❝
As Callan grabs her hand, the shaking does not stop. It intensifies, and as the words creep into his head, his world transforms.
No longer was it a bar, no longer was it night time. It is mid-afternoon.
Rain doesn't pour overhead; this is not a romance where the weather breaks due to life's turmoil. No, it remains unceasingly, unendingly indifferent to the plights and miseries of those beneath its brilliant sun.
"Wait!" He hears himself scream in the distance before the soul of the past collides with his present.
The handshake turns into a grip. Callan holds tightly onto a wrist, his body weathered from running. Five years of inactivity, smoking, and alcoholic binging render a mere hundred-meter run across the street a difficulty.
Beneath a parasol of white shadow and trailing apricot blossoms, the woman turns around. She has crystal green eyes, hair brunette, with flecks of blonde underneath it. She wears a dress of trailing white, a halo of gold sits atop her head. The taxi cab that she was about to leave in was no taxi cab at all, but a chariot of time and space.
Callan's mind screams at him. Six different parts of his brain run simultaneous processes to find a way to say something to her. But the words are stuck in his throat.
Gem stares back at him.
"Cal?"Callan pauses, looking into her eyes.
"Hey." He utters, defeated, unable to find a way to speak to her.
"Hey." She replies, her voice non-descript, neutral, discomfort is the undercurrent, a need to leave, to say the things she has to say in order to get away from you as quick as possible. She offers a brief smile as she gently shakes away his hold on her wrist.
"How are you doing?" He asks her.
"Things are going really well," she states, idly twirling a strand of hair that glows, each twist sending off sparks of golden light.
"Balancing between romance and work has been rewarding, especially with Lio and Tony involved." Her eyes turn towards Callan, the light and the smile that she had formed from her thoughts fade slightly as she regards his unkempt hair and awfully shaved chin.
"How are you, Cal?""I'm dying." Callan replied,
"In Maractus. The place where we were, my mind is being poisoned. I'm trying to save Elly. That's why I'm seeing you.""Elly? Elinor Anderson? My replacement, you mean?" Gemma puts a hand under Callan's chin, lifting it up, turning his face to the right.
"You're bleeding from the lip, and you have lipstick on you."Callan pauses,
"A mistake."Her eyes bore into Callan, a quizzical brow raised.
"Of course. Now... if you don't mind..." Gemma releases her hold on his chin, the gentleness of her touch leaves him, forever.
"Where are you going?" Callan asked. Knowing full well the answer. It had played in his head for so long, yet he had never been able to stop himself from saying those words and opening the wound again.
"I'm sorry. I just don't have the time to..." She purses her lips, pausing her words as she looks at her chariot, then at the luggage beneath them.
"To tend to my emotions." Callan finished. Leaving an audible, exasperated sigh from the holy figure.
Callan inwardly chastises himself. Her robes flow in the wind, wrapping gently and smoothly against her body, breaking the silence between them.
"Anyway..." She whispers, her eyes break away as she stares towards the cab.
"Where'd you get the halo and robes?" Callan utters, attempting to break the silence, to stop her from leaving.
"No, Cal." Her voice is gentle,
"I'm not wearing a robe, and I don't have a halo. Let's... let's not get into that."Silence.
"Gem... please..." Callan urges.
"Cal... I can't linger for another talk, not now," she implores, her gaze weighted with heavy sorrow.
"I have a flight to catch. I really need to leave." She takes a breath and stares into his eyes,
"Honestly... every word in the English lexicon, we've already said to each other. There's just nothing now, it's all gone.""I have to go... Cal," She begins to levitate, backwards towards the taxi cab.
"I have to go, and I'm leaving Hoenn with Lio.
We're going to Unova with Tony, where light, life and happiness await us.
And you will have to be alone, in hell forever. That's just how it's going to be.
And no amount of you being on camera, being on stage, plastered on the billboards, is going to change that.
I will think less and less of you every year.
Weeks go by without you in my thoughts. I look at your billboard and advertisements, and they're just... there. Existing, out of perception. Soon it will be months, and then years.
Soon... Lio will have a brother, isn't that great, Cal?" She smiles staring into Callan.
Her eyes are full of distance. Her eyes are in an apartment, over the sea, a weight on her stomach as she beckons Lio to hear the gentle kicks of the feet in her womb. A giggle escapes her, light pours through the apartment like golden rays, the background is Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven," softly emanating through a wooden radio. A broad-shouldered, firm-jawed man with a thick beard and glasses presses his lips against the crown of her head.
Her hands snake upwards towards the husband and he manifests, and they are no longer in the dirt strewn streets of Mauville, but a beautiful, modern apartment with ivory white walls and honey-gold wood.
Callan is no longer in front of her; he is sucked backwards, outwards, growing ever distant, he is watching life play out. He is drowning, sinking into a pit of meaninglessness, taken from him.
Stop... please... Callan struggles against the counter, tears and spit run down his face, nausea rolls over his body. His hand is reaching for something invisible, the tumbler he had long knocked over.
"Don't leave..." He utters, the energy to scream has left him.
Don't leave me here to die, in this godforsaken region.The world swirls, slowly around him into black, a comforting presence. Absence, void, utter annihilation. The white shadow that creeps around him churns, sputters, and struggles to escape. Red eyes stare into an abyss, and from it, red eyes stare back.
"It will never end. The world will never care. It has forgotten you. The universe collapses around you. Your coworkers despise you. The people you live with do not understand you.
You are alone, and the world is blind to your pain. So make them see."Make them see. Starting with the one responsible.
From the depths of the abyss, roll of wood. Callan slowly lifts himself from the pitch black ground, a single brush lay in front of him, its ink dyed deep red. The wood unfurls, slates bound together by a coarse rope. Upon its slats, names, deeds, historical horrors.
Callan slowly picks up the brush. Ruination beckoning him forward.
Her eyes didn't miss a moment of his hesitation. Every tremor in his hand was quietly filed away, yet another secret she intended to keep.[break][break]
PATISSERIE HM RP
