Scars To Memoirs

The Past is in the Past

They all returned to the camp, with Rikai settled in a tent as Rolan tried to disperse the effects of the curse. The moon's reflection rippled in a nearby lake where YueLian went to clear his head. He heard the rustle of the shrubbery behind, as a tall figure whose autumn brown hair glistened under the moonlight emerged.

"Oh. . . hey," YueLian shrugged, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Hey," he smiled wryly. "Good news, I'm cured now.

"Oh."

YueLian basked in the awkward silence, fiddling with his fingers as his curiosity stared at him. He saw as  Rikai came over and sat beside him, his side profile lit by the moon above. He felt as if he should address the problem at hand.

"So," he began, his voice pitching higher, "Do you . . . remember?"

Rikai looked back at him, eyebrows raised, "Remember what?"

YueLian suddenly felt angsty and annoyed, "Y'know, what happened at . . . the cave?"

"I don't know, I can't remember anything that happened after I plucked the flower."

"Seriously? I'm left living with the memories, traumatized! While . . . you get to get away with this scott free?" he huffed.

"Wait, what did I do?"

YueLian opened his mouth to speak but quickly regained his reason and stopped himself, splashing the water with his feet as he sulked. The silence lasted for a long time, with the both of them not speaking to one another as if they were separated by an invisible barrier.

Finally, Rikai spoke, breaking the silence, "Did . . . you want to ask me something?"

YueLian responded by kicking the water even harder, droplets of water splashing the two of them. He eventually got over his annoyance and with a huff, he asked hesitantly, "Why . . . did you save me back at the tomb?"

There was yet another unbearably long silence, until Rikai chuckled, he said as if painfully obvious, "Because you're my friend."

Am I just a friend though?

They basked under the moonlight together, their feet soaked in the crystal clear waters of the pond, sending ripples across the lake. YueLian could feel Rikai's fiddling and nervous glances, his annoyance growing with each passing second.

"What is it?" he sighed.

"?"

"I can feel you staring at me. Ask me already, your weird fiddling and glancing is giving me the creeps."

Rikai looked troubled, waving his hands in dismissal until the both of them fell into another silence. But then, with an anxious look, he cleared his throat and declared, "YueLian, I know what you're doing with those pellets. And I can't let you do that." His eyes locked with those blue seas, beast like wildness met with an unexpected calm.

"I know." YueLian smirked, his eyes mischievous. "I know you want them for immortality. I've always known. So what are you waiting for? Bring out that shiny sword of yours and slit my throat like you've always wanted to"

His words were mocking, enticing the dangerous bull before him with a red tarp, yet Rikai stared at him, his eyes peculiar, confusion settling within them. He frowned, "I'm going to destroy them."

YueLian's smile faded with each passing word, the confidence he had masked finally crumbled, as the confusion was displayed over his delicate features, hope settling in those blue seas.

"YueLian, I'm sorry. I-I can't let you achieve immortality, it's incredibly dangerous. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into! Living forever is a curse! You'll be stuck reliving the same days over and over again, and you'll have to watch as others leave you one by one. You'll have to run from everyone, isolating yourself. You'll have to live with the regrets of your past and you'll never move on. Death then would be a blessing, but then it would be too late. So. . .I'm sorry. I lied."

YueLian felt his heart lurch, his stomach seemed to have sank and twisted in unforeseeable ways. He saw as the world dimmed, the image of Rikai wielding a sword to his throat, his eyes solemn, his eyebrows furrowed ,reappearing again. He could hear Rikai's voice, choked with sadness, as he said each word one by one, that last phrase resounding in his heart.

"I'm . . . sorry YueLian. I-I lied."

He could see the blood from the gashing wound on his head pooling under him as he fell to the floor, as shards of broken wine glass were embedded in his head, each one glistening under the moonlight, the eerie reflection of a broken man staring back at them. His eyes were wide, soaked with tears, almost as if they were popping out from its sockets, as red tainted them. He dropped the broken wine bottle in his hand onto the floor, his hands trembling as he slowly backed away from the corpse. The pool of blood was inching closer and closer to him, about to stain his perfectly clean robes. He looked at the corpse beneath him, those once bright apricot eyes held a ghostly glow, those lips that once parted into a brilliant smile now had a stream of blood pouring out. He was a coward, running into the night as the corpse of his best friend lay cold under the moon's watch. YueLian always thought that Rikai was the monster, but in truth, he was just using his betrayal as a shield to protect his own conscience.

He was absolutely paralyzed in place, those blue pupils shrunken. He felt as if his whole perception of things were wrong. That he had altered them in his brain to fit something he imagined to be true. He never listened to the cries of others. He only morphed himself into a victim. He was horrible yet he still had the audacity to want a second chance?

"You . . . don't want me dead?"

Rikai nervously laughed as he tried to reassure him, "No no no! I want to help you. You can't keep searching for those pellets."

"I don't want them for immortality either. I want them gone."

Rikai's eyes lit up in relief, "Good, so . . . you'll help me destroy them right?"

YueLian nodded. YueLian and Rikai stared at each other under the moonlight, his misty blue eyes scorching those glistening apricots, as if two lifetimes of betrayal and misery was being evaporated by the intensity of their stare. Suddenly, that connection was severed when a huge beam of light dispersed through the clouds from the Heavens, crashing onto the camp that they had set up nearby, blowing the entirety of the camp and its 20m radius to smithereens, a land left scorched black as its witness.

"Rolan!" YueLian gasped, his eyes wide with shock as he ran towards the beam of light, Rikai tailing him.

They arrived at the camp, or what was left of it. The once flickering fire was burnt out, the tents' wooly fabric caught on fire, its edges burnt and frayed, and the sachet that was used to hold the pellets was missing . . .

Rikai ran out from one of the tents, his expression grim, "Rolan is gone, and so are the pellets."

"What . . .? That can't be. Nononono . . . this can't be." YueLian grabbed Rikai by the collar, his eyes wide with desperation, he muttered, "Tell me who did it. It wasn't him. He wouldn't do that to me."

Rikai stared into those dim eyes, his expression equally sorrowful. He didn't want to believe it either. "YueLian, it's got-look!"

Up in the skies, there were swirling black storm clouds gathering at the center of the destructive beam. The howling of the wind was ferocious, swaying the trees, uprooting them. Thunder burst and lightning struck, its blinding white light electrifying the skies, illuminating the black of the clouds, casting a dim shadow onto the rest of the world. There would be no more light.