Life's a Walking Shadow

Toya can't remember the last time he left the house, even for a minute. He won't even open the door to let Bernkastel in and out, leaving the cat to languish until Ikuko notices her pet's distress. Whenever he leaves the house, he's leaving a place with a roof. The sky is so terrifyingly vast and empty that whenever Toya's out under it he feels as though he's standing on the thin skin of the world, set to be ripped from gravity's moorings and tumble into space. Why would he ever want to expose himself to that?

Today is different. Today is murky gray, a storm having just left or on the cusp of arrival (Toya hasn't been paying enough attention to say which is the truth), and today, Toya is going to take a walk outside. It's been such a long time since he's worn proper shoes that the shoe leather, stiff from disuse, is pinching his toes. His head is throbbing and his legs feel weak. Toya ignores both. When he goes outside, he is careful not to look at the sky.

He doesn't know where he's going. He barely hears his own voice as he shouts to Ikuko to let her know he's leaving. Toya is struck by a distinct sense of unreality as his feet hit the stone of a walkway, then grass. This is not the beach, but the sparse stretches of grass before all gives way to sand and surf. Toya can't tell you if he's going north or south.

Who am I?

What am I?

Endless trailing thoughts drift through his head as he wanders aimlessly, noticing too keenly the wind buffeting against him. (It's cold and brisk, this wind, cutting through his skin to his very bone. Does that mean it's going to be winter soon?) Toya is over-aware of the wind, of the crunch of grass and earth beneath his feet, of the salt smell of brine and the booming of the waves against sand and stone. It's been so long since he set foot outside, been so long since he set foot out into the world. Ikuko's house is so much more safe. It is stagnant and still; it never changes. It's something familiar, something secure. Not like this.

But am I safe anywhere? No, I'm not safe anywhere. The danger follows me wherever I go. Toya shakes his head violently; the pain redoubles and he grimaces, clutching at his temples.

No, he's really not safe anywhere. Whether he's inside the house or out of it really makes no difference at all.

Toya's increasingly wobbly legs carry him across wiry grass. The shore drops away. A soft slope of hills and dunes becomes rocky cliffs and crags that fall away into dizzying drops. Toya stops a few feet away from the edge of a cliff that seems to go on for miles and miles. He stares out on the sea and frowns deeply. He remembers Ikuko telling him something about these cliffs once; he can't quite remember what she said…

How long will I stay like this?

In a way, Toya is the ocean's son, the sea's child. He was born in the measureless waters, when Battler hit his head or got brain damage or just decided that he wanted to forget everything, and that part of this body that is Battler was locked away behind curtains and closed doors and walls of lancing pain and fear.

From that darkness, from that ignorance, Toya was born. Toya is a child of the sea and of darkness and ignorance. Now that the curtains have been drawn away from the stage, now that light has been shed on darkness and enlightenment shed on ignorance, Toya's entire existence finds itself in jeopardy. Isn't that appropriate? Isn't it appropriate that a child born in darkness would shrivel and burn in the light of truth? What is truth, but a weapon with bladed edges and terrible heat? The truth can make you bleed and it can make you burn, it can kill you, as surely as any knife or bullet or fire. Even if the death is not the death of flesh, but only the death of one spirit being consciousness out by another.

It seems a worse death.

It also seems inevitable that, if things go on the way they have, Toya will eventually lose himself in the quagmire of Battler's memories. Another person's consciousness is being imposed on top of his own, and there's nothing he can do about it since that person happens to share his body. Memory is cruel and truth is crueler. Battler's consciousness is not some sentient creature that can be reasoned with, isn't something that can be made to understand just how much it's hurting Toya, just how much it terrifies him. It slinks ever closer to the forefront of Toya's mind. The rough beast senses that its hour is close at hand. Why would it ever stop now?

I do not even have enough power over myself to stop this from happening. I've built up so much memory, become a person beyond a shell of a person. But who am I? What am I? What is my life as Toya worth if I can lose it so easily, and have a stranger step into my shoes and control every move I make? What is it all worth?

Toya twists the edge of his coat in his hands. He feels as though there's someone standing behind him. He doesn't dare look behind him, because while he knows, logically, that there's no one standing behind him, he's afraid he'll see something after all or that his shadow won't look like him. He's afraid that he'll look into the eyes of his real self, and be devoured.

Is this nothing but a dream?

Eventually, he'll go to sleep, and someone different will wake up. That must be what's going to happen. Toya will go to sleep, and Battler will wake up the next morning. What can Toya do to keep that from happening?

Blistering pain like a fire erupts in his head.

Toya feels dizzy. His vision is going blurry (Or maybe his eyes are just swimming with tears). His legs shake, and he looks towards the cliffs. They loom so close, closer than he remembered.

What can he do to stay himself?