Deep inside himself Gourry went away to where his heart beat was. Lumberous and toiling he heard each beat, lasting hours there where he was blind and dead and searching searching searching... Everything was gray and dying here, he could see with things beyond eyes, and still that wind blew and screamed at him. There was no Lina, yet he saw her everywhere, every where signs of her, the flash of sunlight in her eye, the scent of her, and the tickle of her hair on his cheek. But her, the one, she, gone and undiscovered. Hours and hours went by as he bled to death in seconds on the outside, time the enemy and Death the savior. Come and show me the way....
There appeared on the horizon, a black dot, like spilled ink, bleeding and seeping into everything around it. It stood tall, father-like over Gourry, even from that far away, and the first thought across his brain was: run. This was the one, and time had apparently run out. In the surceasless wind the black dripped and swarmed as the swordsman turned and stumbled away, not yet not yet not yet, he screamed over and again. I cannot fail her again, I WILL NOT! And away as fast as his feet could carry him he ran across a plain that never ended, praying for the horizon the swallow the one who had come for him.
The heartbeat still sounded; time was not spent yet. Time and again he tried to scream for her, but the name would not leave his lips. She would crash there at his teeth and lay limp on his tongue.
Gourry...? Gourry...? Where am I, Gourry...? In his head and all around him she echoed, a muted murmur, like she was under water, and he did not know where to look. Again and again he tried and failed to speak her name, as though the syllables were forbidden here, every other word free to run and fall in disjointed splendor in a place where colors had texture and taste, and words sought freedom to soar and die.
The heartbeat thundered on in it's slow time, deafening everything in his ears but he heard everything with his heart...
Gourry..?! GOURRY?! Panic in her now... and still the name would not be said. Behind him was a cold door that drew him towards the inquisitive being that was the Cutter of All Threads.. curiosity in this one who ran into himself only to run from Him....
EveryWhere and NoWhere summed up his life and existence perfectly. Perfectly flawed, he was looking now for the one person who had always understood him even when she hit him, and who had stepped forward to be the one that he could put first in his life. The one with the sticky, stubborn name, and the bleed of life in her hair. The heartbeats had slowed; time was draining in a red flood towards the spector in midnight blue and black that carried the one blade none could wield. His pulse ached in his wrists and he could finally feel those biting slashes in his arms that gurgled his life away as though he were merely dirty water down a drain.
Threads as fine and fragile as destiny ran in red spools from every part of him, first too fragile to be seen, their delicacy rare and shining here where nothing was calm and everything howled when it ran past. They tangled about him, slowing him down and wanting to pull him back to the life he was so steadily leaving behind, back out of himself and into the harsh glare of life that breathed and dies in your arms. Time was running out.
How long had he been in here? Minutes that had become hours and days... the threads trailing him, thick and unseeing in a tangible carmine shadow that twanged at the touch. They felt like sinew under his fingers, and would tear, leaving parts of him to gasp and die under a merciless popping sensation.
Time time time.. it seemed to echo drawn out like the heart beat that was his life and his watch at the same time. A sobbing now. He could hear her. Where was he? Inside himself and far far away from where his soul lived, there was a tension and hum in the air that seemed to vibrate to the tune of "Here be Dragons". The blank plain had darkened now, and the wind was a mournful sigh as his exhaustion prodded him foreword with sharpened blades.
Tunnel like and endless, he followed, silences becoming more and more startling as each heartbeat slowed down. Her name burned in his mouth each step he took, following the sobbing that was always the wind but sometimes a bit more than that. Deeper and deeper, not daring to look back into sockets that had never seen eyes and breathed coldly on his neck, a blade flashing so finely that he could see it backwards through his skull into the grip of another that had never known flesh. But red compelled him and he sought the fire in comfort and in grief and never before had a sobbing wind broke an already damaged heart. The spector spoke.
WHY DO YOU RUN?
I have to.
WHY?
Because.
EXPLAIN THIS TO ME, PLEASE. YOU DIE WILLINGLY BUT REFUSE TO GO.
He never faltered but ran on, towards Something, the tangled red a bleeding shroud to grieve for him. The heartbeats had stopped. He had lost.
And still he ran.
The One sighed, or gave that impression as he readied the Edge with a flick of and infinite wrist. They never learned. Time and again. One would suppose even immortal patience would start to develop a wear.
They came out in hordes. Give darkness a face and the first thing it does is stare at you. Penetrating nothing that wants to be like you, and failing that, make you like it. From everywhere darkness put on a face and went after the dying swordsman. Another like us they hissed, old blood a deep stain that chained them where they had last stood, the atrocity of their crimes awaking even the likes of the Lord of Nightmares with their cruelty.
Like dripping water they spoke in trickles and gurgles as they choked on their own guilt and eternity became a mirror to forever show them what they had turned their humanity into. Hands came from nowhere and went no where, black and dying, always dying, and they tried to catch around his ankles to trip him up and hold him down. Still her name burned at his mouth, painful in the heat and the need to be said, and her voice was shrill screaming now, trying to get away, to get to, to go somewhere. Confusion left a red haze in his tearing eyes and still stubborn lips would not part as a thousand black hands wrapped around him even as he screamed inside. Hands grew eyes and these black things that had died and stayed there sought two more to join them in their sufferings.
An eternal sigh sounded behind him, an odd exclamation that took no air and never would. He was afraid to turn around, more afraid than he was of the red threads so twining about him and the black that seeped into and around him.
THIS GROWS TIRESOME. And the blade slid free with a stylized hiss that promised infinity and release went hand in hand. A better view, it taunted, just on the other side of the shine.
"I CAN REMEMBER IT AS THOUGH IT HAPPENED ONLY TOMORROW...."
-- Death in Soul Music, by Terry Pratchet
"Oh they'd break the whole world if they thought it would make a pretty noise."
-- Nanny Ogg in Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett