A/N Steam of consciousy. Narrated from limited third person view of post-series Ryou, looking back on his memories. Until the end. Maybe.
Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. ~ Stephen Vincent Benet.
It starts out softly, at first.
Thoughts, slow and drawn out, like long blows of the wind ruffling through his hair (saying, whispering, almost protective…or possessive). But they're only thoughts. Soft thoughts. Warm.
(And it's cold here…it's still cold here…being alone.)
It wouldn't hurt to listen to them. To walk left instead of right, maybe ask the kid in the third row for his pencil, even though his own pen works fine. Little things. (Though this was the point, later on he realizes, the Voice has…had?...has always been unnaturally patient.)
And slowly (softly) without noticing it (does a leaf notice how far the wind pushes it? Does it care?) Ryou sacrifices control. His life.
The thoughts aren't soft anymore. Their cold and cruel and demands. (A thousand of them, constant, chipping away at him until all that's left of him is...what he is now…all coming…) From a voice that is dark and mysterious; not at all his own (at least…he hopes now, still, he hopes that Kul Elna was never his…). Such things aren't a concern though, not to that voice. A voice. The Voice.
And that's what Ryou calls him for the rest of…for the rest of whatever it was (is, is really…because at night he can still hear the wind only now it howls…)
Regardless. Present is now. And he is here. The Voice too.
(The Voice is gone.)
Regardless. Pointless. Hopeless. Worthless. (These too come softly, in dreams, in the truth the Voice speaks, in the lies he tells as well, in the reflection Ryou can't escape.)
Ryou listens (intently, secretively, fearfully).
He does as he's told.
A/N Okay. I promise next chapter will not have so much ambiguity!
Review? Please?
