𝚇𝙸𝚅 - 𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚊 (𝙴𝚗𝚍)

                                    

                                          

H.H.S.A Guidebook for New Inhabitants
Originally published  in 803 A.D by V. Atticus
Edition 34 
__________
13. Crumbling, or when a person's body dissolved upon departure, occurs after a person's soul anomaly disappears. Once one's soul is clear, it waits a few days to find a new vessel that is karmically correct for them. Our life essence leaves our bodies and transfers into its new arrival at the moment of its birth, their lives imprinted in the cosmos. 
__________
Last night I slept in Ryuzaki's bed again, and I had a strange dream. 
I was on a foggy beach shore, sitting on the damp sand and looking out at the black waters, when Beyond sat next to me. He began skipping stones, acting as if he didn't even realise I was there. He seemed inconsolably sad. His eyes were glassy, giving the impression that they were brimming with tears. The wavering light brought out their peculiarly red hue, and for a moment it was so vivid that I wanted to reach out and touch him, just so that he would turn and look at me instead of the distant horizon that made him so miserable.
Like Ryuzaki, he had the demeanour of a bird. Tall, spindly, poised. I looked at him with muted awe. He felt so fragile, yet also steady and calm somehow. A creature foreign and unknowable.
I've become so abstract in the days leading to my death, haven't I? I don't pretend to say anything profound. I'm not literarily talented, and my alleged intelligence doesn't give my philosophising any kind of ethos. Maybe it'll impresses those not well-traversed in existential pondering, but any trained eye (and I suspect many of you do have this) can see me for the amateur I am. My words are flowery but they have false depth, betraying a shallow affect. In truth they're the rudimentary speculations of someone on death's door. A prisoner awaiting execution, terrified, trapped in a cell with nothing to do but ruminate. And while the analogy fits, even this feels pretentious. Though, I suppose anyone who writes an entire memoir is pretentious already. 
...I wish I could be someone like Ryuzaki, who lets their accomplishments speak for them. He doesn't need to detail his own life in such an undignified fashion, because his actions show him for what he is already. Others will write it for him. That's the sort of person he is.  
But I died without accomplished anything. I left behind nothing but scorch marks and dark rumours to be remembered by. A stain on Wammy's legacy. A disgrace. So me, I have to write my life out on paper in a desperate bid to keep it from being forgotten.
Gwen was discharged yesterday. I saw her with X and Caine this morning, eating breakfast with a big smile on her face. She and X have gotten close. He shows her a gentleness I'd never seen from him before. 
Ryuzaki won't leave me alone. He's like a dog that knows when his owner is leaving, making a fuss to delay their departure. He's always at my side, a loyal companion. 
I love him so simply and sincerely that it pains me, pains my heart. 
I wonder what I would've become had I not chosen to die. I had other options, but I chose not to take them. I could've quit, I could've run away, I could've kept going even. What would've become of me? Would I have been happy? I decided to ask Ryuzaki what he thought. We were sitting on the balcony, drinking coffee as the sun rose on two fold-out chairs separated by a table with an ashtray and and empty bottle of wine from the night before. 
"I think you'd have become someone very special." Was all he said. 
"What do you mean?" 
"Just that." 
"That's awfully vague." 
"I know." He replied. "But you could've been a multitude of things — a professor, a fellow detective, anything you wanted. But no matter what you did, you would've been something special." 
"Do you think we would've known each other?" 
"Maybe. Even if you left Wammy's, I might reach out to you for work reasons. We probably wouldn't have met, though." 
"Hm." I nodded. "You wouldn't want to meet me?" 
"No, I would. But I can't compromise my anonymity over it. Besides, I'd have too much guilt." 
"You really need to let go of that." 
"I can't." He said, and his tone was firm. "No matter how you look at it, I played a part in the pain you experienced." 
"Even if you did, you couldn't have helped it. You didn't even know what was going on." 
"But I had an inkling. And I chose to dismiss it." 
"That's okay. You had more important things to think of." 
"No." He said, shaking his head. "Nothing is more important than the well-being of my successors. I know you've forgiven me, but I'm not allowed to forgive myself. I don't know if you can understand, but please let me be sorry."