His eyes snapped open, body jolting upright as he gasped for air.
One hand was placed reassuringly on his chest, while the other was used to hold him upright.
Fingers tightened, clenching around rumpled sheets, body trembling in small spasms.
Throwing the covers to one side, he leapt out of bed, rushing into the bathroom and violently twisting the tap on, cupping his hands and smashing the hastily-gathered pool of water onto his still-warm skin. He gasped again, for a different reason than before, in relief. The icy liquid had shocked him out of the sleep-haze, though the scattered images still flew through his mind. He bared his teeth angrily at the sink, leaning against the porcelain tiredly.
Three days since the dreams had started. A full three days with minimal sleep and unrest that plagued his body. Something just felt WRONG.
His body felt lighter than normal, off balance and weighted in places where it shouldn't be.
Slightly calloused fingertips ran through his greenish black hair, a deep sigh fogging up the mirror. He turned off the faucet, trudging thankfully toward the dining area as his mother's call rang through the house, summoning him for breakfast. He sat as gracefully as he could at the low table, accepting his breakfast with a quiet thanks.
His mother eyed him worriedly, looking at the dark bags under his eyes and the rumpled pajamas which he had seemed to forget to change out of. His skin even looked pale to her eyes, made more so with the damp and unbrushed hair. She watched as he nibbled on a rice ball, his expression changing from auto-pilot to vaguely confused.
"O-kaa-san?"
"Hai?"
"There is... something odd about the onigari. Somen-nisai, but I do not wish to eat any more."
She smiled, nodding approval. "You do not have to eat it, but you do look a bit ill. Would you like to stay home from school today?"
He shook his head negative, reaching for another dish with his chopsticks. As he raised the morsel to his mouth, he glanced down at it, to make sure it was not slipping.
A wave of nausea hit him like a brick wall, causing him to gag and drop his chopsticks with a clatter. Clutching at his stomach, he rushed back into the bathroom, trying desperately to retch whatever was causing him to feel this way, but nothing came out. He coughed, spitting into the toilet before sitting back on his heels, breathing deeply. The horrible off-kilter feeling was dying down again, but the wrongness remained. Touya Akira took one last breath, reaching up to flush the toilet, making the same mistake he had before. He glanced down. Within the white bowl was nothing much, just the wad of spit and a small brownish red piece of something. He blinked, fingers barely touching the metal lever. The red floated innocently, breaking apart slightly.
Crimson liquid flowed from the center of the over sized scab. Blood leaking into the water.
Blood.
He pressed down the lever, throwing himself against the opposite wall, curling in on himself as flashes of images raced past his eyes, raking across his brain.
Iceraincoldwind
tireddarklongway
brightlightroaringengine
black...
Black...
Green eyes...
Glowing.
He clenched his teeth, short fingernails digging into the cotton pants he wore to bed as he attempted to regain awareness of the world around him.
He was vaguely aware of his mother on the phone, crouching next to him, and the cold tiles rubbing into the soles of his feet.
He made a strange choking sound, burying his head deeper into his legs while short spasms racked his body. What seemed like hours later, a loud wailing filled his ears, drowning out the wind rain in his ears. He relaxed slightly, uncurling just enough to raise his head to look around.
His Aqua eyes stared blankly at his mom, blinking once as she spoke to him, the sounds coming out of her mouth indecipherable.
He jumped when three men rushed into the bathroom, picking him up gently and placing him on a stretcher When he tried to struggle, when the sounds they made started to scare him in their gibberish, they held him down with strong arms, hauling him into a high room. The roaring noises grew louder, along with the wailing, and he struggled to get free, instincts screaming for him to get up, fight his way out.
Why? Why should he run? These people were only trying to help, they are healers, they want to get us to the other healers. We need to relax, let them take us. They will stop the loud mind-noises.
NO! We need the mind-flashes! We need them!
We?
You.
You?
No, not me, you... You need to run! Run before they contaminate the process!
Why
I can not tell you a reason!
Who are you?
Another wave of images flashed through his mind, sending his body into another wave of small convulsions, the thrashing slowing to a quick twitching of his muscles after they shot something in his neck.
The other self screamed in anger, fighting off the strange drug that slowed the images, drawing out the agony that was only supposed to last an hour. Blast them!
His eyes were closed now, but the ghosts of light were cast upon his skin, sensed rather than felt as he was wheeled into a building, something hard pressing against his face.
A soft hissing.
Blackness.
(To all those who are wondering, Yes, I am insane, and no, I am not taking any medication.
Yes, I have had the sudden, unexplainable urge to rip living things to small pieces, (Use fresh bones as acsesseries, bathe in their blood, ect)
But I have NOT acted on said impulses.
Yet ))
The doctors worked into the evening, scanning and testing and searching for some way to make the tremors stop. There was no damage anywhere, aside from a faint bruise on his hip and a hairline fracture along his thigh bone. They had done extensive scans to his body and brain, ( 2 out of 5 had to be halted mid-way, because of the convulsions) Another thing that bothered them was his increasingly powerful resistance to drugs that slowed neural firing. Something about his body just altered the stuff they shot him with, diverting it away from where it was supposed to go.
If they had looked really closely at the crevice between the roof of his mouth and his nasal cavity, they would have seen small, nearly invisible glands linking to his canines. They were slowly growing bigger, as the knockout drugs increased in dose and potency.
Around two in the afternoon, his body stopped spasming so violently.
Five minutes later, he descended from a drug-induced, coma-like state to a peaceful rest, punctuated only by brief, natural flickering of the eye as he dreamed.
Yet, he still showed no negative or other wise response to the heavy amount of drugs having been injected into his bloodstream, and everything was functioning perfectly again.
Only the faintest twitch (also normal for dreaming sleepers) of his fingers resembled what was going on just a few hours ago.
He bruise was pretty much gone, and the fracture they had detected before was no longer visible.
To put it simply, the Doctors were bewildered.
-/Dream/-
Darkness surrounded him
It was not a stifling sort of darkness, but rather one of warm shadows wrapping around his form, moving entrancingly, much like the polar opposite of flames. Or, the gentle side of them.
He searched the inky depths for something he knew, somehow, would be there. It was more a feeling than anything, There!
Bright green orbs glowed faintly in the darkness, staring at him serenely. He moved closer to them, the pale glow emanating from his own form lighting up the figure. It was a boy, about the same age as him, with black hair and golden bangs. A loose pair of jeans hung about his slim hips, the rest of his skin covered in a shimmering layer of gold scales. Behind the boy's back, two pitch black, enormous bat wings lay folded, dusted with the lighter color upon the fuzzy webbing. Thin, deadly-looking spikes slid out along the boy's shoulders and back, pitch black. His already imposing figure was aided by the sweeping, blade-tipped tail and strait black horns jutting from the sides of the boy's head, facing backwards.
Then, he spoke. It was rather off-putting, such a dangerous figure possessing such a soft, childlike voice. Then, Akira took a step closer, looking at the figure's face. Despite the lean muscles and lithe figure, the boy's face was just that! A boy's! Thin scales traced over his forehead and cheeks, exposed skin also the mellow color of the sun.
He couldn't help it! He laughed.
Hikaru stood in front of the laughing mortal, feeling rather out of place. Here was the ultimate girly-boy, the one with perfect manners and a stupid haircut, and he dared laugh at HIM for sounding feminine! All he said was 'greeting, foolish mortal'(Hikaru is in his head, remember. Little Dragon-wings can hear pretty much everything Akira thinks) That phrase was supposed to send fear skittering down their spines!
The gold-hued dragonling gave a delicate sniff, turning away from the still-giggling boy with a small huff of exasperation. For crying out loud, it wasn't THAT funny!
Hikaru spoke in a holier-than-thou tone, arms folded and wings ruffled in irritation.
"At least I have the strength to back up my good looks"
Which, coincidentally, simply set the Go player off again.
Hikaru stared around at the darkness, which was supposed to spell impending doom to all who entered.
Was something wrong with the mind scape? A quick mental prod denied this, and so he simply plopped down to watch the mortal attempt to gasp more air into his lungs, despite the continuing muscle contractions.
Eventually, the human stopped laughing at him, and managed to stutter out a somewhat-formal greeting. Hikaru narrowed his eyes, slit pupils widening slightly. Should he be a killjoy? Or let the boy keep laughing. Neither sounded very nice to him.
Finally, with the giggles still echoing, his patience snapped.
"STUPID PERSON!" He nearly roared, wings snapping outward. This pretty much shut Akira up, the rage flashing in those fiery green orbs quite enough to stop his laughter for good.
"I was GOING to inform you that YOU have been bloody CHOSEN by DEATH HIMSELF, and you cant even BOTHER giving a DEATH-GOD some RESPECT!" After this, he gave a frustrated half-scream/groan. He grabbed the kid's formal shirt, yanking him forward and smacking his other palm on the kid's forehead. A small golden dragon appeared on the center of it, gleaming eerily in the light from both spirits. "You have a month before I come to collect you. Don't die, don't spread rumors, and don't start flipping out just because you are going to be a death-god's stupid apprentice."With that, the darkness started fading somewhat, and the dragon-like figure whirled away from him, muttering obcenities under his breath and stalking away. Before the winged boy dissapeard, Akira could have sworn he heard 'Kitty Girly-boy just as bad as the purple roasted chicken.'
That couldn't have been it...could it?
-/end dream/-
He had woken up without incident (rather, many tears on his mother's part) and had assured the doctors that he felt fine, and hoped he could get to his next match on time.
They returned the young Touya back to his worried mother, saying that he was perfectly alright now (they had no idea) and for her to call back if he started jerking again, or complained of nausea or dizziness. And that she should expect him to be sleeping for a good while.
So, the go prodigy was sent home, soon to be coddled by a frantic mother and paid unusually close attention to, by his father, the Go Legend. Weeks passed, and they eventually let the ordeal slip from their minds as he began to act normally once again, going to matches and once again being the polite, perfectly groomed gentleman that he usually was.
In truth, he was simply enjoying his last days, mentally counting down.
The voice in his head had been silent after the declaration of his death, those shadowy green eyes no longer showing up in mirrors or reflective glass to watch him.
He acted normally, and cursed the voice up and down in his mind, but privately, in the far reaches of his consciousness, he was excited at the prospect of being something more.