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You're dying with his name on your lips and a trail of blood like a tear running down and down your cheek. You never cried before, and you aren't crying now, not exactly, but you think that the gnawing pit inside you is as close as you'll ever get. It's not as if you'll have a chance to find out either way, on account of the dying part, on account of the blood that the pounding rain dilutes. Your blood. Funny that.
As a child, your dad told you of your family legacy, of the terrible things your ancestors were once willing to sacrifice. He told you all about the great price their descendants have had to pay since. You didn't notice then—you were too young, just a kid, really, freaked out of your mind as your dad talked and talked in front of hundreds of heads. You're barely more than that kid now, you're so young still, so, so young—, but your dad looked sad when he told you, pained almost, as if he didn't want to burden you with all that knowledge. At least, that's how he looks now, in your memories, in the few spots where you can see clearly past the blood in your eye, in your mind.
You're dying. That keeps slipping in and out of focus. He would roll mocking, fond eyes at you, would ruffle your hair and tell you to pay attention. If he were here, if you'd let your instincts take over, if you'd let the fear, the apprehension you felt before going up the mountain show on your face even a little, he would have come as well. You can't move, can't talk, can barely breathe, but in your mind you're screaming for him, pleading, begging, crying. His name rests on your tongue. Will you rest, too, after dying here, in the middle of this cursed mountain?
"You don't have to go," your mother said when she saw you put your shoes on before you left. She said it quietly, like even the thought of her words scared her. You thought of blasphemy, of the kind of paralyzing fear you'd seen in movies but never felt, and then shook it all off and shrugged. You wonder now if that fear would be anywhere close to how you feel now, trapped inside your mind and struggling to break through, to move, to breathe. "Your dad—"
In your memories, she cuts off there, lets the words distort, shatter. It might be because the two of you never talked much about your father after his passing. It might be because of the wound in your head, the one that is bleeding you out. You can't remember it clearly. You're finding it hard to remember a lot of things.
His face is bright and clear in your mind, though. You doubt you could ever forget him. Even death won't claim him from you. He is lying on your tongue, just like— no, that's wrong. That sounds far too close to the shameful dreams that used to wake you panting in the middle of the night, the kind that taught you to take care of your own laundry. You have years' worth of fantasies like that, each one terrible no matter how innocent. You knew better than to let them show. Your father taught you that even earlier than your family history. You think you deserve a break, though, all things considered.
"I want to leave this place," he used to say. Not all the time, but you think he was always thinking it, maybe even now, maybe especially now. He came back to that topic whenever something bad happened around the village, or when his sister decided to stay home yet another day, or when the whispers around town turned particularly vicious, about him, about you, about anyone, really. He was vicious, too, in his condemnation of this place that has seen you both grow and grow. It wasn't viciousness for the sake of cruelty, but that of an animal caught by the tail, trapped and lashing out in an attempt to escape. "I want to move to the city and never think of this place again."
You let him spin the fantasy of his departure over and over, with such mastery it could have made a poet cry, until it solidified, until it seemed like just another inevitability in the history of this cursed village. You let him believe your words blindly when you assured you would be by his side every step of the way if he decided to leave. Even though you knew you never would, not really. You are a good boy, a responsible boy, and even though you never wanted to carry on your family's burden—your father didn't want that either, you don't think. In your memories his face blurs with regret, or maybe that's just the blood loss. Or maybe that's just death—, you promised you would carry it regardless. You've failed that now, haven't you? Failed. And you barely even got to try.
It's a little unfair, you think distantly. You can almost hear the gossip mill faint in your ears—so young, too. Poor boy. What was he even thinking, up the mountain in this weather? What are kids like that ever thinking of?—after they find your body. There will be a funeral, surely. There was one for your father after his accident. Your mother won't cry for you, but you know you shouldn't hold that against her. She didn't cry after your father died and she knew him longer than she knew you. After your father's funeral, she took you back to the house with dry eyes and that night she tucked you into bed and left your room in perfect, unbreakable silence. A slight noise woke you hours later and you found her in the living room, curled up on her side on the floor. She wasn't crying, even then. Just staring at the door with unseeing eyes. Your father did always say that you learned to avoid tears from her.
Will he miss you? Will he cry for you when your mother can't? It's possible. He was always more prone to tears, always more sensitive. When you were both very, very young he cried whenever he had to kill a mosquito in the summer, and when you told him spooky stories, and when he had to go back home after a full day spent together. He doesn't cry as much anymore, not as openly in any case, but you've still caught his tears more than once in the past few months. You think maybe he lets you catch them, lets you peer into his insides and find all the places where he is open and raw. You and no one else. It's a thought that sends pleasure rushing through your veins. If only air could travel that easily now.
There's something above you. Not a person, not even a figure, just a something that presses against your chest and the tips of your mind. There are very many things lurking around this mountain. It could be anything, it could even be nothing but death pressing you further into the ground, and yet you know that's not it. That's not it at all. It's something that digs deep inside your memories, that chews and swallows at the frayed edges of your self. You could lose your mind thinking like that, whatever is left of it now, whatever death hasn't claimed yet.
He hates horror movies. Not because they scare him, not since he was a child, really, but because they make him sad. Last time you convinced him to watch one with you, you woke up half way through to see him stubbornly wipe tears from his eyes. He always thought it was unfair that monsters were the bad ones, that they lost over and over. Maybe it will serve as consolation, for him to know that this monster won't lose, even if you aren't exactly putting up a good fight. Maybe it'll be relieving when he realizes that the monster had nothing to do with your death. Your own carelessness is to blame for this. You're dying because of no one but yourself.
A twisted part of you wishes he could be the one to find you. Not right now, not when you're so close to the brink it'll be nothing but added pain, not when there's something settling around you. But you hope he is the first one to reach your side. Afterwards. You imagine that he would cry—he always cries, doesn't he? So sweet and gentle, feeling everything with so much force even though he masks it behind that ever serious facade. You're the one who never sheds a tear. Would you be able to, if your roles were reversed, if you stumbled upon his corpse in the woods?—, that he would cradle you in his arms, that he would try to breathe life back into your lungs. That last one is far too close to those terrible fantasies fo yours. More than once you contemplated if drowning could be worth it if it would mean he'd try to bring you back. Terrible fantasies, each and every one of them. But you think you should get a break, just this once. You're dying, after all, and you've always been so good about it all these years. You should be allowed to picture his lips, warm against yours, soft like he has always been. You should be allowed. Just this once. There won't be a chance for any others, after all.
The something around you is heavy, not like a rock is heavy, or like carrying anything is heavy. It's just heavy, primally, inevitably heavy. Can you see it? Or is that just blood clouding your vision? Would it make a difference? There's a noise growing in your ears, deep on the inside where sounds normally aren't. It might be death. Is that what death is supposed to be like? You don't remember. You can't remember. It hurts to focus. He would ruffle your head and huff, annoyed, fond, resigned. He should be here, waving you to the other side, shouldn't he? No, that's wrong. He would cry if he were here. You always hurt when you saw him cry, even if you laughed about it.
Your father never talked to you about death, outside of that time with the heads. That time when he explained your family history. And even then that wasn't an explanation of death itself, just of your past, of the memory you would have to carry with you and nothing more. You weren't ready when he passed, though you doubt an honest conversation could have changed much about that. It didn't change anything about your own death, after all. Did his father ever tell him of death with the terrible honesty warranted by a conversation about it? Surely not. He doesn't talk with his father much. Not anymore.
There is very little air left in the world for you, very little light, also. Your vision is tinted red, though maybe that's the something that looms and settles around you, over you. Or maybe it's just the blood, maybe it's just death. Can death be just anything? Did you ever wonder that before?
You're so young. Somehow you keep coming back to that. Barely more than a child, not even done growing fully, though maybe that's just something you say to avoid being jealous of the taller boys in your class. Jealous of him, impossible as that might sound. You were sure you would live forever. You kept expecting death around every corner.
His name is still on your tongue. There is no air to call it out loud, but the something seems to hear it nonetheless, seems to repeat it like static inside of your head, right against your brain.
You want to die with his name deep inside your head, with his face branded into the very marrow of your bones. He has always belonged there, mixed up so terribly with you there is no distinction between one and the other.
He will be alone when you die. With you gone there will be no one to watch over him when he cries, when he wishes to leave and not look back. There is no one else but you for things like that, no one else who has ever been allowed that close.
"Yoshiki," you say, or you think, or the something says. It feels as if it were slipping under your skin, the same way your breath slips out of your body, faster and faster. "Please, Yoshiki."
You're dying and there's an echo of your voice in your head, even though it isn't your voice, it isn't any voice. A mess of noise and static that isn't words but is full of meaning nonetheless.
You're dying and his name is on your lips as if it belonged there, and there's something settling inside your body as if in a new home.
You're dying and you imagine his silhouette against the fading world, and you can only hope even in death he will still be forever branded behind your eyes.
You're dying.
You're dying.
You're dying.
You're dead.