Fade Away

The moon was full. The silvery light shining down on the sea of sand and glittering against the crystalline facets. The only sound was the soft whispering of the wind as it spoke of the desolation and longing that could only be felt in a desert. The pale haired woman walked slowly, the sand still warm where her bare feet touched it and sunk in. The nights were cold in the desert though tonight Karasu could not feel it. All she could feel was the light of the moon as it brought hope to her soul. This was where it had begun, in the endless sea of sand, the love that she cherished with everything inside her.

Her black silk gown fluttered in the wind and broke the relative silence. Part of her mind could feel that something was wrong. She was wearing black, and that was. . . wrong. Where were the rich jewel tones that she kept herself adorned with? As though trying to calm her, the sky shone brighter, the stars twinkling fiercely and distracting her from the disturbing thought. Her gold eyes rose skyward to take in the spectacle, tears pricking at them and causing her to frown once more. Why was she crying?

Drawing her gaze down from the moon she looked around the vast expanse, a sickening fear building in her as she saw nothing but the emptiness of the desert as it stretched out beyond the bounds of her vision. “Why am I alone?” Her voice was quiet and timid, though it echoed against the nothingness, each reverberation adding to its power and volume until it was near deafening. She clutched at the sides of her head, trying to block out the agony she had created and sunk to her knees as tears poured down her face.

“You are never alone.”

The deep male voice shattered the echoes and stilled the desert winds into submission once more. Just as the woman made to lift her head and look to the source of the voice she felt a hand on the top of her head. A comforting feeling, familiar and safe. A strangled sound came from her lips, a half cry and half laugh. The sound of relief and joy bursting forth from utter despair. She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t raise her head. She didn’t need to. She knew it was him, and the light of the moon and stars sang in time to the beating of her heart.

She knew then that she was dreaming, and that he couldn’t be there with her. She had known the whole time; the black mourning dress, the solitude, the moon. When Damien had died her whole world had fallen apart, there was nothing that could ever fix it. She would have given anything and everything to have him standing in front of her again, to hear his voice and feel his touch. She clearly wanted it badly enough that she dreamed of it. But that was all that it was; a dream and a fantasy. Her mind was too brilliant to allow her even the comforting platitudes that her heart yearned for and helped to create. With a sigh she would speak again, not wanting to let go of the illusion just yet. “I miss you. More than anything. It was too short, my love. We were meant to spend eternity together.” Feeling his hand move to caress her cheek as he knelt in the sand in front of her, she finally lifted her head and opened her golden eyes to look into his silver ones.

“We will always have Suna, my Goddess.” His voice was smooth and deep, just as she remembered, but that was where the similarity ended. As her eyes took in his form the sky darkened as the celestial lights winked out. The cold of night chilled her to her bones and her voice caught in her throat. This was not the Damien that she remembered and recreated over and over again in her arts. His skin was rotting and falling away, dried blood making shadows and lines where there shouldn’t be any. His silvery eyes were blood red, his clothes ripped and torn, pieces of hair missing. It was as though he had spent these last months wandering the desert as a corpse. She wanted to scream and run, to shut her eyes and open them again to see him fully restored. His decaying hand against her cheek was the only warmth that she felt and just when she thought she would die from horror the dreamscape faded away.


“Fuck!”

She awoke covered in sweat and panting from fright, the sheets tangled around her legs. Loud gasping sobs shook her as she rolled over and blindly searched with her right hand until she heard the tell tale ‘clink’ of metal against glass. Grabbing at the bottle of liquor she heaved herself up in bed and uncorked the bottle, taking several large swigs before there was none left. In frustration she hurled the now empty bottle across the room and held her arms around herself, sobbing as she rocked herself gently.

She had been having a nap, and that nap was supposed to rejuvenate her. She had been in her workshop analyzing the water canteen and the blood she had received from Tamwyn, and had finally reached the part of the process where there was nothing to do but wait. Kara had been taking a chance that she was tired enough from working that she could simply sleep and the nightmares wouldn’t plague her. She cursed repeatedly at her own foolishness. She had done nothing to ensure that she wouldn’t have nightmares, so why would they suddenly stop? Sweeping her long blonde hair off her face she would unwrap the sheets and blankets from around her legs and move herself so that her legs dangled off the edge of the bed. “Pull yourself together Karasu. It was just a nightmare, nothing more.” One organic arm and one metal one pushed her up from the bed slowly as she tried to convince herself that there was no hidden meaning in the dream.

There was meaning in it, and intellectually it wasn’t difficult for Kara to figure out what that was. The nightmares were her body’s way of informing her that she needed to slow down. She was grieving and overworked, without adequate nutrition and rest her body lacked the ability to care for her. It was a simple equation and one that she understood, however grief muddied her thoughts and she couldn’t stand the quiet spaces where those thoughts were allowed free reign. Quiet spaces where she needed to eat or simply wait. All of her free time was being eagerly spent on monumental tasks designed to keep her from thinking. Her paintings and now this newest obsession with water and blood. Despite all of the distractions she heaped onto herself she couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere out there Damien was still alive. She knew it was impossible, she had seen the events for herself through Tamwyn’s eyes, but her stubborn heart refused to let go of the idea.

She dressed quickly, tossing aside her nightgown and pulling on her black gown from earlier. Her stomach heaved as the feel of the fabric against her skin brought the memories of her nightmare back with full force. “Can you fuck off?” She swore angrily at the memories in her mind’s eye, violent rejection being her go-to reaction as of late. With a huff of frustration she pulled a brush through her hair, not stopping when it got caught and merely gritting her teeth as pain flared in her scalp. In a twisted way she felt she deserved some sort of punishment, and it had taken everything in her to not just drink herself to death or worse. As a surgeon and a chemist she knew all the best and most efficient methods for killing herself, and she had carefully considered them all in her darkest moments. Her cowardly and self serving nature had stayed her hand, and she had chosen the slow and torturous route of existing through automatic responses. Curling her hair into a bun on top of her head and affixing it there with a few hair pins she assessed her reflection in the mirror in the bathroom of her hotel suite. She looked tired and worn but presentable all the same. Plastering an insincere smile onto her pale face she stepped into her heels and walked out the door and headed to her workshop to review the results of her tests.

The walk over to her workshop was uneventful, which was to be expected in the middle of the night with no one around. As expected the workshop was just as she had left it, her lab supplies untouched and her notes still neatly organized. Even in the depths of her mourning she still kept most of her habits. A life of meticulous adherence to protocol was not so easily shrugged off. Her assistant had long since gone off for the night, to whatever home he called his own. She didn’t much care about the personal life of those that worked for her, what he did on his own time was no concern of hers.

Sitting down at her desk she would pore over her notes and begin comparing her theories to the results of her tests, starting with the mysterious liquid that Tamwyn had brought back from the Battle of Meijing. As far as she could see it was just water. ‘Just’ being a nod to his idea that it might have been poisoned. What she did find interesting was that it had incredible rejuvenating properties. It seemed that it was capable of improving a person’s strength and speed as well as granting an incredible increase to the amount of chakra a person had. At a cost. After having tested it on several mice she came back to see some of them clearly at the end of their life cycles and two of them were already dead. “So not a poison, but it may as well be. Everything comes at a cost.” It had been smart of Tamwyn to bring it to her and not just attempt to consume it during the battle. It may have aided him, but the cost was high. She turned to a new page and wrote out the closest approximation of the formula that she could recreate given the materials available to her. The chemicals present in the sample were unknown to her, and without the original source anything that she created would be imperfect.

Once she had a formula that she was happy with she turned her attention to the second and third samples she had been analyzing; Tamwyn’s blood. She had done the usual tests to ensure his health and the like, but her main interest had been something that she was well aware was unethical. She had taken a sample of her own blood and compared it to his, the likenesses between them were too uncanny and she was far too curious to wait for his permission to compare their DNA. As she looked at the two results she would blink and rub at her eyes in disbelief. She had wholly expected there to be some similarities, that was common among all humans, especially those from the same regions. What she had not been expecting was how closely they overlapped. “Impossible. Wouldn’t I remember him?” There was no denying it, Tamwyn and herself were blood related, and closely at that. The facts spelled themselves out clearly; they had to be brother and sister. But why had she never met him before? For a terrifying moment she feared that pieces of her perfect mind were too broken with sadness or too saturated with alcohol to be able to accurately recall Tamwyn. Her mind was all she had left in the world that was still perfect, she couldn’t bear the thought of that last thing being taken from her by recent events. But as she sat and focused on her entire past, she became certain that she didn’t remember him not because of some weakness or failing on her part, but because he simply wasn’t there.

She held the pages in her hands and stared at them for hours. Looking at them with confusion and wonder, checking and rechecking the results for hidden errors. But there were no errors. “I have a brother.” Her voice was quiet and breathy as she tried to absorb the information and make it real to her by saying it out loud. The sun had begun to rise by the time she looked up from her work and with an ironic laugh she would pull herself up from her seat, stuffing the papers into her bag along with the hero water and make her way towards Tamwyn’s home. She didn’t know how he would react, but she had to tell him. She had always thought she was alone, maybe he had too. Of all the things she had learned over the past few months, this was the closest to true excitement that Kara had felt in a good long while. Her dream came to mind again and the words that Damien had spoken ‘You are never alone’, and a tiny part of her started to believe.

[Exit Thread - Successfully Analyzed Hero Water]

Hero Water: