Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Mahasamahdi ❯ Four ( Chapter 4 )

-Four-

You know, they lock people like me away in little white rooms and throw away the key. At least, they do with `living' people like me. I'm not sure what they do with the dead ones. I do, however, know what the dead want to do with themselves. Anything. Anything at all to make them feel alive. At least, that was what I wanted and craved. I'm not really sure about the others because `others' consisted of Sentaku, who I don't consider normal. In fact, I considered Sentaku a figment of my imagination, and I knew if I was imagining things like him then I really was mad. Scratch that. I was a stark raving dead lunatic.

And I was stuck in purgatory. With Sentaku. Death couldn't get much worse, of that I was sure.

"Ah, the what?" I had no idea what whatever he had said was. It was becoming a habit. I didn't seem capable of understanding anything any more. Hell, it had taken me close to five minutes to realise I was dying!

"Mahasamadhi," Sentaku replied as he looked through the shadows that were slowly creeping closer. "You have consciously left your body at a point when your mind reached spiritual fulfilment. That is Mahasamadhi. But you can go back."

Right. Go back. To that wrecked piece of better-off-abandoned flesh. Hell no! Knowing my luck they had probably buried my sorry arse already! Besides, by now it was probably rotted and lying six feet under and there was bound to be someone dancing all over that grave. Someone like Wufei. I was almost tempted to go back just to kick his arse! I was growling, but it came out as a funny low hum that reverberated through whatever weird space I was in. Where do the dead live? Don't ask me. Me guess is as good as yours.

"It is possible go back," Sentaku re-affirmed, as if my disbelief were a temporary thing he could easily talk me out of. Apparently my imagination didn't know me very well. My complete disregard for anything Sentaku might have to say must have showed on my face. Why? Because the damned man wouldn't shut up!

"I will show you what we are not supposed to see. Then you will understand. You should not stay here. Not when it is not necessary."

Not necessary? I'm dead! How much more unnecessary could you get? If this guy really was a figment of my imagination, my imagination was pretty dumb. I was beginning to understand how I annoyed so many people so quickly. I was starting to annoy myself.

Whatever. Sentaku grabbed my wrist before I could even contemplate a come back and then we were…drifting. It wasn't fast or slow, in fact it seemed timeless. And while it was no longer dark, the fleeting glimpses I caught through the misty shroud of sight made me cling tighter to my companion.

Things move in the shadows. They reach out and brush icy tendrils of being along your skin. Their eyes are eerily empty, some slightly glowing, pulsing with something not living but…live. Snaking threads of would-be hair floated before me and skimmed my cheeks, sending shivers down my spine to shudder in my gut. I had never feared death, but the dead were something else entirely.

They called me Shinigami, while I lived. An adequate nickname; I came up with it myself. It was my legacy to the world. What a thing to leave behind, this promise of death. I did not understand why they would fear it, but they did and it made me feel powerful. But I think…it is not death that people fear, but what will happen after. They do not know, they have not seen, they have only been…

I understand now. Death is bliss. But being dead…I am so cold and weary. All I can do is let Sentaku lead me through the masses of beings like me; fellow once-were people trapped in a no man's land between life and the afterlife for deeds we committed, or didn't commit. It's hard to say. All I know is that this place is hell and I can't recall how often I bragged that this was home, that I belonged here. I almost prayed to make it not so, until I realised it must have been God who sent me here. Who else?

We had halted. I could feel cold breath running down my neck and pushed myself against Sentaku's back. It was a human reflex. It made me seem…less dead, to myself. It made me remember life, if only for the briefest moment.

And in that moment I remembered myself. For a split second I was not dead. I was living, breathing, revelling in sunshine, cocky and bold, taking on the world as if it owed me everything and I owed nothing. Such a fool I was. I felt that life slip through my transparent grasp as surely as I could still feel the blood trickling over my hands in those final moments and if I could have cried I would have. And in that, I give you the greatest secret of all.

The dead cannot cry. That is why they envy the living; why they long for life. That is why they linger in this nothing, not continuing not returning, just enduring. I waited for ages, expecting the prickling salt to wash away the pain of lost dreams but it never came, and the emptiness and fear only increased, weighing me down. I was hopeless for the first time in my existence and I didn't like it any more than the dead thing next to me.

"Come see," Sentaku urged and I followed his lead, looking through the mists he parted for me. I would have cried, if I could. Instead my fascination pulled me closer and I found myself gone from purgatory, weaker than I had felt in all the time I had been dead, but still `there' and for once I had a purpose, and that made me feel undeniably good. It made me feel…almost alive.

I was standing on an altar. There was a catholic priest next to me, but he could not see me. None of them could. They were there, the few people I had loved at some point. The one's who weren't dead; those who weren't here, somewhere with me.

Quatre was on his knees on the steps leading to the dais, face in his hands, shoulders shaking. I wished I could cry like that, but it's too late for wishes.

Trowa is near him. I can tell he wants to touch my friend, to make it better, but he doesn't know how. How have we come to this, that beings so young cannot touch and feel safe and warm? That we are threatened by our own skin? It's a truly bastardised world they have to live in and for that reason alone I was able to find some solace in the fact I was no longer a part of it.

Which became so perfectly clear when I looked at Heero and realised his eyes were shimmering. In life I had never seen emotion there; not a single unnecessary flicker of movement. Everything was regimented `for the mission'. Yet there they were, those things now stolen from me; the proof of the heart I had never really glimpsed. Tears.

I stepped down from the altar and reached out. I just wanted to touch one, to place it on my lips and taste the salt. But my fingertip went straight through the skin, as if it were not there, only it was me who wasn't there! Heero shuddered, touched his cheek in shock and more tears prickled in his eyes. He did the most amazing thing.

`Duo.' He mouthed my name. It may seem stupid to you, but remember; I am dead. My had just slipped through his head and he said my name. Mine! He knew I was there.

I turned, pained and feeling my grasp on the scene fade. I caught sight of Wufei. He was not dancing on my grave. He was giving me a speech. I couldn't hear the words, but I could see the effect it was having on my friends, and I could feel Wufei's sincerity and see what he felt in his black eyes. Black like my soul…I had been wrong about Wufei. I wished I could make amends, but it was too late. At least, I had thought it was…

I turned back to the priest, and finally noticed the slim black box at hi side. Fascination is too poor a word to describe what flooded me as I approached my own coffin. My open coffin. I looked down at my own face, at the long snake of golden-brown hair placed over one shoulder, the closed lids that looked as if they would open at any moment. They had crossed my hands on my chest, just so, and a dozen black roses were placed horizontally down the length of my chest.

For the first time in my life I thought I was beautiful. I wasn't even alive to enjoy it. Again I wanted to cry and my soul cried out in frustration because it couldn't. Only it sounded like an organ and the clear note rang through the small church, catching everyone's attention. Heads looked up, faces turned and they could almost see me! It was such a rush, to have them almost there, almost mine was more, but then I was fading, being pulled away from this happiness, this divine pleasure. I kicked and raged against the pull but it was not mine to control.

I was with Sentaku. I was cold. I was as close to alone as I was ever likely to be. I was empty. I was dead.

It wasn't until then that it hit me. My body was undamaged. It was perfect. There was no sign of blood on the white shirt, no hint of the slightest bruise on the face and neck. My hands were unmarked. I was…perfect!

"My body…it hasn't decayed. It's…healed!" I gasped, not understanding the full implications of what I had seen. Sentaku was nodding, apparently having expected this. I turned my eyes on him and he flinched. I knew why; my eyes were glowing, like some of the darker souls I had sensed, and power was bouncing off me in waves. I was not Duo Maxwell any more, I was Shinigami and I wanted a body. More precisely, I wanted my body back.