Who: Canaan, and a bunch of dream people. What: Dream narrative. When: Last night. Where: The apartment she shares with Motoko. Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, Mild gun violence, Non-character death, and spoilers for the Canaan anime. Status: Complete!
Like a tragic story that was coming to some epic conclusion, Canaan’s dreams had only gotten increasingly worse. Losing her powers, unable to protect Maria at all. She hadn’t even been able to shoot straight. Then the trip to the village.
Her dreams were still plagued with the vision of Hakko’s lips mouthing the words ‘It’s your fault’. It was her fault? How was it her fault? Why was it her fault? Everyone seemed to die or get hurt around her. Was that her fault?
Was it?
It was a horrible nightmare, the facility they’d traveled to now. Canaan knew - she’d been told - that survivors of the biological weapon that had been dropped on the village before had been taken there. To be observed, tested on, experimented on. It chilled the core of her, and the words Hakko had mouthed to her still nagged at the back of her mind. ‘It’s your fault’. Her fault. Hakko had lived in this horrible place. A ‘successful’ weapon created by bioterrorism. The woman’s voice was the deadliest of poisons. Even a whisper could damage someone’s brain forever.
They were here for her - Canaan, Santana, Minoru. Hakko had followed them in, but they’d all scattered to the winds when they’d been attacked by other survivors. Their bodies and minds had been warped and twisted by the virus they’d been subjected to. For once in her life, Canaan’s first reaction hadn’t been to shoot them. Even though they were glowing the brightest blue she’d ever seen.
A scream ripped through the entire facility, so loud and so painful that Canaan was momentarily unable to move. Even though she’d never heard Hakko speak, she knew that it was her. Whatever had happened must have been terrible, and was that her fault, too?
It was her fault. Everything was silent, and Minoru was unable to hear or speak. Not even Canaan’s cries of pain could make a dent in the silence, but Hakko was crying, and Hakko was whispering. Canaan was the only one whose ears could register the sound of the woman as she dragged her lover’s body down the corridor.
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you--” The woman whispered, over and over and over again. Each iteration was like a knife in Canaan’s head. She fell to the ground, writhing in pain and could only watch as Minoru tried to approach the woman. Hakko fell to her knees and shook her head, firing the gun Santana had given her for protection. Now she was using it to protect everyone else from herself.
All of the colors were green. Hakko was warning Minoru to stay away from her, but the man looked over his shoulder and noticed that Santana’s eyes were dead. He picked himself up, then, and approached the woman again.
Canaan watched. She writhed, and her ears bled, and she watched as the man arose and squared his shoulders. She was certain that in Hakko’s state of mind, he really would be shot, and tried to get up to warn him away, but her own warning was silent, and useless.
He advanced anyway, silent and resolved, even as Hakko screamed for him to stay back and brought Canaan to the floor again. He advanced, even when she shot him. He advanced, and wrapped his arms around her. From the floor, Canaan watched, wide-eyed as his color changed to red. He put his arms around Hakko, and for a brief instant the colors changed to a warm yellow, right before everything went dark.
She had been writhing in her sleep. Writhing and crying out, even going so far as to clap a hand to one of her ears. The bed clothes were a mess from it, and there was blood all over her pillow. Canaan awoke with tears in her eyes, glad that when she opened them the world was a blurry mess of colors that made more sense.
But she couldn’t get the memory of what had happened in that corridor out of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, and hugged at her legs, “It was my fault.”