[Metal Tsubasa]: 95.Contest Entries.Lyrical Prose-Savin' Me

Prison gates won't open up for me
On these hands and knees I'm crawlin'
These iron bars can't hold my soul in
And oh I scream for you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'
Show me what it's like
To be the last one standing
And I'll leave this life behind me
Say it if it's worth saving me
Heaven's gates won't open up for me
With these broken wings I'm fallin'
And all I see is you
These city walls ain't got no love for me
I'm on the ledge of the eighteenth storey 
And teach me wrong from right
And I'll show you what I can be

---

Again he awoke in the middle of the night. He grabbed the shirt he draped loosely over his chest and found it saturated in sweat. The pain inside him was getting worse by the second; he didn’t have all that much time now, but he would fight it. In frustration, Toen tossed his sleep shirt off his side of the bed as he stood. He wobbled slightly in his all too fast movement of the toss and dropped a hand back to catch him on the bed, but missed and hit the floor with a harsh thud.
“Fuck…” he cursed quietly under his breath. The impact shook his insides, being as weak as they were and he could feel a rush of blood coming up this throat. Quickly he cupped his mouth and stood. He rushed for the door and just as he reached for the handle with his free hand he heard Mika stir.
The goddess now sat slightly upright in bed as she looked sleepily towards her husband. “Toen?” she questioned quietly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Toen now cursed his marriage to a light sleeper. “Nothing,” he mumbled through his cupped hand, which he kept turned away from Mika’s view, “go back to sleep.” With that he went out the door, closing it swiftly behind him.
As she spat blood out onto the ground Toen could feel a burning sensation in his lungs and his ribs felt tight around them, making his chest tender to the touch. Even if Sozosha hadn’t made his keep quiet, now that Toen saw what a toll this was taking on his body, he figured he wouldn’t say anything anyway. Mika would be far too upset and Marius would get angry at his father yet again… or perhaps not, Toen had to remind himself that his son was no longer a child. But either way, they couldn’t know, not with him being like this, it was too humiliating.
Now free of the blood upset, Toen looked out over Heaven from where he stood. He could see Council Hall, a straight shot from his front door, and then to his right he could see the small, simple quarters of his beloved friend Fairoh and his wife Rina, then to his left, a little closer than Fairoh’s to him, was Marius and Margot’s quarters, with one faint light on, which Toen figured was Marius reading some new book he had found on his last trip to Vorseth. He found everything so familiar, he knew it all and could possibly find his way around with his eyes closed… but it now seemed so cold and brutal, as if everything around him was mocking his mortality. Was he the only god that sat outside in the cool night air, pondering his own demise? Toen figured the answer had to be yes. Nonetheless, it made him wonder about those who had killed his parents –Nuguikesu and Kage– had they known their death would come? Had Sozosha possibly told them they would die at the hands on a half demon, half demigod? Something deep inside Toen made him believe that at one point they must have known. He had killed them, this much was true, but their deaths didn’t satisfy him, it had been as if they had died, knowing full well that they had done just as they were told.
The shadow god felt light headed and found a place to sit under a tree just outside his door. As he sat, he thought back to Kage, Nuguikesu wasn’t worth thinking of, at least in Toen’s mind. He had been the shadow god when Toen was younger, but Toen’s shadow powers soon outdid his and after his death the new shadow god was the murderer of the first. Toen could somehow picture Kage, sitting just as Toen was, possibly with a family of his own, though children were even rarer then in Heaven, and thinking how his death would lead to the new life of another god. He didn’t seem like one who would attempt to defy fate, but there would have to be something inside him that would pull at him, telling him that there would be something clearly wrong with what he would do… who he would give his life for. He could somehow picture those eyes he never actually saw staring up at the same night sky, and deep inside wondering if there was another way, or some way to stop it, change it, knowing that clearly there would be no other solution.
Toen would have gone for a cigarette in his younger days at this point, but now Toen merely ruffled the grass around him with his hands, just to keep them occupied with something. Thinking about Kage and Nuguikesu made him think about himself back then. Now, knowing what he did, he wished he had stayed as he had been back then. It would have been tough, but at least then he wouldn’t be dying now from a stupid curse. If his younger self so him as he was now, he would try to kill him, just as he had tried to kill the other gods when he first came to Heaven. He had grown into one of Sozosha’s lap dogs, those very people that he had hated so many years in the past. All those people that had died around him, his mother, his father, his teacher Marius, Sara… far too many people, had they all died for nothing? He had drawn a bloody path through his young life in an all out war against the Heavens, his sword, Blood Bane, was proof of that, so why did he lower his shields and let that woman manipulate him? It angered him more than anything else.
He took in a few normal breaths, but when he tried to take a good deep breath, his lungs stung and caused him to cough up more blood onto the grass. In the darkness the blood looked like melted pieces of the sky, slipping silently into the ground, something Toen wished he could do right then. Blood, there had been so much of it since the time he was eight, starting with his mother and father. He had been the foolish one, he had been the one to lead the murderers right to his parents, it had been all his fault, but still his parents wanted nothing more than for him to be safe and he had even failed at that. He had never been safe, not for himself and not around anyone else.
Toen remembered seeing his mother when she died, it was something he could never forget. Her tears, her blood, he voice, her plea, everything was as fresh as the blood on the ground beside him. She had been there for him, through thick and thin. When his father was mad and made little Toen cry, his mother was always there to hug him, to tell him that his father didn’t mean it, that he loved his son and that she loved him too. She would sing sometimes, mostly just for Manes, the love of her life, but sometimes if Toen wouldn’t stop crying she would hum a few lines of some sweet Heaven song she remembered from her time there and the child would fall right to sleep. She was always so kind, and always the patient teacher when it came to Toen’s studies. Toen’s father would get frustrated and storm off if Toen didn’t get something, but his mother was always there with a helping hand.

---

Marius stood there, blood spattered across his face and torso. Blood Bane in his hand was no longer cracked, it had healed itself with Sozosha’s blood and now Marius could feel an unnatural power surging from it. It ran through his veins like a drug, but Marius didn’t like the feeling and quickly dropped the blade from his grasp. He had killed her, the one person that held all of Vorseth and it’s orbital planets together all to avenge his father. He felt completely alone then, as if even his own soul had left him to flea the impending destruction that would befall all he knew and cared for. His body shook gently and a wicked smile slipped quietly across his face. He would make it better, he would prove that they didn’t need Sozosha to hold the world together. Something in him made him believe that the creator’s blood in his father’s sword would make everything better.
Marius’ eyes dropped back down to the sword and he slowly bent down to pick it up. It had once been so warm to the touch, but now it had turned icy cold, feeling almost like death itself. The power rushed through him again, as soon as his fingers brushed the hilt and right away he felt he knew what to do. With his eyes looking like his father’s and his father’s before him, Marius glared angrily down at the dead body before him. He would show everyone what he could do; he could save this now dying world from destruction.
For now however, he turned back to his own quarters, to tell his young wife what had happened. He pushed the door open and found nothing there so he turned to his mothers quarters, hoping to find someone to tell before all of Heaven found the body. He wasn’t thinking straight, still adrenaline was choking his thoughts, which was the reason why he didn’t think to clean his father’s sword before he dragged out in front of his mother. Now Marius stood, in front of both Mika and Margot, who had come over to make sure her mother-in-law was alright, shaking and breathing deep with blood covering him from head to toe.