fanfic; cultivation; part 11

[acperience]

▶ Part 10

—

It’s dark.

It’s scary.

It’s dark, and it’s scary.

Help.

He reaches out in the blackness, to a light he hopes is there. He can’t see it, but hopes, fervently. In an all-consuming world, hope is all that he can hold onto and all that he can give. He has nothing but what’s inside of him, because nothing else belongs to him.

If possible, he wishes for his hope to illuminate this world. If there is no light, then let him create his own to erase the darkness, erase the fear—

—

“I’m sorry,” the nurse tells him. It’s all he needs to know.

He’s sitting on a chair, kneels curled up against his chest. At the words, he hugs them tighter, as if the action will grant him comfort. It fails, though.

He doesn’t cry. Instead, it’s like a hole has opened up inside of him, threatening to devour all within him. There’s emptiness, because he knows.

They’re gone, and they’re never coming back.

“It’ll be all right, though,” the nurse tells him, bending down to smile at him, eye-level. “They’re happy in Heaven now.”

If they were, that would be nice. He would be happy to know that.

And yet, he’s been left behind.

—

The darkness is gone now. In its place, light shines, allowing him to see the world he’s trapped in.

It’s not scary anymore.

So, he should be happy. Because it’s not dark and it’s not scary. There’s light. He can see.

The absence of fear doesn’t mean that happiness exists, though. Sometimes, when the darkness disappears, what remains is no better. What’s been left is greyness. It stretches all around him, extending further into what looks to be eternity. He doesn’t know if there’s anything at the edges of the grey—if such edges exist at all.

It’s a pitiful, ugly world. There is nothing beautiful here—nothing but the greyness. There is nothing inside of him either, now that he’s extended all of his hope to find this monochrome scenery.

This is all that exists for him now.

The darkness has left, taking with it the fear, and now all that remains is despair.

—

He can’t hear what the nurses are talking about, but it’s hardly difficult to realize that they’re talking about him. Children realize far more than adults think they do.

It’s to be expected, after all. Now that they’re gone, he has no one left. At least, no one that loves him—not the way they did. That kind of warmness—that gentle light—disappeared in an instant.

He misses it already, even though he knows that he’ll never get it back.

The future is uncertain now. He has nowhere to go.

—

The whiteness of his room disturbs him in its purity. The lack of colour in his surroundings threatens to suffocate him, to drown him in its hollowness.

It feels like he’s dying (if I’m here, does that mean I’m going to die—), and he doesn’t know what he can do to save himself.

Help.

It’s not dark. It’s not scary.

But he needs help. He’s drowning in this emptiness.

Yet he knows—there is no one who will save him.

—

A social worker picks him up from the hospital. There’s no reason for him to stay there anymore—not now that they’ve left this world.

He doesn’t make any protest when he’s taken away—doesn’t say a world, doesn’t move an inch beyond what’s necessary. The social worker tries to make small talk, but he’s simply silent in response. Finally, the social worker gives up.

As they drive away, he stares out the window of the car. In the distance, the hospital grows smaller and smaller, as does his hope that somehow, this is all a dream. If he were to wake up, however, he thinks he would’ve done so a long time ago.

Eventually, the hospital disappears from the sight, and with it, any delusion he might’ve been holding onto.

His parents are dead.

He’s alone now.

—

They won’t release him yet. Not that it particular matters—he’s heard them talking, and he knows that he can’t go back anyway.

He doesn’t know if he wants to. The blindfold over his eyes has lifted, leaving him in the light of reality. It’s almost blinding, and so he closes his eyes—away from the light, and away from the monochromatic world.

It’s not a dream, he knows. If anything, his life before was probably the dream. It was a sorry illusion he let himself live in, and now he can’t anymore.

He wants to return to it. He wants to run as far away from it as possible.

To the deception of ‘love’—

He watches the other children with parents, with their fake smiles, as they live under the delusion that they’re unconditionally loved. He knows now, though, that such a faithful ‘love’ doesn’t exist.

Disgusting.

How disgusting.

—

The moment she enters the room, she makes her way over to him. There’s a moment of hesitation, before she awkwardly wraps her arms around him. After a few seconds, he holds her back, his hands perhaps grasping her shirt more tightly than needed.

Someone is here, in this moment.

He’s come to realize how much he needs this.

“You’re okay,” she says, apparently trying to hide the relief in her voice but not quite succeeding. He nods into her chest.

Finally, they let go of one another, as he leans back to stare into the red of her eyes.

“… I was waiting for you,” he says. She tilts her head to one side, her expression both stoic and yet full of grief at once.

“Let’s go see him.”

—

It’s dark.

It’s scary.

—And yet, it’s not the darkness he’s afraid of. It’s the light.

He refuses to reach out for it—but despite that, it reaches for him. Even with his fear, however, he doesn’t try to flee. He knows that no matter how far he runs, he can’t avoid it.

He can’t dream forever. It’s time for this nightmare to end.

—

He grasps his hand—still, but not dead.

He’s not dead. Even though that’s what he’d been told, it’s still a relief—perhaps a shock, even—to be able to confirm it himself. One look at her expression and he knows that she feels the same.

Despite the current situation, his hand is warm, as it always is. He’s giving him comfort, even in his sleep. It’s a reassuring thought.

To his surprise, she walks over to him, enclosing his hand with hers. He doesn’t look at her at first, instead staring at their hands—the three of them, entwined like this—before he gives her a light smile.

In a strange way, this is happiness. And yet, there are far too many things wrong with this picture. Most of them can’t be corrected, he knows, but there’s one thing that can be.

“… Wake up,” he says. Guriko nods, and together, they repeat—

“Wake up.”

He needs for him to.

—

He wakes up to white.

(Why is he—)

Panic seizes him, as he struggles to lift his body into an upright position. His breathing is heavy—too heavy—as he tries to calm himself without much success.

(Why is he in a hospital again?)

“Tiir-nii!”

“Tiir…”

Through the haze covering his mind, voices break through. Then, a strange sense of warmth.

He looks at his hand first, held by two others’. After, he sees them. It takes him a moment to register their appearance, but once he does, his eyes widen.

That’s right.

Even though something tells him that he might’ve woken into another nightmare, the panic fades.

It’s not scary anymore. He’s no longer drowning.

—Because this world isn’t grey. It isn’t full of nothing.

His fingers curl into theirs, as he smiles—a faint and perhaps sad smile, but he’s glad, truly.

“… Thank you,” he says, his voice weak from disuse. He clears his throat as Guriko blinks.

“Why are you thanking us?” she asks, holding onto his and Minato’s hands more tightly.

“You’re the one who woke up,” Minato says, finishing her thoughts. Tiir glances around the room and the white that he despises so much, before settling back on them. He lets out a quiet breath, thinking of where to begin.

They would understand. If he tried to explain it to them, he knows that they would understand. They must’ve felt it at some point in their lives, after all. An overwhelming emptiness, loneliness without even realizing how lonely one is—they all know what it’s like.

It’s because of that, however, that there’s no need. All that’s needed is one, simple statement.

“Because you wanted me to be here.”

—

▶ Part 12