S-CRY-ed Fan Fiction ❯ Tracing The Windowpane ❯ Reflection ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: Don't own s.CRY.ed. But I DO own Jaid.

A/N: Ooooh here I go agaaaaaaaain. Welps, I figured we knew about Ryuho's past…and Mimori's past…but I wanted to do Cougar's past. We know nothing about him other than that he spent some odd years with his 'little brother', Kazuma. So I decided to write a fic about what MIGHT HAVE happened to him as a kid.

Now I really don't have any insight into his past, so if I get something wrong, KINDLY tell me…please. And um…yeah…This story has SOME fighting scenes, but it's basically about Cougar and his past so forgive me if it's not all THAT exciting. I can't write action scenes worth spit…unless it's humor. But that's beside the point. If you're the kind of person who thrives on action, you'll find yourself getting bored rather fast. So maybe this kind of story isn't for you…unless you're absolutely obsessed with Cougar…like me. (Grin)

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

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Tracing The Windowpane

--Chapter One--

Reflection

He couldn't remember much of his past. Or of mother and father. He couldn't remember what they looked like or sounded like or how he felt when they hugged him.

Once, he remembered, they had given him a name. He couldn't remember when they had given him the name or what exactly had prompted them to think of it, except he remembered that he always liked to run. Whether it would be running from them or to them or running in general, he remembered that he always liked to run.

His mother would chase after him and once when she had caught up to him, out of breath, she would run her fingers through his hair and smile. "My little Cougar," She would mumble. "Just as fast as the wind."

They had named him Straight Cougar, Cougar after the animal who was so cunning and ran with such celerity. It suited him nicely. God knew how much he loved to run.

He couldn't remember his home or what color it was or how many stories high it was. But he knew that it had been somewhere in the Lost Ground, a derogatory name for what used to be a city in Japan before the great uprising just one year before he had been born.

He remembered the inside of his house, with his mother's small collection of China plates and his father's big beautiful piano. Cougar recalled trying to play the piano once, and his father took him under his arms and seated the boy on his lap.

His father had showed him how to play the piano just a little. Before father had to sell it to make money for the family. And Cougar remembered his father's large library of books. But maybe it wasn't so large. It may have looked so large because Cougar was so very small.

His father was very intelligent. And he was always saying that he had to find 'true culture'. Cougar never knew what the word 'culture' meant, but it had to have been something very important if his dad was always looking for it. At times he wished his father would stop losing this thing called 'culture'- - especially if it was so vital to him.

Someday when he grew up, he wanted to be just like father.

But his mother was very bright too, always looking up things on the computer and talking to men when they'd come to the house looking to collect something called 'rent'.

And even though Cougar couldn't remember what his parents looked like, he remembered that they were very warm and loving people.

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His real memory started at the age of seven, when a big fire swept across his neighborhood and his mom and dad ushered him away from the home while they tried to help other citizens escape from the fire. Cougar wanted to help too. He remembered his father's favorite books and his mother's China. He knew how much it meant to them and he didn't want them to be sad without it.

But the fire was heavy and it barricaded his every movement. Then he remembered running…running so very…very fast…

Then he tripped and fell, skinning his knees. He looked back towards the fire, rising so high above him, as though it mocked him.

It wanted to say, 'I am so very big, and you are so very, very small…'

He whimpered and huddled into a corner, bringing his bleeding knees up to his tear-stained face.

"Mother…Father…"

And then the fire was gone.

He woke up the next morning, still curled in the same position, to the constant rapping of a cane against his battered knee.

"Come on kid, get up." Came a deep voice. Whoever this guy was, Cougar wished that he'd stop hitting him with the cane. "No use in lounging around like this."

Cougar looked up groggily at the man. He had a full brown beard and moustache with shaggy hair that fell into his eyes and looked as though it had stayed unkempt for weeks. On his head was a gray hat, like the ones Cougar had seen in the books his father had owned- - like a cowboy's or something. He wore a long tan overcoat, charred and dirtied by last night's fire. In his right hand he held a black cane. Just by looking at this man, Cougar could tell that the cane was more for decoration than for mere problems like backaches.

The young boy said nothing as the man continued to stare down at him. "You deaf?"

"…No Sir," Cougar mumbled.

"Then pick yourself off the ground there. Everyone will be trampling all over you if you lay there all day."

Using the wall behind him as support, Cougar slowly began to push himself up until he was standing awkwardly. The older man cupped Cougar's chin with his large hand, forcing Cougar to look up at him.

"Young, flesh tone seems right…You're one healthy kid I must say." The man smiled slightly. "I lost part of my farm last night to that fire. My workers up and left me for fear of another Native Alter attack. We were lucky that the firemen were able to contain the fire so quickly, regarding how wild it was. But that doesn't help me now. I have no one to tend to my crops or fields." He released Cougar's chin and Cougar's eyes immediately went back to looking at the ground, as though it had been drawn like a magnet. "Where are your parents kid?"

"…I don't know," Cougar replied honestly. "They said they'd come back for me but I can't find them."

The older man continued to stare at Cougar with great attentiveness. He knew that this kid wouldn't see his parents again, just like the other kids who were affected by the fire would never see their parents again. They were orphans now, just like the boy standing before him.

"I have a spare room in the back. Food's not cheap but that's not something that you, being a kid, can worry about." Cougar somehow found the will to stare up at this man. "What I'm saying is, you need something and I need something. Apparently, you've got nowhere else to go and my money-makers have bailed on me." The man lowered himself to bended knee so that he could see eye to eye with the boy. "Come work for me and I'll take you in off the streets."

At the innocent age of seven, Cougar didn't know much about death. He had never experienced it and was never told about it. The words that this man spoke now were so foreign and yet so unnerving, as though deep down in the boy's mind, he knew exactly what this man was saying. 'Take you in off the streets' and 'nowhere else to go' didn't register completely with Cougar. He knew that he wanted his mother and father and he knew that he didn't much like this man, especially the words that he was speaking.

"But I have to wait for mother and father," Cougar protested, his words falling to a faint whisper. "I can't have them looking all over for me…"

'Poor kid doesn't even realize that his parents are dead. There were no survivors from anyone who went near the fire last night. Didn't he hear about the big explosion last night after the fire reached the power plant?' Then the man sighed. 'Those Native Alters think that they can get away with anything. Ever since they gained their abilities eight years ago…'

This man didn't care much for euphemisms. If something was to be said, it should be said outright and beating around the bush was just plain dumb.

"Kid," The man started. "I wouldn't be counting too much on your parents coming to find you."

"But they wouldn't forget me…!"

"No they wouldn't," The man interrupted. "if they were alive that is."

The words this man spoke were so icy now and seemed to chill Cougar's soul. Alive? If? Cougar knew what 'if' meant. His father used it a lot when he talked.

'If the Great Uprising hadn't happened…'

'If there were no Alter Users…'

If, Cougar knew, was a very powerful word.

And then, he realized, mother and father wouldn't be looking for him. Because if they were alive, then they would be. The boy knew it would be a long time before he completely understood.

"Come on then," The man said, placing a hand on Cougar's shoulder. "No use in gawking at the ground or the wall behind us." And then the man stood up. He was much taller than Cougar remembered him being just minutes before when he first saw him standing above him. Now he seemed to stretch forever towards the sky and tower above the boy, almost hauntingly. "You're under my care now. You're my worker."

"Worker?"

"It's someone who does jobs under the employment of…" The man shook his head. "It'll be better just to show you. You're just a kid. You don't know anything."

Those words came bitterly and it didn't take a genius to figure that out. Cougar was young, but far from stupid. "That's not true," Cougar argued, much to the man's surprise. "I know lots of things."

And then the man laughed, as though he didn't believe the boy. "My name is Jaid Cain, your new boss and guardian. What's your name kid?"

"Straight Cougar," Cougar replied, feeling somewhat more comfortable after hearing the man's name.

"That'll do," Jaid told him and patted Cougar on the back.

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Jaid Cain was an American man who had come to Japan ten years ago to begin his industry. Farming was what he had done back in Alabama (wherever that was, Cougar figured), the same as what his father had done before him. Jaid just happened to be in Kanagawa at the time of the Great Uprising. Jaid never found a reason to leave the Lost Ground, and even now, he didn't intend to.

He wasn't a wealthy man but he wasn't poor either. Like he claimed, he owned a farm right on the hills behind what had used to be partially a small urban neighborhood. The fire had caught hold of his property, damaging more than one-fourth of his crops and fields. While such a minimal amount of destruction was caused, it truly had frightened off all of his workers.

Sitting back away from the entrance of the fields was a small brown house, only a story tall but its width made up for height. The house was old, Cougar noted as he caught sight of the paint chipping away from the wood and the decadence of the plot around the house. Shingles dangled from the rooftop and the chimney was in dire need of repair. The only thing living were the weeds that had sprouted up around the house, choking the life from anything beautiful that used to grow there. It seemed as though the workers had spent more time in the fields than around the house.

"I'm not a housekeeper," Jaid had admitted on the way down the dirt path to his house. "Never have been."

And he was right. The inside was just as disorderly as the outdoors. Dishes gathered in the sink, clothes lay scattered on the floor, and dirt decorated the counters and furniture around the house. Cougar rubbed the side of his arm nervously. He had remembered being poor, oh yes he did. But this felt…out of place. There were no happy thoughts or feelings here. In fact, he sensed a great sorrow.

Just like how he felt when he realized that mother and father were never coming back.

He remembered his mother's cooking and her stories that she used to read to him at night. He remembered his father taking him to the parade once and carrying him home that night, sound asleep against his back.

He remembered his father playing the piano and how pretty it had sounded.

But then again when he recalled it, he couldn't remember why it had sounded so pretty. So pretty…and so sad…

He couldn't remember their faces or what they had been wearing the night before.

But he remembered the night they died. And he remembered why they had died.

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The story will start going semi-fast (after all, we have his WHOLE childhood to cover don't we? Lol) from here on out. Sorry if the story kind of stunk first off. I'm trying to put things in place now and I feel like I rushed things a bit. I apologize for that…

Anyway, please R&R and thanks to anyone who is taking time to read this.

Kat