Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/n: And even more surprising, it's still alive!

Okay, just so we're clear, this whole section with Tetsu takes place in the "few years" between Toshi's picnic at the park and Sho's evening news watching the report about the "modern day vampire." This is supposed to be the filling of Kei's "missing years" so to speak--between when he runs off from the park and when he gets caught by police.

What? You didn't think Kei would do something so boring as to rot in a jail for the whole...9 years, more or less, I think. -needs to rewatch Moon Child-

DREAM OF FOREVER

soumanyon

Chapter 14

It had been so long since I had heard anything other than shuffling footsteps or Tetsu's poisonous murmurings, that when the sound of gunfire first echoed through the room, I didn't recognize it at first. But it was followed by frantic yelling, more gunfire, and then finally thundering footsteps in the hall outside and I realized that something was happening. It shook me out of the dazed existence I had been leading for weeks, months, years.

I crawled over to the door and collapsed by the sliver of light coming in from under it, trying to see what was happening. It sounded like a fight and for the first time in however long Tetsu had kept me here, I felt my spirit lifting. It was heavy, it was clumsy, but there it was.

Heavily, clumsily, I dragged myself over by where the doorknob had been, before Tetsu took it out. I thought I had given up on trying to escape, but the pathetic idea of ambushing whoever might pass through my door seemed like as good a waste of time as sitting in my corner.

Maybe I could escape. Maybe. Although where I'd go after that, I had no idea. Did I know anyone other than Tetsu? Did I even know where I was? It had been so long since I had seen anyone other than him, but I had a feeling I had to have known other people before.

So I pathetically waited and waited. And no one came. Finally, eventually, the sounds of fighting stopped and I held my breath waiting.

I don't know how long I stood by the door in the dark silence before my knees finally gave out and I slid to the floor. Hell lot of good that accomplished. I wonder who won. Tetsu's gang? Or whoever they were fighting. Themselves? The police? Another gang?

Turns out it was another gang.

The kid who cautiously opened my door a few hours later was just too curious for his own good. Even though my eyes were blinded by the hallway lights after being in the dark for so long, and even though the kid was a healthy twenty-something and armed, I still managed to tackle him down. He fell with my entire weight on him, or at least whatever it had been reduced to. His head hit the concrete floor with a sick crack. He didn't put up much of a fight after that.

I lost control as the smell of his blood filled the little room. I think I tore his throat open in my fervor, which was, in hindsight, a stupid thing to do since most of the blood was wasted in pools on the ground and I wasn't about to lap at it like an animal. I could still cling to that shred of dignity.

It had been so long since I had last fed that at first, I was dizzy with it, still unbelieving that my captivity might possibly be over. My head reeled with the realization and the blood rushing through my system. What would happen to me?

I had a chilling moment where I wanted to cry out for Tetsu. Even his company was better than being alone, and I was suddenly very alone.

I looked around, taking comfort in my surroundings, at least. My bare little room of the past few…years. It was really more of a closet attached to Tetsu's room, but it was familiar and the small size was sometimes comforting, almost cozy, despite the lack of anything that resembled furniture or decoration.

Nervously, I glanced around, and finally settled on using my foot to nudge the dead man sprawled by the door out of my room, and then I pulled the door shut again, like it always was. I easily made my way through the dark to my usual corner, opposite the door, and huddled in it as I tried to make my hands stop trembling. The familiarity of my room went a long way to settling my nerves, but there was nothing I could do about the blood that I had already drunk and it buzzed through me with a foreign tingling.

I must have eventually fallen asleep, because when I woke up a few hours later, I had the most poignant sensation of being completely lost, having no idea whether I'd just woken up or fallen asleep. During my nap, my head began to clear away the half-starved fog it had been in for the years I'd been with Tetsu.

It took a few more hours to come to terms with the fact that I was awake, and that my nightmarish life was reality. Piece by piece, my memories returned, unlocked one at a time, slowly and carefully, as if my mind knew I wouldn't be able to stand a flood of them. But it saved a whopping punch to the gut for last.

I had forgotten Sho.

I had forgotten my best friend, and for a little while, my lover.

Those memories were the hardest to deal with, bar none. I was suddenly frantic again, wondering just how long I had been in Tetsu's captivity. It must have been longer than months. More likely years. How many years? How much of Sho's life had I missed already? Time feels different to vampires. Could it have been so long that his life had already…

I think it was only that frantic need to see Sho again that pushed me to leave that room, the closet thing I had had to a home for the past however many years. I stepped over the cold, stiff body that I had shoved out of my room and walked through the silent, unfamiliar halls on unsteady feet. More than once, I had to stop and rest. I wasn't used to so much walking. The entire time, my thoughts were focused on Sho, to keep me from running back to my room and my corner.

I wandered around for what felt like forever. I was completely lost and had to retrace my steps out of dead ends countless times, but by the time I found an exterior door, I had had time to mentally prepare myself to face the world again, and not look back.

It was night when I finally pushed open the loud, rusted metal door. The night was chilly and I shivered as my breath fogged. The gravel under my feet crunched painfully, so I made my way over to the dewy grass to take another break, and look around.

Behind me, there was a sharp squeal followed by a loud clang as the metal door slammed shut again. The sound echoed in the quiet night and made the dirty bulb over the door flicker.

God, I chuckled wryly, I could really use a cigarette.

With each passing moment, I felt more and more like myself, or how I used to be, I think. It was only when I reached up to scrub at my face tiredly that I was thrown back to the reality of the present; my hands were still stained with blood from the kid I had killed. I wasn't as if they were covered or dripping anymore. There were only a few small, crusty specks, but even the smallest drop is pretty damn obvious to a vampire.

Reality crashed hard and threw me back into a dark daze.

I hadn't even left my own captivity yet when I had killed again. What more needs to be said about a vampire's nature?

Tetsu had been right all along. There's no changing what you are. Even after having a cruel mirror of my nature shoved in my face for so many torturous years hadn't changed that basic part of me. I was still a vampire. I was as much of a monster as Tetsu.

I didn't deserve Sho.

I realized that clearly, and had a completely parallel, déjà vu moment, as I remembered when I had first realized that, years ago, when I had first been captured by Tetsu. That was what he had used to break me.

I never deserved Sho, and after everything that had happened, after abandoning him for however many years, how could I even think of showing my face around him again? No. I had hated myself then, and that was before I fully realized the depth of a vampire's evil. I had done enough bad by Sho. He was probably better off without me. He had always been better off without me.

I remember the first few weeks of my captivity, I had wished, prayed a few secret times that Sho would somehow find me and come bursting in the doors, guns blazing, to rescue me. Those daydreams were quickly killed as I remembered how I had left him, after my total loss of control at the park, on the day of Toshi's death. And then I remembered the pain that contorted his face as he begged me to stop; his disappointment, horror, and betrayal. I hated myself for hoping that he could forgive me.

After the flood of memories, I wanted desperately to go back to my room, my corner, where I could hide myself from the world and die. I should have died already. What was the point of suffering and surviving all those years of Tetsu's torture with nothing to live for? What was the point of living now, after being hopelessly broken and permanently disillusioned about any good that I had pretended to see in myself? Living was so painful.

Living was so painful…and so I lived.

I lived through all of Tetsu's torture, and I would keep living. Humans have it backwards. The time to redeem one's sins isn't after death, but during life. Death is standing down, life is enduring. I still had so many more sins to pay for, redemption to endure.

I chuckled darkly, the sound muffled and soft in the still misty predawn.

tbc...

more A/n:

Soooo...that was happy. Ummm...well, at least he's escaped Tetsu's clutches and is gonna be reunited with Sho soon! (we all saw the movie, right? I'm not spoiling stuff?)

Sou is anxiously awaiting Hyde's FAITH DVD, which everyone should buy, because she knows that at least the Slim's San Francisco concert was freaking awesome. XD

I'm not expecting many reviews this time around, because I know you'll all be busy with your brand new PS3's and Wii's and whatnot...because the price tags on those are oh so affordable. Watch out--don't slip in the sarcasm puddles. Gotta love inflation.

hey...I know! I could do reviewer replies with email, eh?

nejitenlee13, Earthborne, Essenity, Riku Hikari Neo, Daggergal, Yami Maleci, Cyndi Black, Emiri-chan, Wilya, Karine Dragon's Heart, emikixchan