The dust drifted slowly upward to the dead stars above, as if the whole universe outside of Derek's had exploded and had given up completely, failing all purpose. The Shadow Minor felt his shadowy limb diminish into nothing as his human arm rebuilt, unwinding slowly from the shadow that wrapped around it like a blanket. The grey dust seemed to crawl closer, but was carried away by the nonexistent winds. The orange of the night had actually thickened over time, and everything seemed frozen; as if captured in a photograph.
Derek's breathing picked up dramatically without reason, his body becoming somewhat tired, as if something were sucking out his energy. It had become so cold; it seemed that the air had frozen as well, even though it was physically impossible. The dark silhouette of his imposter half appeared, a dark figure crouching with the least bit damage down as the cloudy puffs of smoke swam in the air freely, expressing their freedom. The replica's face was soon shown, the blank, expressionless stare locked in a robotic stare.
Derek tried hard to keep his eyes open. Over time, the thick freeze of the air had pulled bits of his consciousness away, dragging him slowly to sleep. His body weary and his voice reluctant, he tried harder to stay awake than he did to pay attention to his clone. The trees whispered to him, beckoning him, pulling him closer and closer to the resistant rest. "Who are you?" he said weakly, his breaths long and heavyset, interrupting his every word. His arms seemed to drag along the floor as his words came out. His back slumped in sudden tiredness. "What do you want?" he rasped again, his eyes now two-thirds open. Derek couldn't think straight at all. His senses became blurry and his mind woozy. He felt as if he were to collapse any second in the fight. The fight that took place in this unreal, photographic world he now found himself in.
"A problem you can't ward away," his replicated voice answered back to him. Again, the replica's lips did not move, shiver, or show any signs that it was actually him that was speaking. The voice echoed strongly, booming off the thick trunks of the trees and the damp, frozen shrubs of the forest.
"What're you talking about?" Derek spoke wearily, laying a hand on his forehead, trying to bring his lost half of his consciousness back into his head. His breaths had even grown weak. He tried hard to comprehend the things around him - the trees, the bushes, the coldness, the blank, crescent moon, everything.
"You know better than anyone else what I'm talking about," the voice boomed again. It seemed to echo off the midnight walls that painted the scene orange. It made it look like the only real things there were the replica and Derek himself. Everything else seemed frozen in time. Derek flashed a halfhearted glance before shutting his eyes, then reopening them reluctantly. The replica stared hard at Derek with wide, aware eyes. He was the complete opposite of Derek. "All this time, you've been scared of the confrontation of problems in life. You can't deny it. You can't say that I'm wrong," the voice shook wildly and loudly, the words clear to Derek's careful ears.
"No," Derek denied. "You are wrong. Don't act like you know me," the Shadow Minor demanded, his voice weak and shallow, nothing like the explosions that answered his every word. His teeth were weakly grit, his fist barely clenched.
"How can I not know you?" the voice retorted strongly. "I'm you, after all."
"Shut up," Derek snapped, his voice getting steadier as the conversation progressed. His body seemed to lighten. His dark, piercing eyes gazed forward to find the replica's blank glare with sealed lips. It was like he was wearing a mask that hid his features. Either that or he was a mime.
"You know I'm right," the voice insisted. "It's the only reason you've become as smart as you are. But books don't ward problems away, Derek. Stop trying to run away. Stop trying to hide everything you feel," the voice provoked.
Derek's teeth grit tighter and tighter, his clenched fist making his nails dig deep into the palm of his hand. The pain was bearable in the anger enveloped state he found himself in. "No!" he growled through his teeth, his eyes narrowing slowly. "That's not true! I'm not trying to hide from anything. What you're saying is completely wrong!"
"Oh is it?" the booming voice echoed once again. As if on cue to the godly voice, birds began to come to life and flutter out of the trees and bushes, their bodies black with ebony, their identities completely enveloped in darkness armor. Their wings flapped crazily through the air, their bodies unsteady as they glided with panicky senses through the dead night. The fluttering of their wings filled Derek's ears completely, the sound soon becoming unbearable as the birds that resembled deviant ravens circled the innocent Shadow Minor, the teenage boy becoming more and more panicky by the second as his eyes raced from left to right, watching the zooming birds come from all directions, the confusing patterns closing in on him steadily as he lost himself in the fluttering world of darkness. "Have you become that blind?" the godly voice echoed as the birds completely enveloped him now in a state of panic, wrapping around him with their fearful wings, covering him in complete darkness, taking him away from the orange night. "Are you not that same, defenseless child you were back then who was full of worries?"
The voice filled Derek's mind with crazy thoughts as the fluttering of wild wings died away. Derek now found himself in complete darkness left and right, nothing there but himself. What's going on? He thought through panic. His breath wanted to become heavy, but was caught somehow. His eyes became widened with denial, not wanting to believe what the voice was telling him. He felt invaded, as if he had become brainwashed. Is what he's saying true? Am I really still… that kid I was back then? He thought, peering with a shaking stare into the empty darkness ahead.
The darkness shivered in front of his very own eyes, and slowly formed a figure that he recognized soon enough. In the ebony distance was the vision of himself, but nothing like the replica from the orange frost he was in before. It was himself when he was a child, the small kid with the same straight black hair, crying his eyes out in anxiety that almost consumed him completely.
Derek's breath grew unsteady to inhuman rates as the child in front of him seemed completely unreal. His younger self seemed solemn, his big, childish eyes depressed on the floor, nothing but darkness and his own thoughts surrounding him. His head bowed, his tiny, weak limbs seemed to drag from his shoulders. His small face gave no tears, but a halfhearted gaze instead. "He's right, you know," the younger Derek told the older one. The older widened his eyes in fear. He was petrified. Hearing that young, familiar voice took his fear and pushed it even further. The nostalgia of the anxious past wrapped around him like a crazy wildfire that could not have been stopped from the beginning. The vision seemed so unreal to Derek. Even though the younger him was a few feet away in the empty space, he seemed so far away. "There is no real difference between you and I," the child spoke again, the high pitched, nostalgic voice ringing in Derek's ears.
The Shadow Minor found himself frozen in the past, old memories of troubles and worrying every single day of his life shaking his emotions violently with a grip that wouldn't wear down. "You still depend on what you know to carry away your problems, even if you don't realize it. I'd rather just die right now than to grow up to be someone like you," the young one spoke with his innocent, depressed voice. Derek's eyes widened even more, the pupils dilating to half their size and shaking violently like a vibrating beeper. The big wave of a wake up call ate away his beliefs and thoughts; everything he believed was now washed away with the crashing waves of the past. Would I… Derek thought, using all his effort just to get his mind to work. Would I really… think that? Have I really failed myself? I… I thought I had become the person I wanted to be. I thought everything was over…
"Just go away…" the younger Derek said, his eyes hard on the floor. No tears streaked from his large, brazen eyes. He refused to make eye contact with his own future self. Have I really become a disappointment to everyone, even myself? Derek thought wildly, feeling all of his personality and thoughts lose themselves, the tight hold he thought he had becoming a weak caressing. Now, everything he had ever known – or a better way of putting it as thought, flailed through his mind unstably, the big idea of the future and present dissolving like sugar in water. I need another chance, Derek thought. I – I can still get rid of the person I am…! Another try is what I need! Another chance! He thought wildly, losing himself in his own mind. He felt as if his brain were about to burst. He felt his sanity run loose as he felt completely helpless, trapped in the darkness that imprisoned him in a psychotic hold.
The child in front of him raised his head slowly, his vindicated eyes meeting Derek's slowly. "Just die," he told him, letting Derek find the wet eyes begin to pour out, the frown growing slowly on his expression, showing his despairing teeth underneath. No! Derek cried out silently in his own thoughts. Another chance! As the two selves had their eyes meet with one glance, in one second, the darkness began to consume the child, taking millions of thick streaks to wrap around his body, and fading him away into nothing but emptiness.
Derek widened his eyes as all the reality began to crash down on him like a gunshot from the past. He found himself speechless and lost, not knowing what to say or do. One wrong move could make everything come down on him even more, yet he had nothing to lose anymore. I can't believe everything I thought – everything I lived through was all wrong, all a misconception of what I wanted to become, and not what I actually was. If I had been doing it wrong the first time, then… then what now? What do I do now!?
"Just die," his younger self's voice repeated in his mind suddenly and loudly, the words clear to Derek's ears.
PoVS
Dylan waited in the cold night as he stared hard at himself. It was like looking in a mirror, he thought. They both gave suspicious stares to each other, and began to circle each other as their feet shuffled on the frozen frost in the air. The stars blanked out completely above, and no source of light ever came. Time seemed as if it had frozen. The branches of the trees used to rattle wildly with the brushing winds, but now, they stood still, unused and unwanted. The lush, green bushes used to sway with light breezes that came to visit. But no winds blew any longer. Not even the slightest breeze was there. The ground was stiff as ever, the air thick with a strange feeling.
"What's that sorry look on your face? Wipe it off!" a booming voice came toward Dylan. It sounded like his own voice, just angrier and unnatural, as if someone had caught his voice and was using it against him in the bleak orange world he had awoken himself into. The echoing voice seemed to come from his replica's direction, yet the copy showed no lip movement. "What's the matter?" the voice boomed. "Don't recognize yourself?"
Dylan gulped. What the hell is going on? He thought, making sure he still had his sanity. "What're you talking about?" Dylan demanded, his puzzled mind muddy and greasy with confusion.
"Don't kid with me!" the booming voice demanded as well. "Don't pretend you don't realize that you're still the little boy you were back then inside."
"What? You're making no sense," Dylan implied, the two twinned people continuing to circle each other, the brushing of their slippers against the dry soil the only sound heard for miles. Dylan tightly clenched his fist in an annoyed fashion.
Suddenly, the replica stopped and closed his eyes, as if focusing on something. Dylan took notice and froze. He watched carefully with watchful eyes that seemed as if they could pierce even the darkest of the darkness. He began to fill his fists with the live, green energy just in case. The teenage boy in front of him began to fade away into the orange of the night, disappearing with a shivering figure that seemed completely unnatural. What…What's going on? Dylan thought, thinking that he was hallucinating what he was seeing.
Soon, the teenage replica of him grew to a smaller, child-like version of him. He recognized himself immediately. The short, white hair, and the innocent emerald eyes that always seemed to be crying or smiling. It was never something in the middle. The child form of him brought back memories as he immediately began to cry, his stubby little fingers tightly locked in an angry fist, brushing away the tears with just a little too much energy. His tiny legs shook violently and weakly, about to collapse any second.
What the hell? Dylan thought as his eyes widened in shock. What… what is this? An illusion? "I – I don't understand," Dylan spoke with a shaking voice, his eyes refusing to peel from the child, trying to make sure that it was definite what he was seeing. He didn't know what else to say, or even think. The sudden image was just so random and so strikingly powerful, it had let loose all his awareness of the danger that could take place anytime soon.
"Isn't this how you were back then?" the booming voice returned. It seemed to come from somewhere above now, somewhere high above. Somewhere like the moon. But the moon couldn't talk. The thought was just crazy. So who was talking? The despaired wails of his childhood self filled Dylan's ears with the memory of sadness he had felt long ago. "Have you forgotten all ready what your parents put you through?"
"My… my parents?" Dylan said bleakly, his voice automatic and monotonous like a robot's. How does this guy know about my parents? Why am I seeing myself in front of me? This world doesn't make sense anymore! "What- what are you!?" Dylan demanded in a stammer.
A figure suddenly moved in the orange darkness. The person crept out of the shadow and walked up, stopping when he reached the side of the crying child who refused to let his eyes open, hoping that the darkness of his eyelids would take him away from this world. Dylan remembered thinking and hoping that a long time ago. The sorrow of those thoughts never ceased to remind him of everything that happened. The figure stood coolly next to the child, his eyes narrowed in an angry gaze. He resembled Dylan, but this time, the teenage version.
Two replications? Dylan thought wildly. What's going on here? I want to know, now, Dylan thought as he felt his sanity lose its stability. There's no way something like this can happen, he told himself. Maybe I'm just crazy. Yeah, that's it. I've got to be crazy. "You don't recognize yourself? I told you to wipe that sorry look off your face," the teenage replication of Dylan spoke out, this time his lips actually moving. The movement of his copy seemed so unreal, and made the real one feel as if his identity had been taken away. Who am I now? Dylan thought crazily.
Suddenly, another teenage version of him walked out from behind a tree, going to the vacant spot beside the crying child. "Can't you see your life is going nowhere? You thought if you could be as different as possible as your parents were, you'd be the nicest, best person around, right? How pathetic. It'll do nothing for your future. You're failing everything you thought you would be," the third replica told in a demanding voice, trying to shake the real Dylan to the so called reality.
N-No way, Dylan thought, his expression locked in a tightening of fear and slow realization that he failed to want. "It…" the child began to speak, taking a deep breath, the tears so overwhelming that it caught his voice after every word. Dylan slowly turned his stare hesitantly to the child. A part of him wanted to hear what he had to say, and the other half wanted to take his hands and shut his ears and close his eyes as best as he could. The curious one won. "It's all… all your fault," the child stammered, taking sniffs after this word and that. The long, overtaking sniffs filled Dylan's ears with the nostalgic cries of the past. "You… you could've tried – tried harder, but- but you didn't, and… you failed m-me. I… I hate you!" he cried out as hard as he could, the tears coming out even harder now, the child crouching to support his face as he masked his wet expressions with a mask of fingers. The two teenager replicas stood beside him and stared at the real one accusingly as Dylan had his stare widened in realization. He was completely caught now, and everything they said had hit him like an overwhelming blast.
"I hate you!" the words repeated quickly in his mind, freezing his expression even further. No… Dylan thought bleakly. It can't be… No…!! he cried through his mind as he felt the sanity leave his body entirely.
PoVS
Lance waited in the clearing dust and smoke as his breathing picked up. This is going to be a really, really bothersome fight, Lance thought as he stared hard at the millions of snakes glaring at him with an accusing stare. They hissed evilly at him, and at some scale, Lance wished he knew just what he had done to make them so angry at him.
"I see," Otoshiana said weakly. "So you're another one of those," he spoke, his accent becoming more and more human as the seconds passed.
"Another one of what?" Lance demanded an answer from Otoshiana. With Rick and Marissa so far away, the Lightning Minor gulped as he listened closely.
"Those people that promise and promise that they are who they are, but when it comes down to it, and when they finally get caught, their whole world comes crashing down on them, and they're exposed for the fraud that they really are," Otoshiana spoke wearily. "I really thought at some point that you would make at least a good challenge. However, obviously, at this point, you are not."
"Oh? And what makes you think that?" Lance demanded, not really caring to redeem the name that Otoshiana had labeled him.
"Because," Otoshiana began with his monotonous tone. "You fell for this trick."
Otoshiana's words confused Lance, but as if on cue to the growing thought in his mind, Lance immediately felt a shooting, searing pain through his right leg, and felt cool metal sink into his body. The wild pain was so sudden, it consumed Lance as he shot out a cough of blood, his legs and body growing suddenly weak. A second passed, and Lance felt as if he was about to collapse to the floor, his eyes becoming heavy and weak, suddenly weighing a million tons. As he felt his senses get lost, the coldness never seemed to wear off in the night, and twinkling stars above flashed a set of sorrowful flashes as the Minor fell to the floor.