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All Flame as Heart; Winter Contest 04
Topic Started: Jan 16 2006, 02:14 PM (144 Views)
Makokam
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Apostate
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All Flame as Heart


Mikhail stopped breathing. His brain had suddenly forgotten that there was such a thing as air and that it was very, very essential to its continuing function. All it could think about, all Mikhail could think about, during the rapid oxygen depletion that was taking place, was Her.

Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn had left. She was gone now – his love, his angel, his flower, his ambrosia, his sun, his shelter, his air…

Oh shit!

Mikhail gasped and gulped as his body finally acknowledged that it had almost died and decided it was time to take over. It had long ago collapsed and was now kneeling abjectly on the porch, its head saved from a painful and concussive impact with the cement by the week’s worth of uncollected newspapers lying just as abjectly under it. His mind, meanwhile, was still focused upon Her. Oh Kaitlyn – his star, his moon, his queen, his goddess…Painfully he diverted some of his attention to the formation of words painfully spoken:

“What…what do you mean?”

Ahead of him, peering from behind a weary front door just barely open, an aging woman with sorrow written under her eyes and in her voice shook her head slowly.

“She went away. A young man came and she left with him.”

“Why? Why did she leave? Why? …Why did she leave…me??” Mikhail was sobbing now; heavy, ragged breaths curtained by tears.

“She didn’t say a word. The man came…a tall man, ghostly pale, with blue eyes and…and black hair. Strange clothes. He came and he whispered something to her…and she just left. She didn’t even pack. The man said…he said she was going away for a while. That she was visiting some friends. Friends that lived far away. Not to call the police. That they wouldn’t be able to help her anyway. And he just took her away…and she didn’t even look back and she didn’t say anything and she didn’t try to resist she just let him take her away…she’s probably been raped or killed by now and I could do nothing for her…” A soft keen started in her throat, growing steadily louder into a wail as the woman rocked back and forth.

Mikhail’s lungs threatened to stop working again. He was remembering a certain conversation that he’d had a few months ago, a conversation he’d hoped he would never have to think of again. “No…No, that’s not it…”

He jerkily raised himself and stumbled away, into the street. It had happened. She was really gone. He swung right abruptly and continued…forward. It didn’t matter now where “forward” went. She was gone. He continued on, blind, deaf, not even registering the desperate cries of the woman he’d just been speaking to, telling him not to leave, not to disappear like She had…

As he wandered, he thought back to that cool April day – the day he’d been trying to forget ever since. He remembered holding Kaitlyn, breathing in the exotic scent of her golden hair as they watched flat, grey rain clouds form to the north, preparing to take over the rest of the sky by evening. Suddenly, Kaitlyn had turned to look up at him, green eyes unusually large.

“You know I don’t really belong here, don’t you?”

“It’s true that angels rarely leave their cloud palaces to visit the human world.” Mikhail had softly joked. “I feel honored every time I see you.” But instead of laughing and hugging him tighter, she had pulled away.

“Stop it. I’m being serious. This world…I shouldn’t be here.”

“What do you mean? You’ve been living here for almost… ten years now. Even if you did move from…wherever-it-was in California, your home is here, in White Oaks, Missouri. Sure it may seem like a completely different world, but that doesn’t mean you don’t belong here.” When his love had continued staring at him sadly, Mikhail had thought for a moment, trying to piece together what Kaitlyn had said. “You don’t still have family out there, do you? Is one of your relatives dying? Are you going to have to move back?”

Her response had been long in coming. Mikhail could remember the cold sweat that had broken out on his forehead at the thought that he might be right, the anxiety that had kept mounting as he waited for her to speak.

“No, that’s not it…no one’s dying. It’s similar, but… it’s not the same… I really… I mean… Mikhail, it’s true that I’m from California. I lived in Irvine. It’s a quiet suburban area near the coast. I was fairly wealthy, went to a good school…then I took a trip to San Francisco and got lost one night and…Mikhail, you have to listen now…I was killed. Someone came up behind me and…I was raped and murdered. I’m dead, Mikhail.”

“What is this nonsense? I don’t even know how to respond to this. Why are you saying this? You’re not dead; you’re right here, in my arms. You’re warm to the touch, you have a pulse, you’re breathing…you’re definitely alive, Kaitlyn. What’s gotten into you? This isn’t funny. It’s definitely, like, the Antichrist level of nonfunniness. I don’t understand. You’ve never done this to me before. Why…?”

“Shut up, Mikhail, please!” She had gotten up and stormed to the other side of the room. Even in her insane fury, she had been graceful – hardly seeming to touch the floor when she walked. Mikhail, looking back, remembered shuddering as the thought took on a new, horrifying meaning. Kaitlyn had turned around again her beautiful face reddened and wet with tears. “I’m not kidding. This isn’t a joke. I could never make this up. Please, listen to me. My body died, but the rest of me…it was still there. And it ran away. It ran and ran. I saw people reaching toward me, beckoning, but I didn’t stop. I saw myself run into corners and stairs and people, but I didn’t stop. I hopped on buses, snuck into cabs and cars, anything, as long as it was going away. Most of the time, no one noticed that I was there. But every now and then there was someone who could see me, or, even more infrequently, not only see me, but hear me and touch me, and to those few people, I was real. One of these was the woman who eventually agreed to take me in…and one of these was you.”

“This doesn’t make any sense! You went to that private school, and then you came to college with me. And sure you were usually ahead of me but sometimes we were in the same class. You had friends, you came with me to parties…”

“I never went to any private school. It was just a cover. It’s true I was at college with you, but no one else knew that. I shared your textbooks, said I’d turned in assignments early, was always sick during group presentations, was never on the attendance sheet…I had friends, but they were few, the few that saw me as real. Most people…they never knew I was there. Didn’t you ever wonder why I was so shy around people you knew? Or why you can never seem to get a good picture of me? Or why your friends and family always gave you strange looks when you talked about me? Or why I usually only showed up at times when you were usually alone or when there were so many people it didn’t seem odd for them not to notice me?”

In his mind’s eye Mikhail saw himself as he must have looked at the time – mouth open, fear-filled eyes, hands shaking, pleading with her to stop and take it all back. “But…no…that’s not…why?...I don’t understand…”

“I was trying to protect you, to keep you. I didn’t want you to be scared off. I loved you. I wanted to be near you so much I never thought about the consequences of my relationship with you. But then I realized that people were beginning to think you were crazy for seeing me. I hadn’t been careful enough, discreet enough. And I hadn’t warned you about anything. I didn’t even make up some story to keep you from talking about me. Despite my care and planning, I hadn’t really thought anything through, and things were starting to get out of hand. I couldn’t lie to you any more. That’s why I decided to tell you who – what – I really am. I knew it would be hard for you to handle, but please. Please believe me. Please say you’re okay. Please let me keep explaining. There’s another reason I’m telling you this but I need you to trust me first.”

Then came the moment that was seared into his heart forever – the moment that made it impossible for him to disbelieve her ever again. As his deranged love had finished pleading to him, she had stepped through the coffee table to return to him, firmly clutching his hands with the same flesh that had passed right through wood seconds before. She could have easily been making all of this up, she could have easily been crazy, but there was no way she could have faked what he had just witnessed. He squeezed her hand as reassuringly as he could.

“I believe you.”

And her happiness as she heard those words was the most glorious sight he had ever seen. She her face glowed as if she really were an angel instead of a forlorn ghost. She leaped into his arms and hugged him tight, soft tears landing on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Mikhail. Thank you. I knew I could count on you. I knew you would trust me eventually! Oh Mikhail, I’m so glad you still love me! So glad…but…” her face became serious and sad once more. “There is another problem. Like I told you at the very beginning, I don’t belong to this world anymore. There is somewhere else I was meant to go; even though I somehow escaped I know it’s only a matter of time before whoever’s in charge in wherever it is notices I’m not there. I know there were people, or beings, or something, who were chasing me for a while. I must have lost them, or maybe they gave up for a while, but they’re going to find me sometime. And when that time comes, I will truly die. You understand? I’ll have to go with them. I won’t be able to fight…”

“Shhhhh. Don’t talk about it. If they haven’t found you in almost a decade they probably won’t find you for a long time. Maybe such a long time that I’ll die too, and then we’ll go there together. It will be okay. Shhhh. Everything will be okay.”

After that their relationship had been different. She had followed him everywhere and when his friends, not seeing her, couldn’t figure out why he was so happy, they had both smiled at their private joke. Kaitlyn could finally speak freely about her life. Their love had grown sweeter. Mikhail had stopped talking about her to others. In fact, he had stopped talking to almost everyone, making himself out to be a recluse so he could spend more time with his love, his heart, his angel. After a while they had almost forgotten that every moment together could be their last; their love felt eternal and timeless.

But now…now Mikhail felt like his chest had been cut open, his heart grabbed by some monster and squeezed until it burst, all while still connected to him so that he could feel it all happening as he sank to his knees, crying out only her name…

“Kaitlyn!!”

The sound of his voice, real or imagined, he wasn’t quite sure, awoke him, dragging his consciousness abruptly back into the present. He was kneeling in a lake, half-drowning himself in muddy, bug-filled water, shivering from the wet. He was alone and nearly dead, just as he’d been earlier. Maybe he should let himself die now. Without Kaitlyn, what was there to live for? Maybe if he hurried, he could find her before she got lost in whatever world it was that she had been taken to. For that was his fear…that when he finally got there he wouldn’t be able to find her. There were so many dead souls…he couldn’t afford to lose her among them.

But first…he had to finish saying goodbye to her, just in case it still took a while to find her. He heaved himself up and, tottering, found his way home. Everyone was gone. He peeled his wet socks and shoes off at the door, more by instinct than because he actually cared, and stumbled to his room. There were things here that held memories of her. He felt the need to gather them all, touch them all, study them all. He needed to reassure himself that she had actually existed. Yes – here was a sweater she’d left by accident one day, here was a stuffed bear he’d won for her at the fair but that she’d forgotten to take home with her, here was his hairbrush in which he thought he could still see strands of gold trapped amidst his own duller hair. Finally he came to the figurine of the angel that she’d given him, a few weeks after The Day, to remind him of her when she was gone (which of course he had though would be years from then). It was beautiful, a web of glass and gold that had captivated him instantly, just as Kaitlyn herself had. Yes. She had been here. And now, he must follow her.

The ice that had filled his soul from the moment he had learned she was gone felt even colder now. He made his way to the window and looked down. He was only a story above the ground. He had to get higher. He balanced on the window ledge and grabbed the edge of the roof, slowly pulling himself up. Soon he was perched on top of the chimney, gazing down upon his town from an angle he’d never before dreamed of. He could see her house ahead of him, miles away. Yes. He was high enough now. He slowly stood up, looking down past his feet as if he were an Olympic diver. His driveway was there. Nice and hard. Perfect. He whispered to Kaitlyn,

“See you on the other side.”

Then he jumped. It was glorious. He was soaring like an angel.

“Kaitlyn, I’m com–“

Before he could finish his announcement, he hit the cement. Pain exploded in his brain, muffling even thoughts of Her. Darkness surrounded him. Then the welcoming cold came. His mind whispered one last time,

“Kaitlyn…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mikhail woke up. A woman’s voice was speaking softly to him. He couldn’t make out what she was saying. He tried to lift his head and found himself immobile. He tried to open his eyes, but there was only darkness. He tried to move his mouth.

“Kaitlyn? Is that you?”

“No, Mikhail. This is not Kaitlyn. This is your nurse. I am glad to see you’re conscious. We were all very concerned.”

“Where’s Kaitlyn? I need to find her.”

“Kaitlyn isn’t here. You’ve been muttering about her for days now. No one even knows who she is. Are you sure that’s her name?”

“Of course it is. You should know; you took her away.”

“What are you talking about, Mikhail? This is a hospital. We’re in the business of saving people, not stealing them.”

Mikhail was about to reply angrily once more when a terrible thought occurred to him, one that made him feel like he was being swallowed by a giant whirlpool of quicksand that was getting heavier and faster by the second.

“Am I…am I…alive?”

“Yes, of course, dear. You wouldn’t be talking to me if you were dead, now would you? Of course, as I said, you did have us scared for a while. As it is, you’re going to be paralyzed for the rest of you life. None of us knows what possessed you to climb up to such a height, but you’re certainly going to pay for such irresponsibility for the rest of your life now.”

Mikhail wanted to cry. In fact, he was. Actually, he was screaming.

“Why didn’t you let me die??? Why?? That’s all I wanted! Why couldn’t you see? Kaitlyn is out there and I need to find her! I was on my way and you ruined it! You bastards! You bastards…”

He was sobbing quietly now. He continued sobbing for the next few years as the nurses guided him through physical therapy and psychological therapy and drug therapy and every other kind of therapy they could think of. They eventually shoved him into an asylum, just another broken schizophrenic raving about imaginary people. His family continues to visit, trying to get through to him. But they didn’t understand, no one understood, that with each passing moment he was getting more and more separated from Kaitlyn. The ice of his grief continued to freeze him deeper than any amount of bodily injury. But beneath that ice, slowly, anger grew. And with that anger came determination.

“I’m coming,” he often said to the wall of his empty clinical room. “I’m coming, just wait for me please…”

One day he was going to get out. One day he was going to finish what he’d started. And on that day he would finally be able to begin his search, finally be able to reach his heart, his love, his angel. He smiled. It was a smile that chilled the souls of all who saw it, even as it kindled the fire in the soul who felt it.
THIS is my side, THIS is the demiltarized zone, and THAT is your side.

"Good and Evil" is too complicated. I prefer, "Us and Them".
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Xantarcube: *Throws Makokam down on the bed*

Dalmar: Dalmar runs from no man! ... Bees, on the other hand...

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If you ever wonder what to do in life, ask What Would Jack Bauer Do, because what Jack Bauer would do sure as hell will get things done faster than what Jesus would do.

 
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