An Echo Resonates for Him--Chapter 4

[Tomorrow]

AN: This chapter tells you a lot more, but you still won't know everything. I'm thinking the next chapter or so will reveal the rest of the mystery, leaving the rest of the chapter for confrontation and resolution. Therefore, the next chapter will most likely be key. Who survived? Even after this chapter you may not know for sure *hint, hint.* Thanks everyone.

Disclaimers: I don't own Gundam Wing.


"Heavenly Father have mercy on my soul... it can't be..." the young one whispered in absence of those that now surrounded him as the woman beckoned them to come, his breath strangled within his breast to be uttered in only shaken gasps, trembling so from mistrust of his own sight; they, these specters condemned to saunter, had indeed returned to seek vengeance upon his soul, or so he could only conceive.

"You've... you... survived... and I'd, and I'd... never known," he continued in his astounded speech as their forms were released from the shadows' bonds to his sight as witness, the crevice where in his thoughts they had walked so shackled for day and night without a moment's respite from moan or scarred cry of damnation from eve paled in moonlight's gown of that very caress of murder to cross their skin, for his body shook at those disgusting forms that met him then.

They stood before him, yes, that gathering of five fallen men and women too in the same, just staring unsure at the child turned to man by time's oh too wicked kiss upon even baby's lips in whimper--saliva so poisonous as to taint an infant's bliss with the ignorance of years. Docile babe to sire a feral name as guilt even then seduced the boy's heart.

Gentle Quatre shed his tear at the child's suffering for their life, but only one drop could part from his lashes once fair and mild against his face; for one eye was sealed shut by swelling and flesh bruised both purple and black in union amidst the stain of blood from years ago left to saturate his brow--his lids hiding that his left eye was gone. Mud garnished his clothes to a brown dulled by the hour, perhaps even arid crimson in slash across his chest a residue as well, but still his face glowed with his compassion; a soft air even brutality could not dampen. Mrs. Dorothy Winner stood there by his side with festering gash along her cheek, pockets of puss and irritated, grimy skin soaked in the sweat of their journey causing her facial muscles to twitch in pain at the wound's burning; traces of her ribs protruded from her sinew so gaunt upon her shell of former self, her cheekbones so distinct in that darkness.

By Quatre's cry, Trowa shifted his weight unto his left side, for the right leg from knee down was completely missing--only a soiled bandage, once white but now tallow from exposure with blackened skin from an infection raging silhouetting the amputation and coated in scarlet now dripping from the removal at the wound's reopening, oozing scraps of marred skin to the floor of the shelter. His right eye, too, retained a scar, but much healed when compared to the Arabian's injury--this clown could indeed cry, would cry, and had cried his share of tears for their fate... waters he was thought never to shed.

Adin turned to the dark-haired woman, his Aunt Hilde, as she gasped at his age, and he in turn stifled such breath as his gaze fell to her in that silence reigning between them. Her arm was covered in blood, this red cobra strangling her limb that it swelled to a blushed hue amongst the night, for the scales of this crimson reptile painted her arm in designs so brilliant to the eye... but excruciating to the one choked and soon envenomed with its oh too lethal fangs. It hung limply at her side, most definitely broken, but her face was black as pitch, completely sodden with bruises imprinted by fists upon her once fair complexion--Dear Death could have been said to claim her that very night by her appearance.

A grunt from the Dragon brought the young boy's attention to Wufei, for the man's face contorted in agony as he tried so desperately to keep himself from crying out in the pain he felt--hand stretched protectively across his midsection. From his body as well, blood flowed from his flesh, that same serpent that cursed Hilde's nerves finding its mate along Wufei's stomach; but clearly the male had slithered unto the Dragon's skin, for even in the bleak aura of twilight the scarlet from the Chinese man's injury glowed with the throbbing it produced--perspiration glistening along his pale satin as the snake continued to spit its poison to the floor.

They were all that was left of the mighty Gundam Team.

Licking his lips before asking further, dampening the parched throat to release the words needing to be spoken, Little Adin inquired, "Uncle Duo..."

"He died from pneumonia shortly after the attack. He didn't even have a chance," Hidle answered him almost too bluntly for the tension that surfaced amongst them, syllables uttered so "matter-of-factly" as to be forced from her breast against the tears it seemed--her throat ached to allow them freedom, but will denied them that lust.

"Aunt Sally..."

"She treated him... and caught the damn disease herself," the Chinese man interrupted bitterly, seething against his own misfortune. "She died three days after Duo."

Then it hit him...

"Aunt Lucy, Uncle Milli... where are they? They <i>both</i> couldn't have died." He was desperate. Of all his "aunts and uncles," they were his true relations, a blood bond, an adherence faithful to his family by love inseparable, that held his sentiments for them in a special chamber of his heart. Perhaps they were just two more victims of his cowardice. Two more innocents slaughtered because of him.

"They were walking into the palace from the courtyard when the attack started. They got the brunt of the assaults... their bodies found mutilated in the debris... limbs scattered here and there. What one would expect from facing an explosion head-on," Trowa indicated to his "nephew" so clearly, doing absolutely nothing to mitigate this blow to the child--he always was silent and mainly objective in his approaches, and perhaps, under the circumstances, it was better that way.?

"Catherine died in battle," he continued to say, not about to let his Dear Cathy's memory fade in the mind of this former Cinq Prince. "She was deadly with her knives, but one time she tried her mark just a little too late; the man threw the knife back to its owner... hitting her directly in her temples. She died instantly... painlessly," he seemed to murmur in assurance to his own conscience at her death, for he too, as Adin was fated to endure, felt culpable for the demise of his darling sister.

"Your mother and father..."??

"No!" the child wailed through the emptiness of this cryptic chamber to something, even someone he but too anxiously wished to hear his petitions beyond this mortal realm--would not an angel come for him, fly him to another time and place to escape this pending dread at the knowledge of his parents' demise?--, clasping his palms over his ears to stop the words from pouring to his thoughts. "I won't hear of them! This can't be true... I <i>won't</i> believe it! You're all just tricks from my mind; you can't be here! I've suffered too long for you all to still be alive!"

"The world, Adin, has suffered as much as you... but that will change now," the Dragon spoke so dangerously to the prince against the wind's hushing of his lexis, stepping forward with a grunt to leave his breast at the child's mysterious expression.

"What... what do you..."

"We've been searching for thirteen years, Master Adin," the blonde woman whispered to the boy of his destiny, the rite he claimed at being born of Princess and Soldier, "and now it's time for you to take your place. It's time for you to unite the people's hearts against the Alliance that has taken the Earth and her sister colonies as hostages and set things back to the way they were. You must rescue the people from oppression, take back your fallen kingdom, and restore peace to this universe as your parents did over two decades ago. It is your duty and royal obligation."

This little soldier could only shake his head in disbelief at the insinuations she commanded of him, for his breath once more turned ragged at her implies, her tone laden with nobility in the cause he would fight for, to free this galaxy from the slavery it had endured for more than a decade in time. His eyes widened at her aplomb towards his hesitancy, the way her own orbs glittered with unyielding confidence for him--she believed in him... <i>they</i> believed in him, but he could not believe in himself... not after he allowed all of these souls to die in his name.

"Why do you pick me of all people to lead you now? Uncle Quatre would make a much better leader than I ever could.... I have never even been in battle."

"Because you are your father's son... your mother's babe!" Trowa insisted to the child quite forcefully in his will, not longer calm as his composure of only a few moments ago relayed--even the Silent Clown was becoming desperate for liberation from a warrior's carnage, in need of the greater existence he knew during that era of peace he helped before to obtain. "You have Heero's skill and determination, but Relena's heart to plead to the people... to give them hope. I see them both so clearly in your eyes, even though you've tried to lock them away forever in your own grief. They accepted Heero and Relena's quest to peace... and they will surely accept their son's.

"You remind them of what they fought for so long ago."

"You don't know what you're talking about..."

"The people will <i>listen</i> to you, Adin. The soldiers will follow your every command, just as they did your father! These rebels will fight seeing tangibly what the result of this war will be: you, the next generation fondled in an era of peace," Hilde pleaded against the lord's denial in her own exasperation, holding her arm as pain from the break shot through her veins straight to her head--her thoughts soon becoming too disoriented from the agony to continue with her persuasion.

Letting his features twist into sarcasm at her certainty of an encouraging result of his going to battle, leading the militia, Adin sank back down upon the mattress, the sheets flaring about his slight frame to hide true poise, and spat, "What do you think this is? What do you think my life is? This isn't some fairytale where the long lost prince of a great kingdom is found by his loyal knights at his side, nobly slays all aggressors, reclaims the throne in the name of his fallen parents, and the world hoists him upon its shoulders as the greatest hero ever lived.

"My father was a legend... my <i>mother</i> was a legend... I was a mistake, a mistake that cost them their lives. I changed my name long ago; I'm no longer a Yuy or a Darlian/Peacecraft. I have no last name, for I am only Adin... Bearer of Lost Dreams... Slayer <i>of</i> Legends.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not that little boy you left behind thirteen years ago. I'm nothing but his shadow... the darker side of his humanity, the phantom that haunts his dreams and revels in his nightmares. I can't help you... I can't go back," the abandoned child finished in hushes as he turned his face away--utterly ashamed of his cowardice... the loss of his parents' virtues that once resided within him buried too deep to resurface again, smoldered in the dust he died in that night... the walking dead.

"Then I guess," Wufei began, his gaze despondent as he watched the boy leave the hanger and head to the ruined church only three buildings down, "you weren't the child Heero and Relena deserved."

"I guess I wasn't," Adin replied with one glance back to his family, closing his eyes and ears to the cries of the women at his retreating steps and the sighs of men led to massacre by their allegiance... lost within the past of a child.

[Goldberry]

Eek! Such an eerie chapter! But, tell me something, am I crazy? Because it's not possible for them to still be bleeding from a war that happened years ago, is it? So, they were ghosts, or he was hallucinating or something? I'm really confused as to whether or not that was real but I guess we'll find out.

This whole story has such an otherworldly feel to it, it gives me delightful shivers to read it! I'm guessing a couple more chapters then? Till resolution? My absolute favorite time, by the way.

Great job, Tomorrow! Love it!
Berry

[kmf]

hmmm....Im a little confused at this point in your story. Where they ghosts? The wounds they had all sounded very serious, certainly life threatening. Im inclined to think that they didnt survive, but are haunting little Adin. Perhaps they cant find release until he acts?

Looking forward to reading more ^_^