Beyond the Horizon

24. All Wrong

Nezumi sat on the edge of the bed in his childhood bedroom and stared into the dark. It must have been the early hours of the morning by now, but Nezumi hadn't tried to sleep.

          Despite all the happy memories he had in this room, he didn't like being in it again. The room was suspended in time—a time before pain and loss had touched him—and it hurt to look back at this snapshot of innocence through the tired, jaded eyes of the person he had become.

          The bookshelf his father had built from the trees out back, and that his mother had managed to scrounge up one shelf worth of books for, looked tiny and forlorn, the corners of its novels nibbled by rodents and the merciless passage of time. A brown layer of dust coated the toys dotting the top of the bookshelf. His parents never had much to live on at any given time, and Nezumi stubbornly refused to allow them to waste their money on toys for him; Nezumi himself had whittled the dinosaur and mice figurines from sticks and stones he found in the front yard.

          Shion had taken his parents' room, just across the hall.

          Nezumi scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned.

          How could he have tried to erase Shion's memory? What a dick move. Stupid, desperate, heartless. He wasn't helping Shion, he was protecting himself. From the pain of his impotence; from the panic that had taken root in his heart when he saw what Shion was truly capable of; from the responsibility of comforting and reassuring the boy he had grown to love.

          Nezumi was so good at running and shit at everything else. He knew he couldn't get away with simply erasing his problems forever, that one day, he would have to face them head on. And that day had come.

           But even now he wanted to erase Shion's memory and his horror with it. He was pathetic and lost and he couldn't think of another way to make things right.

          Shion was so broken. He was even farther back than he was when they started. Before, he was scared of what he might do if he lost control. Now he knew exactly what happened when he did, and it was worse than anything he could have imagined. Nezumi couldn't take seeing Shion hurt again, or angry to the point of regret after the damage was done. Nothing was worth that. No matter how much Nezumi wanted revenge, he would not pursue it at the expense of Shion's sanity.

          Besides, what had his hatred brought him all these years? He never got any closer to Horizon Labs, but they were closer to him all the time. He couldn't even fight them anymore; the scramblers prevented him from bending their minds, and their weapons kept him from attacking through physical force. In the last year, he had been reduced from a threat to a snarky sitting duck.

          That was why Nezumi had chosen to bring Shion into the fray: to have more power, to feel like he had a chance again. But it was all wrong. Nezumi couldn't watch Shion destroy himself and others in the name of his fruitless cause.

          There was no fighting the Lab—not alone, and not together.

          Maybe they should just stop. Forget about fighting the Lab and go into hiding, like his parents had. They could run away to a far off place and make the most they could out of the years. Maybe, if they stayed far enough away, if they were really careful, they would never be found.

          They both knew the consequences of getting too friendly with people now, so they wouldn't make the mistake they made with the Yoshidas ever again. They wouldn't accept kindnesses from others, and would only rely on each other.

          Yes; Nezumi could imagine it. They would go south, somewhere it never got too cold and the air always tasted crisp and clean on their tongues. They'd find a house that had been abandoned, and Nezumi would grumble about what a shithole it was, and Shion would insist they could fix it up nice, and for a few weeks they'd pour their blood, sweat, and tears into making the house into a home. Long weeks of quiet comfort would follow. They'd read books and bicker and fall asleep wrapped in each other's warmth, and slowly the fearful memories would ebb away and be replaced by new joys. The Lab would be forgotten for six months, a year, two years: a bruise that never healed, but that throbbed less with time.