Disclaimer: Not mine
Outside of the Dream
By: Starlight – x1
Chapter 4: Broken Wishes

This wasn't right.

Machika stood staring down at Rain. Her knuckles white with the force by which she held her scythe. Ayla had practically handed her the opportunity she wanted most. Namely, to take the head of Methuselah. Then, as if to sweeten the deal, Ayla had promised to pay the bounty on Methuselah's head. Throughout the entire conversation Rain sat, an almost resigned look on his face, staring at the floor. Now Machika was left to carry out her role in this twisted tale, but she found that she couldn't move.

Instead she stared at Rain while something he'd said to Ayla kept running through her mind.

"Still, your life would be over in the blink of an eye and he would hold your lifeless body in his arms and cry until his heart wore away."

Had that been Rain's experience? How many of those close to him had he held in his arms and wept over their death?

"Aren't you going to take my head?"

Rain's question brought Machika out of her musings and she felt a flush of embarrassment and anger. Why was she so hesitant? She lifted her scythe. She would take his head and collect the bounty.

Machika started her swing thinking as she did so that Rain would probably escape, just like normal, leaving her looking like a fool. Midway through her swing she realized he really wasn't going to run. He just sat, staring at the floor like he'd given up finally. The scythe sank into the wall beside his head.

"Why don't you run?" Machika felt her frustration explode with her question

Rain looked up at her, a question in his eyes. "I can go?"

"Yes." Machika flung open the doors to the balcony, staring at him over her shoulder. The thought ran through her mind again. This isn't right.

Rain seemed to be considering. He glanced outside then back at her. Finally he answered. "If I leave you'll just follow me again."

She turned away. He was right. She would follow him. But she was no longer one hundred percent sure of the reason for her obsession. Did she really want to kill him like she constantly claimed to everyone around her? Or had something changed?

The night sky caught her attention and she gave a gasp of delight as she hurried outside for a better look. The Festival of the Stars had begun. The sky was full of shooting stars. She sensed Rain come stand beside her. "Wouldn't it be nice if every wish was granted?"

"Yeah." Rain stared up at the sky.

"What would you wish for?" Machika suddenly asked.

00000

The question startled Rain. Fragments of memory flooded him

"I wish I would grow taller."

"I wish my brother would stop hitting me."

"I wish my front teeth would grow in."

Wishes from long years past. I wish we could all go back… Rain stared down at the girl beside him. "That's the first time anyone's ever asked me what I'd wish for." He laid one hand on the railing and stared up at the stars. After a moment he spoke again. "I'd wish to live in the same time as everyone else. I'd want to live and die like everyone around me. I'd wish to be human again."

"But, you know, everyone's jealous of you." Machika said. Rain looked down at her and she grinned. "Life bites doesn't it?"

"Yeah." Rain agreed and they both began to laugh.

One small moment of peace… The thought crossed swiftly, almost nonexistent. It faded with the sound of a scream.

Machika gasped. "Ayla!" She grabbed her scythe and took a few hurried steps toward the door. Rain reached out and halted her with a hand on her arm. "Where are you going?"

"Ayla needs help." Machika pulled her arm from his grasp.

Rain saw the determination in her arms and nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll provide a distraction." He watched her disappear through the door before turning his attention upwards. The stars continued to fall as he searched for a way to climb up to the roof.

00000

Why did it matter so much to him? Rain couldn't help wonder even as he covered Machika with his own body, sheltering her from the bullets Sharem shot at them.

"No Rain," Machika wailed, tears flowing freely from her eyes as she struggled to push him aside. "You'll get hurt. Go."

Rain grunted with the impact of another bullet, feeling the pain that embodied his very existence nowadays. After a moment he let a smile curve his lips. Ignoring the blood that flowed down the side of his face he leaned close, capturing Machika's gaze with his own. "Let me protect you, please." It's all I can do right now. Machika stared back at him and stopped struggling. He could feel that same feeling clench in his chest, a pain as different from the physical pain he was experiencing right then as night was from day. Then physical pain overrode everything, exploding in the back of his head. He felt himself falling and could do nothing to stop it. Faintly he heard Machika scream his name and then blackness overtook him.

The dark faded away slowly, urged by the sound of a voice he knew, one his ears strained to hear no matter how hard he tried to push it aside. Slowly he rose, turning toward the most immediate threat. His eyes met Sharem's while his hand closed firmly around the gun in her hand.

"Well, you're more useless then I thought." She taunted him.

Rain didn't say anything, only turned the gun so it was pointing to the side. After a moment Sharem let go and turned away to where her two cohorts were waiting. "We're leaving now." She walked away a couple steps before pausing and turning back to stare at Rain. "I'll leave you a present to remind you just who you are. Confront your past." She gave a slight wave and turned away. "Let's meet again someday Methuselah."

Rain watched until she disappeared from sight before allowing himself to relax. He sank to the ground, leaning his back against a tree. His entire body ached all over. He was so tired.

"Why do you always save me?" Machika slumped to the ground in front him, her gaze riveted to the grass in front of her. "I wanted to get you back by myself."

"How disappointing." Rain couldn't resist the urge to ruffle her hair gently. He grinned as she smacked his hand away and rubbed at her eyes. "Crybaby."

She turned on him in a fury, her fist raised in the air. "It's your fault. You keep doing things that make me cry." She paused and lowered her fist. "You need to be more careful. The way you act now if you did become a human you die right away. You're the type who'd get hit by a car trying to save a dog."

Rain, unsure whether she was complementing or criticizing him opted to smile. "Really? You think so?"

"Idiot, that wasn't a complement. You should be more careful about your life."

"Life?" Rain raised his eyebrows and watched her flush as she realized what she'd said.

"Aw, forget it." Machika turned away from him, hugging herself with her thin arms.

Rain was about to reassure her when something else interrupted them. Kiki bristled up, hissing and growling. Out of the branches above them dropped a figure that was no longer quite human. It landed on all fours while it's slit-eyed gaze locked on Rain. It gave a yowl and launched itself at him. Rain caught the creature, keeping its jaws away from his face. "Run Machika." He could see her sitting there, in shock, her face pale, blue eyes wide. Then he was wrapped up in the fight with the monster.

"Why you?"

The monster's yowls became human words as it crouched over Rain. There was the slightest flicker of humanity within its otherworldly eyes. "Why are you the only one?"

Rain reached out with one hand, felt a branch, and closed his fingers tightly about the wood. He understood the question, had asked it himself many times. Why him? Why had he been chosen? Out of the billions of people Yuca had met throughout his vast lifetimes, why had he only cursed Rain with the gift of immortality?

"I don't know." Rain could give the only answer he had. He watched, face impassive as the "angel" let out a silent scream of agony, long slender branches of flesh sprouting uncontrollably from its back. Tears ran down cheeks smeared with dirt.

"Help."

The plea might've broken his heart if it had been fully awakened. Instead Rain lifted the branch he held high above his head, bringing it down to pierce the heart of the creature he now straddled. The life drained quickly from those strange eyes. There was no peace in death for the creature, only the same twisted anguish that had been there in life.

"Rain! Rain!" The sound of someone frantically calling his name captured his attention. The next moment Machika had skidded to a halt next to him. Rain barely heard her frantic scolding. Instead he found himself reaching out, needing to touch life, vibrancy; needing to touch her. His hand cupped her cheek, his thumb caressing her soft skin. Machika fell silent at his touch, staring up at him unblinkingly.

"Wh-what's wrong?" Machika finally asked.

Rain removed his hand, letting it drop to his side. "If I became human what would I do?" He answered her question with one of his own.

"Huh?" Machika blinked at the sudden change in direction their conversation had taken.

Rain smiled gently at her. "It doesn't matter anymore. The night for wishes is over." He cast a glance up at the sky, now devoid of falling stars.

Machika followed his gaze before her own fell on the corpse lying on the ground impaled with the branch. "Did you kill it?"

Rain could feel that strange, unwanted sensation well up in his heart again. He turned away from the clear blue of Machika's gaze. "You know, you don't need to follow me anymore." He left her standing behind him as he moved quickly away. If he let her stay with him something inside him would wake. He didn't know what it was, but the erasing of the emptiness inside him frightened him slightly. He couldn't allow it. He had a job, a goal that drove his existence. One hand reached up and covered the cross on his chest. His entire reason for living now was carved on that cross, a simple date pointing to a fateful meeting. He would leave her behind; he was good at it by now. As an immortal he left everything behind. He lived outside time, watching it flow past him with a speed he envied, with a longing he no longer felt.

He left her behind, but her steps caught up with him, her persistence followed him and her blue eyes haunted him, catching up to him on the train he took to leave her behind. It was useless. Rain considered for a moment. Machika's grip on him was tighter then the fingers she had wrapped in the front of his coat.

She shifted in her sleep, snuggling closer to him. "Rain…"

Every time she spoke his name the unseen bond between them strengthened. So why, why had he let her call him by it?

"That your name?" Their seatmate spoke up. He didn't wait for Rain's reply, turning his gaze out the window on the pitiless sky. "It's a good one. My granddaddy used to tell me that the sky would cry tears for us, the ones we couldn't. Now I guess we've grown so hopeless that there are no more tears in the entire universe for us." He gave a gruff laugh and took a swig from the bottle he held.

Rain considered for a moment. Maybe there were no more tears. He knew he no longer held any. Maybe Machika was nothing more then a brief wind passing through his existence. A riotous wind at that. He felt her fingers relax and then fall to rest on his lap. He stared down at that small hand, palm upturned, the trusting hand of a child. If he turned away from her for just an instant she would disappear, but something prevented him from doing that. So he sat, letting the warmth of another life tease at the heart he no longer had. Just for a little while.