Living in a Legacy [ON INDEFINITE HIATUS]

Chapter Ten: A String Baited With 'If Only'

He had no control and he hated it. It was this terrifying sensation, one that stemmed from lack of control all of his life. 

Suddenly his arms were not his own; his limbs now belonged to someone else, and they didn't seem to want to give them back to him anytime soon. It was twist after twist after sickening movement that was so unlike any he had ever done before. 

It was excruciating at first, so painful that he wanted to scream, except his body was no longer his--it had changed ownership--so the primal expression of fear and anguish could not escape his throat. Instead, it thrashed around within his chest, his instincts to fight kicking in at once but being restrained no matter how hard he fought against the unseen force. The sensation stifled him, dragging him down, farther and farther, until the light was only a speck.

Screams unsaid, words unspoken, swirled around him, enveloping him in a writhing mass of terror. The feeling was so new for him, for all of them, that no one knew how to react; no one had the skills to fight back. 

If only...

It was loud there, in the darkness that consumed everything in its path, but at the same time covered in a sticky-yet-smooth sort of silence, like the kind of paper you might use for a fly trap. It coated everything and everyone until the only sounds were the desperate thoughts bouncing around in his head, struggling to free themselves but failing. 

After a period of time he knew not how long, he eventually grew numb, and cold, and relaxed into the abyss of denial. It was peaceful and soon the hard edges gave way to only smooth corners; if someone had punched him he would not have felt it. Disconnected was the word, yes, that was how he felt. Disconnected from the reality he had once belonged to, disconnected from everything, all at once. 

And it scared him. Except, he was too numb and frozen to truly acknowledge it, so he shoved it away and watched it wither. He could not afford to be scared; there was no extra space for fear here, after all. It was a darkness that stretched out as far as the eye could see, but only had enough room for a single person. 

If only...

The single thought echoed in his head, dipping in and out of consciousness, and just when he thought he had reached the end of it it flitted away, back into the shadows. It was nothing more than a whisper of a thought from a mind that had once belonged to him. 

And then, all at once, a sudden surge of alertness washed over him, coating him from head to toe, and his eyes opened, though he soon wished he hadn't seen what lay beyond the safe, welcoming space of nothingness. 

He could just barely register the pain spiking through him and the remnants of a deal wearing off; feeling seeped through the cold floor and into his skin but he was too weak to take any real initiative. 

Instead he simply lay there, watching as his father fell. He collapsed to the floor just before his aunt did and they lay there, unmoving. His sister and his brother and his cousins and everyone in the room fell, one by one. 

They were like a stack of dominoes to these people, tripping over each other one after the other and never getting up again. 

Only a small part of him could feel the tears pricking his eyes. 

This was all his fault, somehow, all his fault... even his mother had been felled. Knocked out like it was simply another step in their cruel game; as if his entire family were just pawns Pai Sho. Perhaps they were. 

Except, not him, because no one took into account the child who was the weakest of them all. He had training, he had age, he had experience, if only...