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It started with a bang.
Or .. more of a boom really, you know, the sound a forest makes when it´s set on fire very suddenly.
I had a fun time, watching the young Apemon run away, screaming like a pigeon was worth every burning tree, if only those meddlesome tamers hadn’t interfered…
It took some time before the forest digimons had the guts to come for me, pitchforks and everything, it was a sight to behold. I was sitting on a rock in a clearing when they approached, smirking at them and the tamed digimons who belonged to that red-haired girl who owned Myotismon and his mate
(Look back at Brave and Mighty, Flame is the b*****d son of Cale, he is a Silverflame but is not acknowledge as such)
It was not at all hard to fight the forest digimon, I burned the Wormons, roasted the Apemons, set the Betamons on fire, toasted Rosemon and burned down the house quite literally, it was the red haired girls digimon who proved to be a nuisance, they were 5, an Angewomon, a Seasarmon, Lucemon, Crescemon and Parrotmon, the other were all adults or teens but the Lucemon was a kid, couldn’t be more than a few weeks old, how he archived such a high level in such a short time will forever be a mystery to me.
“Well, well, seems that the only ones left on the dance floor is the adults plus one kid”
I gave the Lucemon a look, he took a step back, coward
“Meramon, why are you doing this!? Why are you hurting the forest digimons!?”
It was the Parrotmon who asked, I shrugged and put on the saddest face I could, sniffled and hid my eyes behind a hand
“I guess I had a troubled youth, papa was busy with his real family, momma was a whore”
I couldn’t keep the fake scene up much longer and broke down laughing, the Angemon fumed but I didn’t care, it was the kid who interested me, he seemed to feel sorry for me, cute.
I crossed my arms, eyeing him.. hmm… hot
“Whats your name cutie?”
The half angel seemed shocked and a adorable pink blush found it´s ways to his pale cheeks
“My name is Toluce”
Yum
“I’m Flame, we should have a date sometime, dinner and a movie sound good to you babe?”
He blushed from head to toe and his feather wings bristled as he looked down at the ground, shy little thing
“You leave him alone, I need a damn good reason now, you have 5 seconds to tell me why the dark pit you burned down the forest or my foot will be dating your a**!”
I grinned at the Angewomon
“Easy now blondie, don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep”
“YOU..”
“As for the forest, I guess I just like watching thing go down in flames.. Crimson Flame!”
I send a wave of fire at the tamed digimons, the moved aside easily, all equipped with wings or speed, only thing was that my attack smashed into one of the other white rocks in the clearing and the thing started to MOVE. A giant snake hissed and lifted his head, opening his jaws as he gazed down upon our little group with hungry eyes… I shook my head from side to side, backing away
“…oh hell no..”
He attacked, which brings me back to the fight right now, I was knocked out rather quickly, not my fauklt by the way, the damn snake cheated when I woke up again we were underground, and that’s where I am now, oh well, back to the story.
Before I can manage to get a good look around the cave at the end of the stairs, something big and heavy hits me. I fall back on my a** like that time I got hit by the snake thing. Whatever it is get’s off pretty quick and I realize that it’s the Parrotmon . What the hell is he smashing into me for?
“Watch where you’re going,” I yell as I climb to my feet.
He stops, turning back to me with a glare. A second after I yell at him, he’s charging at me. I don’t think twice about fighting back. We slam together, more grappling than fighting. He’s bigger than me, but I’ve fought bigger and it doesn’t mean he’s stronger.
I use his weight to toss him over my shoulder. He only stays down an instant, jumping up immediately to drive an arm into my stomach. Son of a Ladydevimon! I grab his arm and push him back into the wall, burning off the feathers on his chest as I do so.
The Angewomon is shouting at us, but neither of us pays her any mind. We don’t stop fighting until this other chick screams at us in Russian. The bird freezes and stares past me as the chick keeps hollering, “Pietro, why am I only one fighting?! Get your feathered a** over here!”
Pietro charges around me, giving me a glare as he passes. I follow after him. Time to get back to business. The Sandiramon is pretty big, probably fifty or sixty feet long, but half of it’s still hidden in a tunnel.
I scour the room for any sign of the kid, I might be a badass Meramon but I’m not evil enough to let a child who can’t even fly yet fight a Deva digimon alone. There’s a lot going on, Pietro´s on the snakes back trying to peel a scale off, and the angry Russian Crescemon chick is throwing ice lances at it, Angewomon is lying unconscious on the floor and that dog thing is chewing through its side, but I don’t see the kiddo anywhere.
I send a couple of fireballs at the Sandiramons head, but its scales are too thick. I thought that’d be the case.
“Where’s the kid?” I shout at the Russian.
She doesn’t look at me when she answers, “The snake ate him whole. If we kill it soon, maybe he’ll still be alive.”
“Ate him?” I sound like an idiot repeating her, but I have to be sure I heard that right. There’s no friggin way the kid got eaten. He’s quick enough to avoid that, isn’t he? I think back, remember how the kid could barely keeps his own in the fight before I got nicked…. For Azulongmons sake, he´s fought like a damn rookie!
“..Eaten! You going to do-” she shuts up halfway through her sentence as the Sandiramon pulls its head back and inhales, “Crap, move!”
“Hisssssss, Venom axe”
She darts away, but I head straight for the son of a ladydevimon, right through the acid it spits at me, my fire burns the substance before it reaches me. It’ll have to do a hell of a lot better than that if it expects to stop me. I jump up on one of the curves of its body, rip back a scale, and hits it with a flaming fist. It thrashes pretty good, but it doesn’t get rid of me.
“Meramon” Pietro yells, except he isn’t too loud and I’m not paying too much attention.
“FLAME!” The Crescemon this time, more of a screech.
I look up “What?!”
It tosses me off the second I’m not paying attention. I should’ve ignored them. I roll and big-white-and-ugly hits me with another blast of acid. I’m pretty sure that my leather jacket is officially cinders. I liked this jacket…
“What?” I shout again. They’ve already screwed up my position, so I might as well hear what they want to say. There’s a reason I like to work alone. White-scaly-and-ugly makes matters worse by swatting me a couple feet through the air. I land on my knees. It hurts, but I’ve had worse, lot’s worse. I grumble and dust myself off, my flames are changing from silver to blue, I´m pissed now.
Crescemon speaks up
“The Sandiramon secretes acid using two glands-”
I butt into the russians speech. kiddo doesn’t have time to waste on technical s**t “Cut to the chase playbunny, what do I do?”
“A large force must be applied to the sides of his jaw to destroy the-”
“Great,” I interrupt again. She can explain later, we need to take this thing out.
I make a motion at Pietro so he’ll stop charging blindly, “You want to do something useful?” He’s about the same size as me. If we do this together, maybe we can get it right the first time.
A flare of energy flies past me, making the snake pretty pissed. It snaps at the Russian, but she gets backup from Angewomon who´s finally woken up. She takes a chunk out of its nose with a white arrow. While they keep snake-with-ugly-hat busy, Pietro and I figure out what the ******** the plan is.
“Look, I’m fireproof, so I’ll bring ugly down to my level, but you’ve got to be ready to jump in. Got it?”
“Got it,” he answers.
“Alright. Blondie, Buny, get your asses back.”
The chick starts to say something to me, but Angewomon pulls her out of the way. I’m getting the feeling that chick has a serious problem with anyone telling her what to do, like me, just now as much. She gives blondie a good smack for dragging her off too, shouting at her while he get’s her out of the line of fire (literally.)
When everybody is at the edge of the cave except me and birdboy, the Sandiramon focuses on us.
“As soon as it’s close enough, you nail it,” I tell the bird, getting a screech in response. “Hey ugly!” I yell up at it, waving my arms.
First thing it does it spit acid at me, but, when I don’t turn into a nice little puddle on the ground it hisses. I’m hoping it gets pissed enough to try and take a chunk out of me.
“That all you got? Come on you b*****d!”
It arches back, eyeing me. What, is he weighing his options, do I look like I won’t taste good? Let’s go ugly. I really hope this isn’t a smart monster and he’s figured out what’s going on. That would suck. The kid can’t have long left (if he isn’t dead already) so I’m going to have to change tactics if this Demidevidummy doesn’t cooperate.
“Come on you son of a-” I don’t finish my sentence before it lunges at me. Holy Azulongmon, it’s fast! A lot faster than I thought it was going to be. I jump out of the way, but I can feel scales scrape across my side.
I don’t waste any time checking to see if I’m wounded. Instead, I slam my firery fist against the edge of the snakes jaw. The bone crunches under my hit. Right on cue, Pietro hammers the other side of it with the metal plate on his skull.
When it snaps its head out of our reach, its jaw is just hanging there. There’s spit, or something coming out of his mouth in a waterfall. Well, maybe more of a drizzle than a waterfall. The Sandiramon screeches, which sounds like nails on a chalkboard, and shakes its head around.
“Nice move” I shoot at Pietro, not bad for a tamed digimon “Now let’s kill this thing.”
He nods. We both charge at it, going different directions to keep from getting taken out at the same time. Ugly-and-snakey doesn’t take long to decide which one of use is a bigger threat and it comes down on me. Since it can’t bite me anymore, it uses its head like a sledgehammer, smashing into me.
I grab the edge of the incredibly disgusting purple hat on top of its head, mostly because I can’t think of anything else to do. It sits up, trying to shake me off. I hang on with one hand and points my fist at its face with the other, maybe if I fire a flame ball into it´s head up close it´ll destroy it´s brain or something
I get one shot off before it slams me into a wall. The snake slides me around a little, like somebody trying to scrape something nasty off their shoe. I keep my hand s tucked mty chest so they wont be scraped off at a sharp edge. Pain shoots across my back.
“Ow.”
When this is all said and done, I’m going to need some aspirin and a glass of wine.
“Nice try,” I grunt, hooking my foot up into the bloody eye-socket for leverage. He must’ve lost the eye earlier in the fight, but the socket makes the perfect step. I shove my weight forward the minute I’m not being crushed against the wall, climbing on top of ugly-snakey´s head.
It’s like riding a bucking Bullmon, not that I’ve ever been at a rodeo, let alone participated in one, but I’m going to go with that. I hold onto the hat-that-killed-fashion and slam my fist against the crown of its skull. I do it again, and again, making a real good dent.
“Gimme. Back. The kid. Ugly!” I punctuate each word with another brutal hit.
.:Lucemon:.
I gasp for air where I can, but my lungs are filled with an acidic fog that burns more than it helps. Walls of flesh press against me, crushing me and forcing me along. I dig my fingers into the thick tissue, desperately trying to claw my way back up this thing’s throat. My heart is pounding in my ears. Maybe it’s the Sandiramons heart, but I can’t be sure. It’s so hard to tell what anything is through the panic that grips my body in a stranglehold, my wings are crushed against my back and I’m scared, I want my dad! Where is the others, Angewomon told me this would be fine, she told me I wouldn’t have to fight!
I finally fall into a thick pool of liquid. The fumes coming off of it burns my eyes, but the smell is twenty times worse than that. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the mind-numbing pain, but there’s no way for me to block the atrocious stench of gore. My skin that’s submerged in the disgusting liquid starts to sting slightly.
I’m in its stomach!
I try to scramble to my feet, to get as much of my body out of the acid as I can, but every time I get up, the wall of the stomach shifts and I fall back to my hands and knees. I attempt to steady my nerves and try to focus on my powers, my dad can break mountain sides with a mere shift of his hand, this should be piece of cake for any Lucemon. Heat floods my senses and my skin starts to tingle.
A roar shakes me to the core of my being, breaking my concentration. The fleshy walls contract around me and force me down into the acid. God, I burn! The pain is so far beyond a sting now that I’m certain I’ll be scarred beyond recognition if I do get out of here.
If…
I try not to laugh wildly at that word. There’s no way I’m getting out of here. In a few days, there won’t be anything left of me, is it too cliché to state that I´m too young to die?
The stomach walls relax and I manage to sit back on my knees, coughing and sputtering. Every breath of the acrid air sends stars flashing behind my eyelids, but not the good kind. A sob escapes before I can stop it. I can’t cry.
Then again, who’s here to see me? What’s it matter if I break down in the last few minutes of my existence, no one would care. No one would even know. I never expected to die alone… I never expected to die like this..
They say that life flashes before your eyes when you die, but my life doesn’t really flash, I just think about it, not much to think about, I´ve only been alive for four weeks, I don’t remember hatching, my first memory is my dad holding me and then handing me over to Kaya, then Kaya taking care of me, feeding me milk from a bottle, introducing me to the others, allowing me to sleep in her bed until I digivolved into this form and was too big to fit on the mattress and had to get my own bedroom next to Luna and Kits, we had a pajamas party the first night, we put on makeup and had a great time talking about anything that came to our minds...
I scream, but no sound comes out. My throat must be burned raw from the air.
I cough and taste blood in my mouth. Doesn’t really surprise me. Your lungs can only take so much damage before they start shutting down, I shouldn’t know that, but my dad is a demon lord after all, I guess it´s to be expected I know stuff. I’m not as scared as I was. Isn’t that something that can happen, acceptance? I think it has something to do with understanding that death is inevitable and knowing that panicking won’t change anything.
Either that or the fumes are starting to affect my brain. I might have to vote for the latter.
Soft light catches the edge of my vision. I have to admit, the first thing that entered my mind when I saw it was the whole ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ thing, but I realize a second later that its real light, light from outside. It flashes through the skin walls, making my hellish prison deep red.
‘I’m here!’ I try to yell, but I still can’t make my voice work.
Instead, I press my hands against the flesh, hoping to make my presence known. I curl my fingers against it and claw my way out.
I grab onto that light like a beacon of hope, saying a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity that might be guarding my back, and crawl from the Sandiramons stomach. I brush past Seasarmon and recognize him instantly. He’s munching happily on the snakes insides. He pauses to lick some of the grime from my face and continues to eat, even after I’ve clawed my way through the hole he’s made.
I fall onto the stone floor, gasping the clean air desperately. The breaths rip through my ragged lungs with a massive amount of pain, but it gets better with every minute that passes. When I’m breathing normally, I weakly push myself into a sitting position so I can survey the battleground.
I can’t see too much, since I’m surrounded by curls of the snake Devas body. I stumble to my feet, using my wings for balance and navigate my way out slowly. Just being this close to a monster would have scared me before but I guess things would change after being eaten. One of the coils shifts closer to me as the Sandiramon does Azulongmon knows what as it whimpers in obvious pain. I adjust my path a little to keep from getting knocked over. I’m wobbly enough that someone could sneeze on me and I’d probably collapse, so I’m not going anywhere near that thing.
When I get out into the open, I almost burst into hysterics. The others! Pietro is watching the snake with fascination, and Luna is covered in her moon energy from head to toe with Ki€t drawing energy off of her, and… I have to look around for the Meramon, but I spot him way up on the Sandiramons head. He’s hammering on it with his fists.
His words float down to me, “Spit out the kid you damn worm!”
“Should we warn him?” I hear Crescemon say. I look back at them, and Kit shakes her head with a crule smile.
Kit creates a arrow of both her and Lunas energy into her hands and chunks it with a shout. As the energy arrow gets close, the fluid seeping from Sandiramons mouth catches on fire just before it hits. The impact is catastrophic. There’s a massive explosion that tosses Flame several dozen feet and leaves the Sandiramon wavering without much skull left. The body seems to collapse in slow motion.
I make my way over to Flame, picking over the snakes twitching body. Before I can get to him, he starts burning away the exposed flesh, digging into the slender body with his bare hands
“Hang on kiddo, I´m coming for yeh!”
He makes a hole big enough to stick his arm in and yanks out Seasarmon in a morbid version of a magic trick. He must have seen the dog digimon moving and assumed it was me. Despite of the serious situation Kit cant hold back a giggle at the sight. Flame drops the dog after staring at it for several long moment with shocked ruby eyes, “Get outta’ here yeh bloody mutt!”
Tororo barks at him unhappily and goes right back to feasting on the corpse.
“That was like a scene out of Alien,” Flame mutters and keeps digging around frantically.
When I think I’ve let him sweat enough (actually, I’m just too exhausted to climb up to him) I call out, “Excuse me?”
Flame stops and looks around, right over my head at first until I clear my throat. When he spots me, the biggest grin I have ever seen cuts across his face “Why you little brat!” He scrambles off the snake corpse and I don’t really know what I expected but I did not expect him to curl his hand around my back and gently wipe some of the gunk off my face.
“You’re a mess kid,” he murmurs softly, then grins
“Yeh better clean up if you expect me to take you to that movie and dinner I promised you!”
I can’t help the blush that covers my cheeks just as Kit sends the Meramon flying with a perfectly aimed roundhouse kick, screaming bloody murder as she engages in an free for all fight against the fire digimon, I merely watch from the sidelines, sighing..
Adults are weird..
.:One Month Later- Lucemon:.
Chapter two- Funeral fire
Two weeks ago I heard news that shocked me out of my wits, news that left me felling hollow. My friend, my trusted…my .. my Flame in so many ways, was ill. It all started with little stomach pangs that bothered him while he ate or bent at the waist but he ignored it, told me it was fine, it is so much like him, he is as stubborn as Myotismon if not more, the vampire has hidden all signs of weakness before, I don’t think Angel will ever forgive him for that time when he came down with the flue and didn’t tell anyone until he fainted on the balcony, Flame is just like that. After a while the stomach pangs progressed to headaches, shortness of breath and joint pain. Soon he had trouble swallowing and using his attacks. Sometimes fevers would strike without warning and vanish without a trace leaving him delirious and weak.
He just kept getting worse and worse.
One day, when I found him curled up next to the toilet, vomiting up mouthfuls of blackish-purple blood, I literally lifted him and took him to the Drive city hospital. He protested, but was too ill and was in too much pain to resist me. I still remember seeing his face plastered with blood and strings of tissue. How uncertain and angry his eyes were, how his flames burned weakly as if the slightest wind could blow him out.
I waited outside the medical room while Flame was examined, impatiently pacing around, not minding the looks from the hospital digimons, it must have been a strange sight, a Lucemon walking up and down the hallway, I even tripped over a Floramon, I apologized but she merely `eeped´ and ran away, Myotismon and Angel arrived after a while and I was glad to see them, I could not bear to wander back and forth alone, I was afraid, more than ever . To keep my hands busy I kept re-doing and undoing a braid in Angels long hair and he tolerated the abuse without as much as a blink.
Hours later, I heard screaming, an intense heat and an explosion. The doors to the medical examination room slid open and a clean, stoic-faced Flame walked out from amidst the smoking remains of the medical bay staff. He strode past me and walked all the way home to Spiral Castle. He never said a word or looked at me.
In case you haven’t realized it yet then yes, we are together that way, and for these past weeks since the… incident in the forest we've kept our relationship secret. Every night we'd talk over a glass of wine, share dinner…and sometimes we kissed afterwards, nothing more, he still though I was much too young for thing like… you know… that. Flame loved to run his fingers through my hair while lying close to me in bed. My hair always fascinated him. Perhaps because he has none of his own, I in turn like to feel his flames, the heat pouring generously off his body, nothing beats sleeping next to a personal furnace.
I entered his bedroom, the one next to Bearmon and Dorumons, with a hopeful smile. Thought perhaps he was being straight-faced as a mind game, the rules are; `I have to guess his thoughts` but this was no game.
He is good at mind games, he likes teasing me, Kit says it´s because he´s a bully, I don’t care, I would love him even if he was insane like Piedmon. When I met Piedmon for the first time I asked Crescemon why she loved him when he was insane and she beautiful enough to get any mon she wanted, the luna digimon placed a hand on my shoulder and one on my cheek and told me that when I find love I will know the answer, she was right, I do know the answer now, I will love Flame because of his quirks, not despite them, that is true love.
Flame turned around very slowly, he faced me, ruby eyes full of shattered dreams.
He was so uncertain, scared...I've never seen Flame afraid in all the time I've known him which only made the sight hurt me so much more, my wings fluttered nervously, a habit I picked up from Angel. Flame closed his eyes, his deep voice sounded hollow and flat when he spoke
"It's the Vienna virus, Toluce" There was a pause, and then he added in a whisper, "I have two weeks"
The blood drained from my face and my wings expanded in panic. Vienna,one of the worst and most incurable human made computer viruses in the digital world.
It infects data on deletes it, spreading like cancer, mutating and gaining strength with each new deleted data fragment until the infected digimon… dies. It had metastasized to his brain, stomach, bladder, intestines, lungs, heart and joints, deleting data with each passing second, destroying the firewall data in him.
The worst part of this disease is there are no symptoms until it's too late to stop it. It had been growing inside his belly for over a year. Neither of us knew it was there until that afternoon. The spreading was recent, perhaps within the last few weeks.
And I, chuckling breathlessly at the idea of headstrong stubborn Flame succumbing to something as simple as a disease, didn't believe him. I waited for him to laugh and say that he would beat this. My Flame is the strongest mon I know. Nothing can beat him!
Instead of a burst of laughter, there was uncomfortable silence. Flame must have felt as shocked as I.
He just stood there, illumination the dark room with his weak flames, staring at me, waiting. His hands, which had been clenched in tight fists, slipped down to hang limply at his sides. I watched his whole posture sag and half-expected him to burst into tears, I would, but he merely stared at me with cold eyes, too strong to let even death break him.
And then he said the words I had heard only in my darkest nightmares only, and my heart stopped
"I'm dying Lucemon"
I couldn't take it anymore, this was a great joke! Flames sense of humor always had a dry dark side to it.
I burst out laughing after another few uncomfortable seconds, it sounded pained even to my ears "Come on, Flame. You're joking right? You can't just die because of a stupid virus, we´ll make Holydigitamamon heal you, nobody has to know it ever happened! Come on, let's go back to the medical bay and.."
Flame turned until the light fell across his pale face. I anticipated a dazzling smile that never came. What greeted me was a pair of ruby eyes burning in sadness.
The funeral pyre that used to be his future, our future.
"Touluce, this is no joke. I am trapped in my fate and no healing or miracle can change it now."
He half-turned to gaze at the window and I saw the changes that had been going on under my nose. My Flame had always been bulky but lean, most Meramons are build that way, but not like that. His form-fitting leather jacket hung lifeless on his thin frame. He'd probably lost twenty pounds in less than a month.
I think he and I knew he was sick before the doctors did, but neither of us wanted to face the truth.
"All these years of training, strengthening myself, building up my strength...WASTED!!!!"
Flame lifted his arm and blasted apart the makeup kit I had left on the night table yesterday when I slept in his bed. The pieces blew away in the shockwave and slammed against the walls.
I would have been gutted alive if I hadn't ducked out of the way. After the noise settled, Flame looked down at his hands, then at me. "I can't even disintegrate a pink girl box...I'm already too weak to burn properly. I'll be helpless! I can't let anyone see me like that! I refuse! I should go, get away from here and die alone, yes, no one would have to know ..."
His eyes gleamed with foolish hope and he turned to me, I could hardly see him through the film of tears covering my blue eyes "Touluce, where does the dark ocean lie?
Is it far from here?"
Whatever Flame was trying to cook up at that time, I knew it wouldn't work. Words travels fast and sooner or later someone would find out, Piedmon knew already, he always knew things like thatm I don’t know how but he seems to know everything about everyone. I stared at Flame, this irrational idea of his would never bear fruit, and to this day the mental image of him lying alone and forgotten, covered in dirt and his own bodily wastes while crying in pain in a cave at the dark oceans shore still brings tears to my eyes. I refused to let him die like that!
I practically leapt forward and wrapped my arms around him, he was taller than me so I tugged my head under his chin, his flames fizzled as my tears fell on them "No!" I sobbed, everything hurt, my heart, my lungs, I wished I could die in his stead, why didn’t the virus take me, not him, not my Flame
"Please Flame, don’t go, don’t leave me, I´ll take care of you. If anyone talks about this, I'll blast them to the Darkpit for you I swear, please don’t leave me"
"Toluce - "
"Flame....please"
I cut him off before he could stop me
"I won’t let you die alone, I love you"
Flame reached up and cupped my cheek while I cried into his chest, I hear him sigh "You win" I shielded him with my wings, tried to protect him from his fate while I listened to the steady beat of his heart, he was still alive, but for how long?
After a short eternity, Flame inhaled slowly and pulled away from my embrace. He cocked his flaming skull inquisitively despite the angry sorrow in his gaze, I prayed to the digital gods that I would wake up and see that this was nothing but a dream, a horrible nightmare, but no dream could hurt this much.
"Do you stil love me?" The tone was apathetic, it always was when he asked me that. Every day, he posed the same question, a ritual that usually preceded a glass of wine or beer, not for me though, I had soda pop, he told me I was too young to drink alcohol.
"Yes, Flame, you´ll always be beautiful to me" I replied without thinking. To say no would shatter him…and be the death of me. But he is beautiful, and I always desire him. Tasting his full burgundy lips is like eating a piece of forbidden fruit. And laying with him is like sleeping with a god that could eclipse the sun with his power.
He was back to his old self. Maybe it was a joke and he would live after all. Yes, Flame was immune to everything, just like dad, he always won.
Flame smiled at me and reached over to pour smooth red wine into a clean crystal goblet and red soda into another. He handed one to me and raised his own with that cruel smirk that made my heart throb "To living."
I took my glass graciously, tapped it against his "to living." and drank. The taste was sweet, like life.
Flame drank his in one gulp, refilled his glass and sat down on his bed, the black sheets looked like death itself and I tried to will that particular though away
"So, kiddo, why don’t we find some innocent digimon and scare the living hell out of them"
At the sound of that question, I knew my beloved Flame would be all right. He could live through anything.
"Toluce...I need..."
The two weeks passed, and I knows now that he wont make it, I hoped but I knew it was futile.
He´s dying.
Flame lays stricken before me, twisting about in pain amidst his black sheets. His withered body is gaunt and helpless against the virus that mercilessly drains his life away. Very soon, it will finish its job.
He gazes at me with dull, sunken eyes and tugs insistently at the plastic strapped to his nose and mouth. I watch his frail hand slip repeatedly on the smooth oxygen mask.
He has no co-ordination left in his bony fingers and his flames are almost gone, only glowing embers are left now. The small effort leaves him panting and exhausted. Soon, he gives up and stops reaching. It's a simple task to pull the mask down under his chin, and he can't even do it anymore. My Flame, my love why did this happen to you?
I reach over and slide the oxygen mask down under my his tapered chin. He looks so strange to me without his full cheeks. Like his face is now plastered to his skull. His precious, come-hither lips have disintegrated into cracked scabs. He reminds me of a Skullsatamon now.
"W-wa...wa...," demands Flames guttural voice. Sometimes he gets 'stuck' on words and his mouth won't pronounce them no matter how much he struggles.
"Water?"
"Mmhmm."
Flame can't swallow food or fluids anymore because the virus has deleted his esophagus. He gets his nourishment from the IV taped to the vein in the back of his left wrist.
The best I can do to ease his discomfort is dunk a cotton swab into a glass of water and wash his mouth. I abandon the swab and substitute it with my fingers when I moisten his lips. For a moment we are in my memory, tangled together in bed trying to forget the world and the death looming over us.
Flame closes his eyes and smiles as if remembering the same thing. Then he starts snoring lightly, it sounds like a purr to me and I smile, Myotismon purrs when he´s happy or content, I hear it for the first time three weeks after moving into the castle when he fell asleep on the couch and Angel slid in next to him, they love each just as much as we do. I slide the oxygen mask back into place and lie down on the bed next to Flame, listening to the soft sounds he makes.
I dread the day when he will be silent forever, how can I lice knowing that I will never again hear his snores in the night or his dry cackle when I mess up.
I stare at his face, the curves of his closed eyelids upon his prominent cheekbones. The sickness has discolored and blotched his perfect skin.
I am often afraid he'll crumble to data pieces if I touch him. I have a good reason to worry - the disease has made his bones brittle. Once I had to grab his wrist when we walked out of Parrotmon room and fell over the doorstep. I felt the bone shatter under my fist. It never healed.
I still remember when he woke up one day and stared down at his own flames and panicked, shouting to the heavens while he tried tp put out the fire with his hands, rolling down onto the floor, fighting while he burned
"Im Burning, Im BURNING!"
I tried to explain him that he was build that way, that the flames were part of him, that they were his life force, but he didn’t believe me. He thinks the shadows of Death are coming to take him away and that the burn him when they tough him. Whenever he sees a shadow, he trembles and curls up in a little ball, until he sees his own flames and starts screaming. It got so bad that I spent several hours today moving his bed and equipment over to the window. During the day I can tint it so the bright light won't agitate him and at night I lighten it, there are no shadows near him that way and with his feet facing the window he can always see the sky when he opens his ruby eyes.
Problem solved.
It is late, I think I'll curl up here on the bed and sleep. But sleep doesn't come easy, I´m afraid that Flame will die while I am asleep and unable to comfort him. What if he's in pain or frightened when it happens?
No more than two hours after I doze off, I'm awakened by movement. Flames entire body is convulsing. His eyes are rolled up into his head. I can hear his teeth gnashing together. The computerized IV above his bed detects the seizure and immediately ups the amount of narcotic potion entering his veins. Instantly the seizure weakens and gradually stops.
Flame lies utterly still, and I hear a trickling noise as he urinates, soiling himself. His eyes are fluttering and he is gasping, exhausted. He seems unaware that he's wetting the bed and he groans as if it hurts. Getting him to use the bedpan is always a nightmare because just voiding wastes causes him agony and he refuses to use a catheter.
I sit by the bed and wait for him to empty himself before I lift the blankets off to check the damage. It seems to be contained to a dark stain on the front of his bedclothes. Not as bad as I thought.
Now I have to clean him up quickly before his urine dries. Otherwise the ammonia in it will stink and I don't want anyone discovering his accident, he wouldn’t want that. Kit found out once and she told me that I shouldn’t do it because I’m a child, I told her to bugger off and she laughed and told me that Flame would have been proud of me.
Two minutes goes by and Flames bath is ready in the form of a sponge and a soapy basin just large enough to accommodate his small body. First I remove the oxygen.
Then I disrobe his sickly form, use the robe to wipe off the puddle on his stomach and lifts him into the water. He weighs so little that lifting him takes no effort.
Flame seems unresponsive to the warm water until I wash his chest, his embers takes on a orange glow. He opens his eyes, stares at me and struggles for words. When finally speaks his words are terribly slurred.
"D-do you...s...s...stil..love..... me"
I feel the tears rush into my eyes when they meet his. In the haze I see Flame as he was the day we met. Strong, a burning inferno of beauty and strong will as he leaned over me while the trees burned arund us, he was no angel and we were not in paradise but in that moment hell was the most wonderfull place on earth.
Then I am back in the present again. My beloved Flame is still there, a strong soul lost in that dying, lithe virus-ridden body that struggles for every breath. But..He is still beautiful to me.
With a voice that chokes, I cup his face and reply, "Yes, Flame, I´ll always love you"
He wraps his hand around a lock of my hair and pulls me closer until our lips meet but I pull back immeidatly.
I don't know if I can.. do what he wants us to do right now, Im too young, to inexperienced and his body is so frail I'm afraid I'll break him apart.
"I could hurt you"
Flames eyes fill with tears that overflow and fizzles weakly as they evaporate on his dark cheeks. I watch his face contort and his black lips tremble.
Soft sobs makes his chest and shoulders shudder. They grow stronger until his whole body nearly bucks with each silent whimper. He cries so hard that he can't even speak. Crying for the things that should have been different, crying for everything he´s losing, crying because he is afraid of dying… And because I don't want to hurt him by loving him.
This is the first and only time I' will ever see him weep in my presence.
"I d-doont c..c---caaaare”
He needs to know that I still love him, and saying it just isn't enough anymore.
I touch his tear-stained face and kiss him tenderly, tears are trickling down my cheeks as well and for a signel moment I wish I was still at the Demon castle with daddy so I wouldn’t have to experience this sadness and hurt that fills my heart with agony "All right..."
I peel off my clothes and give myself to him as gently as I can. Still he bleeds and finds no pleasure in the act and I feel wretched as blinding pleasure surges through me.
His body feels both foreign and familiar at the same time. The feel of his skin and the smell of his breath are all wrong.
But I continue, carefully, because he wants me to. Flame cries throughout our movements, his sobs turn to pained wails as the intense wave carries us up and settles us down. I ask him if he wants me to stop, but he shakes his head.
So I continue even though I know now that I'm causing him agony until were both spent and content, both delirious from the afterglow.
Flame continues to sob and bawl and I'm beginning to think it's the cancer changing his brain, thus messing up his emotions.
I wrap his naked form in the bloody sheets and hold him close. "Flame, please stop crying, please, I´m here..." I stroke the back of his neck and head, not sure of what else I can do.
Eventually my Flame cries himself into a stupor. I place an ice-chip in his mouth for him to chew on. Sometimes if he can chew on something he'll relax. This time it sits in there and melts, oozing out the corners of his lips like drool.
His exhausted eyes stare blankly up at me. It's like he is awake but not aware of anything, that seems to be happening a lot lately.
Then I remember the bloody mess in the sheets.
Back into the basin he goes, so I can wash his face and clean him again. He soaks in the bloody water while I change the sheets and fluff his pillows.
Then I clothe him in a soft black satin bed-robe and place him back on the mattress. He is asleep before his head touches the pillow.
I settle his oxygen mask back into place and inject a dose of vitamins into his IV line, 4 months old and I already know how to take care of a dying digimon, I would be a rookie by now , wouldn’t know anything about death, but I´m glad I´m not a rookie, I´m glad I got a chance to meet and love Flame, that’s something I will never regret.
...what a night.
Morning comes to find us both sharing the same bed. I can hear Flame mumbling, but I can't understand him. His ability to use words has gone with the night. Damn this virus for removing everything he depends on to be strong.
I try giving him water, but he refuses it by slapping the swab from my hand. He grabs his oxygen tubing, or tries to. I move and he calms down into an almost drunken stupor.
I'll never know what upset him so much. Perhaps he just wanted to see that the oxygen tank was still full.
For the rest of the day Flame acts like a belligerent child. Screaming, growling and kicking at his sheets. Twice he pulls out his IV and twice I replace it. I think he's trying to push me away by making me hate him so
I won't suffer when he's gone. But it's too late for that.
Instead of leaving, I put my hand atop his darkened scalp and speak soothingly until his restless movements settle down, I get ash on my gloves but I don’t care.
It takes time and he tries to hit me, but I easily hold both his wrists in one hand as gently as I can. His eyelids flutter and his mouth opens behind the plastic mask, which muffles his uneven breathing.
He is asleep again, and with it comes something I have feared more than anything, a golden glow surround his body and he de-digivolves into a Gizamon.
He doesn’t have much time left now, my last hope disappears along with his fire.
Two days pass without Flame stirring from his slumber. I take it upon myself to turn him in his bed so he won't get pressure sores, manipulate his limbs so they won't become deformed and clean him when he expels wastes.
Every few hours I shape his small hands around rolled-up towels so his claws and webbed hands won't grow stiff and immobile. I spend hours massaging his hands and feet; he really likes that, and use the swabs to moisten his eyes and his mouth.
Once I even dunked a swab in his favorite wine and placed it in his mouth. He sucked happily on it for quite a while, like a child at breast. I had to take it away when started chewing on it. When I offered it again later, he didn't respond.
The swab sat on his tongue. I guess that one time he happened to be awake enough to taste and now he isn't.
Hours are filled with the sounds of breathing. A rhythm growing steadily slower as time marches on without mercy.
Flames hands and face are getting pale. He's the color of ashes, a lifeless, ugly hue that doesn't match the lively orange and yellow that his kind should have.
In my mind I can almost see the horrible virus spreading through his body. Sucking his life away while he lays helpless and in pain on the bed.
All of a sudden he wakes up and claws at the mattress with his silver claws.
His webbed hands are everywhere, grabbing anything within reach. He flings his pillow on the floor and kicks off all his sheets. He gets his tail and oxygen tubing tangled around his body. Then he yells wordlessly at me because he's stuck.
"Flame! Stop!" I jump on the bed and pin his shoulders down. Flame looks at me, angry, his now blue eyes burning with a familiar flame, even though his form is unfamiliar to me he isent. He digs his head down into the until the long spikes on his head threatens to rip the material.
Shadows fall across his skeletal face, turning it into something frightening, he snarls at me, Gizamons have incredibly sharp teeth.
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