The Most loneliest day of my life

Hi everyone!

I'm honored to give you today my first English fiction. I've write quite some fanfiction in the past, but in my mother's tongue, in French, so this is a first. I study English for a while now, and I did my best not to make too much mistakes but if there is, I apologize.

This is a translation of my French story of the same name "The most loneliest day of my life". The title by the way isn't a mistake, or at least, not mine. This is a quote from the song "Lonely Day" of System of a down, I thought appropriate for this fiction.

Hope you like it, fav if so and comment as well, it would be very kind of you

It was at this exact moment that this weird dream, god knows why, appeared once again.

It reappeared before my eyes like an evidence, a sort of a flash which wakes up inside, feelings you never knew you could have.

I made this dream two or three weeks ago. Waking up, it puzzled me by its strangeness, its incongruity, and in the same time by its realism. It seemed so real: sort of lucid dreaming. And I think, deep inside, I wanted to believe it, just a bit. This is probably for that.

I don't know how to describe it. Most of my nights are dreamless or nightmarish. This dream was unclassifiable, so I thought it was some kind of ramblings. I was sweating when I woke up.

It disturbed me one day, then I forgot it in daily bothers, in the routine, in the joyful noise of the guild. And there it comes, right now, out of nowhere, this unexpected sweetness which the recall stroke me like a long and bitter slap.

To be true, this measly dream started just like any other day. We were all at the guild, chatting, screaming, losing our temper, fighting one another, laughing… Well, the usual and permanent brouhaha of Fairy Tail. Discussions looked terribly real, laughters rang exactly as they always did.

Natsu and I were arguing, nothing new. Erza lectured us with weariness while she had an serious talk with Gadjeel about the quality of the metal, the dexterity of her weapons… Something like that. Lucy, with her lively look, greedy of some gossips, read out loud the Crime Sorcerer, reading she punctuated with quite futile remarks and comments.

Juvia, by her side, smiled and responded sometimes distractedly, more polite than truly interested. She promptly threw looks at me, barely hiding herself. I found it annoying. I think she annoyed me a little, but I didn't tell her anything anymore. I think I didn't mind. Or didn't care, whatever. I was too preoccupied by this idiotic Natsu, who should had done once again something stupid, which I don't even remember. I was so busy that I didn't hear it right away, this little voice.

"Dad!"

I barely paid attention. I didn't recognize the voice, light and shrill: a child's voice. I didn't felt concerned either: I didn't even deign to turn my head.

"Dad!"

Not only was the little voice more urgent, but it became closer. This little voice turned out to be a kid, tall as three apples, not more than five years, hung up at my legs like a limpet to a rock.

"Dad! I was so scared!"

I had a fucking jolt. My eyes became round as two balls of billiard, and I very likely must have become livid. When the kid jumped on me, Natsu only just restrained his flames, and contemplated me, skeptical. I turned left and right, frenetically shaking my head, like I was justifying myself. But what did I even had to justify? I hardly could think, and I asked myself if that could even be possible. The brouhaha progressively got lower, as everyone stood still, looking at me half incredulous, half accusing. But I didn't do anything wrong, for god sake!

"Eh…" I said, uncomfortable "You must be mixing up…" I searched the others with my eyes, not assured. "Right?"

But the kid stuck to it, and took refuge even more in my legs. He started blubbering, I didn't know what to do with myself. I asked for help with my eyes, and instinctively turned to Juvia. I had the impression that she would know how to. Also, even though I couldn't admit, I wanted to explain myself, prove her I didn't have anything to do with all this mess. But despite everything, I saw a lot of deception in the deep ocean blue eyes I fixated with helplessness. It felt like a stab in the back.

After a moment of hesitation, it started crowding around us.

"Then what Grey? You hid this to us eh?" Macao said with a mocking tone.

Erza, on her side, seemed beside herself : half between deception, anger and surprise. If the kid didn't prevent me from moving, I would have fled.

"Gray! For god sake! Who's that kid? What have you done?"

"It's not me dammit! Hell, I would have known if I had a kid!"

"To others! He looks exactly like you!"

I stepped back. Curious, I inclined my head, doubtful. I recognized this jay black hair, true, but these eyes I barely caught a glimpse of, they were definitely not mine. They were bluer than ever, even a glance surprised me. Mine were gray-ish, not to say black: we could not see anything behind, whereas his were as readable as a book. The boy then looked up. He really looked like me. This is when I started feeling dizzy. If I was already white, I became translucid.

"No but I… I never… Well… No I swear it's impossible!"

I could not be more embarrassed.

"Where does this kid come from?" I asked desperately

Levy approached, embarrassed and as surprised as the other. She apparently found him in the library down stairs, where only tough mages could go, and where, to be honest, we would mostly find her. According to her, the boy came from nowhere, between one of the aisles of the tremendous room full of dusty books, on various spells, more or less dangerous, more or less readable, in languages barely identifiable.

"He seemed lost" she explained. "I don't get how he entered. He started panicking, that his friends disappeared… I brought him up stairs to calm him down, but apparently…"

She gave me an awkward look: she seemed to be rejecting on me the responsibility. It annoyed me. Therefore, I seized, as carefully as I could, the kid to detach him from me. I kept him from a distance and watched him into the eyes.

His eyes were puffy and he indeed looked lost. His hair, raven black, and his traits were somewhat familiar, but I wanted to be reasonable

"Listen kiddo" I articulated the clearest way possible to make myself clear "I don't know who you are, but you are obviously lost. Can you tell me where do you come from?

"You don't recognize me?" He complained, his big blue eyes filling up even more with tears

"No" I said more firmly than I would have intended "Listen… I would have remembered if…"

His tears intensified even more, his little body agitated with spasms. I looked like a monster, despite all my good will. Seeing how pitiful I looked, Erza stopped me.

"Let him be, you don't know how to deal with kids"

I clicked my tongue as she took him in her arms, gently taping his back, whispering reassuring words. She tried to get some information, but in vain. I had stepped back, and, watching him closely, I discerned on the back of his neck some sort of thick and silver chain, which sparkled faintly. I had a weird intuition. This little detail fascinated me so much that I came closer once again, made Erza stepping back, and grasped the neckless

It was heavy, almost too much for a child of this age. The chain seemed also too long, as if it didn't belong to him. But what was even more disturbing was the pendant. What I thought at the beginning being a cross was in reality a sword, finely sculpted in silver. Overall the object was a bit damaged and rusty. My hands were shaking. I couldn't help but contemplating it, stunned. I couldn't hear anymore the ginger lecturing me, besides me.

I could have confound the hair, or the vaguely similar traits. But that neckless, it was mine.

I immediately brought my hand at my chest, to check if it hadn't been stolen, but it was still here. Hesitating, I put both of them side by side. It was a pure copy, some differences aside: the one of the kid seemed older, more used.

"What's your name?" I asked in a blank voice, without even looking at him.

"Silver…"

I let go the neckless right away. I stood up straight fast, and I felt dizzy. My eyes crossed Juvia's. She saw how troubled I was. If she was doubtful before, this time, she was assured of what he was seeing. It was too much for her, I felt that. She started going away, repressing her tears, and I, like the dumbass I was, was absolutely unable to tell her anything. I was completely lost.

As she went away, her long blue hair in the wind, the scene became even more absurd.

"Mummy!"

We all froze again.

"Mummy! Mummy!"

Full of hope, the kid rushed on Juvia. Her eyes, although already so big you could loose yourself in it, became even rounder that mine earlier.

The situation became rapidly insane, and we were all puzzled/bewildered. We failed finding any explication. In any case, my groggy mind couldn't give any. The brouhaha restarted as we were searching, Juvia and I, in each other's eyes some clarification. Fortunately, to save us from this shitty situation where anyone seemed able to think properly, what seemed to be the voice of reason rose.

"Wait! Wait!" That was Levy. "Let's all think in a reasonable way. The kid must be around five. You two" she pointed us with her finger, "you're barely twenty. Not only does fifteen years old seem early to have a child, but also, five years ago you were…" She corrected: "We were all still trapped on Tenro island". She concluded: "This child just can't be yours."

Her declaration was welcomed by a silence. Everyone was in deep thoughts, me included. I found myself very stupid not to have even thought about that. I felt a bit relieved, but something still didn't sound right. If the child wasn't ours -and it just couldn't be- how could we explain all of these coincidences? Natsu first broke the silence.

"But look at him! He looks just like them! His name is the same as Grey's father, plus he has his neckless. That can't be coincidences, or else…" He turned toward the boy. "Or else someone's making a fool out of us and this brat isn't what he pretends to be."

The "brat" stepped back and curled up a bit more, looking scared. I darkened suddenly. Is there someone sufficiently sick to send a kid that looks like me (us), with my neckless, my hair, this name, her eyes? Some unexpected rage rose inside of me. This kind of plan seemed so coward, so terribly well-thought… What kind of resentful, obnoxious and full of hate being could imagine that?

Nonetheless, close to me, I felt Lucy, way calmer, stepping closer. She seemed to have an idea in mind. She gently taped my back to calm me down, then went on the boy.

"Tell me Silver" She said with a soft voice. "What day is it today?"

The question seemed pointless, but I listened carefully. Lucy was the kind perceptive, I wanted to know what she had in mind.

"The 21st of April… I think…"

Until that, nothing special. Natsu was losing his temper. Lucy quickly agitated her hand, asking him to keep quiet. She added:

"Which year?"

"X803…" He sighed, like an evidence, and added, apparently upset, "And I'm five and a half!"

I felt very dizzy again. We were indeed the 21st of April, but of X792! This kid, if he wasn't lying -and he didn't seem to- came from ten year in the future.

I had seen crazy things, but that was a first. I mean, between the members of the guild, each as odd as the other, and the world we evolved in, which offered new crazy things each days, I thought nothing could surprise me anymore. I was deeply wrong, far from thinking than beside this strange world, the parallel world of Edolas, which was, at the time, already a revolution, we could imagine a path between times. And more than everything, this future, which stroke us like a pure scientist aberration, was mine! Everything seemed unreal: in ten years, I was supposed to have a child of five? With Juvia? I frenetically shook my head: no way. But it seemed real. I blinked once or twice, but at this time, it didn't -yet- seem like a dream.

The situation became somewhat clear, and some pragmatics immediately searched for a solution. Therefore, while Lucy and Levy were determined to see in which book we could find the appropriate spell, others, like Mirajane, Lisana or even Juvia, thought still chocked, decided to take care of the boy, completely scared and panicked.

Me, I needed a smoke . Or two. Three maybe. Very, very quickly.

I am not generally the big smoker type. But in extreme or stressing situation, I feel it necessary. Sometimes, two weeks can pass without I give it any thoughts. Some days, I feel like smoking two full packs. It was one pack a day after the second disappearance of my father. I had though slowed down after the conversation we both had, Juvia and I, this day. But at this moment (which happened after to be a dream), I needed it terribly.

Juvia does not like that I smoke. I remembered thinking about it. How did she say already? Ah, yes. According to her, I "damaged the marvelous body Mother of Nature gave me". I smiled. Crap. Thinking about her made me want even more to smoke.

So I went out. I needed fresh air. And a lot of toxic smoke in my lungs. Against the wall, I lightened up my cigarette with a shaky hand, then closed my eyes and brought it to my mouth. I just started to feel a bit more distressed when I heard a big noise. I thought it couldn't be weirder. Guess what? I was wrong. Again.