Angelsinflight14

He wakes up, and all the world is wreckage. The noise of screaming sirens, the memory of a dimly lit room, cold as this current night outside lying on damph asphalt, and crying, astonished faces all around. A light shines on him, distracting all these recollections. He has the vague impression somehow that he is hurt, but he does not care. He walks towards the light.

The light becomes the blinding light of another place entirely. A familiar white room appears before him, full of nostalgia and half-repressed feelings. Before him sits The Answer: a gorgeous, clever figure, who speaks in riddles and yet does not lie. He questions The Answer, but she disappears before his eyes, replaced by an altogether different girl, blonde and shy and quiet. She smiles, and he gapes.

He knows this girl, knows suddenly that this place is not right, is not a place he should be at all, yet he cannot bring hismelf to feel fear in her presence. She knows him. She is perceptive; her compassion alerts her to his deep feeling of wrongness.

"Are you all right, House?"

The room vanishes. The next scene is all the less pleasant. It is his own diagnostic office. Things would be washed by the overwhelming sense of normalcy as they always had been, but a man is there in the room. The man is disguised by a smattering of cheap make-up and a wig, a nurse's outfit, yet his gaze remains intimidating nonetheless, full of fathomless emptiness and a deep, startling intellect.

The man has a gun.

The gun is shot, and House topples over, too stunned for pain, too shocked to comprehend what wrong he has committed, what reasoning could compel anyone to seek out revenge, this vendetta, against himself.

The man is taking off his hospital mask. House suddenly wishes he would keep it on. Underneath, covering the face, lies a sight far worse even than those bottomless black eyes: the scarred visage of a man who wallows in blood, who kills for pleasure, who smiles at the misfortunes of every other human being who has ever been and is and will be. His vision begins to go out. This seems the last sight he will ever see.

He is wrong. With a jolt he comes awake. Quite oppositely, the smiling face of Amber is there to greet him. Amber, one of those few people for whom he can feel true respect; she is attractive and brilliant and undoubtedly daring, unafraid to pursue all things she desires. At this moment she looks at him with tender love and care, but he cannot remember when he has asked her to come and live with him.

He stands up, prepares for work, and turns, the images before his eyes suddenly overlaid with the sense of blood and death. Amber lays on the floor, gore-ridden and dying. In the next instant, he can hear her again, the real Amber, inquiring:

"Are you all right, House?"

There seems to be no proper answer to this. And besides, suddenly the mood is different. She is standing before him, all dressed in red, the color of passion. Her body presses against his as he sits unmovingly in his office, her breath warm beside his ear.

She pulls away without warning. There is for the first time the spark of something deeper than her usual sardonic playfulness in her eyes. They glint with a predatory gleam, the confidence of successfully taking down one's prey. She says only that the mood needs a completion. A bottle of sherry is poured between them, and he remains contemplative of this look in her eyes that is at once unfamiliar and yet uneasily, vaguely reminiscent of something he has seen in someone else.

Perhaps he was only imagining it. He can remember the more gentle embrace of her throat against his shoulder, her beaming smiles while they ride the bus home together. She is trusting of him, so absolutely and thoroughly. There is no warning spark to be found in those warm eyes, no personal vendetta or grudge.

He glances to her again, and finds himself shocked that he did not note the resemblances before: the tilt of the chin, those imploring blue eyes, her silken blonde hair. She is so very like the blonde girl, this same girl who is in front of him again. He cannot reach her, all alone in her little white room, he cannot see The Answer anywhere in sight around her this time, and so he searches for her, pushing at last through the large white doors in an effort to gain her attention.

The girl looks up. For just this moment, she appears unspeakably sad, regretful though without losing any of the same trust in Amber's eyes. Then she looks down, as if he has already been forgotten.

But he has not been. He sees the picture fall, fall through the light parchment until it twists around the dark and spiraling staircase and reaches another destination entirely. The man with the Glasgow smile, staring darkly out the window--into a window. Familiarity: the window of his own office. Surprised, House looks up and meets his gaze.

Amber too has felt this shock, has looked into her own mirror only to turn suddenly and find the looming figure of this dark and scarred man, speaking calmly, politely to her in his light tenor voice. House notes the widening of her eyes, and speaks to calm her down, for in her home, where nothing bad has ever happened and surely nothing ever will, he does not see the man. He tells her nothing is there. She turns her gaze away, smiling, though he cannot decipher whether the upward quirk to the corners of her mouth are quite from the same sense of trust or the beginnings of a smirk.

She does not believe him, does not forgive him. He stares unseeing, and so she will make him watch. The nearest scalpel is grabbed from the table; blood runs in torrents down her arm. He is gripped with a nameless horror, though why he cannot say: he knows blood, has seen blood nearly every day for the past twenty years in his professoin. He is beyond the squeamishness that accompanies the life of a doctor. This is different. This is self-defacement, and the blood itself strikes a fearful recollection into his mind that he refuses to let come any further.

He must get away from this blood. He runs, runs swiftly and surely without his cane, because so long as he is running, the worries of the world cannot catch up to him. So it seems, as long as he ignores the intent gaze of the masked man in the fountain, who tilts his head with the focus of a small bird and does not let him out of his sight.

Something seems desperately wrong with Amber. The blood that had streamed down her arm instead mats in clots and patches across her face. House sees himself reflected, briefly, in this same manner, but then he is only gazing at her speechlessly through the blur of background. Seeing her like this, bruised and broken, something in him breaks. The background becomes clearer, and yet moves darkly and emptily while the moisture at last emerges from behind his eyes and all the way down his face.

And she is still wrong. The brief impression of a bottle of pills, his or hers, and she is standing in a room of people the two of them together have never seen in their lives. He cannot sense himself, can only see her standing with a lean grace and the same predatory, haughty look to her eyes.

And she regards the scarred man without fear, watching him approach, staring at him equally.

He needs relief. The feeling of being watched crashes down upon him, the reminder of a revenge being sought for against him without explanation, and ignoring it will not relieve this gripping sensation, nor will running it. He reaches for his pills, his alone, but he cannot reach, and Amber stands mockingly at the side.

He would not recall why he has ever cared for her at all were it not for the impressions of long nights, laying on the bed, kissing fiercely--

Something breaks again. Something vital. These pictures which have been flashing by, which he has been both living and watching, suddenly no longer make sense, and he screams without sound in the agony of futility. Someone hates him, someone who is making him live through this pain and these painful moments, be it God, or Amber, or the unknown, shattered man with his scarred face.

Consciousness fades, and for the first time memories seem to reappear slowly. They come viscous and slowly, like honey, different from the scenes he has simply been watching play out like a movie, for they are blurrier and full of static, refusing to clear. They are real, but they will not come easily. Nothing is clear now, except the flashing views of the ony people he has ever cared about:

Cuddy stares in a slow groan of disappointment, of hurt against all the things he has ever said to her simply to make her sad and never meant.

Wilson, whose practical advice has been irreplaceable all these years, refuses now to speak, and stares on in disappointment.

The Answer is there, beautiful as always, smiling with her knowledge, but she is nothing if not silent and elusive.

And Amber--Amber is there in lazy, victorious pleasure, cynically enjoying herself even as her form is briefly glimpsed in the holes of his tattered memories, and there she simply look anxious and worried as he is sure she once did.

Waking comes. The sharp pain in his side alerts him that he has a gunshot wound in the side, but the hospital bed beneath him fills in the fact that he must already have been treated, that he is feeling nothing more than the sharp, mind-numbing pain of the stitches. The scarred man is there beside him, always smiling, never pleasantly.

"Are you all right, House?"

At last he finds words, if only one. "No."

"Why not? You don't understand yet, do you? I must say, I'm disappointed. I would have thought that by this point you'd have figured it out, yet it seems you haven't."

Silence. Then, a hesitant: "You shot me."

"And therein lies the misunderstanding. I didn't."

"You did." The familiar flash of certainty comes at last to House's blue eyes, for he is in pursuit of nothing but the truth in life, and that is the one thing he must have.

"I did not. You just don't see. You don't want to see. All these things that happened and are happening to you, it's not because anyone else did anything to you. Quite the opposite, if anything."

"No."

"Can't you see, your friend is trying to show you? I know you want the truth. I'm how you get it."

House regards the man and his Glasgow smile. There is no resemblance in the least to The Answer.

"Truth isn't always the answer. Not if you can't find it. You had to look around this time, see. I'm here for a reason. Amber's been here for a reason. The very same one."

"No." The sudden fear returns, crushing the air out of his lungs while he stares blankly from his hospital bed. He does not want to hear that Amber has all this time hated him too, has wanted revenge through his blood and pain. He does not want to hear of the people he has alienated into hating him.

"Don't you want to know why?"

"No."

No sooner has the word left his lips then the memory breaks free--a real memory, this time--sharp and clear and true. It is not what he wanted to see, but it is what happened all along: the sudden shattering of thousands of shards of glass against Amber's skull as the bus, the bus they were supposed to ride home together, comes to a screeching hault; the impact of the collision from bus and truck is enough to send all passengers flying through the air; screams and blood mix indistinguishably as people continue to fly, and Amber is hurt and screaming for him, but he cannot reach her.

It was his fault she was on that bus.

"No."

"Oh, yes. See, I'm not a monster. And I don't hate you. I didn't shoot you out of any underlying sociopathic grudge, nor attempt to fulfill questionable motives of revenge. This is all your hallucination."

"No..." His voice is losing conviction. It has been impossible, as with dreams, to tell what is real and what is not, up until the arrival of this one shining, agonizing memory which erases all illusion. Hallucination indeed.

"You hallucinate because you hate yourself. Because you killed her. You killed the other girl, too."

There are no words.

"I complete you; I'm just a part of your hallucination. You are the one who shot yourself. You are the one who wishes you were dead. You are the only one who holds such a personal vendetta against yourself."

He wakes up, and he knows this man was right all along, and he remembers Amber's death and fears this hallucination he has had. And more than that, does not know how to comply with either side of this vengeful vendetta.

Okay, so, it's belated. Since when have I ever been punctual? But here, at long last, is an explanation in shorts of where I have been these many a weeks:

1. LA ITALIA

Yeah, you heard that right. Following a plane ride to Atlanta, which was much too short, there was a plane ride to Milan, which was way too long. Sleep deprivation which persisted right up until they served breakfast on this second flight, and then a landing, following baggage claim and my first true Italian cappuccino. Then we got on the bus, straight from Milan to Verona.

VERONA - It consisted of a fervent disinterest on my behalf due to ongoing sleep deprivation. Pretty, yes, but Juliet and her balcony both suck. Freaking idiots. Macbeth owns Romeo. Reached a hotel not in Venice, but in Mestre, at around six at night, and proceeded to show a fervent disinterest in dinner. A nap after the meal finished at nine o'clock revealed to me that I was desperate enough, in fact, to shower at two in the morning at the expense of both my roommates and whatever sleep they hoped to get.

VENICE - The following day was in fact, better. Venice, sinking city of pigeons! I learned what a campo was, the equivalent of a "field" for any child once growing up among the city, involving a well for water, a miniature church, and a place to bake bread. Liked the campos, disliked the fellow tourists. Went on the most antisocial gondola ride ever in which Grumpy Gondolier led us down the back alleyways of Venice's canals where we watched people unload cans of beer and Coke. Found a restaurant for lunch that didn't charge extra for sitting room upstairs OR the air conditioning OR the bathroom. You should know how hard this is to come by in Europe. Jumped at the opportunity and, of course, had another cappuccino. The planned dinner of the tour sucked worse than the lunch, because apparently our Italian hosts believe Americans feast upon fried pork and French fries--dinner the previous night, I suppose I should mention, was fried turkey and French fries.

PISA - Contrary to popular belief, there is more to do than the Leaning Tower. Which actually leans less now than it used to because reconstruction was done. Sad, right? Got annoyed with illegal street venders and proceeded to instead by NOTHING, except a book in the wonderfully amazing eight-hundred-year-old cathedral in front of the leaning bell tower. Proceeded to have gelato in front of the wall encasing the cathedral, the baptistry, and the tower. Yes, the eight-hundred-year-old-wall. Sometimes you have to wonder at the nonchalance of Italians at these priceless artifacts of cultural history. Ah well.

FLORENCE - The hotel in Florence was actually reached on the same day as Pisa. It was pretty much a godlike divination compared to the previous hotel, now possessing electronic card keys and several flights of floors and a much more spacious bathroom in the room I happened to share. Yay. Went on a walking tour the first night, which was by far the BEST PART OF THE TRIP. Weather was perfect, gypsies were off the streets by this time, and it was gorgeous to see the city all lit up at night. But then, yes, I listened to a street performer and then departed early because the seven-hour time difference still had me lagging. Those of us who left early were suddenly witness to a very attractive member of the Carabinieri police force (eh, they're all very attractive; I think it's a job requirement) literally bolt through us and grab a fleeing illegal street vender in a headlock. Mr. Street Vender was very forceful in resisting and so Carabinieri then tackled him to the ground. I did indeed have to jump out of their way, they came so close. Those who didn't wimp out early were able to witness a much greater God-given gift I now curse myself for missing: Christopher Meloni, actor of Elliot, one of the stars of Law and Order SVU, which is only the best Law and Order since everdom. I'm getting cell phone pictures some people took, although he refused any autographs because he was visiting with family. The following day in Florence was busy, but not nearly so awesome. David's a gorgeous hunk of marble, and medieval architecture holds up well after a thousand years. Not much else to say.

SIENA - Mostly the second day of Florence was lacking because halfway through, some of us took an excursion to this crazy little town. See, it once was really competitive with Florence, and now it still thinks it is, but it really isn't. Cathedral was about ten thousand times better than Florence's, although smaller, and not as traditional as Pisa's. It was kind of prone to inducing motion sickness, it was so busy and almost gaudy, but well worth it in the end. Also, Siena hosts that insane little horse race some people might recognize from the beginning of Quantum of Solace, where all the horses of the nine districts of the city go to the church to be blessed (the horses, not the riders) the day before, and then riders and horses alike proceed to legally beat each other during the actual race. Whichever horse crosses the finish line first wins, whether or not its rider still made it intact.

ASSISI - My kneecaps felt prone to spontaneously combusting this particular day due to extensive amounts of time spent on the bus. But this was okay, because the stop in Assisi was well worth it. The food was by this point in central/southern Italy quite authentic, and the prices were, God forbid, REASONABLE. Dollar's rate of exchange to Euros honestly sucks beyond all belief. So seeing prices fair to the poor tourists like myself was nice. More than the cathedral, the shops were the best part of Assisi. The uphill climbing to get to our restaurant was not.

ROME - Rome was reached following Assisi, and another walking tour commenced after the hotel was reached. The hotel in Florence was still better, of course, because I only discovered the morning before we left it that it had a cappuccino MACHINE, which still tastes better than almost any American coffee except my vice from Starbucks (a grande café mocha which is, in fact, more whip cream due to my specifications than mocha) even out of the aforementioned machine. But it was still nice. Saw the Trevi fountain and was promptly made nauseous over the smell of urine in the streets (of the human variety, not even from a stray cat or dog; actually, I only saw a grand total of three cats on this trip and about five hundred million dogs). Got mad at entirely legal street venders who shoved their shit upon me that I didn't want to buy, then ripped off my money anyway. The next day was far better, involving a tour of the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel and all its magnificence, and eventually the coliseum. I kind of melted within the coliseum, but as we were all from Alabama and Tennessee, we conquered and moved on. Admired various statues of Caesar I happened to see wherever in the streets. SPQR! Solo Porchi Questi Romani! ...Only Pigs These Romans!

POMPEII - Gorgeous ruins. Wonderful preservation. BUT EFFING DAMN YOU FRENCH PICKPOCKETERS. Yeah, that's right. Wandering around the ruins, our tour guide proceeded to get into a total slapfest with another tour guide who tried to kick him out with her wiley bitch quality, but he owned her srsly. However, while standing around waiting for these two to finish determining Dominance of the Tour Guide, the woman's group, all French as we were all American (haha, not a good thing to admit to in Italy, I must advise. From now on, I want to be Canadian), kept bumping closer to us and, more specifically, bumping closer to our backpacks. My mom actually reached back to feel some woman feeling up her backpack pockets, and I proceeded to take charge of all Euros and passports previously in the backpack and death glared at the twelve-year-old who watched me like a hawk while I removed these valuables. I would have taken her down if given the chance, but was then promptly scarred on the tour continued by the local Pompeiian brothel. Most preserved building in the whole place, but I didn't look up the whole time while walking through.

ROME AGAIN - Free time, only real free time, before the departure back home. Gelato, cappuccinos, and a jewelry shop far more reasonable than in Florence, surprisingly. A look at a historical city still trying to keep up with the modern day. A city touched by a dictatorship and caesarships galore whereas New York is, say, a few centuries old, sure, but nowhere near the millennia trend going on in Rome. Definitely not my favorite place compared to Crazy Siena or my BFF Assisi, but it left me feeling nostalgic.

HOME AT LAST: A fourteen hour plane ride with more burning kneecaps from sitting still so long, and I collapsed that night well from sleep deprivation. Only after uploading my beta vid, as you have well seen.

But, uh...Grease has just departed today, in fact, from a week-long visit that began last Thursday. A visit of awesome proportions, involving watching The Road to El Dorado like, five times, providing new and, quite frankly, stoned voice acting for the N64 game Paper Mario, roleplay ideas, and the like. I am wallowing now that she is gone, because she is the other half of my brain and soul, but perhaps I shall stop wallowing soon enough to embrace you all with cuddles and fondness and cracks and get my lazy butt working on more videos. Finally.

The following are less like a gathered story and more like a collection of short stories and themes relating to the importance of the video (found here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bifMnE…). Feel free to interpret past whatever I've typed, and please enjoy.

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1. ZackxYuna: Love against all odds.

Beyond all reason, beyond even death itself, he swore to love and protect her. She waited for him. Worlds apart, and still they belonged with one another. Even as death waited inevitably, their bonds were forged.

2. RoxasxAlice: The imaginary safe place.

He was bubbly and blue-eyed and utterly fascinating beyond anything her composured tutor had ever mentioned in a boy or man. Together they would explore everything needed to satiate the sense of curiosity.

3. NamiNear: In spite of the distance.

Why he insisted on pushing her so far away, she would never know. Yet she would keep trying to reach him. He needed a friend. She needed him. In spite of all his harsh words and manners, she could sense the little boy still underneath the shell.

4. TsengxAerith: A long time in coming.

All their lives they had waited for the opportunity to be together, and now he was leaving her again. Did he not know she cared? Was his work more important? But he said he would keep her safe. She would await his return.

5. WilsonxAmber: I see the real you.

"Cutthroat bitch," he had decided, was an utterly inappropriate title for her, even without emphasis on the profanity. Merely a façade. She was cold and alone and scared. And she had loved him. Now he had to give her up.

6. SoKai: Home is where the heart is.

Idle summer days spent ashore, gazing at the sand, the sun, the waves. A special cave and secret place. Warm heartbeats, soft voices, laughter. Home was the place of childhood memories. Time had changed nothing. They were together again, now. They were home.

7. JimxAnastasia: Pride doesn't pay.

She hadn't remembered him. That's what he'd thought. All those years spent lingering after her like a lovesick puppy, playing children's games in a spacious castle, following her every whim--she hadn't even remembered his name. Not at first. Why was it that she had to linger on a dangerous precipice screaming for him before he could swallow his pride? No matter. He'd rescue her.

8. JadexAiden (MisoraxMinato): Chaotic neutral.

Far be it from her to grasp his temperament. Rash, impatient, ill-natured, and yet...so naïve. People weren't supposed to keep thinking they could care for someone. That's why tragedy, death, and despair continued to prevail in the world. It was the only thing that kept all else under a relative sense of control and logicality. Why did he have to ruin everything? ...Maybe because she did, too.

9. RikuxAshe: World-saving warriors.

At least now they were equal. They always had been, after all. Her royalty mattered to him not at all, possibly because he was already arrogant enough to suffice for prince of some neighboring country to Dalmasca. Equal in height, equal in strength. That was why they could journey easily together. And fall in love.

10. EdmundxLyra: We are the future.

People did such horrible things to children. Such horrible things in general. She couldn't comprehend it any longer. She had faced the worst of nightmares, the suffering, the torment, the unbearable tortures, and all by herself. Then he had come along. He had known what it was to betray and be betrayed. Perhaps they could fight together, to the end of all worlds.

11. JokerxRachel: You always want what you can't have.

Billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne, followed by the infamous, defiant, courtroom-savvy District Attorney, Harvey Dent. What was it this woman and her bad boys? She only wanted them so long as they were at the top of the totem pole, and currently he was top of her obsessions. He had to admit, she smelled like roses and lavender, and her large doe eyes were attractive. He wanted her. He also had a tendency to enjoy destroying everything he'd ever wanted.

12. LightningxNoctis: A formidable match.

He wasn't quite used to expression through words. Prince though he might be, that had never changed the fact that he was shy by nature. Girls had always been out of the question, until he had found this one who also seemed far more content to let her sword do the talking.

13. CloTi: Pain lasts as long as you let it.

She had gone insane. That had to be the explanation. She, Tifa, his childhood best friend and current live-in acquaintance, was out of her mind. He had seen her mad before, but never so livid as this. She had asked him to a training session which seemed more like an assassination attempt. He had been gone on another long absence, he knew, but... "You just don't get that I'll always be here for you, do you?!" she screamed.

14. SquallxRinoa: Oh, the places you'll go.

So this was what it was like to be happy again. To look up and see her face beaming down at him, with the vast expanse of blue sky behind her to match her dress. To be held in someone's arms while waking as flower petals drifted down like snowflakes. He had forgotten how much the worldview depended on one's state of mind.

15. DemyxxAriel: Waterlogged continues.

It was sort of like watching a kid in a candy shop. Here she'd come, down to her secret place to sulk accordingly and cry off her father's temper tantrum for the next month or so, but it was too hard to keep her attention off of him as he floated to and fro. He wanted to play her some music, and though she was inclined not to listen, his little bubble of happiness proved too contagious.

16. MelloxHalle: Look who's sexist now.

Guns and chocolate. That was all he could ask for in this life, and that was all he had wanted to die with. Women. Made. No. Sense. Especially not her, with her expertise in physical combat and advantageous skills in disarming her opponents. But she was helping him, for whatever reasons of her own, and because of that he couldn't simply ignore her. He could, however, tell her face-to-face that he'd rather have just had another chocolate bar.

17. House: Meaning and importance.

Life is important only so long as you're living. Living only comes around once, so far as anyone knows. That's why it's important to live life to the fullest. Vixen, by scaring you that horribly I feel like I did put you on a bus which then proceeded to crash and burn. For that, I apologize. It doesn't matter who's House and who's Amber; what matters is that we've been friends this long and will continue to be so. I would never leave you.

The sole purpose of my existence is to defeat Shadows. For that reason, I was given a personality.

...Unfortunately, my purpose defuncted. A machine is worthless if it cannot accomplish its purpose.

My creator once had great plans for me. DiZ. The man who made me with the intention of so much power. But when I faced difficulties so soon after completion, I was abandoned, the abilities planned for me deemed worthless and improbable of pulling through.

For many years, I shut down to the lowest of my available power, carried around as something of a rag doll, my consciousness dim. But my inner recording functions remained on during this time, as a basic self-preservation mode.

I cannot recall, exactly, when I next turned myself on to a state of full awareness. What I do know is this: humans, people, were being slaughtered in great masses. A serial killing of the century it was called. I can feel nothing, but I can recall. DiZ mentioned that many would die in the event of restoring the world to a better, more established order. Restoring it to justice. He said all worlds are better off without those who have committed infractions against goodness and justice. This too was to be my purpose, to enforce justice against those who would oppose it.

Unsure of my purpose now, awake, aware, but not alive, I studied these humans who had been targeted. All of them were...different. Male, female, quiet, shy, outgoing, happy, sad, some worse than others. Yet all were dead now. What difference should it make?

I passed my days in confusion, then disarray. Night was the worst, when the dangers in each world were such that I could not even walk around to pass the time. Then, I did what should have been impossible for one of my kind...

I began to dream.

In retrospect, it was only my stored recordings coming forth, but such at a time of unconsciousnes is quite like a dream. I dreamed of the dead ones, saw them alive more than any of my studies had made them seem. I did not simply see them; I knew them.

Could I have at one point been awake before? Capable of meeting these people as I was recalling now and then, later, having these memories temporarily taken from me?

The dreams worsened. I was somewhere I had no recollection of, aware within my dream that none of it was real. A foggy hallway led me further down, until I arrived outside a red door. There seemed nothing left to do but to open it.

There...the recollections sharpened. Softly, at first, as I watched the victims' lives play out. How delicate humans are, and yet believe themselves to be so strong. One boy continued to catch my interest in particular, such a simple, friendly face with such compassion. My vision hazed only a little whenever I saw him. I had to have known him, once. I wondered vaguely how DiZ could kill them, then paused to think that I could wonder at all.

Robots are not supposed to wonder. Are not supposed to be conscious.

The list of victims played out quicker then, and I saw all their faces at the moment of death. Each had handled it differently, and suddenly I recalled what it was that DiZ had planned alongside my creation...

Despair. Evil. Hatred. Fear. Grief. Jealousy. Vile, horrid feelings that twist the human nature around until life is no longer capable--such are all these combined into the being of Nyx Avatar, created around the same time as myself and meant to complement me. Now, apparently, he had taken more of the lead. DiZ had unleashed not justice, but something darker. Death itself, it seemed.

My awareness battled with my programming, which informed me I should not, could not, achieve emotions of any sort.

"There's no knowledge that has the power to change your fate," he once told me. "A nobody doesn't have the right to know. Nor does it even have the right to BE."

I considered these words, and for the first time, I was angered. Who was my creator to have brought me into existence and left me to decay alone while his vile creature wreaked havoc through primitive terror upon good people?

I sought them out. I dedicated a new purpose of my own. Consciousness grew within me where it should not have been able to. I traversed worlds, searching the source of the highest death, and came face to face with Nyx first, as expected.

It was not a pleasant meeting. This creature, this being who terrified humans, rattled me to the very core of my programming and gears. It was all possible awful things in every world gathered into one creature, and brought horrific memories of sacrifice, of love lost, of the friendly boy's selfless death, of all who had ever died.

I could have crumbled to bits and pieces.

But I didn't.

Somehow, some way, I pushed past. DiZ was mere feet behind the darkness, experimenting, going further. I was not surprised by this, but rather at the Shadows he now drew forth in Nyx's wake. The Shadows it had once been my purpose and responsibility to slay, now running amok without check.

I could not complete my purpose then, but now the times were different. Human emotions filled me. My guns drew forth, and I shattered them into oblivion, into light and nothingness. Nothingness not as I had once been, but the true place of no return.

DiZ seemed incapable of believing my actions. He scoffed at me, continued with his plans as though my arrival to the scene had never happened. I faltered. He believed me further incapable of stopping him. Of killing him.

Did I want to kill him? Could I?

My creator. The one person who perhaps should have been entitled to give me something, had given me absolutely nothing.

He was a lunatic. He was cruel. Nothing but a common criminal, a serial killer of so many who could also never return.

He seemed to grasp now what I was ready to do, yet his frantic protestation came too late.

My guns began to fire up, the bullet rounds pushing forth to my mechanical hands in full speed now. He backed away, looked up at me, yellow eyes widened in manic terror such as he had never known before.

"A machine is created for a purpose," I informed him calmly. "Mine is to defeat you."

The bullets pierced through his chest cavity as cleanly as a knife through butter.

Once upon a time, there were two children--a little boy, and a little girl. And since the little boy was eldest, it was his job to look after the little girl, and to keep her happy and make sure nothing should ever harm her.

The little boy didn't mind this job at all, because it meant he was able to spend time with this girl in general, and that was something he very much liked after all. She was so sweet and charming even from a young age, and often times watching her simply involved laughing and feeling that all the world was just a part of heaven.

But something strange happened: the little girl began to grow up. This made the boy very sad, but then, he had been growing up too. He just hadn't suspected the same thing would ever happen to the girl he had watched so diligently. As he himself became more stoic, more stern, more reclusive, he sat back and watched the girl mature. As a young woman, she was gentle and kind and unbelievably beautiful, and finally it hurt so much just to watch that the young man had to depart, if only for a little while.

The young woman was hurt by his departure, for she had grown used to his company at any time throughout her youth. But she lived. She thought of him often, but she had her church to attend to, with many flowers, and flowers needed constant care.

But one day, as she was enjoying a brief respite in a local café, the young man walked in, unaware of her presence until she spun to meet his eye. A sudden look. A silence, and a feeling of being somewhere else... And then they were themselves again, and she was bubbling forth to talk to him and ask him how he was. It turned out that the young man had had many adventures and was as upright and strong as ever, and she admired him for his tales. As soon as the conversation began to drift back to old times, however, the young man turned to leave and wished her the best of luck.

It hurt worse this time, perhaps because it had felt so wonderful to finally see him again. In truth, it had hurt him to leave as well, but he couldn't possibly tell her that. The woman chased after him, but too late, for he was gone into a sudden flurry of light snow, or rain, or perhaps both, and though the city was full of people, she could see him nowhere.

The precipitation seemed to clean the streets of muck and grime, bringing new life and new joy to the people going about their business, for snow was a sign of purity...

Heartbroken, the young woman stood back up through her grief, and prayed to her divinities for the sake of the young man. She returned to her church, worried for the wellbeing of her flowers in this unexpected weather.

The man was grappling with himself, between what was right and what was best and what he wanted most. It was obvious, really, but he could not, at first, accept the thought of what might happen. Say she didn't want him. Say she would have nothing to do with him after he had left so many times. Yet he could not shake his decision from his mind.

He walked back to her church, a place he knew so well from their childhoods, and slowly opened the door. There she was, amidst the flowers and the falling snow through the gap in the church roof. He knew her and he loved her.

She heard the opening of the door and turned, gazing stoically at the man she herself had grown to love.

He walked forward. She continued to gaze at him, saying nothing. And suddenly, they had kissed, and both were equally surprised for neither knew quite who had moved first. A smile from each...and love.