Week 28, Day 5

[cyberroids]

 He could see smoke in the distance, but he didn’t need to look up to know it was there. The signs of the Dark Army were all around him, from the bent trees, to the multitude of imposing footprints on the ground; to the lingering smell of their torches that never truly went away. He knew that that smell was on him too, the acrid scent of who-knew-

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[sternitfortem]

Juudai knows where he is even before he opens his eyes. It's not the way things look here, never the way they look - it's the feel the taste of this place, the texture of the air on the skin, the dead way it crisps on the tongue before rushing in and out of the lungs. A little faster, now that Juudai's processed this bit of information, but only for a moment; the panic is easily crushed in the bud by the heavier resignation that comes with it.

He opens his eyes.

The blue comet bleeds dying light over a dying land. This is it, of course, the place he'll always revisit in his nightmares: this is Dark World, and somehow, Juudai doesn't question how or why he's here. In fact, he doesn't remember leaving.

Shou's off in the distance. Juudai knows there's a reason it's just the two of them, not just a reason but a Reason, an important reason, but he can't remember why. The details break into ripples like the water's surface when touched.

"Hey!" he calls out.

[cyberroids]

Shou almost doesn't turn around because he doesn't believe he is hearing that voice, despite the familiarness of it. There is no way he made it that easy, not after he’d been aching to hear that voice for so long. But before he could stop himself he had already turned around and was frantically scanning the horizon. And sure enough, in the distance, there was Juudai, the object of his frantic search.

He blinks in disbelief. 'It must be fake,' darts through his mind but he doesn't believe it for a second. That was Juudai, he was sure of it.

He doesn't answer his call, instead he waits for Juudai to come to him. And even when Juudai is close enough to touch he still doesn't say anything, but just waits. He isn't sure what for yet though he waits none the less.

After a look in Juudai’s eyes he knows what he is waiting for, and what is so strange about this encounter. He speaks, but he is unaware that he even made a sound. He tone is full of shock, disbelief, suspicion and curiosity.

“Where is Haou?”

[sternitfortem]

At Shou's words, something like a vise tightens in Juudai's chest. Something cold and steel-hard, crushing his lungs together.

(Not that. He doesn't want to think about that.)

"No," he says. (The word does not leave his lips so much as escapes them.)

(The thing about it is -

The thing about it is, if something happens, and if that something is something that can only - locationally - happen inside your head - if something happens that is one-hundred-percent completely inside your own mind, then thinking about it is like recreating it. Those memories, those thoughts still live, whole and well and baring fangs, somewhere in his head. He doesn't want to see them. He can't look at them, these gorgon things curling in and around themselves endlessly in ouroboros loops, eating and regurgitating themselves - they paralyze with a gaze.

The thing about it is, if the doing is the thinking, and the thinking is the happening - the thing is -

If Juudai lets himself remember, it might happen again.)

(And so he can't.)

(he can't.)"