5,801Chapter 2: Memories
Green. The world was green, and it was fog. He was surrounded by fog, and it felt warm and alive! How long had he been here? Years? Seconds? He looked down, and his body was nude. It didn't bother him, no one was here, nothing was here. Just him and the warmth. It pulsed, it was growing and twisting.
However, he felt a need to do something. He stumbled, his toes suddenly touching grass as a world was exposed before him. Everything was still green, but it felt familiar.
This was like the yard he toiled in, but it wasn't. The grass was thick, and it went on in all directions. He looked up, green fog fading as a blue clear sky stretched out. No sun existed. Still, the air smelled sweet, like that flower he had found once before the Thin Woman got angry and destroyed it. Lily? Yes, it smelled like Lily blossoms, and the wind almost caressed his face.
Time passed. He felt a little guilty enjoying this, laying on the grass. As the clouds rolled by, he could see images in them, but he felt so far away. They seemed to be the past, times he had been hurt or sad. He frowned. This was his sky, clouds should go away. He felt so strong here, so powerful. No cloud should make this place feel dark or overcast. He reached his hands up and thought. What would work?
He once saw a snow-globe, when he was even younger. Dudley had thrown it away, and he got to play with it for almost a whole day before it was taken. Even with a crack and leak, it had been pretty. He called his thread.
From his hands, many threads came forth. He was shocked, these threads were like ropes! Still, they felt like that one green hair-light he had controlled, a part of him. Using them felt like grabbing a cup of water he had just sat down, slightly out of sight. Almost automatic. The cloud he grabbed was pulled closer, and he leaned forward, trying to see what exactly this was.
The images got larger, and the rumble of thunder became voices. This was a memory! One of his Christmases, no less. The one where he got caught looking at the tree from the crack in the cupboard. Well, it was not really that unpleasant but it should not be here, just floating around. He cupped the cloud in his light, green threads wrapping tightly, weaving into a half sphere. With a smile he reached up and grabbed the cloud, now compressed into a tiny snow globe with text on the bottom, marking the time and contents.
He looked around. Where to put this though? Snow globes were fun, but he didn't want to look at this all day. And what if someone came in here, and tried to hurt his stuff? They always did before. He tried to think. What could he do to keep this wonderful place, but still protect and hide things?
A secret place. Like what his tiny room had turn into, but this one would not be dark. He reached under his feet and felt the grass. It continued for miles, so this would probably be safe, right? He stood, held his arms wide, and pushed the ropes of green warmth into the soil. A large square of grass raised as if on a hinge, and a polished set of wood stairs led down into a gleaming white coridor. He smiled a little, crisp green eyes filled with humor. Hidden didn't have to mean buried among lots of complex toys like Dudley's room, hidden only meant that it could not be found. He walked into the white corridor, and pulsed his light, making it reach forever under the soil. He knew that even digging above would not find this white wood hall, you had to find the entrance first.. and that is how the rest will work too.
Turning sharply, he went to the edge of the wood stairs and pressed lightly. They retracted smoothly into the wall, exposing what he knew would be here. Hell. The cupboard of hell. He pulled the door tall enough to enter without ducking, and walked into the tiny darkness. A wave of his threads and the wall became shelves, long and labeled with times and emotions. He gently placed his snow globe in a spot that felt right somehow. This is where such darkness should stay, alone. Not forgotten, he knew that forgetting never worked. He had tried to forget pain and hunger before, after all. No, this was right somehow.
He walked back outside and rubbed his hands together. This was probably going to take some time. His green ropes sailed through the air, pulling another gray cloud down to be placed away.
~~~Core Threads~~~
Could he feel tired? Hungry? How long had he been here? He had quickly decided that he was inside his own mind, the memories were a huge clue. He continued collecting and sorting the clouds, and each cloud he caught would play a memory. Most of these where as expected quite bad. Still he continued, as the grey clouds began to be categorized and left downstairs in hell. The sky seemed bluer somehow, and that made him feel even more warm. It also seemed to make it easier to control his ropes, and less time was needed between each snow-globe he made.
This next cloud however, was black. And this black cloud felt wrong. It dripped some sort of black ooze, and had small red lightning shards crackling around the edge. He firmed his jaw. This was NOT what he wanted in his sky. This would be bad though. A snow globe didn't seem right for this cloud.
He thought hard. Badness like this should be kept very controlled. It was not welcomed here. He tried to think of something evil like this cloud, something bad. As he thought back, he seemed to almost hear something, a woman. It seemed to come from this cloud. Could his ropes hold this though?
He threw his hands firmly forward, and wrapped this cloud as tight as possible. As it got closer, he could a woman screaming, a mans laughter, the cloud flashed a sickly and poison-like green. He watched in growing horror as some dark figure screamed words at this woman, a beautiful lady with red hair, who seemed to be protecting him. Words were not possible. It played several times before he could feel time passing again, and he crushed the cloud, trying to make it feel the anger, sadness, and pain he felt. That woman was IMPORTANT. He did not know why, but she had tried to help him, and this cloud was old! She could have been anyone, maybe even a friend! Maybe she could have saved him from the hell under the stairs if not for that back shadow of a man!
His eyes glowed green as the cloud became more and more compressed, ropes lost their grip and became threads, pressing and squishing this vile cloud into a small black pearl. He would not destroy this, this abomination. She deserved this moment to be remembered, maybe even avenged. The Red Woman would be remembered, but this cloud would not be tolerated.
He turned with anger, unaware that green threads carried the black pearl along, as he walked downstairs into the white wood hall. With a wave of his ropes a section of the white floor opened and a bright red carpeted stair opened into a cushioned room, the same red color as her hair. Her memory would rest here, protected and safe. His thread created a tall and simple black pillar, with a bed of his favorite flower, Lily. He gently placed the black pearl in the center, and stood in silence, anger on his face and tears in his eyes. He turned and headed up the stairs and to the grass filled world, breathing deep and trying to calm.
If there were many more memories like that, he may break. To have someone willing to help him was amazing. Maybe she would be in other places? Other memories? Still, better go back to lighter colored clouds for a while. He needed the break.
~~~Core Threads~~~
He began leaving some clouds in the sky. They were fluffy and white, and while a few required parts removed (Dark edges like being caught outside without working, or talking to others), most were just random things that he enjoyed. That cloud had his first memory of seeing a flower. That other cloud had images of a pretty night sky when the power had gone out in the village, and stars had been everywhere. He didn't even know he remembered these things, and watching those clouds float by made him feel cleaner, brighter, lighter. There seemed to be some older clouds in the distance, but they were so far away he decided to come back later for those.
He had been laying on the grass for a while now. Time seemed strange here, but he didn't want to leave yet. His control over the threads, ropes, and even thick cords now was much better. Apparently with less clouds, and without needing to fight the dark ones back, he was far more relaxed. He had however needed to create another room, a cupboard INSIDE his cupboard, for the darker Dursley moments, when the Fat Man, Thin Woman, and Dudley had done things to him that hurt worse than usual. He had actually put little prison bars on those snow globes, and just thinking about it had made him giggle a little. It was like having dozens of tiny bad people in jail in double hell, which was more than they deserved in his opinion.
He looked at his body. His right arm was still longer, and he had no doubt that the poor food and heavy work load had probably caused issues with all his other bones. The muscles and stuff he was not as worried about, that had been fixed almost by accident when he had been working on the bone earlier. Still, probably should do the most important ones first... which meant the head.
He knew he had been hurt up there a lot. When his vision went a bit bad after the frying pan incident, he knew something had not gone back right. Still he was a bit worried. What if it didn't heal right? If his head grew, would his brain be all right? His eyes?
Then again, if it went bad, what would he be risking? Dying now, on warm dirt and grass with soft scented winds under a blue sky? This would a better end than anything he could imagine even a few days ago. Heck, he would have fought for a death like this a few days ago, so why not risk this?
Firming his resolve, he pulled all his threads, ropes, and cords of light he had into his skull. The warm feel of the light was acting differently, apparently his light threads were not nearly this powerful outside his mind as here. He supposed that made sense, here he could do anything imaginable while out there he only had a single thread, or at least he did before cleaning up in his head. The power was more responsive though, and took much less energy to control. Moving away the distractions and not repressing the bad memories seemed to have greatly increased his ability to concentrate.
As the light began wrapping his skull, his inner world seemed to become brighter. Colors became stronger, scents brighter, even the soft noises of wind blown grass seemed crisper. Then the warmth began soaking into his brain. The world paused for a moment.
Suddenly everything was moving and staying still at the same time. It felt like the world was TOO REAL, the blue of the sky could almost cut his skin, the smell of the grass was hurting his ears, everything was more. He could faintly hear popping as parts of his skull broke, as his eyes slightly deformed, as his jaw unhinged. Even worse, he could actually feel some teeth moving, vanishing, and growing. But the pressure in his head was growing.
The world paused. Light dimmed, the colors darkened, his world became silent. As he slightly began to panic, he heard a scratching and looked up.
The sky was being torn. Like a dark finger, a black lightning bolt was being carved into the sky. Colors seemed to be fighting the edges, sounds were trying to slow it, but something was on the other side. It didn't seem awake, but by just existing it was trying to break into this world.
He felt shocked. This thing was worse than any cloud. It felt hurt though, like it didn't know where it was and couldn't think well. The boy with green eyes looked back down the stairs at the red room and suddenly realized the feeling of this new blackness was familiar. It was like that man.
That man had somehow left something here, in his mind. That woman had failed. Her life had not protected him.
No.
His green eyes began to glow as he looked back into the sky. The woman may have failed, but no one would ever know. He would rather die getting rid of this black evil than allow her sacrifice, her death, her GIFT to be tainted by failure. She had NOT failed, not while he had any say. Righteous anger, for the first time in his whole existence, filled him. He reached inside, and opened everything he had. Threads, ropes, cords, finally a BEAM of green light flashed into the sky.
The threads shattered into wisps, hairs, too small to see. They began exploring the darkness in the sky, mapping it, trying to gently surround it without warning or waking the slumbering blackness. Thick ropes peeled back the sky, giving extra room for the huge cords to pull inwards the large black mass.
It looked almost like an unconscious demon baby, twisted and black, clearly not awake. The flailing of it's arms created powerful wounds on his world, which healed nearly instantly with directed threads. The boy with green eyes took a deep breath, then moved a green cord directly into his own eyes. Unlike before, where he could only see thin threads within himself, he could now see an entire network of threads within the obscenity. This creatures light was like black ooze, and seemed twisted and cruel. The boy felt dirty even touching it with his pure green web, but he knew this thing needed to die. Malicious thoughts oozed off it, along with anger, rage, and other twisted emotions.
With green eyes burning, he raised his right arm and coated it with cords that began twisted around, faster and faster, like a drill. While the dark creature thrashed randomly in its bonds, the boy hesitated for a moment... then smashed his arm straight into the skull of the monster.
An explosion of blackness was the last thing the boy saw.
~~~Core Threads~~~
Pain. He was hurt again. His eyes opened, and he was grateful that he was still in his mind. The corpse of the creature was still there, deep in a crater that the green eyed boy had been thrown out of. It was not moving though, so that was good. Ooze was coming out of it, seeming to puddle into strange shapes against the will of gravity. Slowing forcing himself to sit up, the young boy groaned. There was a lot of damage. The sky had a hole in it, the ground was heavily cracked, there were scars in the earth, and there were several new clouds. And of course, a nice big black one dripping with goo that probably covered what he had just did.
He rested his hands on his head. This had somehow escalated way too much. He had just wanted to be warm and fix himself. To feel that warm softness. He reviewed his actions. Each step had made sense, except for that last one... it was strange how strongly he had felt the urge to kill, to destroy. It was not him, THAT was... oh.
He looked back at the black goo in the pit. Gently reaching out a thread, he touched it.
ANGER, RAGE, DEA-
Quickly he broke the green thread and left it to corrupt in the goo. Apparently the daemon thing trying to break into his head had been leaking some VERY negative emotions. He almost laughed, as the stress of the situation began to catch up with him. He had gone slightly nuts and homicidal because a dark creature was poisoning his mind with crazy thoughts. Said crazy thoughts had succeed, but since there was no one to hurt but the creature itself it had sort of backfired. This whole thing felt twisted.
Still, that goo could not be allowed to fester here. Raising pained muscles, the sore and tired boy created a glass bottle like the one the Loud Man had on the fireplace mantel, with a ship inside. He tried to throw out his cords, but only a few threads came out. His control was messed up bad because of all the damage. Still, it was enough to begin filling his bottle with black emotion goo.
~~~Core Threads~~~
There, one half filled ship in a bottle. He used his light to create a glass cork, sealing all that nastiness away. With a slight after thought and a slight grin, he also replaced the replica ship inside with a happy rubber duck. It felt right somehow.
His threads had done light healing on him while he had been collecting the goo. Still it hurt to move quickly, so he gingerly walked back to the grass entrance (Now slightly scarred) and down the white wood steps. He thought a bit, then turned to the left instead of the right side of the stairs. With a hand wave, this side revealed not a normal cupboard, but a metal door with no handle. His finger touched it and he passed through into a metal room with no seams, and created a small metal table, thin and made with shiny wires. On top he placed the Rubber Ducky Bottle of Doom. Looking around, he decided this would probably work for the corpse as well, since he would have no reason to come back here.
Back in the grass fields, now at least partially the giant-hole-and-grass fields, he lifted the corpse and compressed it. After it was tiny, he had another thought that made him grin.
When he left the metal room downstairs a second time, the Rubber Duck had a solid black (Formally evil baby) top hat.