KANASHIMI
In the mental seeming he still had of himself, the Fixer opened his eyes, feeling as if he had fallen asleep without even remembering it. Yes, the feeling was quite close, but there was something more to it. Something disturbing, something dangerous–could he still sleep if he was already dead, or was it the first sign of… something else?
Time was passing slowly, so slowly, as if nothing more could happen now…
He looked at the little girl once more, and again, and again, an endless loop of contradictory feelings and momentaneous thoughts. He wouldn’t have been able to say how he knew it, but the fact was here - he knew that what he was looking at what was only a manifestation of the mind. That none of them were really present here, that even Jen’s image before him wasn’t ‘real’. A reminiscence of the mind - the memory she had of him, and of herself.
However, she seemed so present and so fading at the same time…
They were sitting in the dark immensity, Jen lying half-asleep between his arms, so small and frail in her blood-stained clothes that he feared he would destroy her by merely touching her. She looked like she was dying as well, unable to move, unable even to cry as she had been doing in the beginning. Heiji knew that it was his fault, and that there was… something he should have done to prevent this from happening. Deannah was the one with the key, but she was gone as well now. Either gone, or not fully awakened yet, and in both cases, it was leaving them alone, Jen and himself, alone and unaware of what they were supposed to do.
“Heiji… I’m cold, Heiji…”
“Shhh. I’m here, Jen-chan. I’m here now,” he whispered, gently stroking her long dark hair. It was cold in there, and this made him feel again like staying silent and slowly letting sleep carry him away. Odd, how he was now aware of this kind of things… the frost at the edge of his field of vision, the disturbing certainty that the more time would flow, the colder this mental place would become, and that there would be a moment when all would be frozen to death, without any hope left. He was so tired. So tired of this half-life, so tired that he would have liked to let the endless dreams take him forever, and drown his conscience in their pool of darkness, until nothing was left at all. Wouldn’t it be the logical outcome of the dying process? It had already started… so why couldn’t it end now?
“… So cold…” Jen whispered again, even unable to open her eyes. The Fixer hugged her more closely, not knowing what else he could do. This was only but another death sentence they were existing under; if she was to die, he would die with her, and this time there would be no coming-back. What had Deannah done? Had it been on purpose, or just an accident, something that shouldn’t have happened? Along with this thought, another memory stroke him–something about a network, about having been linked when they shouldn’t have, about a machine, about Cyrus trying to warn him… about the sudden, dreadful pain in his chest, the harsh look on the Agent’s face, the feeling of falling to the ground, of darkness covering his eyes, of all sound becoming more and more muffled, until all was silent. A slight frown–the memory was already disappearing, as he desperately try to grab it, realizing that it was one of the keys. A network. A link. Sharing, for a second, the same thoughts, the same conscience. An unwanted trap. Something Jen/Deannah had done, in the last moment, to try and kep him with her. And the memory was gone again, slipping between his ghostly fingers like small grains of sand.
What am I supposed to do, Dee?… he cried in the darkness. You left me alone with her… left us alone… and now you want me to understand… to guess what I have to do? How do I know? How can I know, Dee? I don’t know what she needs! I don’t know…
I don’t know what I need…
Heiji suddenly realized that he was beginning to cry as well now. For Grid’s sake, how many years had passed since he had cried for the last time, since he had felt human for the last time? Since he had still been able to wince at the only thought of erasing an insurance pattern, because the idea of ‘death’ was too frightening not to consider it with care? On a world where nobody could die, unless they were very old, very poor or very unlucky, being actually able to wipe off someone definitively was something people had to factor in, sooner or later. Yes, it was risky. Yes, it was dangerous. Yes, for the most part, only a handful of very skilled Fixers–or even more seldom, Engineers or Bureaucrats–dared to take this task upon themselves, and not for a meager pay. But that still made it an horrible deal, and Heiji wondered how Deannah had even been able to forgive him for this.
“Forgive you?… Heiji… I was never angry against you… Never… I understand how you feel… I shouldn’t have left you alone–because it’s me who left you, Heiji-kun, remember? Not you…”
Heiji gave a slight start, and turned his eyes to little Jen, now looking at him with a stern gaze that was so much more Deannah’s than hers.
“I… I should’ve stayed. Gomen ne, Heiji-kun. Forgive me. You were too young to bear with this…”