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Through The Looking Glass [Dream]
There was always a sense of calm here. On reflective floors of marble where silver veins erratically scattered across its polished surface, hollow steps resounded from the footfalls of a lulled child. Kaoru walked along an invisible path numbly, either unaware or unconcerned with the perpetual darkness surrounding the thin plank of stone beneath his bare feet. Arms swaying to an unheard waltz, his last step coincided with a jarring hiss of metal and sparks somewhere in the distance ricocheting around the inky chasm. Wrong. Largely unfazed, he had the capacity to feel only a slight disturbance at the change. Nothing here changed, nothing could. Even shy a year of two decades, his body held the same frail stature as he had fourteen years before when the dream had first filled the night.
This was the place where he was fundamentally Kaoru, a standalone entity separate from his twin soul. A small frown tugged at his placid expression while he watched a blur of color appear at the far end of the bone white trail. That too was wrong, a scenario that had never occurred and disrupted the still waters of his mind irreparably. Suddenly, there was a sense of urgency – a fleeting but crippling awareness that ran his body cold. Head turned sharply to the side, golden gaze searched throughout the limitless space when a whisper of his name grabbed at his ear rocking the ponds into lakes yet. Kaoru began to walk again, quickly turning to a run while limbs elongated and his body matured to its present form. He stared down at the alabaster hands with mounting confusion and panic, this was all wrong. As he ran, the marble would seem to move beneath him like a freight train sidewalk, propelling each step to greater speeds until gravity yielded to his needs. The mesh of colors turned to shapes and finely defined features, the cold stare of his brother vacant as he waited at the end of the marble flooring, standing within the darkness like a corpse that waited in purgatory’s abyss.
His breathing turned ragged, Kaoru inhaled audibly as a golden frame formed around the apparition and spirals of iron gnarled up towards a suddenly looming sky. His movements were mirrored, approaching the smooth pane with a sardonic relief. “Only my reflection,” He said aloud, the first murmurs of his voice hollow on the fluid world. Fingers reaching for the top of the glass, he smirked into his reflection and tapped a short rhythm along the cold surface. Nothing more than that.
As if sensing his inner thoughts, the image’s expression darkened and the dead eyes became filled with contempt and fear. Red bloomed along the hands and crawled up white sleeves as Hikaru screamed his name in horror, scratching at the other side of the mirror while the black pulled at him. With instinct alone, Kaoru struck the glass repeatedly with his fists and dug through its sharp edges with sliced fingertips, nostrils filling with a stifling mixture of perfume and rusting blood. When at last he had reached his scarlet hand to the other side, he grasped furiously at his falling twin and took slippery hold of a thin wrist.
“Kaoru, you’re bloody.”
He was standing in front of his mother’s room, staring at Hikaru who shuddered and gawked into the air, no traces of the glass fragments from before. Behind him, the matron’s limbs tangled like red snakes across soft blue flooring frozen in rigor, the rivers that had once gushed from canals dug into wrists reduced to torturously loud dripping. Kaoru grabbed hold of his twin, arms wrapped around his neck and cold mouth pressed against the salty tears that streamed silently. “So I am,” he acknowledged indifferently, filled with the delusion that if he were to loosen his hold or look away, Hikaru might disintegrate into nothingness.
“That’s okay,” He finished, unflinching in his belief that it was. He didn’t care if it took oceans of blood and muddy trenches through hell, he would go through each trial gladly if the universe decided it was Hikaru’s fate. He would never be alone.
“Who are you comforting, Kaoru?”
The question was uttered flatly from lips that never moved. Kaoru drew away just far enough to search for eye contact, faced again with empty pools of amber. Hikaru smiled sadly before shoving him away, the movement harsh enough and coupled with surprise to land Kaoru on the floor in a clatter of spidery legs. “Wh-what?” The stammer was unfamiliar on his lips, uncertainty present where it had always hidden beneath strategy and malice.
“You’re the one afraid of being alone, aren’t you?” His twin demanded angrily before he broke into a giggle, facial features made more angular by his vantage point and distorting into paint strokes.
“Does it matter?” Kaoru asked after another lapse of silence, now looking at the floor dully while he watched strawberry gashes open inside his wrists. Cold digits slid along his arms and swept across his collarbone as his mother’s corpse embraced him from behind, his view shifting to inside the room while he watched Hikaru standing dumbly in the threshold.
“Didn’t I matter to you?” She rasped into his ear before she crying mournfully, nuzzling into his neck and invoking a violent shiver from his shoulders.
“Of course you did. Just…” Ah, there it was, that monstrous just.
“Just not as much as him.” She completed his statement, disappearing into the darkness from whence she had come as the world around him began to swirl feverishly and shapes bled together, spinning higher and higher into the murky clouds. Was Kaoru screaming? Or was it someone else?
He was walking again and then running, to the distance and to the mirror, through the blood.
This was the place where he was fundamentally Kaoru, a standalone entity separate from his twin soul. A small frown tugged at his placid expression while he watched a blur of color appear at the far end of the bone white trail. That too was wrong, a scenario that had never occurred and disrupted the still waters of his mind irreparably. Suddenly, there was a sense of urgency – a fleeting but crippling awareness that ran his body cold. Head turned sharply to the side, golden gaze searched throughout the limitless space when a whisper of his name grabbed at his ear rocking the ponds into lakes yet. Kaoru began to walk again, quickly turning to a run while limbs elongated and his body matured to its present form. He stared down at the alabaster hands with mounting confusion and panic, this was all wrong. As he ran, the marble would seem to move beneath him like a freight train sidewalk, propelling each step to greater speeds until gravity yielded to his needs. The mesh of colors turned to shapes and finely defined features, the cold stare of his brother vacant as he waited at the end of the marble flooring, standing within the darkness like a corpse that waited in purgatory’s abyss.
His breathing turned ragged, Kaoru inhaled audibly as a golden frame formed around the apparition and spirals of iron gnarled up towards a suddenly looming sky. His movements were mirrored, approaching the smooth pane with a sardonic relief. “Only my reflection,” He said aloud, the first murmurs of his voice hollow on the fluid world. Fingers reaching for the top of the glass, he smirked into his reflection and tapped a short rhythm along the cold surface. Nothing more than that.
As if sensing his inner thoughts, the image’s expression darkened and the dead eyes became filled with contempt and fear. Red bloomed along the hands and crawled up white sleeves as Hikaru screamed his name in horror, scratching at the other side of the mirror while the black pulled at him. With instinct alone, Kaoru struck the glass repeatedly with his fists and dug through its sharp edges with sliced fingertips, nostrils filling with a stifling mixture of perfume and rusting blood. When at last he had reached his scarlet hand to the other side, he grasped furiously at his falling twin and took slippery hold of a thin wrist.
“Kaoru, you’re bloody.”
He was standing in front of his mother’s room, staring at Hikaru who shuddered and gawked into the air, no traces of the glass fragments from before. Behind him, the matron’s limbs tangled like red snakes across soft blue flooring frozen in rigor, the rivers that had once gushed from canals dug into wrists reduced to torturously loud dripping. Kaoru grabbed hold of his twin, arms wrapped around his neck and cold mouth pressed against the salty tears that streamed silently. “So I am,” he acknowledged indifferently, filled with the delusion that if he were to loosen his hold or look away, Hikaru might disintegrate into nothingness.
“That’s okay,” He finished, unflinching in his belief that it was. He didn’t care if it took oceans of blood and muddy trenches through hell, he would go through each trial gladly if the universe decided it was Hikaru’s fate. He would never be alone.
“Who are you comforting, Kaoru?”
The question was uttered flatly from lips that never moved. Kaoru drew away just far enough to search for eye contact, faced again with empty pools of amber. Hikaru smiled sadly before shoving him away, the movement harsh enough and coupled with surprise to land Kaoru on the floor in a clatter of spidery legs. “Wh-what?” The stammer was unfamiliar on his lips, uncertainty present where it had always hidden beneath strategy and malice.
“You’re the one afraid of being alone, aren’t you?” His twin demanded angrily before he broke into a giggle, facial features made more angular by his vantage point and distorting into paint strokes.
“Does it matter?” Kaoru asked after another lapse of silence, now looking at the floor dully while he watched strawberry gashes open inside his wrists. Cold digits slid along his arms and swept across his collarbone as his mother’s corpse embraced him from behind, his view shifting to inside the room while he watched Hikaru standing dumbly in the threshold.
“Didn’t I matter to you?” She rasped into his ear before she crying mournfully, nuzzling into his neck and invoking a violent shiver from his shoulders.
“Of course you did. Just…” Ah, there it was, that monstrous just.
“Just not as much as him.” She completed his statement, disappearing into the darkness from whence she had come as the world around him began to swirl feverishly and shapes bled together, spinning higher and higher into the murky clouds. Was Kaoru screaming? Or was it someone else?
He was walking again and then running, to the distance and to the mirror, through the blood.