The Colour Purple Chapter 118: just like Heaven, a king of fighters fanfic

The Colour Purple... The King of Fighters '95

This (chapter) fanfiction was originally written circa: [XX.96] (Thank you)

"Which Character are you?"

Note to self: Legacy chapter numbering (32- - -), does not match. [Original chapter written 2016]

…And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of [the heavens], and over [the beast], and over all the Earth, and over every crawling thing that creepeth upon the Earth.

GENESIS 1:26.

December 24, 1977. The Sixth Day. In Little England, NHK.

Where slowly crept, the ordinary lives – of EXTRA ORDINARY MEN.

…until only you and I would remain, and we would FIGHT each other. Again.

What was planted in [you], was a seed of darkness - and deep inside you, [it] waited; Silently, lovingly, carefully, patiently; Given nutrients, care, love, patience and finally, with a PURPOSE – of ONE, PURE, and TRUE… [IT] bloomed.

…a PURPOSE, that could surpass each and every STAR that floated in the deep, dark sky.

When you say 'darkness'.

"This… place… I mean… Do you, so do you go INTO a place, or by 'go into the darkness' do you mean you think angry things?"

"NO." King replied, so matter of factly, curling his face in a sour expression, so frustrated at how that adult could not understand the plain and simple words he said. "It's just a dark place… Where I can't see."

Could [this] be, what HEAVEN is like?

…

Randomly incoherent images glued together, capriciously, between one and another. Sweeping through the television screen that, once upon a time, served to entertain us to no end – when we were simply children. Back then in the late 70s, when our parents told us we were nothing but SHIT. That our lives – our joys – could never, ever tantamount to ANYTHING…

"Is this so very fun to you?" King mumbled under his breath. As if forced to drink sewage and roll around in SHIT, this was the picture that reflected in King's face. He wanted to throw up.

This is no game. A bright triangle fanged gleaming smile radiated the WORLD!

…

1993.

What happened to your promise? That you would keep on fighting it, fighting them, fighting EVERYONE, until finally – when no one was left - fighting ME. Me. And ME alone, until no one wanted to fight anymore, except…

…

I'm sorry.

Clark did not make a move and acted deaf, still gazing lazily outwards with his right hand sliding side to side on the top of the steering wheel in a nervous habit.

After all we've been through – and after all I've DONE to YOU. WHY? Why do you keep on DOING this? King looked outside the passenger window with her left fist on her lap and her chin nestled on top of her right palm gazing blankly at her own ghosted reflection on the glass that mirrored the bright sun – gazing outwards – gazing inwards.

The suffering, crippling you, after robbing you from any semblance of a normal life…

Sinc day.

I am so sorry.

Clark tilted his head up and looked to his right side, then slowly back in front of him.

(104) Sunny days. 1982.

Clark continued to drive lethargically, and as the world continued to pass them by, the two rolled through a group of men at the side of the road.

One by one, each one of them, their faces, their eyes and the shoulders of unknown strangers reflected on Clark's mirror reflective shades, considered cutting edge; …in slow motion, as the truck zoomed by the flashing city in slow motion.

Did I leave something behind? Back in that college time?

An old, tatteredly garbed, old, homeless man stood at the side of the road. Catching her eye, the speeding truck for a moment slowed until it lethargically let itself be trapped in a freeze frame, and the world came to a screeching halt in her mind too. "The end of the WORLD is near." King mumbled.

Clark did not make a move and pretended to be deaf, still gazing lazily outwards with his right hand sliding side to side on the top of the steering wheel in a nervous habit.

"There's an old, homeless man on the sidewalk." King said. "And he has a sign that says 'It's the END of the WORLD'. King said matter of factly.

Clark once again turned his head to King, then back to the road nonchalantly. "Oh."

Oh, I see.

The END of La Bizarre Love Pentagon – part 32.

…

1977. The sixth day.

After all that I've done to you… how can you still be here? With me… How can you ever forgive me… Clark?

…

I will show you. The difference between your blissful game, and true, cruel, VIOLENT fighting.

THIS was something I took for granted once upon a time – but, without my permission, I had suddenly grown to become a frigid old man, and spent the next decade desperately trying to SEE this scene again.

…when I stared at the dark abyss… constantly. Wondering,… IF this was indeed HEAVEN?

…

The seventh day.

This moment, trapped between two distinct finite seconds, a slice of time taken apart from the sequence of history allowed Clark to experience it. With both of King's arms splayed wide, another boy took a step back and to the side, pulling its own body from the grips of bloody ligaments that once joined his own body with King's. Those black tendons and sinews stretched into taut, thinning strands, breaking apart and disintegrated into a static that buzzed and dissolved into rancid spectral insects as he arrogantly gave birth to himself. Ripping his soul from King's body, a dark shadow was cast over the boy prince's face. A horrendous vision – his black pupiled eyes slit the black quagmire with two distinct slashes across his face, and a third wound appeared like a knife cut that slashed from left to right, then, it opened in a bright triangle fanged gleaming maw that radiated the WORLD.

Unbelieving, and now he was the one to be petrified. Clark wanted to wake from the nightmare he had started. He had willed time to stop but now, he had become the prisoner and even if he desperately willed it, this Prince that revealed himself to Clark refused to let him free.

A vision, mortal men would never forget as it raped his mind.

"Are you having fun, Clarkie?" The Prince snarled.

…

The sixth day.

Clark pushed a plastic bag filled with ice over the back of his head. It was so quiet that the sound of those frozen cubes cracking as the temperature met equilibrium with the air around was so deafening. However, the sharp piercing sound was pale in comparison to the throbbing, piercing beat in Clark's head. Clark let out a weak exhale…

Clark tilted his head back and rested onto the soft concrete wall. Six days of this unending torture, it was a mad surprise that Clark was still alive.

"You." Clark said to King as he sighed in the same labored breath. "You, you're pretty good." He grinned weakly, a boy who lived his life for fighting sighed. "People will one day pay lots of money to see you fight." He chuckled weakly, finally realizing his own weakness as he nursed his wounds…

Clark laid his face into both his hands when he hunched over. It was so terrible. It was so very difficult to breathe. When Clark sat on the ground and put his lower back to the wall behind him he could barely stay conscious when the mounting pressure – the iron bear trap clamped down HARD into his brain, unleashing a bitter tasting poison into his mouth.

MY GOD! PLEASE, WHAT IS GOING ON?! In his mind he WAILED so loud with the same desperation of a drowning boy that clawed outwards, his fingers reaching out at everything and anything, not caring if he dragged down another human just so he could survive.

The same feeling you would only understand if you knew what it was like to DROWN. In utter helplessness. Where no one would help you.

Was THIS what THOSE boys thought, before they KILLED themselves?

MY GOD! PLEASE! The screaming was so loud it bleached Clark's mind a stark white. After everything – after all this, why, WHY?

His fingers had gone cold and dry to the touch, trembling in place. Clark's fingertips drilled deeper and deeper into his temples.

…

What is happening – it is certain…

I AM GOING INSANE.

Clark's teeth chattered violently when he could not understand why his lips wrapped themselves around the muzzle of a pistol that he shoved backwards into his mouth. Both his hands gripped the handle, with his left thumb in the trigger guard. Clark's mind was gliding at the blade's edge and a split second decision made in haste and folly would send a .45" diameter lead slug through his brain.

…

Clark…

Clark.

CLARK!

…

Clark, a memory trapped within a young boy tilted his head up, and in front of him his liege, the boy King stared back at him as he sat on the ground in that silent hallway in his home.

1977.

King remained silent, his damp shirt and pajamas sticking closely onto his small body that had just walked out of a steamy shower. King simply sat next to the blonde haired boy, Clark. He tucked his legs in and pulled his knees into his chest with his arms wrapped over it.

Clark said nothing – King said nothing, trapping themselves masochistically in an awkward pain of adolescence that cut their insides with sharp blades. They both stared at the same blank wall at the other side of the hallway across from them where they sat.

Now you know the truth.

Now, what will you do? How will this change you?

Revealed this ULTIMATE truth. Will you kill yourself now? Like me? Or…?

"One day, King. People will flock to you… one day – they will understand." Clark said.

This sensation I feel in my heart… A hundred other men will one day feel this too! For I am tired, SO sick and TIRED of weakness. And they will DIE for you – even if the rest of the world will call us HATEFUL, EVIL and blinded by BIGOTRY.

This was the first time… a blonde haired bigot, felt it...

…

1993.

A feeling of greatness that will overturn ALL other divine decree.

"Yuri…" Clark said. "A, yes. That was the first time..." Clark mumbled. On top of that roof, in that cold building. "That time… What it meant to LIVE." And you will NOT take that away from ME!

…

1977.

"If…" King interrupted, his face was so cold and frigidly uncaring. IF. "If I said to you, that fighting, could end WAR." Would you? "Would you…"

"Would you lay down your arms for me?" A wide triangled fanged tooth smile gleamed.

The sound only the two of them could hear, the crickle crack and pop of a hot pan filled with cooking oil. As it all burned, bits of black ash slowly rose up from the far side of the hallway by the staircase, gliding upwards… slowly they clumped together, giving itself form.

The dark silhouette of a boy looked at King and Clark sitting across from THEM, and HE was puzzled. HE smiled. A rag doll boy, HIS lips splayed wide eventhough catgut stitches served to keep it shut. Those strings cross-crossed over his Frankenstein mouth – flashing out a makeshift cats cradle triangles of its own version of a fang toothed smile.

How does an imaginary…?

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a boy wanted to make his skills ultimate. With only one purpose of living, he had no idea what to do when faced with the reality that his entire life would be rendered meaningless in the span of 6 days. This. This is a story of an EVIL man. Because of his BLOODY life, it was no accident, that he was involved in the TROUBLES.

Chapter 118: just like Heaven

1977. The sixth day.

Clark's right foot in front of him, he wrapped his right hand over the brass bathroom knob. The familiar sound of running water pebbled the white porcelain tub in a familiar sound.

"God DAMN it, KING."

Clark twisted his wrist, filling the silent spaces in the world with a slight sound of a HARD, resounding, click. Weighing all his options and understanding clearly the consequences - it was a very easy choice. Clark burst through into the bathroom, slamming the door wide open – the hard thunderclap clouding any bit of remorse that could have developed in his mind.

"KING!" Clark shouted again.

When the door ended its journey, its motion curled the thick, translucent steam in front of his face into two tornadoes clearing a path like the red sea. At the end of the clear path was the back of King's unclothed body staring back at Clark.

…

"It's ugly. I just want to let you know that. It's ugly." Clark groaned.

I wanted to win. I WANTED TO WIN, so BADLY.

…

Even at the expense of my life. That concept is probably so hard to understand, today.

"Knight." Clark said without a stall in the step of his voice, "Your father wants you down there RIGHT NOW."

King did not respond and stood indifferently with his naked body turned away from Clark.

"King! Right NOW!" Clark repeated. "Pops is going to kick BOTH our asses if you don't…"

…and we all regarded ourselves – our own stories as ABOVE all else, as if our own suffering was more important than anyone else's. We believed that as we wallowed in self-pity, that there would be somehow, people, watching us, from above – watching over our shoulders when a soft piano tune accented our story when we wanted to be left alone, yet wanted to be justified and dignified as we SUFFERED. Because we were children.

KING!

The steam began to slowly thicken up again when the pressure equalized between the hot atmosphere inside and cold outside the bathroom.

Through the throbbing pain within Clark's bandaged forehead and through his one good eye… On both of King's arms, his wrists, were horizontal scars that had scabbed over each other, switching between fresh and old wounds, criss-crossed like layers of baked shredded cheese. From the clumped mass on his wrists, then slowly up his arm, the insides of King's elbow and the outside of his slim but firm biceps, were remnant trails of bloody knives that reminded BOTH of them, of how much they had FAILED to even accomplish the most BASIC of tasks. Repeatedly again and again. Because they were children, and no matter what they did – it was all so very futile and even so very worthless.

Your lives are WORTHLESS.

You know that.

The piano beat, masked with an accented synthesized tune – played faster and faster and faster in a wild rapid beat.

BUT. I already know that, Clark thought with a downcast hunch. …and I've given up already, so, nothing you can say…

The piano beat, masked with an accented synthesized tune – played faster and faster and faster in a wild rapid succession. Faster, faster and faster. The pitter-patter of water from the showerhead slammed down into the porcelain. As if to keep them CHAINED to this world that remained… if only for just a little bit longer.

King looked forward and refused to pay Clark any heed, he gazed blankly at his own ghosted reflection on the steamy frosted glass – gazing outwards – gazing inwards. King ignored the boy and slung is right leg over the bathtub shower while pushing the glass sliding door with his left hand at the same time.

"King!" Clark shouted forcefully. "KING! DO YOU HEAR ME? POPS SAID…"

All ten fingers rammed down into those white faux ivory piano keys. In its chorus, was the sound of water that had droned out to deafening static.

…

For a moment trapped in freeze frame, and the world came to a screeching halt in her mind too. "It's the end of the WORLD." King mumbled.

…

Ten fingers wrapped themselves around that wooden bannister above. Gripping it, slowly crushing it. Into soft splintering pieces.

"I'm not going to fight again, Sir Knight. NEVER."

…

I have survived this long, without LOVE.

I have lasted this long on my own POWER.

And… I have survived this long WITHOUT your PITY!

The Colour Purple. Which character are you?

How long did my parents try to look for me? How long until they gave up – until they realized that some god damn syndicate had kidnapped their son to further their WAR? Do they still light a candle for me? DO they still think I am still alive?

Did they SAY it out loud? "I can't find my son!

Had I done it differently. Had I screamed and fought instead of staying silent, stewing in this feeling in the dark of that van, immaturely thinking that SOMEONE would save me.

Those two other boys made no sound as they crumpled in their laps across of me.

A man and a woman who gave their lives to save this shit hole country. Only to be repaid this way. God tested them, but I have lost faith in that being now. As he tortured us.

"Clark. You son of a bitch. I took you in, I fed you." His voice finally cracked.

Clark opened his hands and the AK-47 rifle fell to the ground. I HATE THIS WAR. I DON'T WANT TO LIVE THIS WAY ANYMORE.

"Dogs who bite their master's hand… have no place in my family."

'The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves VIOLENCE His soul hates.' -Psalm 11:5

…

DO you know how it FEELS? When you've GIVEN UP on your sole PURPOSE in life?

WHAT is left of you?

That DISTINCT MOMENT, when you come FACE TO FACE, with [IT].

...and you UNDERSTAND that even despite that small, slight, respite of peace. EVERYTHING you had devoted yourself to…

Was WORTHLESS… after all?

…

Why are you crying?

What. Am I crying?

Clark continued to drive lethargically, and as the world continued to pass them by, the two rolled through a group of men at the side of the road.

…

King bit down hard, the sound of his gnashing teeth felt like ten claws screeching long carnal tones down that old dusty blackboard. HE turned his face around over his shoulder at the same time he lowered his right leg from the edge of that tub mid way into the cold tile floor.

And on King's face was a bitter expression, as if he slowly and carefully – clumped a bag full of rusty NAILS in his mouth, holding his rage in check in order to keep those things from ripping the top of his mouth and piercing through the sides of his cheeks.

A miasma of colours, and swirling uncontrollable mixture of conflicting feelings all at once seething down the sides of King's lips – and one by one – one by one he made with utmost care, swallowed a nail one by one down his throat so that not one would jab out the side of his neck.

WHAT HAPPENS…

Both arms tattered with scars interwoven over each other fresh and stale, as a reminder. King's toes curled inwards as he shifted his weight to the balls of his left foot.

Across from King, at the opposite side of the brightly lit bathroom, clouded in heavy steam that lingered at the back of their throats. As the light blinded us, soon and with slow easy pace, it began to grow dark as it was engulfed in DARKNESS.

…

HOW EXACTLY; does an imaginary being reproduce?

One boy he HATES; and another boy he LOVES. Yet, don't you agree, these feelings – LOVE and HATE, do not they both end, HERE…?

…

King turned completely around to face Clark, the boy; The boy he HATED the most in this ENTIRE WORLD. Clark's one good eye floated in space silently just as King's shoulder swerved around to slowly expose his cold stoic face of rancor. TO US. For all of US to see.

Yet she stood frozen in time, facing her enemy sternly.

What happens?

DURING THAT TIME?

He desperately wanted to – Clark's mouth gasped open, desperately pleading for air as he flailed in the sure clutches of drowning. AS the world, in front of his eyes, simply ENDED.

"Hgggaaagggrhhh…." Steam seeped through ITS LIPS; hunched over like a prehistoric homo-erectus a small, blonde haired boy, with the stature of a rag doll pulled itself from the ground behind them. It's face – was a HORRENDOUSLY stitched together Frankenstein THING of a rag doll…

King had turned around and with her fists by her sides said. "I heard you." King replied flatly. "Can you close the door?"

It's cold.

HERE.

King turned her body completely around to face Clark squarely.

"Are you going to drag me out of here? If not," King said. "Then get the FUCK out."

…

"It's the END of the WORLD."