Ohiya! The future chapter! This chapter is kinda depressing and all but I love it for some reason, like I love it a lot more than all the other chapters I have written for this story and I don't know why. I just love it. Thank you to all those who reviewed, favorite, and followed! Please leave a review and favorite! Farewell and Enjoy!
-Let there be midnight
ME NO OWN FAIRY TAIL!
The Future
"Come on, we're done here. It's time to show you what will happen to your future if things go bad." Natsu didn't see his face as he had his back to him, but he could still see that he was furious with him. Salamander began to walk off, Natsu hesitantly following him, fearing that one word he might say will make the pinkette blow up in his face again.
Once again, the scenery changed and Salamander disappeared. The world around Natsu was no longer the raining alleyway, but a building looking on the verge of collapsing. On top of the building there were three remaining letters and the faint out line of six letters that had gone missing. The 'F', 'Y', and 'L' were the only remaining letters in dull peeling red paint.
The building was a wreck. The windows were broken and glass littered the ground in the front and one of the large doors hung on barely by one hinge.
With furrowed eyebrows Natsu moved closer to the building, a strange sense of nostalgia overwhelming him. With tentative hands he moved the broken door aside, the hinges creaking loudly as if they were being awakened after hundreds of years of slumber. The inside was dark and only the setting sun creeping in from the broken windows, holes, cracks, and slightly opened doors was the only thing that kept the place from being pitch black. Spider webs hung from the ceilings and walls like vines in jungles, and dust coated every broken furniture in the room like a thick quilt. Old dried up blood was splattered amongst the floor along with books and pages sprawled out everywhere around it and glasses that were tipped over and broken, the liquid that used to be in them now long gone. Chairs and tables were on their sides or missing a leg or two, or shattered like everything else seemed to be in the room.
Natsu moved around the debris with slow movements, taking in his surroundings with heavily confused eyes. This place looked similar, so similar to Natsu that it was unnerving. Then an image popped in his head, an image of Gray and the others showing him into their guild hall for what Natsu felt like the first time when it wasn't that long ago.
He was broken from his revere when he heard soft sobbing coming from a room near the once new guild's hall. With his heart in his throat, Natsu moved forward almost afraid of what he will see when he finds whatever it was, sobbing. He turned the corner leading out of the guild hall, walking over abandoned keys with weird symbols on them, only to come face to face with an old wooden door slightly ajar. He opened it hesitantly and stopped. Hunched over a writing desk on the far wall was an old woman with long white hair the fell in tangles to the floor and swelled around her chair like water. Her shoulders were shaking considerably and her sobs grew into wails of sorrow that shattered Natsu's heart from hearing them.
Slowly, the woman grew calmer until her sobs were soft whimpers and sniffles, her wrinkly arms rubbing at her eyes to make the tears go away. Then she stood up, the chair creaking against the old wood in protest as she slowly moved around. The image made Natsu loose his breath as he recognized her as one of the people who were around his bedside before he went into the magical-induce coma.
Her eyes were a weary blue, all void of color and life lost from her olden eyes. Her cheeks were swallow and her nose pearly and red along with her eyes from the crying. The bangs that used to be clipped on top of her head were now as long as the hair that swam around her feet in rivulets. She still wore the same dress Natsu last saw her in, except it was old and ripped with holes and darkened from the years of never being washed. Her feet were bare and brown and her toenails long and wooden, shaky as they took a few steps. Clenched to her chest was an old photograph that was kept polished and looking new, people faces smiling up at the camera in joy.
Natsu recognized some of the people as Lucy, Gray, Erza, Master, Happy, Lisanna, Wendy, and Mira herself. Next to Mira stood a large well-built man with a long jagged scar on his face and white hair that Lisanna and Mira both had and was quite tan. Next to him stood another large and well-built man with a lightening scar and blonde hair who looked indifferent. With the brightest smile out of all of them, Natsu recognized himself giving the camera a peace sign and a large toothy grin.
"Natsu… Lucy… Erza…" the woman started to name off all the people in the photograph except herself with a dead voice, taking slow shaky steps forward as if she was about to fall. "Elfman… Lisanna… Wendy…" Natsu slid down the cracked wall behind him, staring at the aged figure of the girl he barely knew—but should know but couldn't—walk with just a shell of her former self.
"Mira…" he whispered from his suddenly dry throat.
"Master… Laxus… Levy…" She fell to her knees but didn't seem to notice as she stared in front of her with unseeing eyes, her wrinkly bony hands holding the picture closer to her chest as if it was her only life line.
"Macao… Wakaba… Reedus…" she continued on as the sun slowly set from the broken window on the other side of the wall.
"Such a sad sight, isn't it?" Salamander's soft voice came from beside Natsu. The pinkette started in surprise and stared at his clone that had just appeared out of nowhere sitting next to him, but said nothing as he slowly let his eyes drift to Mira who kept on muttering names over and over, always a new one and never repeating. "She's the only survivor from the guild; actually she's the only survivor from Magnolia when evil had become overwhelming with power.
"When she watched all the people she cared for slain mercilessly in front of her, she lost it. Lucy and Erza were first taken in as prisoners, only to be slain in front of everyone when they tried to escape a week later. Gray was killed trying to protect the Master when he was fatally wounded, which ended in the Master's death along with Laxus and Freed who also tried to help protect him. Happy was killed when he tried to save Wendy and Carla, all three of them dying, but slowly. Wendy died holding Carla and Happy to her chest and Happy died trying to console them when he saw that saving them was futile. After just three years, everyone Mira had once cared for had ceased to exist and she died in side, becoming nothing more than just a shell of herself. But it was your death that set her off the most. You were the first to die. Three weeks after your magical-induced coma, Pandora and Luke had successfully assassinated you and Luke was never suspected. It tore the whole guild apart, but mostly it tore Mira apart." Natsu tore his eyes away from the pitiful sight of the once so beautiful girl and to Salamander who stared ahead of him with blank eyes.
"Why?" he croaked, tears filling his eyes as his bottom lip quivered. Salamander shook his head negatively.
"You simply didn't wake in time." he replied simply. Natsu looked down at his lap, shoulders shaking as he tried to repress his sobs. He watched his hands curl and uncurl only to curl yet again in his lap. It was the only thing that could keep him from crying.
He knew that he only knew Mira for a short time, but she along with everyone else knew him much longer than he remembered, and the thought that he couldn't really remember her and that all this was his fault made his heart wilt in his chest and his throat clench terribly in guilt. It was his fault he couldn't remember. It was his fault that he fell into a magical-induced coma. It was his fault he had gotten assassinated. It was his fault that everyone died. And most importantly, it was his fault he didn't wake up.
He closed his eyes tightly, feeling the hot tears spill over his cheeks and fall onto his clenched hands that shook in his lap. "So you're saying, this is all my fault because I didn't wake up?" His voice cracked and shook with sadness and guilt as he looked into his identical eyes that were narrowed in slight sympathy.
"Yes, it is. This may seem too cruel to show you, but you need to know what happens if you don't wake up soon. Everything will be a whole lot different if you just wake up." Biting his lip, he looked away with tensed shoulders.
"I-I don't k-k-know how t-t-t-to." he whispered regretfully. Out of the corner of his eyes he watched as Salamander sighed and look down, his shoulders hunching as if the whole world hung down on them.
"Me neither, you must find out yourself." he muttered just load enough for Natsu to hear. Before Natsu could utter a single word, he was gone leaving the pinkette alone with the old Mira sitting in the room crying.
He zoned in on her words once more and noticed that only one name had left her lips now as she repeated it over and over as if it was a lifeline that kept her living, just solely off that name.
"Natsu… Natsu… Natsu… Natsu… Natsu…"