says. I hear it with interest; I haven't considered speaking even now, and what I am saying despite myself is useful.
The boy's name is Nagi. That's right.
"Crawford said you'd wake up," Nagi says. Who is Crawford?
"I wish I hadn't. Feel like crap. And if Brad saw so, why isn't he in here instead of making you do it?" That's done it. I'm worn out. No more talking. 'Brad'?
"He's being Crawfish," Nagi says. He has an annoyingly quiet voice. Like a mole. Moles only squeak loud enough to hear when they're being killed. I wonder whether Nagi would squeak if I killed him.
"Surprise. When isn't he?"
"I dunno. I don't mind being here."
"You should. I'm pissed and in pain. Damn Weiß." Weiß. That was it. They were the ones who hurt me. I am surprised not to have remembered. All in all, I'm not doing very well at remembering. When Nagi leaves, I know, I won't know any more than this conversation tells me. I hope that I keep talking.
Except I don't even know what I am saying, and what I am saying and what I am thinking sound like such entirely different people. And even this voice inside, it doesn't feel like me. Whoever me is. Is it the nasally voice full of sulk and silk that I hear saying such alien things? Or is it this person I am in my head, calculating and compiling and storing knowledge as though I've never done anything else?
Or is it neither of us?
I feel very strange, but I keep talking, still sounding as casual as anyone might after a run-in with a bloodthirsty mob.
"You don't have to listen to him, you know," I say. "You can do what you want for once."
"Brought drugs and water," Nagi says, motioning, ignoring my words. Not surprising. I'm glad to see the painkillers, at least. He knew that I'd need them, I know, but Nagi doesn't say half of what he means out loud. He's so quiet all the time. Sometimes I slip inside his brain, when he forgets to build his shields, and I hear what he's thinking. People are always so afraid when they meet Far, but that's only because he wears his crazy like a straightjacket, right out where everyone can see it. Nagi is oblique. He's near as crazy as Far, but he hides it in dark, deep places full of blood and hollow of heart. He's dangerous. Mostly to himself, I think.
I think I might slide into his mind even now, play vampire, suck up all that blood through a straw. I dip, test the waters with my figurative toe, sink in slowly like into a perfect bath, letting myself glide away while a little part of my brain takes several little red pills from the boy and downs them all at once with the water he holds. I twirl around in the waters of Nagi's mind (because he's one of those who turn out like water, instead of desert or dark or woods or velvet—everyone is a little different), and experience him. I know that I've been here many times, but for some reason it feels new, unfamiliar.
Nagi flinches.
"Schu, get out of my head," he says, sounding angry. Uh-oh.
"I'm not in your head, Nagi-kun," I say.
"Yes, you are," Nagi says, which is true. Except that even as he says it, I deny it, and I sound so vehement, feel so sick with force, that I can't believe myself to be lying. I wouldn't deny it if it were true, not at this point. It's not my way.
Then why can I see what he is thinking?
"I'm not there, Nagi!" Shut up! I tell me. Wait until I understand!
"It feels like—" Nagi puts a hand to his head. He looks puzzled. His thoughts are whirling. I feel like I'm in a blender. "It feels half like you, and half not…Schu, what's going on…?" A lot of words, for him. Why does he only talk so much when I need to think?
My body's muscles are tensing, because I (the outside me) am getting angry from trepidation.
"What the hell are you talking about, Nagi?" my mouth says. I am uneasy. I pull out from Nagi's mind, shaking water off myself as I do, and retreat to my own mind.
Retreat to my own mind.
Retreat!
Someone, something, is stopping me, and I find myself strung between two psyches, stretching out and drooping like a strand of glass at the torch. I will break soon if I do not pull free of one or both. Nagi has blocked me, and my own body will not accept me.
"Schu!" Nagi says, sounding urgent. "Schu, what's going on?"
"It's not me," says my body. "Whoever was in your head, it wasn't me. It's trying to get back in!" I do not understand what I am saying. I cannot be talking about me! That is my body. I belong there! It's where my mind goes.
Or is it?
I was not convinced that it was me until such a claim was denied.
Something about this sets a telescope before me, and every twist brings things closer to focus. I almost begin to understand.
"Get out!" says Schu, although his name is Schuldig, isn't it? and shoves his mind against mine hard enough to jolt me loose of my hold on him.
Different people, we're different people. And I do wonder who I am? Now that I float, using Nagi's block as a mindhold, who am I? Pull in the focus. I almost see.
"It's still trying to get in," Nagi says, and Schuldig, with a shove fair mighty for a wounded little telepath, swats me off the edge of Nagi's mind.
There is nowhere to hold! I scrabble for an anchor, let me not be lost outside a body! There is no purpose in understanding if I am stranded! That is the worst fate a telepath can have, floating without self or substance. I will die forever if I cannot take hold!
"Gone," say Nagi and Schuldig at once
…then why am I not dying? I float here free and it feels fine. It feels familiar. It feels even habitual. A stunning realization: this is what I do.
Focus achieved. Everything is sharp and clear for miles.
This is what I do, and I know who I am. I laugh in my noncorporeal way, and with a joyous rush of energy claw my way into Schuldig's mind.
You Can Never Be Rid Of Me! I tell him, laughing, because isn't it nice to know who you are, and to know that you are the strongest?
I might have gotten stuck in this little telepath when those fool normals put their swords in him, but I would always remember who I was and what I was doing, and when I did, I could never be defeated.
I know my purpose.
I give him a mental backhand to repay his earlier shove and, laughing, twist out of his mind in a way that will hurt for hours.
Author's Notes: It took me a really long time to write this one. I kept hitting the same rough spots and not being able to get through them. Oh well. I have triumphed! (I hope. You'll have to tell me…not that anyone is meant to understand yet.) Catch y'all later! Kye Syr, October 4, 2004.