Requiem

Clairvoyance

Obluda was staring as one woke up, hours later. Maybe days. It was understandable, one thought, the monster was curious, always was.

"It's you." Obluda grunted.

One ignored both the message and its content. The 'I' was unknown, but one felt compelled to unravel. The nothingness was unbearable.

One had an idea, rather a memory, of something capable of bringing comfort, fight the nothingness from its very core.

One was not chained, nor tied, so tried to move. The process was slow and steady, Obluda was in silence and staring, hungry, and eventually one was able to move the face, fingers, then the neck and arms. Night passed by, and another day.

Night came back.

People in white came and went, always in a rush. There was something paramount about one. They, the monster and one, stared as the others took blood samples, checked again the temperature, the pulse. Moved the body. Another person entered and attempted to talk to one, who ignored everything that was said.

One heard, understood, yet disregarded.

Movement was achieved when the first lights of dawn entered the bedroom.

One was clumsy and fell when getting out of bed. One stood again, reaching for the chair close. Then one ignored the sudden pain in the left arm, the needle that pierced the skin further, the blood tainting the pale skin.

One reached the wall then, walking became a little easier.

From the two doors, the one on the left was chosen. A small room inside that bedroom. One suspected its function and therefore one's objective might have been there.

The door was opened. The light was turned on.

A bathroom.

And there it was.

One. A reflection in the mirror.

Eyes wide open at the sight of an unknown face. An adult instead of the expected childish one.

No, one was an adult now. The remnants of memories of almost twenty years rushed inside one's mind. A puzzle with too many holes in it, too many questions.

One pressed them underground, decided to ignore them, too confusing for now. All one wanted now was the mirror, the face.

And the answers entailed.

One... was a man, one discovered.

One slowly became a he, an arbitrary tag, he concluded, but a detail about one's self, himself, that preferred to the lack of self. Being a she would have felt the same... still did. A part of him felt more comfortable as something closer to 'she'... yet... he didn't like either.

Still, one decided to took masculinity as a starting point.

His appearance was extremely important to him, he remembered. The image of his face, that belonged to him and only him. The color of his hair, his eyes. The shape of his nose and jaw.

He remembered a similar, yet sweeter face, too... who?

He remembered that same face, now, if only less emaciated. He liked it, the sensation of belonging onto something, the peace. One hand remained on the faucet, increasing his stability, while the other touched that face, making sure it was there, in front of him. He could breathe again, anxiety being slowly driven away while looking into those ice blue eyes on the other side. He was remembering the physical part of him, those same eyes now teary of relief.

He stayed like that, for some time, while the different pieces he had recollected about himself started building that what was called identity, whose core was that same face, the most stable knowledge he possessed about the fact of being.

But there was no name. He failed to find a name for himself. He was then, the nameless monster. There was no other choice.

And the thought itself was enough to stop his heart for a moment, desperation growing relentlessly inside him.

He had no name.

His legs finally collapsed, and he fell to the ground, on his knees. Feeling... feeling so much... and overwhelmed.

He remembered. All that was there to reminiscence, up to that very instant, the second bullet, the darkness, the chaos.

And then he cried, like the pathetic weakened child he wasn't allowed to be, the brother he failed to stay, the human he never became. Because there were moments, a few, in which he was capable of comprehending. And lament.

It didn't matter the effort invested, he would never be able to even grasp the meaning of being someone. Of having a name. Now all he possessed were memories, ones that remained detached from self, intrusive, untrustworthy. Insecurity invaded him since that fatal reunion.

He would never be able to have a normal, pleasant life. To feel any sort of happiness, nor peace.

The pressing solitude would never abandon him, until his very death, maybe beyond. He was as alone as anything could be. A figure standing in an infinite wasteland.

And finally, he understood the role others had played in his creation, the choices he made and their consequences. The ones others made upon him.

His shoulders, shaking in violent jolts. Face buried in his own hands.

He remembered Dr. Tenma, who thought his life was still valuable, who saved him twice.

Anna, for whom he deserved forgiveness, but only when it was too late. His twin, himself.

And the sense of failure entailed to his very existence. A toy broken for no one's pleasure. His rejection to every single agent on that creative process. He had stopped being a tool for a state at the verge of collapse, but he had failed on making a good use of that freedom. Instead, he became a monster out of everyone's control, including himself.

And then he made that difficult choice, the only moment when he had preferred to face the truth, the past he had been avoiding for over a decade, whose consequences had been further failure in the shape of misery and pain.

He sacrificed the chance of existing as a nameless monster to become a nameless man instead, and thus the only good in him: ignorance. And recovered the rejection. The abandonment. He, the child with messianic charisma, who failed in retaining the only person he truly ever cared about. The one unable to offer nor receive love from their very own mother.

He snuggled, in a pathetic way to try and find some comfort, slouching back against the wall, to fall into a semiconscious state. The sobbing didn't stop until exhaustion took over.

When he was found by a couple nurses in that same position, hours later, he had regained his usual apathy, superficial.

He had made a mistake, concluded. Another one.

And the man who stood under the rain, waiting to be shoot, was him, now, and probably until his death.

Back on the bed, he had been connected to a dropper again, filled with a massive combination of drugs. Antidepressants and anxiolytics had been now included, by psychiatric prescription.

Finding nothing to contemplate, to say, to do, he slept and slept in a pathetic attempt to avoid reality. A strategy never used before. He wanted to escape, back to the coma, the ocean of void. Anywhere. But dreams worsened, now filled with a miserable childhood of ghosts and feelings, instead of monsters and darkness. The later was preferred.

It was punishment, he understood, for his sins, crimes, monstrosity. He was in Kinderheim 511 no more, but his fate at the hand of scientists was meant to be the same.