Failing Obligations

Ch1: How It Fell Upon Two Souls

It is said that when you save a life then you are held responsible for it. And so it happened when May stumbled upon Starrk.

In his first life Starrk lived a well enough life. He had gotten past the turbulent years that most people label one's teenage years and he was doing well as a young adult, going about life as one should be. School, work, family. Sure he valued some things more than others, but these three things stuck to him through his life. However, his life was cut short.

In May's first life she did everything wrong. True her parents hadn't cared much for her, father left her when she was young, and mother had abandoned her seeking work and love for herself. May grew up rather alone. At school she failed as well. She couldn't make friends and couldn't focus. As a young adult she found certain refuge and consolation in the arms of strange and foreign men and sometimes vices she shouldn't have partaken in. And so she lived her years for a good long while until her life was cut short.

Starrk who had just lost his younger sister and whose family was slowly coming apart wandered in the streets after the sun had set. He shouldn't have been there yet there he was. May who drove intoxicated, furious at having discovered her so called boyfriend in arms of another was falling apart as she sped past several stops. A lone man with his head held low crossed the street and a woman whose life was crumbling apart, neither noticed when both of their worlds collided. The impact was so strong that both were sent into a white flash of nothingness.

Starrk's second life was a blur of wastefulness. May's second life was nothing but smudges and hard work gone in vain. They individually died long after having been born, married, divorced, and retired, but both died with a sense of unaccomplishment, that something had gone missing, a mark been missed, their whole lives. They faded into white with these last lingering thoughts.

Their third and final cycle was interesting. Once they had been brought together by force, twice they had ambled on their own, but for this third time they were brought together. These lives, that had meant to be perpendicular if not parallel, met.

They had both met in college and had been both drawn by inexplicable force. After two years they married and were said to be much in love. Both families, who were good families, attended their wedding and the new couple were expected to live content lives, from beginning to end. However, things did not go as planned. Rather than having a celebratory gathering for a newborn the following year Starrk stood before a pitch-black coffin.

The year before May died she began voicing her worry over strange happenings. They escalated quickly, talks of shadows and strange things and then into cries of how she felt utterly scared of these blurred images. Starrk had tried to be comprehensive and so did their family, but eventually the paranoia got out of hand and she was hospitalized for a few months. She came out normal. Happier, readier, fine. Things were back to normal and they even began to plan to have a child of their own. It was in between this regained harmony that she was taken away, murdered mysteriously. Things that were explicable only after death.

Starrk became mad and the madness did not leave him after death. Eventually his soul was consumed and he became a hollow, many years later regained human reasoning, but so long had his human past been hidden that he never remembered his first life, nor his second, much less his third.

Ta-dah! Alas I have finally created a story which actually stays within the bleach universe. Such a wonderful universe and so many possibilities yet I've been only using their characters, but not today! As usual this will be a Starrk x OC only this time within the bleach universe and of course, other bleach characters as well, probably mostly the espada. This was just an intro and the rest should kick off real soon! Reviews are appreciated and so are subscribers! Well, that's about it. Thank you for reading! Bye for now :)