Finding Hearts (Nanowrimo Entry)

Finding Hearts Ch.6

*AN: Yosh! I wrote 5k words today. It may not sound like a lot, but it takes me a while to write so it's a pretty big sum for me at least ^.^ But i had a nine hour car drive down to visit family for thanksgiving, so i had plenty of time (not that I spent all 9 hours) xD More than this is done, but i can't post it yet because it wouldn't make sense to unfinished. God, I'm so over these samurai, they'll be back later, but right now i just want to get Fan and Lirin to Val. Curse my meandering story telling! oh well, it feels appropriate, but don't worry, things'll get more interesting once Fan and Lirin get going. I...just...need...to...get...there...-.- ;) Once i wrote a story about a girl who fell from a cliff and i decided i had to describe her injuries in detail. it was pretty gory, this one not so much, and i dont think it's as good, but hopefully you feel at least kind of bad for poor Fanand all her pain ;)

Lying flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me, and an unbearable hollow sensation growing in my chest, it was all I could do to stay conscious. I had a terrible feeling that I wouldn't live much longer and I knew instinctively that it would be all over the minute I closed my eyes. But even that was a losing battle. My breath was starting to return but it was shallow and taxing, coming out in increasingly quick pants as my panic grew. My entire body was near immovable, like it had turned to stone, and it ached profusely all over. There was a hole where the man had ripped my lifegem from my chest, a pulsing gash that painfully exposed the inner parts of my body, and it was bleeding everywhere. Unable to move, my body had been baking under the boiling sun for hours, in the same position they had left me in. My skin itched as the blood spread and dried in the hot sun, sticking to my body like a coat of sand.

The samurai had held nothing back in their assault. I'd still been digging out gems when they'd found me. I'd been stupidly, completely oblivious and when they'd spoken to me, instead of running I'd simply frozen with fear, utterly incapable of rational thought in my surprise. After all, it'd been my first time laying eyes on a human. Of course, I could've lived my whole life without meeting them. They'd seemed peaceful at first, but that hadn't lasted long once the blond haired male had spotted my jewels. I'd been stunned when he'd said he wanted to kill me, and I'd continued to stand there like an idiot. Only when all three of them with swords in hand had come at me had I fled.

I didn't get very far, though my instincts had finally kicked in, it made me no more competent and running for my life, trying to lose them in the forest of palms, I had caught my foot in the underbrush and fallen flat on the ground. Within the time it took me to recover, knocked silly, the humans had caught up and began kicking at me. Unlike me, they wore hard materials on their feet, harshening the blows and leaving me unable to stand. I'd curled up into a ball and could only try to block out the continuous pain. I'd vaguely felt one of them rustle the gems from my arms, but I had no strength, there was nothing I could do. After what seemed like an immeasurable amount of time, my entire body reduced to a mess of aches and pains, the blonde man had picked me up by the neck. For a minute we stared at each other, and I pleaded silently for any kind of mercy, but his eyes were so cold. In an instant, he'd ripped away my shall and his hand had come into contact with my lifegem. I'd never felt so vulnerable in my life, his hand was so casually on an area that had never been touched. I didn't fully comprehend what he planned to do until I felt him pull,

hard.

My eyes had rested in horror on his fingers as they'd dug into my flesh viciously, finally realizing his intentions. And then with one more violent tug, the very thing that kept me alive was pulled carelessly from my chest. I'd looked from his hand, splattered with my blood and holding my gold heart, tainted red, to the newly made hole in my chest, pinkish and squishy, leaking blood, and back to his hand again. The minute he'd torn it out I'd felt something more than blood trickle out of me, and I'd finally realized it was my life force. I'd suddenly felt so empty, like my soul had been sucked out as well. The pain I'd felt in that moment, the pain I still felt, was like nothing I'd ever experienced. It encompassed everything and left me ready to shove one of their sword's in myself just to end it. I'd let out a scream, one so powerful and far removed, that I hadn't even realized it was me at first. The blonde man had thrown me then, needing his hands free to cover his ears. As I flew through the air, I'd caught the black haired woman's eyes and they'd held pity for me, though it did me little good. They'd left sometime after that, I couldn't remember when, all I could do was writhe in agony. I'd felt as if I was truly losing my sanity.

Hours later, my mind had settled itself, but everything else had merely gotten worse. Straining, I managed to move my eyes downwards with great effort, and even half blinded by the sun I'd been staring at endlessly, my impaired vision couldn't hide the wretched state of my body. Left rotting in the sun, I could see my almond skin had turned purple and blue, grotesquely swollen and covered in wounds. Where the women samurai had tried to gut my stomach were several cuts, long and deep, that had turned a sickish grey color. Simply seeing it had me retching, waves of pain radiating through my body as I heaved. Unable to even turn my head, the bile flowed down my chin and came to rest on my chest, stinging my cuts and adding to my discomfort. The parts of my body that had managed to escape the barrage were not so luck against the rays of the sun, and had blistered and burnt.

Though Kappa were made for desert conditions, we lived in caves and spent much time in the water of oasi. Having similar outer anatomy to humans, our skin had no protection against the cooking heat and long exposure to the sun was not something we could withstand. The heat it radiated, turning the sand beneath me to solid fire, was so intense that I was sure I would eventually burst into flames.

I had no delusions that I would survive this. Seraph had told me stories about Kappa losing their lifegem's, how if the pain alone didn't kill them the hole would grow until it swallowed them whole. I was almost grateful that I wouldn't last long enough to has such an experience. And while today had been my first time seeing a live human, I'd come across a set of their corpses before as a young child. I'd seen what the desert had done to them. They'd most likely died from the intense heat or lack of water. The sun had then turned them into shriveled and brown shells, cooking them through and through. Seraph had made me sit and watch the process over several days. On the second day they turned black and on the third they went up in flames. All that was left was blackened ashes, ashes that the sands soon swallowed. Seraph had told me a myth that the deserts had been formed from the dust of many people, burned under the wrath of the great goddess. The sands were so unforgiving that I wasn't so sure it was a myth at all. They swallowed things whole all the time, just as they would soon swallow me. The pain had yet to kill me, but if my injuries did not, which was unlikely, the sands would. I could only pray that I died sooner rather than later. It was a morbid thought, but I had no desire to burn.

I could only wonder what I had done to deserve such a fate. To my knowledge I had done nothing wrong, but still it was as though all the might and fury of the gods had been turned against me. I could only think that it was my fault for not being a better adult, for failing in some crucial way and that this was my penance.

As new emotional pain joined the physical, guilt and shame suddenly ran rampant within me, the two amplifying each other and I found it was all too much for me. My eyes began to forcefully role back in their sockets, my breathing all but stopped, and I knew this was my end. Even my regret was fading, fading with the rest of my soul.

It was terrifying to realize that in but a few moments I just wouldn't exist; my entire being would be lost among the sands, forever forgotten. It was even more horrifying to know my life had been meaningless, I had done nothing of any value, and I would never have the chance. What awaited someone after death who had no worth? Some sort of hell as the humans believed? Or perhaps simply nothing, a reflection of what I'd accomplished in life. But however scared I was, there was nothing left to do, no way to save myself. All I could do in my terror, the last strings of life snapping before me, was call out to Seraph one last time in desperation as I faded away,

"SERAPH!" He wasn't with me anymore, but he needed to know, I needed him to know how sorry I was.

"I'm so sorry, so sorry Seraph...I tried, I really did, but I failed, I couldn't be who you wanted me to be, I couldn't be anyone of worth at all. I let you down. I let myself down. Please, please don't hate me, I beg you. I'm so, so sorry...."

But as much as I knew I didn't deserve it, I wanted to live, I wanted to make Seraph proud, I wanted a second chance to atone, and so I couldn't help but plead with him as well, no matter how low it was.

"Please, please save me! I want to live! I want to be everything you imagined! It can't end here! Seraph!!"...

But it did end, and just like that, the darkness I'd kept at bay so long finally consumed me. My eyes closed, my mind stopped, and the pain at last ceased.

I was no more.