I saw Galaxy Express 999 yesterday evening, and wrote this very short thing last night, that is, around 1:00 – 1:30 am. Yeah, sleeping might have been a good idea too… Anyway, since there appears to be a GE999 category here, why not to post this. So, enjoy… or at least try to.

Shadow

They call me the Shadow of the Lost Star.

Some call me a coward.

Today, as usual, I walk on the eternally frozen surface of Pluto, wander aimlessly above the abandoned bodies that sleep beneath the blankets of ice.

The Keeper of the Ice Graves…

I do have many names.

I look at the bodies beneath my feet, and wonder if those who left them behind are now happier than I am. The bodies, after all, look so peaceful in their frozen slumber.

Then again, so does mine.

I raise my hand to touch my faceless face, run my fingertips over where there should be my eyes and my lips. Just yesterday I saw some kid crouching down on the ice, staring at the bodies with horrified fascination. When she saw me approaching, she ran away screaming.

I am used to that reaction. Anyway, this was my choice – no face they made for this machine body of mine could match the face of my old body, none of them felt like me. So I am rather faceless.

From the city I hear the whistle of the Galaxy Express 999, and soon I see the old-fashioned train flying over me on its way to Andromeda. Looking after it I wonder if someone is just on his way to immortality, to realize his dreams and get a machine body of his own.

If soon there will be one more body preserved into my cemetery…

Immortality… something that mankind has always dreamed about. Who wouldn't want it? Who wouldn't want a body that feels no hunger, no cold, that is stronger and faster than these feeble bodies we are born with? Would it be strange if I wanted that?

How should I have known…

How should I have known how difficult it will be to forget warmth… forget the feel of fresh air in your lungs, the touch of crispy winter air on your cheeks, the feeling of warm-blooded heart beating in your chest? How could I have known that I would be drawn like this to my old body, my beautiful, perfect, mortal body, hovering around it, wanting it back… and at the same time dreading what it would bring with itself.

Old age, sickness… death.

Coward.

I enter the hall where I keep my body sleeping its frozen sleep in a glass coffin, and once again the longing fills me as its beauty enthralls me.

I love it I want it I fear it I hate it…

I kneel down by the coffin and keep on staring at it, alone in this cemetery of frozen dreams. The days turn into nights, the nights into days, and I keep on living my eternal life on this eternally frozen planet, myself just as frozen inside. Wanting something I could easily get, but do not dare to take…

I live on as the shadow of what I once was, while the shadows of my dreams grow fainter all the time.

They call me the Shadow of the Lost Star...

A/N: That's it… I did say it's short, didn't I? And very quickly written, and unbeta-ed... Anyway, if you have something to say, you know what to do. ;)

(Btw… this is a bit desperate, but there was this song called Yasashiku Shinaide that the machine girl with a guitar (I think her name was Luz) sang in that saloon-like place… Does anyone have any idea where I could get it ?It is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard… edit: I've got the song!