K: Midnight: A K Project Fan Fiction

Chapter Eight: The Shadows

January 2, 2009

Shizume glittered wistfully in the dark, reflective from the rain, monochromatically clean: a fresh cool scent wafted through the pristine air to me. I shivered, though it was not an unwelcome shiver. Rather, it conveyed to me the feeling of dispelling something old: a dreary fabric, making way for fresh new folds of silk that slid against my skin like water over glass.

The rain had all but fallen in a downpour moments prior, and nothing but a drizzle pattered down in airy pellets on the hood of my metallic-lustred raincoat blending in with mirrored stone and windows, pale against the moon.

My steps, a clicking resonance across the tightened echo of the night, were all that I could hear aside from those slight, misting raindrops tapping on my jacket, and the whooshing hum of sweet precipitation twirling through the air.

The city lay asleep, or so I had assumed. I sensed a presence lingering above me, then behind me, then intrinsically beside me.

"What are you doing out here all alone?" A voice addressed me. So near it was, it seemed as though my hood were not a barrier between us. I caught a warmth of breath along the nipping chill that numbed the tri-pierced edges of my ear.

My boots came to a moderate, splashing halt amidst a shallow puddle on the pavement. Turning, I discerned a crafty smile staring down at me. "I could protect you, you know," it said.

Another presence rose, then another, and still yet another, creeping from the shadows, and while I could not see them, my eyes shifted side-to-side, sensing the emergence of an aura. Somehow it had changed from what I knew of it before. It wasn't quite the same, their coming there to me. Despite their oaths conveyed much like the one the voice had made, I did not feel protected nor assured. On the contrary, I felt unequivocally detained, stuck, somehow locked away; the air did not feel so refreshing anymore but cold, biting, weighing me with sudden apprehension. Is this their doing? I wondered, shrinking inwardly.

I peered out at that same familiar face belonging to the voice, the roguish grin encompassing a devious expression all too eager to prevail on me an imp-like disposition ever-wavering as the wind: a creature well-acquainted with the artistry of vacillating precepts and perceptions.

I then understood, frowning into lifeless flashing eyes. "Why are you doing this?" I asked, and the voice erupted in a laugh, a mocking laugh, a laugh that said, "Oh dearest one, but don't you understand? I am doing this — we are doing this — because it is you. It is as simply put as that."

An inner shudder chilled me to the bone — this time not a welcomed chill but sharp and uninviting.

My hands balled into fists inside my pockets, slowly burgeoning with darkness, power icily enraged and rumbling into being. Without a word, I drew them out, igniting shards in screeching waves as that of shattered glass: streams of polished onyx, inky coils: glorious translucence in the dark.

I took off in a run, zipping through the streets and splashing over puddles mimicking the sky. My hood was whisked away and all the long white tresses of my hair blew outward in a flourish, caught up in the breeze.

I was grateful for the dark, for winding, branching streets as like a maze: a web of narrow alleyways and alcoves strewn about the city; though I, a rat that scurried through whilst others quickly followed: the thought of this did little to revive me of my confidence.

The fog of thickening mists gave way to hollow echoes that pronounced the rhythmic panting shedding little clouds of breath into the air as I ran first down one long alleyway, then up a narrow star, round a curvy lane; and then the voice appeared again as though it never left me but had kept with me the length of my retreat.

"Anna," it whispered long and tauntingly, as though it sang a strange and somber song: a song to be the telling of my end.

Faster I commenced, my features narrowed sternly, focusing ahead.

I rounded a sharp corner and I drew a startled breath, careening to a halt as I invaded on a gloomy dead-end lane with nowhere left to turn, the others — figures formerly concealed — appearing there before me.

I darted looks from one to all — their features masked against me — whirling back to face the voice, the effigy of bleakness in humanity, the featureless expression bearing those same dreaded, lifeless eyes upon me.

No sooner had I done so than my aura turned against me; an arctic fire catapulted onto me, forcing its way into me: a searing pain bereft of restoration; a draining, life-sucking void that sought to mute my own existence from the world.

I might have screamed; the pain was unimaginable; and then my eyes were sealed and opened once again, a very real, pervasive cry imprinted on my lips as I came vaulting up in bed.

Mikoto sat beside me, calm, repressed, his steely gaze upon me. Tatara stood behind him, elbows lightly resting on my bed's wrought iron frame, looking on concernedly.

There was a heavy silence, stern, contemplative, revolving around Tatara and Mikoto. Neither seemed surprised by what had happened. A minute pause ensued, whereafter Tatara's voice took on a sober undertone. "King," was all he said, but that one word was loaded and Mikoto's brow intensified.

"Yeah," he answered, almost grumblingly, as though Tatara had just asked him for the hundredth time to finish some small chore he kept on putting off; yet looking out at him, I knew that just the opposite was true. It wasn't out of carelessness that led him down the pathways of neglect, not in this instance at least.

Meanwhile tears of fright, relief, and fading pain had wet my cheeks considerably and I pulled a frilly sleeve up, wiping them away. "I…I'm sorry," sniffled, breathing shakily in and out.

"Why are you sorry?" Tatara asked. His brow was sated earnestly.

"I…I don't know, I just — "

" — They're getting worse," Mikoto broke in, gruff, tasteless, inciting a small frown of disapproval from Tatara. However, Mikoto wasn't looking at him. Eyeing through my sleeve, I found his sights were set on me.

He looked tired: deepening shadows lingered under hard-set amber eyes, evidence that he had dreamt it too, just like all the other dreams and all the terrors gripping my subconscious, the pain, the fear, the agony I felt: he felt them too, however fiercely, however equally, as though the endless nightmares had been his as well as mine; yet he had woken first, as had he every time. He bore a greater strength to ward against the pain unlike my frail, decrepit self. I was not a king.

Mikoto ran his fingers through the mess of fiery hair atop his head, the kind of unkept hair one gets through constant tossing, turning, spending countless nights awake in bed.

He exhaled long.

"Do you think you can handle this?" Tatara asked, but Mikoto didn't answer; nevertheless, Tatara gave a nod, lifted graceful elbows from the bed frame, and departed from the room.

I peered up at Mikoto, but he'd since turned away, picking out the unlit cigarette he kept behind his ear. Even so, through half-sealed lids, I knew that he was thinking, thinking about me, the dreams, the pain transcending memory into trenchant physicality.

A spark lit up his fingertip, his features basked in momentary light — a burning, glowing, scarlet light — and sunk back into darkness dimly lit by narrow streams of moonlight raining inward through the window on the far side of the room.

"Is it gone?" He asked. He meant the pain. Waiting a moment, he looked at me. I nodded.

"Is yours?"

He blew a train of smoke. "No."

I frowned, a bit perplexed. He merely stared down at his cigarette, drew it from his lips, and watched it as he twiddled it around between his fingers, one of them beringed. Once more, he was thinking, thinking how to act, how to make it go away, a patchwork job to settle things until our chance to end it all appeared, whenever that may be.

The Shadows had escaped. Naturally, they sought me out, and when they couldn't find me, they were gone without a trace. Neither did we gain our chance to issue our revenge. They simply disappeared, leaving me to cope with what they'd done.

Three weeks had passed since then, since I first came to Homra, and every night I saw them in my dreams as though they never left but lingered ever after to torment me in some fell and twisted way, to force me to relive what I endured, to witness what they took; and from that night — the night I first arrived, the night on which it happened — Mikoto felt it too. Somehow — we had not yet figured how — the pair of us were linked: a telepathic bridge conveyed to him the images, the memories, the agonies I faced, for weeks and endless nights. On him as well as I, they'd taken quite the toll.

"We may just have to try it," he said to me. "It isn't getting any better by doing nothing."

We had talked about it many times. I had no objections but Mikoto had desisted. He understood my body was attempting to awaken, to take that which it lacked, that which it was destined to receive, but that which had been coarsely ripped away. Mikoto couldn't give it. It wasn't in his power. However, he did (or so we hoped he did) possess a fire passable to quench my poor reaction, my deep, unwanted thirst in my expectancy of power, power that, for all I tried, had failed to come, while growing absence brought me pain instead.

Together, we had feared what it might cost, and he (reluctant most of all) had sought those weeks to circumvent that cost. Yet on that night, both wasted and defeated, without a keen alternative, we forced ourselves to face the only option left before us.

"It's your red," I told him. "Are you sure you want me to have it?"

"That's not what I meant." He looked at me, hard-pressed but composed. "It might kill you, but it also might work. Are you willing to take that chance?"

I nudged a little closer, staring up at him. "Are you?"

Still, he looked at me, though less with his deep scowl but with a face that cried, "Hell no! But it's not my choice to make. It's yours."

I waited a moment, then against our better wishes, I decided. "Do it," I said.

He paused, observing me, (I sensed) half-hoping I might change my mind, yet also eager to do something, anything to make it stop, for we were sorely tired.

I knew we both agreed, even if we failed to say it outright: should the dreams persist and our strange bond remain, to rid ourselves of agony that woke us every night, to sleep without the horrors bearing life-like pain upon us, was surely worth a try.

"If I see it isn't working," he began.

"Don't stop," I said, cutting him short. "The only way it'll work (if it'll work) is if you don't hold back."

I saw this both impressed him and imprinted hesitation on his brow, which only made him scowl the more intensely at his dwindling cigarette. He blinked a long and heavy blink. Like me, he understood: there was no more to think about, however hard we tried. The thinking part was over; the time to act had come.

He drew one final drag, flicked the butt to dust, and blew the smoke out sideways in a swirl that glinted vaguely in the moonlight.

He looked to me, my form, determined, ready, though not at all ready. His palm ignited slowly in a flaming ball of fire.

"Aim for the heart," I said, and his gaze, in heightened focus, followed my direction, landing in a penetrating stare against my chest. I saw his wheels were turning. Still he was uneasy, but he leaned in close, picked me up, and set his flaming aura onto me, the bareness of my skin, his fingers curling upward past my collar bone and resting in a grip along the base of my small neck, my fragile doll-like neck he feared his strength would surely crush.

The ensuing cry was enormous. His hand pressed hard against me felt a real and fervid flame, scorching every part of me, an all-consuming fire burning me to ash.

I believe I may have passed out for an instant, for I saw myself, Mikoto, the pair of us, together in a sea of fervid black, in terrorizing pain, the same pain.

I darted my eyes open, gazing out at him: the red in all its fury latching onto me, his head dipped low, a line of sweat appearing on his temples as he breathed tight, wrenching breaths, bearing lit-up features down upon me. The flames, the aura, hovered low between us.

I writhed inside his hold, yet still, he held me down, firmly lest I keep him from his goal, and gently so as not to shatter me.

Subconsciously, I felt myself lash out at him, my vacancy of power, my body's sickly craving, seeking both to take and to expel. A sudden pulse escaped me, striking at his red, then joining with the red, the two, in equal force, combined against him.

An instant ball of fire shielded him. Barely he contained me and himself, though already it had taken far too long — longer than we thought. What should have lasted seconds then expanded into thirty, breaching forty, fifty, then a minute passed and slowly I descended. I started to decline, to lose myself. My arms, first clinging to his wrist, fell limply in his lap, and I saw through blurry eyes a panic in his own. "Don't," I whispered out against the look I saw him give.

My call, it seemed, had given him new strength, and doubling his efforts, he rained on me a fresh and brilliant fire. I drew a sudden grating breath, my eyes shot open wide against the ceiling as I felt myself contract, as though I'd just been jolted with an exponential force.

Then it came: the flame he bore about himself became my own as well, enveloping the pair of us, then formed to me alone. My body, overflowing with his red, began to lift itself, transcending through the air and out of his embrace.

The red produced a field, roaming all around and through me as one life invades another; and then the red retracted back inside me and I drew a long breath in — the breath of life, it seemed — and felt my weight return. Cast back into normality of consciousness, I fell, captured once again inside Mikoto's outstretched arms.

A moment passed and nothing but our breathing could be heard and felt between us. I smelled the rich tobacco as it came in little waves against my cheek, and I blinked my dazzled eyes to look at him, disoriented, as one who's just emerged from some long, distant dream. "Did it work?" I asked, and I saw his features harden, his eyes grave. "Oh," I said, slumping in his hold.

It hadn't worked after all. I'd not been restored. Still, I was the same, except —

"Did the red help even a little?" He asked.

The red. I felt it burning brilliantly within me: a fire, warm and beautiful. If all else failed, at least I had the red, his red, then also my red. Dimly, I smiled. "The red always helps."

By then, I had no doubt the nightmares would persist. The horrors we both faced, Mikoto and I, would never go away; though somehow I perceived, with Mikoto's red, we held the strength combined to suitably endure them, to sleep, to somehow feel protected. It was not the worst imaginable fate, simply not the fate we'd hoped for.

A gentle knock emitted Tatara and he knelt once more his elbows on the frame, smiling gently, his head dipped in a lovely, comforting sort of way.

"Welcome to Homra, Anna," he said to me, and then he chuckled. "Officially, that is." He didn't know that simply an induction into Homra was the least of our endeavors. "You're absolutely the bravest girl I've ever met," he added, beaming at me. "And look: it seems you really did merit special treatment from the King. Nothing less for a princess, if you ask me."

Again, I smiled weakly, still a little wobbly from exertion, though staring out, the room seemed somewhat different from before. I blinked, then again, and yet the change remained. "It looks different," I said, observing curiously the bed, the walls, Mikoto, Tatara. "It's not so grey anymore; maybe just a better grey: a reddish grey."

A silence followed after, and on Tatara's indication of confusion, Mikoto mumbled quietly over his shoulder, explaining to Tatara that I was colorblind except for the color red.

"Oh!" Tatara laughed with sudden comprehension. "Well then, no wonder you like it so much."

I drew my arms subconsciously before me, scanning up and down, bending them to peer along their backs, then lifted up the covers, squinting at my legs. I hummed dissatisfaction as I reached back up and grasped the lace-trimmed neckline of my nightgown. I plucked it open partly to inspect what lay beneath.

"What are you doing?" Tatara asked me.

"I don't see it anywhere."

"You don't see what anywhere?"

"The flame," I said, frowning down at myself.

"Let me see," Mikoto offered, and Tatara nearly lost his balance on the bed frame.

"King!" He blurted out, desperately affronted, but Mikoto only glared at him.

Turning back to me, Mikoto knelt in close, setting his dark, scrutinizing eyes upon me. I knew that he was looking at me, the real me, a sort of sadness (or perhaps it was longing) present in his face, whereafter, he conveyed to us that Homra's flame resided in my eye.

Leaning back, he humphed. It seemed despite it all, he approved, if for nothing else but for the placement of the flame: embedded in my natural form, a sort of link between the self the others saw and that which only he could see. Because of that, I sensed he was content; yet even that impression – murky as it was – began to fade, reverting to his natural passive gloom, his voice brought low again. "Now move over," he said. "I'm tired."

Chapter Nine: Homra