He sighed. ‘I don’t know. I just… don’t know.’
‘Do you think… that there will
be anything left…? Anything for you?’
‘I can’t say for sure. I look around at that place, and think,
There’s no way I will live here. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this … is just the be the beginning.’
He woke.
They were moving out today, and
the sun was already rising in the east.
He had to be ready. He wasn’t
sure, really, what was coming, but he knew he needed to prepare himself.
“Where are we?”
He did not look at his brother,
instead opting to study the place around them, trying to make sense of it
all. “I don’t know, Brother…”
“This place gives me the creeps,”
the redhead said, shivering.
Tira echoed her sister’s
shiver. “This place is dead.”
“No…” He shook his head. “This place is nothing.”
It was… The terrain had dropped into complete nothingness. It was simply an expanse of white. Marron could no longer tell what was earth
and what was sky. Before, it had been
desolate desertland, but now… Now this
grayish whiteness was all there was.
“I’m scared,” Chocolate
whispered, moving closer to her sister, as though their bond would comfort
her. Perhaps she had though they
wouldn’t hear her, but sound carried in a strange, full way in this no man’s
land.
“There’s nothing to be scared
of,” Gateau said confidently, although he didn’t look so sure.
Marron stared off into what might
have been the distance. “There is
nothing.”
“Marron, man, you’re starting to
scare me!” Carrot shot him a strange, worried look. “You know something we don’t?”
He shook his head again,
slowly. “I don’t know anything
anymore… Here… there’s nothing left to
know.”
His brother reached out, as
though to touch him, and in that moment before they made contact, his teammates
were no more. They had not ceased to
exist, no, that would be too easy. They
were simply in some other part of this white hell…
“There is no touch in a place
like this,” he said to himself, since there was no one else around. He took a deep breath, and the air tastes of
nothing. “There is no taste… Nothing…
What can I do?”
He was surprised at how mild his
voice sounded. Perhaps there was no
fear in this place, either. He did not
feel afraid. “What is this place? What has the world become?”
“What?” The voice drifted through his consciousness, and he knew the
sound had not registered anywhere but inside his mind.
The world is nothing but
memory.
The voice was genderless, and
soft, yet strong and it filled his mind so completely that he could hardly
think for a few moments. “What do you
mean?”
He thought about it for a moment
before whispering one, single word.
“Yes.”
With a strange twisting of the
blankness, something came into being:
He looked to his side to see
Tira standing beside him, leaning on a wooden railing. They were on a boardwalk, looking out on a
beach at sunset. Down near the water,
he saw two back-lit forms splashing and running back and forth – Chocolate and
Carrot. He remembered this
place... His father had taken them to
this beach on school holiday the year he turned thirteen.
Without thinking of it, he
said, “Yes. Very beautiful.” That was exactly what he’d said years ago at
the beach.
Tira smiled and stared at the
shadows that were her sister and brother.
“It was so nice of Father to take us…
He’s always so busy these days.”
“Yes.” He looked around. ‘What is this place?’
‘Memory.’
Mentally, he shuddered.
‘Shall we see more?’
He spoke without even thinking
of it. ‘Yes, let’s.’
Even before he had finished
the thought, he found himself standing in the inner sanctum of the Stellar
Church, watching as Mille Feuille groped his brother.
“Kawaii, Carrot-chan! Don’t struggle!”
‘This, too, I remember.’
‘More?’
‘Yes…’
They – if he could count the
other presence as anything at all – were drifting in the whiteness. Drifting because he could not feel the
ground beneath his feet any longer.
‘I am under its spell… That must be what this is…’
‘This is your own spell. I am Nothing.’ It was like an introduction.
‘Nothing… But I don’t remember this. I have not been here before. And yet…’
‘And yet you do remember. You have always known this was coming. You dreamed of this moment, and you knew
what was in store for you.’
‘No…’
‘Whenever you feel that you
have lived a moment of your life once before, you have dreamt it. You dream out your whole life before you are
ever born, and many times afterwards.’
‘This… What are you?’
‘I am Nothing.’ After a pause, ‘This place, too, you have
dreamed of…’
He lay on the ground, a sword
run through him. He was bleeding on the
white snow beneath him, and a man was standing above him, laughing.
‘I am dying here!’ he thought
frantically. ‘This is not my future!’
‘Wait a moment. You are not dying.’ Nothing’s voice sounded a little smug.
He half-watched,
half-experienced as his future-self pulled the sword from his body and
decapitated the man with one brutal swing.
The man never saw it coming. The
head sat in the snow, staining everything dark red. Then he stood up and limped away through a wintry landscape
without so much as a second look behind him.
‘This is not my future!’ he
cried, even as he slouched through the snow.
‘It is one of your many,’
replied the voice. ‘But now that you
remember, it is less likely to happen.
You do remember, don’t you?’
He felt very cold, suddenly; a
freeze that had nothing to do with the snow-to-be that had soaked his
skin. He may not have liked it, but he
did know it well, as though it were a forgotten part of him. Which, according to Nothing, it was. ‘I remembered the minute I felt the blade.’
‘Do you remember anything
else?’
Thirty years of age. In bed with his lover, Gateau. Fighting mildly about some irrelevant
issue… Perhaps who would take control
that night?
‘Yes… I remember so many
things…’
He was a teacher at a school
of magic. The sense of strength and
good that flowed through him as he instructed the children was overpowering.
‘I am this, too…’
A vast blankness… Nothing was waiting for him to speak.
So he spoke. ‘Nothing I have lived is more than a
dream… Less, even.’
‘Yes, you are beginning to
understand…’
He was back again… And, yet… “I don’t know, Brother…”
“This place gives me the
creeps,” Chocolate said, shivering.
Tira echoed her sister’s
shiver. “This place is dead.”
“No…” He shook his head. “This place is nothing.”
He had realized since he said
it how true it was. It was simply an
expanse of white. Marron could no
longer tell what was earth and what was sky.
He used to know what earth was, what sky was… He believed in neither anymore…
This grayish whiteness was all there was.
“I’m scared,” Chocolate
whispered, moving closer to her sister, as though their bond would comfort
her. Perhaps she had though they
wouldn’t hear her, but sound carried in a strange, full way in this no man’s
land. ‘So much better in nothingness
than in reality.’
‘Yes… What have you learned?’
“There’s nothing to be scared
of,” Gateau said confidently, although he didn’t look so sure.
Marron stared off into what
might have been the distance, looking for the source of the voice, and knowing
there was not a source. He answered the
Nothing’s question aloud. “There is nothing.”
“Marron, man, you’re starting
to scare me!” Carrot shot him a strange, worried look. “You know something we don’t?”
He shook his head again,
slowly, waiting for the Nothing to confirm of deny his statement. “I don’t know anything anymore… Here… there’s nothing left to know.”
Something shifted around that
moment not so long ago where his past shared words with his present.
‘Now what?’ There was no answer.
Carrot was waving his hand in
from of his brother’s face.
“Hellooooo?! Earth to
Marron? Don’t start going all crazy on
us now!” And then he understood.
‘No time has passed. Nothing has happened.’
“Let’s go back, Brother,” he said
quietly. Nothing will come of this
place. Once we are back in more
familiar territory, we can find another path to take. This is not the road for us.”
And they turned back, walking
towards what he knew would be real, if he took enough steps in the right
direction.
~ Fin ~
