The moonlight gleamed over what darkness had not managed to fill, the first blooming light with no warmth to spread, but a darkness of its own that even the cracks outshined.
The line between life and death had swindled into a single long line of difference. Seamless and strong, like the decision that came before it.
All that remained was the burnt smell of fleshed out iron the harsh winter breeze could only carry with a pang with the aftermath of smoke and the flying dust of ash.
My hand loomed over my eyes for a short while, useless as I peered through the barrier of the fine lines of red warped into flesh. Like that, I stayed.
Blinking every so often to deplete the water blurring my sight.
The lines in my head became more constant once the sound that repressed my ears wasn't ringing, but the sounds of air bouncing off the abstracted wind I couldn't set my eyes off of.
"☐☐☐, ☐☐ ☐ ☐☐☐☐." Muffled the sound I called a voice.
Crackling shards of bark gave no rest in the battle against the wind, falling from the splintered, halved trunk I lay slumped around. Pieces of shrapnel stabbed in my torso, crimson ooze hanging around the corners it seeped through.
The once thick flannel I'd worn down to my ankles had grown weary; the light blue leaning to a murky brown.
There was nothing in front of me, there was nothing in me.
All but a huffed breath that came through my drooping mouth, where in the cold winter breeze it hid nothing through its thin white awning of the last warmth I thought I'd know. The distorted, jumbled animosity in my path was nothing.
"Stop," A voice that quivered like it only knew fear, high and young. It was a voice that was once mine. "Daddy, wait!"
I rubbed my lips carefully with my fingers, all five fingers that felt numb to the touch, the five fingers that I still had, stroking against my untouching lips.
It isn't me, it was me.
The two pairs of footsteps treading through the snow, the bright orange lantern held in the hands of my father; his eyes burning with a childlike passion like he found truth to the world he so desperately wished to fix.
His other hand grasped my wrist like I could flutter away with the wind, I turned my head aimlessly.
The sight was the same as it was forward; evergreen trees freckled with the fairy-like dust of snow, the rocks and pebbles, a mixture of broken twigs ran along the way we went, unmasked leaves lingering from autumn which had only just passed, our steps left a print in the ground.
I knew when he got like this I could only plead, my hair whipped back and forth. But alas, the fire lit a path. Despite being confined in a limiting glass, the light shone through what he desired to see.
Even from afar, the whistling tombs of ignition were lightened; fierce screams filled the star-ridden like little shards of light that served only as direction rather than unmask what lay further.
My feet grew numb, staggering as my mind jolted with every touch of snow.
He yelled aloud, my father. I hustled behind his back, grasping at the fine cotton blouse he wore, but unlike me, he didn't feel it. No, he only had one thing on his mind.
And that was rejuvenation.
"Don't be afraid, Aspres."
My fathers face grew warped, a blind static as fine as dust overtook his face, and what was once surrounding us vanished.
What I grasped for was out of reach, my hand slid through the course air as I fell to my knees.
"Don't be afraid, Aspres."
The static grew coarser, and as fast as the chunks of reality slipped away it had returned.
Instead of the chilling breeze that plunged the warmth of my body into an everlasting despair, I became enveloped in a dark corridor where I stood, the metal creaked and glass burst as small shards whizzed past my moving body.
My legs had a mind of its own. And as the hallway turned into a seamless thin stripe of tile, I found my legs reaching vast lengths as the weight of what I could not stop made haste the only option.
Warm beads of sweat whisked past me, perhaps it was from the boy I desperately followed as he tightened his fingers around my wrist, the smoldering heat would cook us all up.
I could only hear the echoes of my mind like an alarm going off.
There was a heat I couldn't feel anymore, yet my sight never strayed.
For a moment, I thought that we had stopped running. But the ground wasn't beneath me anymore, and I was brought back to that light static that I couldn't waste a minute away from.
Light pressed against my eyelids, clean, and steady. It was like the many realities I knew had collided with one another, my eyes wondered where I was, but my mind answered like I knew.
Everything muddled into a lone puzzle set, the picture had already been made but the last piece was the ending I dreaded putting into place.
I was already sat up, I turned my head over to the right. Next to me was a bundle of flowers slightly drooping out of a vase, I saw a card too. It was already open and out of the envelope it came in, tossed and turned over.
The window had been slid open, the sky was bright outdoors; the mid-day sun blazed a light pastel yellow, it was calm. Then there was the breeze, it carried the translucent curtains around like the slow dance of smoke.
I stared down at the vase, the rough outline of who I was reflected back at me. Disfigured and stretched out, it was warped.
I couldn't smell the burnt smell of wood anymore, my shoulders were clean, there was nothing dripping down onto it like a timer that was about to show who I was underneath the uneven colours I painted for the world to see.
As I turned my head to the left, next to the bed, sitting on a chair. There, the mess of black hair.
A middle aged man looked towards me. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, the white dyed a slight gray to the edges, and his tie, an unfathomable tropical delight in clashing grotesque shades I wanted to tighten the noose to.
Kuroda.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned it." In a world where things were happening so fast, his lips parted slowly, followed by a silence so dull.
His eyes whisked back and forth like he was waiting for my reply, or he was just wondering when to take the next bite of the chocolate bar in his hand.
He pointed at the orange I had lying in my lap, I didn't even notice it, I looked him in the eyes.
He coughed off my silence, grabbing the orange and peeling off the outer layer.
"Ya know, papers won't shut up about you kids, really great headlines, good angles and everything. If you can't tell, I wore my best outfit for the press that's at my doorstep all the time now."
He placed the orange in my hands.
I had met this man under a new guise of beings throughout time, he knew all of the different versions of myself, it felt odd talking to him so normally without the barrier. This was the first time I felt the weight of my actions anchoring on the life I carried out.
"It's not true." The words sputtered out in a burnt rasp of jumbled tones I couldn't choose from.
Truth was a hazy concept, it was the gamble of intentions and mistakes, and the chaos. It was the small victories, the late nights of laughter, and the ridiculousness of surviving in a world that made you want to disappear. It was the way I lived my life.
"Not true, heh?" He looked amused, like he could recount all the times I added on to the horror called 'his life'. "You must be committed to looking real guilty if that's the case."
My eyes narrowed.
"I really never would've thought I'd have to explain to a room full of suits why some kids outperformed half my department, weird times we're living in now."
Kuroda looked at me with the warped static his face always translated to, that I could never understand, that upward tilt of his mouth that was so warm but distant.
"You really don't listen to anyone except yourself, huh? What, don't tell me you thought I would actually let it slide when I caught you, I'll have ya know I was being completely serious." He took a last large bite from the bar, and wiped his hands off his pants.
That must've been the reason why he let everything I did slide. I smiled, or I think I did, I couldn't really feel my face.
His briefcase had been cracked open for a while, inside lay dozens of files in no order but clutter. He took them out and flicked through a couple just for show.
"Humor me a little, Aspres?"
"Woah, woah, woah." I whipped my head in surprise. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
I actually have no idea why that took me by surprise, I guess he really did know my actual name, or I guess it was kinda obvious considering the place I was in.
His face remained unchanged, his back tilted away from the door and closer to my bed.
"That night, what did you see?"