AfterLife
Chapter 2
--K--
Kei could never remember having to search out another Death God. He just came upon one or another, never expecting it, yet never not expecting to meet someone. He had always simply found himself in the same small patch of hard gray dirt as someone else, exchange a few words, maybe toss some dice, and then part ways where the cycle would repeat itself and he came upon someone else.
Until now, when every so often he felt a deep instinctual urge to find Ryuk and tear answers from his lean black body, even though Kei hardly knew what his questions were. He shook off the distressing feeling, like water sliding through his fingers until he was dry of the emotion.
Kei stepped down carefully back to the little trail. He was bored. He had been sitting on a dark charcoal gray rock—he had begun categorizing the types of gray, having nothing else to do—just above one of the many small trails that wound through the craggy hills. It was not exact, but near the place where he had been when the outcast Death God had mocked him with hints of something that might have been extraordinary only because it wasn't boring.
Kei sighed, his boots clumping up little puffs of gray dust as he walked towards the open plains. The dust settled back down and he left no footprints on the little trail, letting his mind sink away under the haze of grayness. It was so much easier.
He arrived on the flats, the ground abruptly flattening out from sharp outcroppings to dirt pounded nearly rock hard. He passed between groups of Death Gods, contemplating asking any of them for Ryuk's whereabouts. But maybe they would want to know why he was searching for him?
Despite his abrupt departure from Gekki, Kei had realized that he actually did not want to estrange himself from the other Death Gods with the uncertainties his active mind kept bringing to the surface. At least the other Death Gods provided some kind of relief from the boredom at times with their games and conversation. Not to mention that he doubted anyone besides Ryuk would understand his point of view anyway. It was depressing and frustrating for a moment, but Kei let the emotions wash over him and gently, they subsided into his subconscious. He supposed he was getting better at handling the pesky impulses that seemed to plague him.
"Kei," a voice called. He stopped walking and turned, recognizing Midora's enormous soft frame. Her fish-like eyes flicked up and down Kei's body. "You wanna join our game?"
Kei looked down at the stone basin and the rest of the group. Deridovely was sitting cross-legged and across from Midora, looking up from under his bone mask at the goggled Death God expectantly. Epranbaye, a slim and wiry light gray god, had found something interesting about Kei's boots; he was known for his quiet demeanor, and he seldom ventured out to play the games of dice. He wondered how badly Epranbaye must have been losing to Midora and Deridovely. Lyr stood behind Epranbaye, his form small and hunched, his large blue eyes watching the entire scene carefully, but he held no dice. Like Epranbaye, Lyr was another of a few Death Gods that Kei could not remember ever playing these games well.
Kei shook his head in reply, not wanting to get caught up in yet another pointless game at this moment, even though it was Midora, a Death God with ranking, who was asking. There were no stakes, and therefore he could find no reason to bring himself to gamble. His red eyes flicked back to Lyr, standing at the back of the group. He looked interested, but was not involved. "No thanks. Why don't you ask Lyr?"
As one, the sitting Death Gods minus Midora craned their heads to look back up at Lyr, even though the petit god was hardly big enough to warrant a sore neck. Midora shifted slightly, her bulbous body jiggling, to peer closer at Lyr and opened her cavernous mouth to say something, but Lyr just shook his head, his eyes still on the dice sitting in the bowl. "I can't. I don't know how to play this game."
Kei felt a sudden surreal aspect in his surroundings, and knew that that answer was not what he had expected. He wasn't sure what he had expected; only that something was wrong with Lyr's answer. He tried to push the unpleasant feeling away and stop thinking, but his mind snatched at the sensation, and sent its tiny gears whirring to begin unpacking the sentence for the meaning it had independently decided was there. He didn't want to think about it; he didn't want to think about anything. He grasped vainly at the threads to tie his mind back together, but apparently he wasn't as good at controlling his senses as he had previously thought. Everything around Kei seemed to shut down as his thoughts swirled in a maelstrom that threatened to suck him under. Like gasping for air, something surfaced the stormy contents of his psyche: how could Lyr not know the rules of the game? Kei had always known how to play; who was this god who did not know the rules? That made him different from everyone around the small circle; different even from himself, and he knew with a crushing sense of awareness how terribly different he was. But how could that be? Kei was always the odd one out, with his raging thoughts and carrying the crushing burden of boredom. It wasn't fair that Lyr was even stranger… did the tiny Death God even realize the significance of not knowing something in a place where there was nothing to learn? Where had Lyr come from if he did not know? But that meant that he must not have always been here, and Kei… did Kei even truly remember him? And was there another place he could have come from? If Lyr hadn't been here before, where was that place? Could Kei, another Death God get there? Kei's brain stretched and it was if he could feel the synaptic shocks firing painfully, trying to expand to make room for the invading thoughts and questions that only led to more questions, and the tangled emotions they bred. He was drowning, suffocating... again. He had to get himself under control, before he spiraled down too far and could not come back up from the icy depths of a confusing chaos.
Through a sheer need to continue existing, Kei blinked, the physical movement allowing him to lock his turbulent thoughts away with a violent shove. However, he kept a single tremulous thread in the form of an impression he could not entirely keep away nor look closely at.
Death Gods were possibly impermanent; Lyr could be proof of something… new? He did not know the rules. Kei left it at that, refusing to examine it any further for fear of not being able to return from his own mind again, it being a most dangerous place to wander. He looked back towards Lyr, recovering his composure, but as everyone was still considering Lyr, Kei realized not one of the other Death Gods had realized he had nearly lost himself.
His disobedient mind tried again to sink its metaphoric teeth into the problem that Lyr had caused with his existence and Kei suddenly found a solution.
"I'll teach you, Lyr. Come with me," the skeletal Death God said, red eyes glowing under green goggles. If he could get Lyr away and ask him the swirling questions of… that, it would give him some relief. He just needed to find some answers. Lyr could prevent him from whirling out of control.
Lyr nodded in response to his offer. "Thank you." His voice was soft and clear.
Kei led Lyr away from the little group; the small Death God following like an obedient and very tame animal until the two were alone and Kei found he couldn't hold back any longer, his growing emotions apparently aware it became easier after each release and straining at the bars he had put in place like savage visceral beasts. He rounded on Lyr, his red eyes burning piercing crimson lasers into Lyr's larger blue orbs. The questions were going to suffocate and consume him if he waited any longer.
"How did you get here?" he asked, the question bursting forth, the first of the threatening tide. He was looking at Lyr and gesturing to the grayness all around them, hoping his meaning would be apparent, but the smaller god's face was a picture of confusion. Kei watched him with so much hope it was almost painful. Lyr looked up a Kei with his oddly blue eyes, pausing before responding.
"I don't know," he said carefully, and then tilted his head sideways, still peering up at Kei. The other god's bright white face tipped askew contrasted sharply with the rest of his coal black body, as if they were hardly connected. He didn't like the strange little Death God's answer… Lyr was different, wasn't he? He must be lying, and Kei would have his answer. But the small black mouth shrouded in white spoke again, drawing Kei out of his sudden dark humor. "How did you get here?"
Having the tables turned on him quite suddenly, Kei was at a loss for words for a moment, but the questions persisted, rising in his mind to fill the silence of spoken words. Perhaps Lyr really didn't know the answers either. He hadn't expected the pale god to believe they were similar when Lyr was so obviously new to the realm of the Death Gods. Kei's questions weren't getting any closer to any answers.
"I was here first… but you weren't always here," Kei intoned clearly before asking his next burning question, "Where did you come from?"
There was another long pause from Lyr and Kei shifted his weight impatiently, needing the physical movement as he watched Lyr. He seemed to be looking inward, as if he had found something vaguely curious in his brain, but he replied eventually with the same clear and careful speech. "I don't know. Did you come from someplace else? Were you always here?"
"Yes, of course!" Kei fumed, his hands clenching into fists. Lyr seemed to be unfazed by his outburst, and was watching him with the same careful stare from his overlarge blue eyes in his ivory face. His interrogation was getting nowhere, and he was beginning to think that talking to Lyr had been a bad idea. The small god was childlike in his responses and it was wearing on Kei's strained psyche, the simple answers of someone who obviously didn't care about knowledge and how to attain it.
"When did you get here?" Kei asked suddenly in exasperation, the question erupting wildly from under the dark blanket he kept covering the majority of his thoughts. It was only after hearing his own scratchy voice did Kei realize that even if he got some kind of answer, he could not understand it. When was a concept that did not apply to the Death God realm. Kei sagged, the enthusiasm and anger dissipating almost as soon as the realization had slapped him and it sapped the strength from his crusade.
"When…?" Kei almost didn't hear Lyr's soft voice and looked up to see Lyr deep in thought. His normally completely smooth brow showed the faint gray shadow of a wrinkle as he took a breath and began speaking in his slow and careful childlike speech, "I walked with you to this spot, I watched two games, I walked from the Orchard, I walked to the Orchard, I was standing on the other side of the valley.
"I have had that much time."
Kei stood perfectly still for a moment, then lurched forward and grabbed Lyr by the shoulders, and shaking the smaller Death God so roughly that Lyr's tiny feet left the ground. "But what about before that?" Kei asked urgently.
So close to Lyr's startled face, Kei could make out the whites surrounding Lyr's cerulean eyes, widened fully by Kei's brusque actions.
"I don't know," Lyr stated, his voice quieter, but still with the same tone he had been using during the entire conversation.
Kei set him down gently, letting his grip relax and removing his bone fingers from Lyr's slender arms slowly. There was nothing to be gained in this outpouring of anger. He decided to switch tactics, and perhaps reach his other goal.
"Do you know Ryuk?"
"Everyone knows Ryuk, Kei." Lyr said patiently, as if Kei were the child now. The black god cocked his ivory face, and Kei realized he was going to say more. "But I think I have never seen him."
Then how would you know him? Kei thought instinctively, but the answer came to him almost before the thought was finished. It wasn't as if he could remember a distinct encounter with Lyr either, and yet… he had already known his name and nothing about how Lyr acted surprised him even if he found it annoying. Come to think of it, how well did Kei himself know Ryuk? That single conversation was the only memory he had of the tall outcast with bright eyes. Kei let out his breath slowly before inhaling and beginning, finding himself speaking slowly, sorting out his thoughts as he spoke to the smaller god. "I think I have met him only once. But I would like to again."
Lyr did not reply and Kei guessed that Lyr's attention was at its end. He supposed it didn't matter; Lyr may have some strangeness about him, but not only did Lyr himself not see it, he didn't seem to care either.
So he was surprised when Lyr's voice broke through his inner musings.
"I think that it would take me longer to walk to the Orchard than it would for you to walk to the Orchard."
Kei sighed, a mixture of disgust and boredom. The conversation with Lyr had only disheartened him; it was obvious that the only one he could speak to on equal terms was Ryuk, but the clever god was nowhere to be found. Seeing as how Lyr was no longer worth talking to, Kei decided to make his departure. He might as well search for Ryuk. He turned to go.
"That… that is time."
It took a moment for Kei to realize what Lyr was saying. The concept of time was difficult to comprehend, his mind wanting to wrap around it, but finding that hours and minutes kept slipping through into days and years and out of his head completely. There simply was no time in the barren world of the Death Gods. But distances… there were those, and Kei supposed that there was a longer and shorter, perhaps a more and a less time, if he compared the length of his stride… well, of course Kei would be faster, but speed depended on distance over time. How long to get there? He knew speed, so why was time so… foreign? His head hurt, his skull constricting the thoughts that threatened to engulf him and spill out the crevices of his eyes. Kei shut his eyes tightly for a moment, knowing only that the small red orbs would extinguish before he rekindled them by opening his eyes. He did so, and found himself looking straight at Lyr, the small pale figure hunched and looking as if time were a concept he pointed out everyday. Did the small god really understand what he was saying? Was he able to grasp such an intangible concept that Kei could not? Would he understand anything Kei put to him?
Would he understand how Kei felt about the terrible grayness, the maddening obsession he had with finding out what Ryuk had done to keep it at bay? Could Lyr perhaps be the kind of kindred spirit in a Death God that he had been looking for?
There was only one way to find out. He would have to tell Lyr what he knew, what he guessed, and hope that in the process Lyr could tell him something in return. Otherwise, he was pretty sure the grayness would swallow him whole and he would never be able to leave the confines of his hazy mind filled with questions and no answers.
"You're not going to teach me the game, are you?" Lyr asked quietly. Kei shook his head, feeling a sudden pull of excitement at the task ahead of him. His jawbones ground into a slight smile.
"No, I'm not," he said watching the little god carefully, "But I'll teach you something else.
"We're going to the Orchard."
--K--
They reached the barren Orchard, but unlike the last time he had traveled to the place, Kei had been watching the length of his strides and was comparing them to Lyr's. The smaller Death God took about three steps for every two that Kei took, but he walked faster and they reached the Orchard together. Kei continued on near the end of the Orchard, nearly believing he would find a shiny red apple at the end of the grey trees.
Of course it wasn't there. Everything was still gray.
Kei stopped next to a lightning-bolt shaped tree, sharp points sticking out at nearly every angle. But there was a very small gray lump near the base that had caught Kei's eye and he carefully extricated it from the tree and held it up to Lyr, waiting for a reaction. Would Lyr think the apple was strange?
"No thank you." Lyr said politely, looking at the apple as if it were more akin to a stone that Kei was showing him.
"Why not?" Kei realized that it might be harder than he thought to teach Lyr. The Death God didn't even understand that the apple was a teaching tool, and not a food offering. But then again, if offered an apple, why didn't he want to eat it?
"They don't taste very good." Yes, Kei also thought that, and everyone knew that… but in Lyr's description of the things he could remember doing, eating an apple had not been one of them.
"Have you ever eaten one?" he asked gently, trying to coax the correct answers from Lyr's blue eyes.
Lyr paused, and displayed the now familiar tilt of his head. "No."
"Then how do you know?" Kei asked, trying to contain his growing anticipation and keep calm when asking questions.
"Everyone knows."
"If they taste bad and everyone knows this, then why do some Death Gods eat apples?" Kei persisted.
"I suppose they don't mind the taste." Lyr began to look bored. Kei was getting frustrated. Why wasn't Lyr thinking about it?
"Does this apple look right?" Kei asked finally, his anger beginning to show through in the brusqueness of his question.
Lyr paused, and then answered while nodding, "Yes."
"Why?" Kei asked intently. His eyes narrowed into little points of dark crimson.
"It looks dead." Lyr still looked bored, but Kei suddenly felt victorious; Lyr had just handed him the right question to ask.
"If this apple is dead, then what does an apple that is alive look like?"
This was it. Kei scrutinized the other god intently, Lyr's every blink, the slight shift of his head, the way his forehead gently wrinkled in confusion. Kei could practically see the wheels and cogs beginning to twist and turn inside Lyr's head and he couldn't prevent his jaws from opening into a grin. His eyes glowed a deeper red and brighter, reflecting back nearly purple in the depths of Lyr's blue eyes. Lyr was thinking hard, probably just beginning to hit upon the idea that Kei had already come across. Kei could barely wait for a reply without shaking the smaller Death God into giving him the answer.
"I don't know," Lyr said simply, in the same tone he had always been using. Kei took a step back, suddenly furious. Lyr probably hadn't even been thinking about it but because he was new and different, he must know the answer.
"Why not?" Kei asked, his eyes narrow and his voice menacing. Perhaps Lyr was lying? He had to know the answer! He was smart enough to understand time; he should understand what apples were supposed to be like. If Lyr could understand more than Kei, although the skeletal god hated admitting the possibility of something like that, than at least he should understand the things Kei had already figured out on his own. In respect to the concepts they could grasp, they weren't dissimilar. Kei felt cheated; Lyr should have had the answer.
"I don't think that is something everybody knows," Lyr replied, his voice never losing the quality of softness.
"I know," Kei hissed, still angry, but beginning to lose some of his fire. Perhaps it was pointless after all.
"What does an apple that is alive look like?" Lyr asked curiously, his big eyes rolling around in their sockets as if unsure on what object to focus on, despite the apple still in Kei's hand.
Kei looked down at the pitiful illusion of an apple, thinking of the differences. "It's red and ripe, and round and…."
Kei looked up to see Lyr nodding in agreement. Was the Death God really agreeing with him? Did he really understand or know? Kei's last word came out nearly a whisper.
"…Juicy."
"You are right," Lyr said, as if he had never said he didn't know what an apple should be like. He paused for a moment and cocked his head, letting his eyes focus on Kei's before adding, "And I think they are sweet."
For a moment, Kei couldn't move. He had been right; he would succeed. "How do you know?" he asked, sinking into calm and feeling confident that he would continue to be successful. With this confirmation, it was only a matter of time before he got to the answers and he could take whatever knowledge he wanted. And it all began with a single apple.
"You told me… how do you know?" Lyr asked, apparently confused.
"No, I mean about the apples being sweet," Kei retorted, guiding Lyr gently towards the answers he wanted.
"It only makes sense."
"No, it doesn't! None of this makes sense! Why do Death Gods eat apples?!" Kei shouted, taking a step forward. Perhaps he needed to drive the point home first. Lyr may know that apples are sweet, but he had no concept of how it was important… or perhaps he knew, but didn't care?
"They are addictive." Lyr had stated another obvious and well-known fact.
"You're missing my point! Why do webegin eating them in the first place?!" Kei argued, feeling his confidence beginning to ebb away. The victorious feeling was being lost, swallowed up by the nothingness, but unlike every time before, Kei didn't want to lose this emotion. He liked it, feeling the smug satisfaction of… winning. He scrabbled at trying to keep the feeling.
"You tell me. You were always here," Lyr said quickly.
"No, I wasn't!" Kei shouted, trying to keep his emotions intact, but it was now growing to include those emotions he didn't want. Fear, anger, and knowing that soon he may fall under the nothingness and sink into un-knowledge.
It took a few moments for Kei's own mind to catch up with what he had just spoken. He paused and considered his own words. It suddenly seemed so obvious. Lyr was nothing different, nothing special, and perhaps Kei's only great attribute was his mind and how he thought. There was something about the Death God Realm… Kei himself must possess all the knowledge himself subconsciously. He just needed to find a way to unlock it. The Death God Realm… the inhabitants lost their emotions, their ideas, anything that made them something other than the nothingness. But that had not always been the case. Kei was suddenly overpoweringly convinced that he had not always been wandering these arid plains full of gray. For if he knew what boring was, then he must have experienced something else. He knew what excitement meant, understood the meanings behind multiple lexicons of describing emotions. He had been trying to find something, pull it out of Lyr, but he hadn't realized that it was there inside his own mind. And that made even more sense. After all, he had come to these conclusions on his own. His dream… the knowledge was all there. And if Lyr had been able to uncover some new information, it was probably hidden away in every Death God that walked the flats which meant….
"I think there was a time when none of us were here," Kei said quietly.
"How many times do you think you could have walked to…" Lyr asked, looking around. He seemed to have taken what Kei had said and either ignored it or run too far ahead for Kei to immediately follow. Kei waited, trying to be patient and believing that he would understand. Lyr pointed to a craggy outcropping at the side of the valley, finishing his sentence, "That rock and back between now and the time there was no one."
"I'm not sure; I have always seen others here," Kei answered honestly. And he understood that Lyr was trying to figure out time again. Distance and numbers… since the beginning of everything? Could that be done?
A faint shadow appeared on Lyr's white forehead, signaling that he was deep in though. Kei waited anxiously for an answer.
"Then you were probably not the first here," Lyr said simply. Kei blinked. He could have figured that out… but he hadn't though about it. Still, that wasn't what was important.
"Then where were we before now?"
"I think the King of Death was the first one here." Obviously, Lyr was no longer paying attention to the important things. Kei found himself growing angry again, but remembered the numbness of un-knowledge. Both of them had to work around the dampening effect of the Death God Realm. Kei took a deep breath.
"Maybe we just weren't before," Lyr continued, answering Kei's question. It was not the answer he wanted to hear.
"But you can't just get something from nothing," Kei argued. Obviously, something must have come before or they wouldn't be having this discussion. He found himself gesturing angrily around himself with both arms.
"Where else is there?" Lyr looked pensive and Kei paused in mid-gesticulation.
Of course. Why hadn't he seen it before? Perhaps he needed someone to ask him the right questions…. Yes, he would keep Lyr around. Kei's red eyes squarely met Lyr's blue ones, a broad grin widening his jaws, making his sharp teeth separate. He felt like he wanted to laugh… truly he felt on the verge of something interesting.
"The Human Realm."
--K--
Oh my God, I'm so glad Tobi Tortue FINALLY finished her chapter... if she takes this long for the next chapter, I'm just gonna post for you guys without waiting for her. Please drop a review here before heading over there and if you came from there, you can still leave a review. Yes, one for each of us. They are separate stories. Thank you! Hope you enjoyed it. :)
And OH! After purchasing my very own How to Read 13, I realized that Kinddara (from Ch. 1) was a bit different from how I imagined... but, well, just pretend that the violence comes from being OCD... and there might be some gender confusion there as well... c'mon, wouldn't you be angry?
