- Created By otakualchemist
Monochrome Chronicles
He slid an arm firmly around his wife's slender waist, orange eyes dancing with something akin to glee, though the woman at his side knew that her husband had never felt such emotions. If he did, he bore no memory of them.
"It's finally ready... Heirra." he said, hugging her close and smiling into her blue locks. "Finally, we can have our own child, won't that be wonderful?"
The woman dubbed Heirra pulled out of her husband's warm embrace, stepping back so that her black skirt danced at her ankles, her heels clicking against the concrete floor. "No, it won't be, because what you're making... it won't be natural. It won't be real!" she cried. Before she could turn and run, however, he gripped her wrist and turned her around.
"Heirra, my dear, this is what you wanted, remember?! You were the one that asked for a child, not I!" he hissed into her ear as he drew her closer, her head knocking against his chin painfully.
"I wanted a child of our own creation, not of anything... scientific like this! And using research that isn't even yours, that makes it even more despicable!" She yelled, though her voice was cracking with tears and filling with desperation. Why didn't he just let her go?
"I would only go against Ansem for /you/! Don't you understand that yet?! You!" He threw her against the machinery that was stored in the laboratory, staining her white coat red with her blood and black with the lucid essence of darkness that spilled all over her.
He had realized what he had done far too late for him to fix his mistake.
"Heirra?" First, a whimper. "Heirra?" Then, a desperate cry. "Heirra!?" The realization that he had just possibly killed a human being. One that he had sworn to stand by for all of time. He rushed over to her, continuing to utter her name, as if it would open the eyes or bring color to the flesh, instead of all over her outfit, the one she had worn today for him.
There was no heartbeat, he knew it, but denied it. There was no more breath, no matter how much of his own was wasted in order to bring back hers.
"...Heirra." Finally, the understanding that his sobs reached only his ears. How could he atone for such a mishap!? He hadn't meant to kill her, she had angered him...
That was it. It had been her fault.
That very thought engraved itself into the twisted mind, tightening the knot of insanity. He pulled the body from the now useless machinery and set it on an examination table left over from when the room was used for medical purposes. "Sweet, sweet wife... I forgive you." he smiled, kissing her forehead as he threw a white cloth over her unmoving form and proceeded to clean up the mess the murder had caused.
A chime from the clock nearby had alerted him to a meeting with his superior, and he abandoned the body with the loyalty of a dog on the way to his master. Making sure that there was no blood spilt upon his own clothing, he straightened his tie at the double doors and pushed them open, breakfast, tea, and a smiling blond man awaiting him.
"I'm glad you've decided to join me, Xehanort."
"I had some trouble downstairs, but it's all sorted out now, sir." He said, orange eyes glinting now with something different, akin to devotion. Yet the corpse downstairs, slowly shifting and changing form underneath a sheet as darkness wormed its way into the cavity where the heart once lay, once knew very well... the man called Xehanort was unable to feel devotion.
And that very first heart floated up beyond the doors of darkness, becoming the almighty...
Kingdom Hearts had been born.
Silence
The hardest part was living through the silence. Ears were strained in the act of constantly listening for a familiar voice, though the heart knew that such a voice was gone forever.
Lucrecia. He longed to hear her voice again, though he knew that it was long gone. It had been gone for over thirty years.
He thought that he had heard it in Shalua Rui, but found that he had heard it more in her younger sister, Shelke. Yet, even through Shelke, Lucrecia's voice rang clearest in Vincent Valentine's memory.
He could close his eyes and hear it. Her voice. Everything that she said, he remembered with perfection. If he wanted, he could reach out and grab it.
Such a shame it was impossible.
The closest things that he had to Lucrecia were himself and the quiet Shelke, who lived with Cloud, Tifa, Denzel, and Marlene, taking her mako doses so that she didn't disappear into the Lifestream like her elder sister.
He had formed an interesting relationship with Shelke Rui. She had recently turned twenty, yet still looked ten. But they looked past her unique predicament, and became close.
Vincent knew that she liked him as more than a friend, but he wasn't sure how to respond. Were they her feelings? Or Lucrecia's?
The former Tsviet slowly began to get more talkative. She started to use the same soft tone, and make the same unconscious motions that Lucrecia made.
Shelke was still herself, but she was Lucrecia as well. And her constantly pleasant aura warmed him to the core but left him feeling empty.
Honestly, he preferred the silence of a life without Lucrecia than the soft melody that came from one with Shelke.
He felt like he didn't deserve her all over again.
I Can't
"I can't do this anymore!"
She gasped for air, completely drenched and shivering. An hour submerged in icey waters, a trap of the Water Dragon's design.
She lay, defeated, on a grassy plain, Omi and his friends towering over her. "I do not understand why you, na ally, would so suddenly oppose us!"
Raimundo shook his head as he watched the lab-coat clad woman sit up, still on her knees. She didn't look guilty at all, merely exhausted, and half-frozen. He was wholly disgusted by the pathetic-looking scientist sitting before him.
"Please, Miranda, tell us your reason for going against us!" Omi pleaded, placing a tiny hand on her sopping wet shoulder.
"I... can't." she choked, shivering horribly. "I can't tell you..."
"Why not?!" Raimundo demanded, and Miranda held up a quivering hand. "I'm n-not finished..." she gasped for air, the cold making it harder for her to breathe. Kimiko frowned. "Dr. Spicer, continue, please..."
"... I can't explain what it's like to be in love." she finally muttered. Omi looked at her, rather appalled. "... With who?" the Water Dragon's voice cracked. Miranda smiled a bit. "You know who, Omi." she said, still shaking from the intense cold that still wracked her body.
"Chase Young." he mouthed, looking up at her with watery eyes.
"Yes, my little water dragon. I've chosen my side." she said solemnly. Omi shook his head and clung to her. "I cannot believe you!" he sobed. "I will not!"
Feeling the tears streaming down his face, Miranda had no choice but to hug him tightly. "Omi... Omi, calm down..."
"No! You are lying to me! You cannot be in love with Chase Young!"
"It's true."
Though Miranda had opened her mouth to say those exact words, it was not her that had spoken them. The voice was more sly and cunning, more masculine than that of the scientist.
Four pairs of eyes shot up to the top of the temple, where, in all of his glory, Chase Young stood. "I've noticed the signs." he said sharply.
If she could have blushed, Miranda would have done so, quite a bit. Chase looked at her sternly, cold eyes never leaving her, though she averted her gaze. "Did you take me for a fool? Did you think I wouldn't notice? That I wouldn't respond?"
"No." she muttered half-heartedly. He stepped over and pulled Omi from her gently. He looked her directly in the eye and captured her gaze, with no intention of releasing it. "You. Dr. Miranda Spicer. Listen to me, and don't look away. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes." she stammered, the freezing cold still not fading.
"Alright..." Chase took a deep breath, and then looked at her with a gaze that was perhaps a bit softer. "Miranda... I can't..."
But the words that came after fell on deaf ears. Worn from the physical strain of the cold, the Dragon of the Stars had fallen unconscious against the great villain, missing his words...
"Refuse you."
Breathe Again
"Your husband and son are dead."
The phone fell from her hand and onto the sandy earth below, leaving the man on the other end confused, asking if the woman who had been holding the device was still there.
"Impossible," she breathed, snatching up the cell and ending the first call, trying her house, her husband's cell phone... there were no answers. She even tried her cousin, her sister, her parents... all said the same thing.
Even the obituaries online read what she didn't want to hear.
DAVID AND OLVER DEVAUD
Dr. David Devaud, age 28, and Oliver Devaud, age 3, were declared dead at Augusta Regional Hospital, following hospitalization due to illness. Dr. Devaud was a Professor of Medicines at Augusta University. The two are survived by Dr. Devaud's wife, Dr. Miranda Devaud née Spicer, age 25, fellow Professor of Archeology at Augusta University.
Miranda had been sent home immediately for the funeral she didn't want to arrive at, and she didn't know if she breathed, cried, slept, ate, did anything for weeks after. She didn't want to breathe, though she had to have, she reasoned, for she was still alive.
The first day, she went to the funeral, heard the words of others, the scorns and whispers of David's relatives.
"Why wasn't she there to take care of them? She must be a horrible wife. She didn't deserve a husband as wonderful as David."
The second day, she laid on the floor of her living room, hugging onto one of her son's toys and wearing her husband's clothes. She didn't respond to visitors, speak, or sleep. She merely remained in the same spot on the floor.
The third day, Miranda spoke to her favorite cousin, Jack. That was also the day she grabbed her hair in her fist and sliced it with a butcher knife, tossing it away. "He never liked it long," she said, and fell silent once more.
The fourth day, Jack had dragged her out shopping. She still wore her husband's clothes, and hugged onto the red-head's arm. When she saw a family happy together, a young son, wife and husband, she broke down in the middle of the mall.
The fifth day, she burnt the house down, wearing new clothing that Jack had gotten for her. "I don't want to see anything of theirs anymore," she said, watching the happiest years of her life burn to the ground.
The sixth day, Miranda took a cross-country flight to San Fransisco, to stay with Jack. She remained in his room, in his bed, hugging onto his arm for the entirety of the day. Surprisingly, he never complained.
The seventh day, she had finally had enough. She went out into the shed in the garden, grabbed the shovel, and while it poured down rain, she slammed the spade into her head, ridding herself of consciousness and memory.
The three hundred and seventy fifth day, she walked into a cafe in China, drenched from head to toe and craving a warm drink. Stepping in, she ordered a hot bowl of spicy soup, then sat down at a booth. When she looked up, however, she saw a face that had been free of her memory for a year.
Inhale, exhale. She was aware completely now. Now that she could breathe again.
Can You Hear Me?
Only the wind whipping in the trees outside could be heard in the room, with a neatly made bed and hardwood floors that steadily gathered dust, while a woman wrapped herself in a large blanket, wearing man's clothes and clutching a stuffed dog to her chest.
"Where are you?"
A silent rasp from parched and cracking lips, a plea to the endlessly blue sky that she detested. "You're not anywhere anymore, but you have to be somewhere,"
Slim and slender, shaking fingertips pressed against the icy glass, followed by a palm desperately pressed upon the pane. "David," Her forehead hit the window as well, and the hand clenched into a fist as dry sobs wracked her body once more. The doctor had no more tears to shed. They'd been wasted on the plane ride and the funeral.
"Oliver," she hugged the toy tighter, as greasy locks of hair, a victim of neglect, fell into her face.
While soft green eyes surrounded by bright bloodshot red closed painfully, burning with dryness and seeking the refreshment of sleep that would not come, knuckles rapped against the door in a soft rhythm. "Miranda," Her cousin's voice, sympathetically soft and unusually kind. "I brought you some soup."
That was easily identifiable, the smell of the chicken noodle wafting through the cracks of the door and greeting her with the realization that she hadn't eaten in a week, and that she was hungry, with no appetite. "Come in," The archaeologist politely replied, curling herself up on the cushion of the bay window once more, ignoring the aching complaints of her unused muscles.
Gratefully, she took the mug from her cousin's pale hands, let him tuck the blanket around her once more, took a pillow from the bed and gave it to her to rest upon. "Jack," Miranda frowned, spying something new that hadn't been there three years ago, when she announced her engagement to David at that Fourth of July party that she tried so hard not to think about. "What's in that shed?"
"Just my mom's gardening stuff," he said. "She was saying something about gardening calming you down, if you wanna try,"
Sipping the broth, the blonde nodded. "I'd like to try later, thank you." Jack nodded and left, leaving her cousin to finish the soup and going to alert his mother.
Once again, her eyes fell to the sky, where the sun had been obscured by the clouds. ".... Can you hear me? If you can't, that's okay... I'll be there soon."
The familiarity of the wooden shovel handle gripped in leather gloves was the only assurance she needed while she slammed the cold metal spade into her head, knocking herself unconsciousness and failing to do what she'd hoped for it to, but at the same time, becoming a complete success.
They couldn't hear each other anymore.
