Page Seven: Kings
“Is this all a dream?” Gon asked, as Lynn drove him back
home, the police finally letting him go after asking him
questions that he just didn’t know how to answer.
“Why did
you near the shooter?”
“Do you
have any connections with him?”
“Did he
say anything to you before he died?”
So many
questions, so much to Gon’s shocked mind. He didn’t know what to
say to them, he didn’t know what to think of them. All he could
do was stare at them, their faces a blur behind the bright
lights shone on him.
It was deep
into the night now, thunders and storm rain appearing out of
nowhere, welcoming Gon into the darkness of the night as soon as
he left the police station.
“Huh?” was
Lynn’s only response to his question, as she concentrated on
driving through the pouring rain.
“Would I even know if this was all just a dream?” Gon mumbled,
more to himself than to Lynn. “Ever since the untitled started,
reality seems to have started to lose its control.”
“Gon, what are you…”
“I
don’t know if I’m living in reality anymore, Lynn. Everything
that’s happened to me, the club we just went to, the persons
I’ve met, you…”
Lynn was silent as he said this, her hands gripping tighter on
the steering wheel that lead the car.
“Everything
seemed so much the same as the fiction that I once wrote.” As
his forehead felt the cold surface of the window glass, Gon let
out a sigh. His voice reflected confusion, fear, giving up.
“Maybe I’ve lost my mind, Lynn, maybe…”
“Let’s move somewhere else.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s live some other place besides this one. We
can start a new life there, and leave all of this behind. Even
the untitled. Maybe that’s what you need, Gon, to clear your
head and all…”
Gon
watched her silently as she said this, the rain dancing on the
rooftop of the car. “Yeah…” He replied quietly, as his eyes went
back outside again. “That would be nice…” Maybe a vacation
was all that I needed to get back to normal, Gon thought.
Maybe a vacation was the remedy to all this craziness.
They arrived home a little after 3:30 AM. The house seemed
gloomy under the gray sky storm. As they entered the hallway,
lightning flashed furiously, the door closing heavily with a
bang. They walked tiredly toward the living room, seeking a
place to rest.
As
Gon entered the room, the lightning flashed again, and as the
light illuminated the pitch-dark room, that brief second before
the thunders were absorbed back into the clouds, Gon saw
something on the walls that made him stop in fear. Lynn almost
bumped into him. “Gon, what’s wrong?” She asked, as she looked
worriedly at him.
Gon
didn’t respond, but just kept looking at the dark. She didn’t
really need to ask, for when the lightning shined again, Gon
knew that she saw it too, for she was now motionless in fear
also. As each lightning shined the writings on the wall, Gon
felt himself shaking as the words on the wall seemed to jump out
at him, every time increasing in size. Jumping, throbbing, at
the beat of his heart, moving in a perfect sync. The walls now
contained the words “tHE HeavEns anD Hells aRe Full, now tHE
stoRiEs aRE tHE sPiRits only ReFuGE”, written in red paint, over
and over again, throughout the whole surface of the wall.
“Don’t you like it?” Gon heard a rough voice laugh behind him,
as the lights went on inside the living room, blinding them for
a second, their eyes adjusting to the light. “I did this
specially for you, Gon.”
Gon
looked back at the voice, and was surprised to see a man with
ragged messy black hair, green eyes that blazed in the light, a
scar on his right cheek. This man looked like… “Rex.” Gon heard
himself whisper, as the man approached him with a smile.
“The one and only,” Rex replied. “That is the name you gave me.”
Gon
looked around, his eyes still surprised by the words printed on
the wall. “You… You were the one who killed Danny…”
“Cause and effect, buddy.” Rex smiled delightfully as he said
this. “We wanted you to finish the untitled, Danny was keeping
you. So… Well… I’m sure you can make the connections from
there.”
“‘We’?”
“Yes, ‘we’. Me, characters you created. Your God…”
“My
God?”
“Haven’t you noticed yet, Gon?” Rex said as he walked around the
room, his cold eyes staring at Gon the whole time. “All that
happened before was nothing more than the ascending action part
of the story, getting you ready for this, the climax.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You, my friend, are nothing more than a fictional character.”
“What?” Gon almost screamed out as he heard this, his heart now
beating faster and faster.
“You, and the world you live in, are nothing more than the
creations of your God, the author of this whole thing.”
Gon
felt his breathing get faster, heavier by the second. “You are
wrong. I am real.”
Rex
smiled. “The characters themselves are as real as anybody else
in their own fictional world, yet they’re only fictional
characters in the world of the authors who created them.” Rex
chuckled as he said this, his eyes looking up toward the
ceiling. “Who knows, maybe your God is nothing more than a
fictional character to his God, and so on and on, just like you,
who were nothing more than a character in your God’s eyes.”
“No, it can’t be right… You’re wrong…”
“We’re all just puppets on a little show, each controlled and
voiced by the same master. I am controlled. You are controlled.
We’re nothing more but fictional characters to the same author,
who created us and gave us the minds he wanted to give us.”
“That can’t be right,” Gon said, as he felt his hands start to
shiver, shaking uncontrollably in their own pace. Gon’s mind was
fried, too shocked to hold the rational reasons anymore. “It
can’t be… If that is correct, then how come I can’t control you,
put words in your mouth, since you are my creation?”
“Because a power higher than yours control us.” Rex smiled, his
eyes had a hungry look in them, like those belonging to wild
wolves in the deserts of the night. “ Once we cross to your
world, we become a level of reality that is equal to your own.
Right now, we are as powerful as you are, and you, as normal as
we are. You no longer control us, yet we’re both still
controlled by your God, who still is in a level higher than us,
who now writes scripts for what we act and speak.”
“That is a lie!” Gon yelled, fear still jumping his heart. He
wasn’t sure what to believe anymore, as he looked at Rex and
tried to sort everything out. “That can’t be true. You’re lying,
you can’t be really a character of mine. You’re probably just a
man who resembles Rex, and is crazy enough to think that he is
Rex. You’re not really Rex.”
Rex
laughed at this. Rex laughed at Gon. “It is amusing to see how
easily the reality inside your mind cracks. I am really once
your character, brought here by your God, a power superior to
your own, a God powerful enough to bring us to your level.
“The truth is, we really are also his creations, for He too
wrote every action and thoughts you made, every story that you
came up with. Maybe that’s why He’s able to cut out the control
you once had over us, for he is able to choose your fate, your
destiny.
“Every word, every action, every thought that we all think are
ours, are all really His. For He wrote them all with his pen and
paper, just as He wrote these words for me to speak, those fears
for you to feel, the silence that remains with Lynn. My words
are really His, as it is with your fear, and her silence.
“Don’t you see? All these words that comes out from me and you
are not really ours, but your God’s. Everything is able to
change if He wants to. Every character can change if He wants
to. We don’t really hold our own personas, but are just spared
by one that He gives us. Don’t you understand it, Gon? Don’t you
get it yet?”
Gon
felt like he was about to collapse, yet his legs held on, and he
was able to stay in his position. Then has anything I’ve ever
done mattered? Gon thought as his eyes looked at Rex, all
strength seemed to have seeped out of him, leaving him only
enough to stand there in the room. If not, why did I do them?
What was the purpose of it all?
“We wouldn’t have even known of your existence if your God
haven’t shown you to us.” Rex continued. “He was the one who
explained everything to us all, the whole workings of this
Universe…”
“My
God?” Gon whispered, his eyes blank, not able to focus well
anymore. “Then why was I so blind, that I wasn’t able to see
Him?”
“No
character can ever see their Gods, unless the Gods allowed
themselves to be seen by their characters.” Rex smiled once
again. “That’s how the Universe goes. He’s able to show you to
us, because he had a higher power, and was able to manipulate
your world any way that he pleases, including letting us come to
your level, and showing our God to us. Everything is manipulated
by Him. We have no will. We are all used by him, a purpose given
at the time of our creation.
“You have
finished your purpose, Gon. Now it’s time for you to end.”
Gon
looked up at Rex silently, feeling the cold sweat run down his
cheeks. “The only purpose that your God has given you,” Rex
continued, a grim smile flashing on his face, “is for you to
finish your untitled, and for me to put an end to His untitled.”
“What?” Gon looked up at him, his hands still shaking. “His
untitled?”
“Your fate was already decided when he asked our help for your
final climax,” Rex cried out, ignoring Gon’s question, as he
walked toward Lynn, who had been silent this whole time. He held
Lynn’s shoulder, shaking it a little as he continued. “Lynn
knows all about this too. Right, Lynn?”
She
said nothing, as Gon looked at her, not knowing anymore of the
world around him. “You’re wrong, Rex,” Gon said breathlessly, as
he tried to draw a confident smile on his face. “Right, Lynn?
Lynn?”
Lynn said nothing, but stared down at the floor, unable to meet
Gon’s eyes.
“You see,” Rex
continued, smiling, hands still holding Lynn’s soft shoulders,
“your God offered everyone of us a wish, as a pay for the jobs
we will be doing in this world. That is the only reason why He
brought us here to your world, to complete these jobs, parts
that we have to perform in your climax, His untitled. The wish
was like a salary for a well-done job, except that it was given
to us prior to our finishing the jobs. Everyone who accepted to
do this job got one wish.
“The wizard
chose to have a body, for the job of giving you a glimpse of
your fate. The killer asked to see his God, for the job of
causing a massacre in the club. I asked to become a writer
again, for the job of killing you…”
“Don’t Rex,” Lynn whispered in a soft voice, still staring at
the floor.
“Lynn’s job was to serve as your new charm, to keep you writing
the untitled, to keep you from Kara’s reach…”
“Kara?” Gon interrupted, as he took a step toward Rex.
“Yeah,” Rex laughed. “Your God kind of figured out that she
would try to get together with you again, considering the love
that she had for you. And knowing her character, he figured that
Kara would try to make you join her in the dead, so that you
could both be together again. If you die, nobody can write the
untitled, so somebody had to keep you away from her reach.”
“You’re lying…” Gon felt himself shaking as he said this, as
Lynn’s persistence to go with him on the trip to Danny’s funeral
returned to his confused mind. “Kara would never do anything
like that… She would never do anything to harm me…”
Rex
smiled at Gon’s reaction, as if enjoying every second of it.
“Love can make people do crazy things, even if this means
killing them, so that they can be joined together again. Take
Lynn for example, she did a crazy thing for love too.
“Lynn was in
love with you, the second that your God showed us yourself,
showed us about you crying about the Crystal Ball book
series death, tears for her and the world she lived on. She was
in love with the way you were yourself, and the love and
kindness you gave to everyone you know, even if they were just
characters you created for your fiction. Lynn wanted a
relationship with you. But there was an obstacle in that, so she
wished for it to be gone…”
“Stop, Rex…” Lynn whispered again, her voice almost breaking
into sobs. “Please stop, Rex… Don’t say anymore…”
“She wished for Kara to be dead.”
Clang.
The
sounds of trains, images of her death. All these flushed back
into Gon’s mind, as soon as Rex
finished his
words. “It… Can’t be…” was all that Gon could say, as he looked
up at Lynn, eyes about to let out the tears of his heart. “Can
it?”
Lynn didn’t reply. She just wept. Her tears just rolled. “Now
your purpose is done,” Rex whispered into Lynn’s ears, as he
pulled out the long knife from his back, and drove it through
Lynn’s back, the blood-stained tip of it now visible in Gon’s
eyes. Lynn gasped, her perfume flourishing in the room, as Rex
let the blade stay in her for a while, before he pulled it out
quickly, letting Lynn’s wounded body fall.
Gon
quickly caught her warm body, as he felt the warm blood wet the
clothes he was wearing. “No!” Gon cried out as he held her, sobs
shaking his body. “No!”
“How do I say, I am so sorry,” Lynn whispered in his ears.
“You don’t have to, nobody needs to,” was the only thing Gon
could think of saying, as he buried his nose in her long hairs,
tears falling without a stop.
“Maybe because you are too nice,” Lynn’s whispers were becoming
softer and softer, almost a whispering thought in the course of
the spring wind. “Maybe that’s why I can’t just say ‘I love
you’.”
Gon
lifted his head up, tears still falling as he saw her face once
more, their eyes looking deeply into each other’s souls. She
smiled, as he lifted one hand up, trying to wipe some of his
tears away. “You are crying again.” She whispered softly, her
hand was still warm on Gon’s cheeks. “You were the only one who
ever cried for me when I died, when my whole world was
cancelled, and we were left there to die… You were the only one
who ever cried for us… You were the only one who ever cared for
us…”
“Lynn…”
She
smiled as her hand slowly dropped down. “You no longer seem so
grown up.”
She
spoke no more, as Gon cried and buried his face in her chest,
sobbing, embracing her tighter, shaking, tighter. “Ah, that was
a nice fan service,” Rex chuckled as he said this. “I’m sure
readers are enjoying this little drama.”
“You think readers enjoy reading about people dying?” Gon cried
out angrily as he stood up, tears still in his eyes. “You’re
wrong! People are not as sick as you! People don’t enjoy
watching other people suffer! Watching other people lose their
loved ones…”
“You should know this better than anyone else, Gon.” As he
dropped the bloodstained knife on the floor, Rex smiled. “You’re
a writer. You should know what people love to read the most. You
should know how we manipulate their hearts and emotions.”
“You’re wrong… You don’t know anything… The only thing you ever
knew was how to kill people!”
“Wrong again, Gon. You were the one who killed them all.”
Gon
looked up at Rex, puzzled. “What?”
“I
never killed anybody, Gon.” Rex slowly rose his hand, and
pointed his index finger at Gon. “You were the one who decided
their fates. You were the one who decided that they should be
killed. I was just the puppet, controlled by the commands you
asked me to do. Just as your God being the one who manipulated
me to kill Lynn, to erase that character from his story.”
Gon
felt himself shaking again. “You’re wrong…” was all that he
could say, was all that came into his mind.
“It
doesn’t matter that much though, Gon, we are all murderers, we
all kill. We kill in order to live, animals, plants, lives, in
order to steal their life energy, in order to use that to extend
our own. We all steal in order to be alive, satisfying our own
needs, not caring if we take lives or not.”
“You’re wrong,” Gon felt tears in his eyes again. He didn’t know
why. He just felt them. Maybe they were written to appear by his
God. Or maybe because he had inner feelings, his own tears, his
own sadness. He wasn’t sure anymore. He just didn’t know
anymore. “We’re not that cruel, we’re…”
“Human beings.” Rex finished it for him. “You see, we writers
kill the most. Once a character has done his purpose in the
story, we make him disappear, make him die, take some easy way
out of the story. I mean, death is the easiest way for a
character to end, for then he wouldn’t have to suffer the
consequences, or the dramas and tragedies that his past actions
have caused.
“But your God can’t do that with you, you see, because you’re
the main character of this story, the world does revolve
around you. So he can’t end you with a cheap death,” Rex laughed
as he said this. “No, no, no. Readers wouldn’t like that.
Readers would despise that. So we have to give them a
satisfactory ending. This ending.”
Rex
pulled out another knife, this one a smaller one, shining under
the ceiling light. “Your God even went on to pick which knife
should be used for your ending, for we can’t have you die too
soon now, can we? So the knife we used on Lynn wouldn’t work on
you, because then you would just die too quick.
“You see, Gon, we are nothing more than actors in a stage, and
our scripts, our fates, are already written by the author, your
God. You see, that’s why you had to start the untitled, and I
have to finish it.”
“You’re wrong, there is no God!” Gon slowly backed away from
Rex, who now walked toward him. “There is no one controlling our
fates!”
“You see, the Heavens and Hells are full,” Rex continued,
ignoring Gon’s comments. “So once people die, the only way souls
can find refuge, is by becoming characters in a story. But like
humans, they want their lives to be recognized, to be famous and
remembered. That’s why you get so many images, Gon, because
everyone wants to be reborn as a memorable character written by
a talented writer, and you’re the best one there is, Gon.
“The worlds you create are real worlds lived by reborn souls,
every life is a real life, descended from the world you live in.
You are our God, our creator, the one who gave us our worlds and
lives. I was once a human in this world too, Gon. I was once
known as Nate Stakaite.”
“Nate?” Gon looked up at him, tears still running down his
cheeks.
“I
was a beloved writer once,” Rex looked at him with cold eyes
now, smile no more on his face, the knife still in his hand.
“Now look what you have done to me!!!”
As
Rex screamed this, he sank the knife into Gon’s side as soon,
pushing hard into it before he pulled it
out. “I was
killed because of you, Gon!” Rex screamed angrily as Gon’s hands
flew toward the bleeding wound, feeling the warmth of it, the
blood not wanting to stop. “I was sacrificed in order for you to
succeed! ‘A hero must die, before a new hero can be born’! Your
God killed me in order for you to become the main character of
the story, for you to become the center of this world. I was
killed by Him in an automobile accident, an automobile accident!
I was killed in the cheapest way a character could die, an
automobile accident! And it’s all because of you, Gon, all
because of you! If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have been
killed, I wouldn’t have to become your character!”
Gon
was so shocked now, that his mind shut itself in a total blank,
thoughts becoming now a blur instead of being clear. Rex’s left
hand grabbed Gon’s neck then, crushing it harder, Gon struggling
to breathe, trying to free himself from Rex. “Look at me now,
Gon!’ Rex cried out inches from Gon’s face, some spit dripping
onto Gon’s skin. “I am the most hated character in the history
of the literary world. And it’s all because of you! I came to
you because I trusted you to make me into a hero, a memorable
character. I came to you because I believed in your skills. And
what do you do? You put me in this goddamn stinking body!”
“Maybe that’s…” Gon struggled to say, his lungs screaming for
more air. “Maybe that is your punishment, for all the lives that
you’ve killed as a writer…”
Gon
saw Rex’s eyes widen, as he let out a scream of anger, and threw
Gon away from him. Gon felt himself swimming through the
invisible air, the cool currents surfing on the surface of his
body. It felt great, everything seemed so quiet now, as if he
was detached from the world, as if everything was calm again, a
dream, an illusion.
The pain in
Gon’s wound increased when he smashed onto his desk, the force
so strong that he slid on the wooden surface of his writing
furniture, before he fell off the desk, and crashing down again
onto the floor. Gon clenched his teeth as the pain pushed inside
him, a loud grunt of pain bursted out of his mouth, his teeth
unable to contain them.
The
untitled’s pages were now flying everywhere, knocked into the
air by Gon’s impact. He could hear the pages’ flaps in the air,
trying to float as long as they could in the freedom of the
flight, as Gon lifted his head up, seeing his face on the long
mirror on the wall.
He saw his body
lying on the carpet, Lynn, the now bloodstained pages of the
untitled, Rex laughing. “You’re weak now, Gon, writing has taken
too much spirit energy away from you in order to create worlds,
leaving you nothing more but the weak body you are now.”
He
didn’t know why, but he slowly got up, trying to think of ways
to escape this maniac. “Your God sure loves writing cliches,”
Rex cried out as his knife sliced toward Gon again, the sharp
surface of the weapon opening a wound on Gon’s face. Before Gon
could recover from the pain on the side of his face, he felt Rex
kick his stomach, driving him helplessly backwards. Gon’s feet
no longer touched the floor.
He smashed into
the mirror, the glass pieces shooting toward him, cutting into
his skin, more blood to be spilled on the floor. “I mean, that
whole scene you had before Lynn died,” Rex continued, advancing
toward Gon. “The climax with the killer under a dark and stormy
night, the murderer explaining everything that was a mystery
throughout the story…”
Gon
felt the broken glasses eat into his skin, as his body just
slumped motionless where he had fallen. He couldn’t move. He
didn’t want to move any more. “Kara…” he whispered, all that he
could think of now.
“You were just too happy then, Gon, a life so perfect that even
the Gods got jealous. Remember the first step of writing a
story, Gon? ‘Take a happy person, and change his life into the
most miserable one you can think of’. That’s what happened to
you, Gon. Your fate has already been scripted, and like actors
in a movie, there’s nothing you can do to change it.”
Gon
felt like crying, yet no sobs arose, no tears came out of his
eyes. He had no more tears to cry for the world. “Don’t you get
it yet? Haiiro and Guree, they both mean ‘gray’ in Japanese. The
untitled is nothing more than a story your soul will be reborn
into, when your end arrives in this world. Maybe that’s why you
felt depressed as you wrote it, for your unconscious knew the
truth behind the untitled. Once I take over your life, your God
will allow more characters to seep into this world than the ones
already here.”
Rex
smiled as he lifted his knife, getting ready to proceed with
Gon’s end. “Now which kind of conflict do you think your life
is, Gon?” Rex asked as he leaned toward him, a smile still on
his face. “Man vs. Nature? Man vs. Supernatural? Man vs.
Society? Man vs. Man? Or Man vs. Self?”
“I
am not a character!” Gon cried out angrily, as he grabbed a
piece of the shattered mirror, and drove the point into Rex’s
right eye. The knife fell onto the ground, as Rex screamed out
in pain, trying to pull the glass out of his eye.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” Rex cried out, as he stumbled
aimlessly, blood spurting out of his destroyed eye. Gon breathed
heavily now, both in fear and anger, as he picked up the knife
that Rex dropped, and struggled to get up to his feet. The wound
on his side still screamed as he moved, yet he ignored them,
using all of his strength to get up.
Was anything ever real then? A voice screamed inside Gon’s
head then, as he slowly moved through the space of the living
room, walking over the body of Lynn, following the killer who
exited with a broken eye. Was my life even real? If it
wasn’t, what was my purpose to exist? If everything was fated to
happen, then why did I bother fighting for it? Is love really
just an illusion of the mind?
Screaming, the voice continued screaming, not
wanting to end, questions continued to pour into Gon’s head,
crying, yelling, talking, whispering. Was anyone ever real?
Was Kara, Nate, Danny, or any of my friends… Were they real?
Were they? Am I real? Am I real in this world? Were they real in
this world?
Yet, a voice, a different voice from Gon’s own, a voice from far
away, origin unknown, answered Gon when he asked those last two
questions, about the reality of himself and his friends in this
world. The voice whispered “Yes…” before it went away
again, leaving his mind alone, the question sea slowly draining
out of his mind.
Rex was near
the glass doors to the backyard when Gon found him, the glass
now gone from his empty socket. “You’re wrong!” Gon screamed out
madly as he rushed toward Rex. Gon didn’t know why, or why they
were there in his head, but he felt as if he had lost his mind,
wanting the end of all this. “There is no God! There never was a
God!”
Before he knew it, they had both smashed through the glass
doors, falling onto the grass, the heavy rain pounding them
both. “This isn’t a story! This is a real life!” Gon screamed as
he drove the knife deeply into Rex’s chest, lightning crying out
as he did so. “If this is a story,” he pulled out the blade,
“then how can you explain all the wars,” he stabbed. “The
famines,” pulled and drove it in again. “Plague,” stab.
“Murders,” one more wound. “Unnecessary deaths!” Blade entering
the flesh again. “They all broke the rules of a writer!” One
more stab. “All those people died without a reason! All of them
died without pushing anything further in this story!”
Rex
was now spitting out blood, as he smiled once again, the red
color staining his teeth. “The… Last rule… for writing a story…”
He strained to say, as his blood mixed with the raindrops under
the storm, “learn… all the rules… and… break them all…”
“You’re wrong.” Gon felt his tears surface again, as his hands
gripped tighter on the handle of the knife, not moving it
anymore. His tears now mixed with the falling rain, not knowing
whom they belonged to anymore. “You’re wrong…” He sobbed,
shaking again, unable to stop. “I proved you wrong. I broke the
script that God gave me. I changed the fate that was given to
me. I proved you wrong. I am not a character. I changed my fate.
I am a real person. I chose my fate.”
“Did you?” Rex asked as he struggled to speak his last breaths.
“Or did your God… just change… the ending of… your life?…” |
