And its done! Took me a while but...I am quite happy with the results! :D Hope you had enjoyed the ride as much as I did. Thank you very much to you all...special thanks to my beloved reviewer Anime-Freak! Without you perhaps this might have never been finished! :3 Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! :D
And without further delay, the last chapter of Iris for you all!
Link's arms tensed more and more with each passing second; his eyes looking at anything and everything around us. A dead inside the room he had said. A dead man inside our room.
"Get away." He hissed and his grip upon my person got tighter. I was having trouble breathing by now, like a boa his limbs tightened with each act of defiance to the prey's fate. The stronger I opposed, the stronger the grasp. "Get back!" He all but yelled and his fingernails bit my skin.
"Link...you are.." I felt how slowly I was becoming light and fuzzy due to lack of air. He was literally suffocating me against his chest and his hold was crushing my ribs. "L-L-L-Link..." I tried pushing him away but it was to no avail. He was a marble statue, unmoving, unyielding. If it weren't for the constant up and down of his chest, I would have believed him to be one.
"Don't come near." He growled and bared his teeth, yet the cold sweat rolling down his forehead was clear evidence of the fear he held. That his act was nothing but bravado. If only I could look. If only Link will allow me to turn and stare at whatever his eyes were challenging then perhaps I could aid him in something, anything. So long as I could erase his fears I was willing to face anything, even an apparent dead man.
"Link, what do your elf eyes see?" I tried joking. He said nothing, just kept staring at that point in the room.
"Get back!" He yelled once more. Something clicked in my memory. Something stirred in my head, a deja vu of sorts. Link had already been in a similar situation before. Link had suffered like he was doing so now. Something. There was something in my memories that resembled the pain and despair that Link was exuding now, but when and where? What was it that my mind couldn't recall?! If I could only grasp it then, perhaps, I could help.
"GET THE FUCK BACK!" Link's anguished scream broke my train of thought and out of the blue he pushed me away, my body colliding with the stone cold ground of the hospital. And since the action had taken me by surprise I couldn't stop the loud crack my head produced upon impact, nor the excrutiating pain that came when my ribs almost cracked with such a brute hit. My world spun for a second there, everything around me multiplying by ten thousand while a fuzzy black fog grew from the edges of my vision. Little by little my world turned pitch black and I heard Link's frightful screams, a disturbing beeping noise and a scream. A scream, that made my hair's stand on an end and my heart and breath stop for a second. It hadn't been human. No. That scream sounded from something beneath the grave. I felt myself go cold and then everything became nothing.
"Hey there...How have you been?"
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"It's been about three years, huh?"
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"Mother says hi by the way. She even bought a box of cookies for us to share. I'll have some if you don't mind. Didn't have breakfast today."
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"They are good. Really good. I'll just leave them here. I hope you like them."
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"Aerith is finally going out with Zack. Guess she learned her lesson the hard way after that Tidus guy dumped her for another chick he was seeing. Karma is quite a bitch you know.
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"And...You'll never guess! The museum is sponsoring our expedition to the temple we visited last time! Isn't it great!? Finally, somebody listened! They say its the discovery of the century! And, and, and that they found some ancient texts from the Hylian culture that apparently used to call this land Termina! How awesome is that! We'll be famous and everybody will know our name! Can you imagine?! Us as archeologists?! Cloud and Link! Dynamic duo! Strong and handsome archeologists! Ha! I like the sound of that!"
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"Hey...Mother misses you. She misses you a lot. And I...I do too. Everyday I wake up and hope that...Hope that I had told you that I love you every single day. That I had held your hand every minute of the day. That I had...that I had embraced you every second and kissed your lips with all the passion contained in me."
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"Fuck...man...Now I am crying. Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you for giving up just like that. Fuck you for leaving me here! Here standing, waiting every fucking single day! Every fucking hour dreaming and hoping and imagining how things could have been different! How I could have done better? How could I have prevented what happened! Fuck you! Fuck you...Ugh...Man...Now I am crying...Fuck you...Fuck you...If only I had treasured every moment that I had beside you...If only I have had the guts to speak to you. Shit...So many thing I wished I have had...But...fuck...God! This is so unfair. Why?...Gugh...Why you? Why not me? Why not me?"
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"Fuck you...Fuck you..Get back...Come back to me...Don't leave me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me. It was schizophrenia you know? Wished I had told you. Wished I had known. Man! Wished I had known so many things. Wished I had known them before all this shit happened. Man! Fucking guilt is eating me alive. Fuck!"
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"Apparently the drugs just made it worst. They heightened and sharpened my visions. But imagine waking up every day seeing dead folk at the foot of your bed. I needed out! I needed it bad. But as usual I made the wrong choice. I just made it worst! That's why they all left me! One by one. My father. My mother. My sister. My grandmother. You. Cause all I touch just dies. All I touch just withers away. I am cursed."
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"You were the best that happened to me. The only good choice I've ever made in my life. I was so glad that you loved me back. You made my unbearable existence something bearable. A whole 180 turn in my life. Come back to me you fucking asshole! Don't leave me. Don't leave me like this. Come back to me. Please. I'll be better! I'll be the best man on Earth! No! In the whole universe! I swear. Please. Come back to me. Please. I'll be good to you. I'll be so good you will feel like a fucking king everywhere you go. Every thing you want I'll give it to you. Everything you ask will be handed and laid at your hands and feet. I'll wake you up with breakfast on bed every morning. I'll prepare your bath just like you like it. I'll tell you I love you every waking moment of your life. It'll be like a fairytale and you will be the princess. Well...prince. I swear."
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"Perhaps that's it! You need a true love's kiss right? That's it! You'll wake up like that right? You'll wake up and laugh it off. I'll scream at you for being such a jerk and then we'll have that playful banter we used to love. All will be like before, except better. Yes! Much better! True love's kiss here it comes!"
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"Why don't you wake up?! Wait! Another one!"
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"Another one!"
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"Another one!"
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"These are not tears, okay?! These are rain drops! Another one!"
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"Fucking rain doesn't let me see! They can't be tears! I've cried enough this past three years! I am not crying! And fuck you! Fuck you! Why doesn't my true love's kiss work! Another one just in case! Just one more!"
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"You had a lover didn't ya?! You had another sweetheart and that was your true love, right?! You fucking jerk! You fucker! You bastard of a womanizer! Had your fun with girls, while I had blindly fallen to your arms right?! You tramp! You deceiver! You fucking, sexy mother fucker! You...You bastard! You bastard! You fucking wonderful bastard! Come back to me, you piece of shit! Come back to me!"
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"Come back to me. Please."
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"Come back to me."
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"Don't...don't go where I can't follow."
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"I love you Cloud. Always have. Always will."
And one of the lilies I held in my hands lost a petal to the wind. Like a tear from my soul, it floated to the clouds. I hoped it reached him and reminded him that I still loved him. No matter how many years will pass, I will always do. And that he better now be having a blast with an angelic bimbo up there. He'll never live it down if I ever found out. And also to make him see that with him, not only my heart went away, but also my soul.