Visage: 39

Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
All my loving I will send to you

The Beatles

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As if someone were pulling a curtain back from my sight, the blackness seemed to part from my eyes and I strained to pull up my eyelids. They were so heavy but I managed to get them open and looked around for a second. This room was not familiar… I felt the breathing tube in my throat and weakly reached for it. I got a hold of it and began to pull, my gag reflex kicking in to help me eject the tube from my throat. My throat was scratchy from the tube being there but I didn’t care. I’ve been hearing a voice that I haven’t heard in decades… I have to make sure I’m not dead…
I swallowed a couple of times to keep the scratchiness at bay and then I looked around some more. No one seemed to be with me so I lifted my hands and looked at the different things that were attached to my arms. I pulled on one and saw that it was going to fluids and was actually a catheter. The other was just a heart monitor and I pulled the clamp off of my hand, trying to sit up.
Once I maneuvered myself into a sitting position, I found the latch on the bed and undid it so that I could stand up. I slowly moved my legs over the side of the bed and then eased my way into a sitting up position. I sat for a moment, catching my breath and letting the pain settle from all the strenuous work. I was about to stand up when the door opened and I heard a gasp.
“Mustang!”
I felt two hands touch my shoulders to steady me and I looked up, trying to focus my eyes.
“Are you okay? How are you feeling?”
“Confused…” I said only higher than a whisper.
The woman laughed and touched my face tenderly.
“I’m sure you are… You need to lie back down. You’re nowhere near being able to do this strenuous activity.”
I let the woman put me back into a laying position but it was worse lying back down than getting up. I let out a painful cry and the woman gasped, seeming flustered.
“Did I hurt you? Are you alright?”
I just nodded and tried to focus on her some more. When she stepped back I could see her better and realized it was Clesla, the love of my life and wife. But she looked different, older…
“What happened?” I croaked.
She leaned on my bed railing and smiled.
“Too much. Way too much. Some of it will have to be seen and… well…”
“I must have been asleep… How long was I like this?”
Clesla seemed disconcerted about that question but I had to know.
“Clesla?”
“Almost six years…”
I closed my eyes at that and my body shuttered from the pain. I knew I had been stabbed but everything was so confusing.
“Please tell me what happened?”
Clesla pulled up a chair and put the bed railing down again so she could lean on the bed.
“Well, Imada tricked us into trying to kill you. Everyone thought we were just stabbing you and then you would heal yourself like you had been in the fight so far but… according to him, since you are the ultimate singularity, the only way to stop one as powerful as you is to actually kill you.”
“Singularity?”
“You’re one of the few that has power beyond any of the creatures in the dimensions. In fact, you broke past the phoenix barrier of your DNA and accessed the Cheshire part of it that was in Hercule as well as Grythim, which enabled you to gain more power.”
“I kind of heard what Grythim said about my mom but I didn’t understand it very much. I just know he said he was involved… Is he my father?”
“By DNA’s standpoint, no. According to him, when a Cheshire turns into another person or creature they literally are that person or creature. So, as Hercule, he created you and your sister, which means that Hercule is genetically your biological father.”
“I see…”
“That being said, we all found out that Imada, Hercule, Grythim, Kashiri, and Nero were actually siblings, all from the king and queen of the Cheshires. They turned into different creatures to have different children. So that’s what I mean by breaking the DNA of the phoenix and into the Cheshire part, because Hercule was a Cheshire anyway. It’s all rather confusing.”
I hissed at a wave of pain and put my hand on my chest. I then remembered seeing Clesla coming toward me with that bayonet but she wasn’t alone…
“How... how come I’m here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know I saw you and I knew Tibby was there but… I don’t understand some things…”
“Like I said, you won’t understand until you actually see them… According to Imada, singularities are killed with shock, rather than just being shot or stabbed or something. It’s the shock of the person doing it that defeats them; someone they love very much.”
“That’s why I told you to do it.”
“I wasn’t enough…” she said softly, looking away. “You had love in other places that had to be recognized.”
I blinked in confusion. “I… I don’t understand…”
Clesla smiled and stood up, kissing my forehead.
“Don’t worry, love, you’ll understand soon. I don’t want to shock you into another coma. In due time…”
I looked at her weird as she undid a device on the IV line. I realized once it started that it was morphine and sighed.
“You can’t just tell me?”
“If it were that simple, I would have already done it. You need proper rest now, Erebus; there is much yet that awaits you.”
I felt the morphine kicking in and nodded, taking her advice.

I felt a sharp pain in my stomach but I didn’t care. It was all a slight blur to me in my controlled mind. I didn’t like doing this, I didn’t like hurting people at all. But even though Grythim’s ties were gone, he was still controlling my mind. He was making me say horrible things but I felt the pain in my back and fell forward. I laid there for a moment as I listened to people speak and my wounds healed back up as if nothing ever happened. I heard Tibby and his daughter reunite and I felt an anger in my soul I’d never felt before. I felt my body heat up as I sat up from the blows I had gotten. I was speaking, words from within my heart bubbling forth.
I felt something stab me again and looked down at Clesla, her determination too adorably wicked. I felt something hit my back once more and turned to Tibby, who also looked so cute trying to wield that little scythe of his. I pulled out their weapons and felt myself laughing, all of the pent up anger and craziness beginning to bubble forth; as if their stabs just made holes in a giant air balloon of lunacy within me.
Then I felt something different stab me and I looked up seeing not just Clesla, but a ghost… She was looking kindly at me, lovingly, motherly… The same sharp jab from the back indicated Tibby again but when I looked back I saw not just Tibby, but another ghost. He was staring at me in the same way she was… Then the pain in my chest and I saw my loving sister, crossbow in her hands…
Why?
Why was everyone hurting me?
Why did everyone I love turn against me?
Why?
Why?
Why…

I gasped awake and blinked. I heard some people talking and I looked over to see three guys in the corner of the room talking softly. In the dimness of the room, I could pick out easily my uncle, whose hair and tails seemed to glow. He was twitching his ears as he spoke to the other two men in front of him. His ears went down a little when he looked over and then they perked up again.
“Mustang…”
The other two turned around and they all walked over to me.
“Hey, welcome back… You scared us for a minute.”
“Tibby…”
He grinned. “Yeah it’s me… I can’t thank you enough for keeping me safe in the Cheshire dimension… Tyler said that he didn’t even know you had gotten a hold of me…”
“Grythim was supposed to come back and get you but I knew he’d kill you since you were going to be brought back a second time…”
“How did you do it?”
“I asked the Transits for help because you were important to me…” I looked over at the other man and swallowed hard. “You saved me…”
Perry grinned. “Of course I did.”
“Why? I… I wasn’t worth saving at all. I’m still not worth saving.”
Perry touched my face softly and smiled again.
“Any son of mine is worth saving. I do apologize that we had to stab you, though.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Tibby said. “We were under the impression you’d heal right up…”
“It was for the best… you should have just let me die.”
“That wasn’t an option for us.”
I laughed at their idiocy but it made me hurt and I ended up groaning in pain instead of laughing. Perry smiled a little and looked at my fluids beside me.
“I’ll go get you another bag of fluid. Also, there’s someone who’s waiting for you.”
Perry left and I looked at Tibby.
“Who would be waiting for me? I already saw Clesla.”
Tibby just smirked. “You’ll see.”
“Help me sit up.”
Tibby came over and helped me a little, fluffing up my pillow behind me and moving some tubes around for comfort.
“Why is Perry alive? He was dead…”
“Imada brought him back to kill you. Plain and simple.” Tibby said with a sigh.
“Why?”
“Clesla and I weren’t enough and neither was Bentley. You… you loved only five people with the bottom of your heart and all five of us had to kill you in order for it to work.”
Five? I counted but couldn’t figure out the last one.
“What do you mean ‘five’? I gather that it was you, Clesla, Bentley and Perry. Who’s number five?”
The door opened as Perry came in with a bag of fluids and walked over to my stand.
“She’ll be here in a moment.”
“Who?”
Perry hung the extra bag on the other hook and just smiled at me.
“The one who started it all…”
I heard the doorknob turn and looked over as the door opened. She peeked in and then opened the door wider and my blood froze.
The person I’d been needing.
The person I longed for.
The person I’d dreamed about.
The person I loved more than anyone in the world.
The one who left me…
The one I saw go…
“Hello, Mustang…” she said softly.
Feelings I hadn’t felt in years and deep longing welled up in me and I couldn’t speak. My chest was tight and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t want to say, how to act… Suddenly my eyes just spilled tears as I let my barriers down.
I leapt from the bed, not caring about equipment, pain, or anything else in the world. The one person that mattered was right here in front of me and it was all I needed. I fell into her arms and cried out with all childish rights and selfishness the one word I’d been unable to say for far too long.
“MAMA!”