Prologue - Nothing to Something
Kiss Me to Remember Me
B_25
Beat. Silence. Beat. Silence.
In the nothingness came the sounds. The span between them only a few seconds. Other times it was moments. Sometimes it was longer. Harder to endure. An infinity of composed of nothing.
Waiting.
Hoping.
And in the darkness came not light but distant warmth. Outside this sphere of oblivion was a connection touching from outside of it. Warming it. Something of it phasing through, creating something into the nothing... allowing something to be.
Wake up.
That voice.
Did it come from inside or out? It was hard to tell, hard to think, challenging to summon anything concrete. Existing. He was existing. And he was a he. But who was he? What was he? What was even here? Something bound within nothing. No shape and no form. Yet somehow there.
Wake up to me.
Waking. What did that mean? Just how much did it imply? He was something in nothing and needing to wake up. Did that mean leaving this place? Of returning to something more? Of becoming something again? Asleep. He must have been sleeping.
Please. Just... wake up. Please, Spike.
Spike?
Please wake up.
Something felt right about that word. Spike. That was him. He was something. He'd been asleep, away from whatever he was, who he was, everything he'd been before sleep. It was something he lost upon closing his eyes. But in opening them again—he would return.
If only he could open his eyes.
Brightness blinding and sounds deafening. Hyper-sensitivity to sensations rendering scales as obsolete. Everything ached and everywhere pained. Whiteness like snow devouring his vision. That sound again.
Beat. Silence. Beat.
His form shuffled against the sheet as his body wiggled beneath it. Moments passed before the blurs and haze could fade from his gaze. Few more blinks, each slow and sore, but clearing his vision the same.
Thin blankets covered his body to the end of the narrow bed, two set back to back, allowing him to fully put out his legs. His back was at an incline. Plastic railings stood like guards to the mattress. Sunlight kissed the floor to the right, only a patch, blocked by drawn blinds.
One thing, however, earned his attention. Something noticed from the start but not examined until the end. Over his body was laid the head of another. White though with purple hair. Two arms crossed with its cheek pressing against it. No more than a blob of alabaster... until it defined itself into her.
So this is what it feels like be alive.
There was something about her unable to be explained. Half of her face was exposed upon sleeping on its sides, cheek pressed over stacked, delicate hands of slender white fingers. One eye closed and the other obscured by the rolls of her violet hair—wispy to his eye.
Something else was there. Pain. Hurt. Sadness. The three composed intro a mixture and settling across an unconscious expression. Who was she? Why was she hunched over a chair and sleeping against the bottom of his chest? And why... did he feel calm?
Spike lifted an arm, feeling it move, but seeing no such thing. Glancing to his left shoulder, white bandages densely hugged his frame. He lifted his other arm, exhaling, seeing it float before his vision. There was a claw at the end of it.
Reptile?
He clasped the claw over his left shoulder, pain splashing out from the impact, tender nerves caused to swell again. Spike bit his lip—but slid his claw down. Over the shoulder and following it... until it pushed through the hollowness of the bandaging.
There was nothing.
Spike's muzzle turned back to the woman using his beaten body as a pillow. He lifted his claw toward her and nearly scaring himself. He was so big, and she was so small. Not quite delicate. Fragile didn't suit her.
But currently. She was something close to it.
Despite the countless reason to call or cry or scream or anything of the sort, no matter his mind was blank and body was in pain and his vision going astray, the stranger in the familiar body gently plucked the hair out from over the lady's eye—tucking it beneath her ear.
Perfection.
If his breathing wasn't already strained, a breath would have been lost, doubtlessly, upon seeing her face. Its subtle perfection in every aspect drew out his soul. Spike didn't know why he felt so strongly for this stranger. But pain and confusion meant nothing within her proximity.
But something didn't feel right. There was an intense feeling to leave about Spike. That he didn't belong here, that his existence here was wrong. Holding a claw to his missing left-arm, he bore the pain, anyway, to touch the place once carrying something.
The dragon grasped at the missing appendage for a second, enduring the shock of pain, a thing keeping him awake. It was something more than that. It let him he was still alive. Still breathing and feeling. Where everything else was distant and weak—pain was immediate.
And so was her warmth.
Dropping his head in a second's thought, the dragon came to sigh, closing his eyes, knowing himself not to have woken up. Opening to his gaze again, he set it on the beautiful woman, the view of which calmed all his nerves. She brought him peace and tranquillity. Even if this was his final moment before returning to the nothingness that came before, he could safely go, aided by the final image of her.
But it was not meant to be.
Guiding his claw to her shoulder, he gently lifted her, enough to shift out from her shadow. With his back, he nudged the pillow beneath him to the side, pushing it out, rendering it so that, upon lowering her, she laid against it.
But that left the matter of cords beneath her, all of them connected to him. His claw dropped to his chest, feeling the wires snuggled between the bandaging. No sense in yanking things out. Taking the contours of his claws, he sliced at the cords, effortlessly, hearing a consistent beep come from the machine.
It whined in a low whisper, lost in its rhythm, now a consistent sound.
The lady shifted.
Spike held his breath for a few seconds, long enough for her to exhale her next, consumed by her sleep. A swirling of horribleness cut around his heart in leaving her. But a deeper, fainter pain told him to go.
To go.
Before it came out.
The dragon nearly cried as his body flung into the wall, desperately grabbing onto the railing protruding from the wall, relying upon it. Every step made it creak from his weight. He limped forward in a hunch, sometimes glancing at the wall, worried of something ripping out of it.
Reaching the door had left him strong enough to push off from the wall, stumbling a few steps, but finding able to keep himself up. He shuffled to the handle, clasping it in his claw, turning it, hearing the creaks... and staring over his shoulder.
That woman. She continued to lay against his bed. Left there and whimpering worst than the machine producing that awful sound. He wanted to do something. To stroke her hair and turn off the device. But something compelled him to go. Nature asked for him to leave.
And so he did.
The hall expanded into a hallway streaking into haze either way, but to the right, sunlight poured onto the floor. Brightness came in the blurriness afar. Something about that way felt right. And so the dragon limped toward it.
Doors passed him on the sides and so did windows after every few steps. His vision had concentrated enough to grant him sight. The world no longer looked painted from beyond the glass. To the right was grass and land reaching an edge and, over that, buildings and far below.
And to the left was a field that built into the side of a mountain.
Where the hell was he? Spike stumbled forward while pushing a palm against his eye. None of this made sense. Nothing felt right. Why was he leaving that girl? Who was that girl? His legs burned in every step, punishing him for leave, attempting to stand and walk, and yet, the validation of movement kept him moving.
Then the sunlight greeted him. Warming his scales as he stepped through the doors, the natural freshness of the air removing the staleness of roaming inside that sterile place. Outside opened to a circle with trees sprouting around the rim. In the center of it all was a statue, one Spike stumbled before, craning his neck back—much to its aching—to see.
It was a statue of a woman with hair blowing, knelt down before another, wrapping a bandage over an arm. She seemed tall but gentle, powerful though kind, a being so noteworthy yet content with being silent. It drew him close in a haze of pain.
Until there was a voice.
“S-Spike?”
His eyes blinked to his name. Where had it come? The dragon turned in place to see someone else stood on this patch of land. It was another next to a tree overseeing the city below. She was caught in half of a turn, stunned, it seemed, by seeing him.
Spike's mouth opened as if to say words only to feel nothing coming out. Only the breeze of the afternoon sweeping through, pleasant on the scales, allowing him to feel peace in a time of fear. His eyes narrowed, and he swallowed.
His claw reached for this throat.
“S-Spike! Y-You're standing! B-B-But why are you standing!” the woman stepped toward him and, in response, he took a step back. Her coat was of lavender, and she felt powerful. “S-Spike? W-What's... what's going on here?” Wetness marked the corners of her eyes. “W-Why aren't you saying anything? It's me, Twilight! C-C'mon, Spike.”
Fear flooding and scales constricting. The dragon watched as the girl drew near, step after step, from grass to the pebbled path he stood upon. Not knowing what to do, he put out his palm, flatly, seeing the sharpness of his digits.
The ones easily slicing those cords.
“Spike? Please don't do this.” The woman, Twilight, she was crying. Standing tall despite her crying face, she continued to draw close, step after step, despite the dragon holding out his claw. “P-Please Spike. I know you're still in there. Don't do this me. Please, Spike. Don't do this to me.”
He was going to do something? But what was there to do? Everything within his body screamed to attack. To lunge forward and bring about his sharpness over her face. It was such a crude impulse, something he could realize as such, but couldn't fight away neither.
Spike kept holding out his claw as the woman approached, the breeze still blowing, the afternoon empty besides the duo. Step after step. She came closer and closer. Shaking her head, eyes wet, lips quivering. “I can't do it, Spike. Please don't make me do it. Say something.”
His eyes went to his feet as he entered the need to think. Words. Things he understood but didn't understand how he knew them. He got their meaning without knowing their definitions. Speak. He was meant to speak.
But the words didn't come. Spike's throat clenched at every syllable and denied access.
Something changed about the woman. Her head lowered as hiccups escaped her mouth. In clenching her eyes, her hands dropped to her sides, curling into fists, both of which shaking in place. That was until one of them rose.
Glowing.
Each of her fingers spread as a glowing streak travelled in and out of their gaps. Something swirled within, sparks and things shining, a power ethereal. It lifted until aiming.
Both were a few steps from the other, and the dragon, sensing danger, took a stance from the storage of instinct. His head lowered as his brow narrowed, preparing him, steering the will to begin the rush. Something commanded him to lunge, a sweep and a strike, an early defeat to the sudden for.
And the glow of her fingers reached on their apex.
Just as she yelped.
Twilight's foot stumbled into a rock protruding out from the ground, coming to stumble forward and clattering into a fall, the magic ceasing from her at once. She closed her eyes, turning to the side—until something rushed and held Twilight.
Twilight saw blackness for all but a second, existing within it, wanting to stay longer though unable. Everything was doom the second her eyes opened again. The fact that she was hovering wasn't right, but yet, this was a fate she had to bear.
Her eyes reopened to the world from on her elevated back. It took a few blinks to lodge her back into reality but, when she did, a green chest filled her gaze. Broad and durable and warm against her arm. Something else was wrapped around her. Long with its hold firm on her.
And then she leaned her head back. Where the sky was supposed to be, instead, his head loomed. Sharp and soft and illuminated by emerald brilliance. His worried eyes, tinged with confusion, reflected her pained appearance.
At that, she was laid to peace.
“Y-You're... still in there, aren't you?” Twilight said each word, slowly, as if each syllable brought strength back to her voice. She brought and gently laid a hand on his cheek, stroking the scales, the smoothness calming for the duo. “You don't have to say anything. You're still there. Somewhere deep inside those eyes.”
The dragon continued to hold her, despite his fear and pain and worries and confusion, there for her without cause, ceasing to have reasons. It made her cry in utter selfishness as she relied her weight on his broken body. But he simply was too sweet. Too kind to be a dragon.
“You never broke your promise, did you, my assistant?” Twilight wept as softly as she could, drifting her hand to down the side of his neck. It felt back, over the bandages, nearing the arm no longer there. “Y-You... don't know who I am, do you? Or what any of this is? So scared from what I was about to do... and yet... yet... yet you saved me anyway.”
She was shaking her head, throwing tears, caressing his wound. “Saved all of us.”
Author's Note
Sometimes you write trash to feel good.
