1998
Standard disclaimers apply.
The small boy sat silently in the darkness of the alley, hidden behind several discarded crates more than triple his size. Silhouetted against the artificial late afternoon 'sunlight' of the colony, the child bowed his head, resting it against the knees hugged closely to his thin chest.
"Why Solo?"
The softly uttered question hung unanswered in the silence of the boy's surroundings.
His small fists clenched against his bare legs as a quiet sob escaped his throat. It felt strange to cry alone. There was once - a long time ago - when he had done that. Somewhere he couldn't even remember anymore. He hadn't even realised then that he'd been crying when he saw the Rescue Team drag out the two broken bodies he barely recognised. By sheer luck, he'd escaped the same grim fate that met his parents - parents he could now hardly remember. He'd watched them from the milling crowd, his feet rooted to the ground as they took the bodies away. He'd stood there as the Rescue Team searched for more survivors. He'd waited until they left when they couldn't find any. He'd stood there in silence and wordlessly watched as they drove away, hardly aware of the diminishing crowd around him.
Until finally, he had stood alone.
Gazing at the ruins that he had once known as home.
And Solo had come into his life that day and filled the yawing void his parents' deaths had left.
Yes, it felt strange to once more cry alone. Once, his parents had calmed his tears. Then, Solo had been there to comfort him when the nightmares left him bawling into the night. But now...
Now he was alone. Again.
Duo cried silently.
Why did Solo choose to come to this hated place? They were happy before, on his home colony. There was a war there, true, but they had managed. And survived. Wasn't that the important thing? To live? To be alive?
But Solo had heard of a colony that the war had not touched. Where the Federation kept peace and food was plentiful. And opportunities abound.
Even for homeless castaways such as they.
"It'll be great, runt! No war, lotsa food! Whaddaya think?" Solo grinned as he bit into a stolen apple.
Duo looked back, quietly chewing on his own apple gripped in two tiny hands. "I dunno, Solo," he answered with a slight frown. "It sounds too good -"
"That's 'cos it is, runt! And I know just how to get there!"
And they did.
Duo didn't know how Solo had managed it. He didn't particularly care, but somehow they had managed to stow away aboard a cruiser headed for Solo's dream colony.
The dream that became a nightmare.
Lies. They were all lies. The rumors and stories Solo had heard of this colony - lies, all of them!
But Solo had remained optimistic, affecting cheer even though Duo could see the deep disappointment that welled within the older boy's dark eyes when he thought nobody was looking.
And for Solo's sake, Duo went along with the charade.
For Solo's sake...
Duo hugged himself tighter, his long hair falling across his face and obscuring his vision of his dreary surroundings. Unconsciously, he fingered the long chestnut locks, tangled and matted from days of neglect. Slowly the boy combed it with his small fingers.
He had a picture once - a picture of a smiling woman with long, honey-blonde hair. There was another picture - a man's - but it was the woman's that he recalled most.
But times had been hard and he'd been forced to part with the locket that housed that smiling image.
He remembered the tears he'd shed when his small fingers failed to pry the picture loose. He remembered the pain of a torn fingernail that resulted from the effort. But it was nothing compared to that of losing that final link to his past.
Solo had told him to forget it, to keep the locket. They'd surely be able to find or steal something else that could be sold or bartered for food.
But after several days of trying and searching, Duo realised that there was no other way if they were not to starve to death.
Without the older boy's knowledge he had fenced off the locket. And with the money from that act, they had survived the next few days.
Solo never forgave him for that, Duo knew. Hell, he couldn't forgive himself either. But, looking back, it was a small price to pay for a few more days of life.
And to recompense the lost picture, he'd started to let his hair grow.
It was darker than his mother's was, but then he couldn't really remember the exact color of her hair anyway. But he remembered it had been long, and that the sun loved it, turning it into a golden halo whenever its artificial rays touched the silken strands. He couldn't remember what it looked like now, but at least, he could imagine how it felt.
But that was so long ago it seemed. And it happened so far away. On the colony he had called home. Not this...this mass of artificial metal and concrete that people called a colony. It didn't even have a name! Just a number - V something - Duo couldn't remember. Ironic, considering the numerous times Solo had mentioned it way back when...when Solo was alive.
In the darkening alley, amidst salty tears, a bitter smile curved on the longhaired boy's face. The lengths he went to for life, he thought. His own. Solo's...
Angrily, the small fist thumped onto the hard concrete ground, breaking the flesh. Small beads of crimson blood leaked through the scraped skin, but the boy barely felt it.
This colony was hell.
It teased and tantalised from a distance, drawing Solo into its deceptive grasp. And once he was caught, it refused to let go, anointing him instead with death.
Duo heaved a deep, shuddering breath.
Solo was dead.
The colony Solo had idolised had killed him. Killed him with its fetid, diseased breath.
But it refused to claim Duo.
"Why?" Duo growled angrily under his breath. Did the colony know how much he hated it? Was it trying - in some perverted, conniving way - to hurt him back?
Duo gazed up into the artificial sky - the only sky he'd ever known. It was beautiful, in a way. But the real thing was even more breathtaking, he remembered from a few months back when Solo and he had crept towards one of the view ports of the ship they had stowed away on.
Yes, the real sky was more beautiful. Dark, but lit up with multitudes of stars that glittered in the distance. Solo had loved the sight. Both of them had been awestruck at their first sight of space. Perhaps, Solo was up there somewhere, gazing once more at the stars he loved. Perhaps one day, he'd join him, Duo mused.
Duo started.
It was night? Already?
Had he been here that long?
Solo had died early that morning, his last breath escaping with the sunrise - an artificial sunrise, but a sunrise nonetheless. Duo had watched the body carted off by the disposal unit - presumably it would be cremated or similarly disposed of somewhere. But it was just a body, a lifeless husk. Solo wasn't there anymore. He was free - somewhere where there was no war or hunger.
At least, Duo hoped so.
"I wish we coulda spent more time together, runt," Solo had croaked before exhaling his last breath.
Runt.
Solo had always called him that. Ever since they met - about three years ago. But now, no one would call him by that name. Once, Solo had asked him about a word that described two people.
"Duo," the longhaired boy had whispered to the still, lifeless body before him. "I'm Duo now, Solo."
Yes.
He'd call himself Duo. Solo had chosen his name when he had been alone. But now, Duo had chosen his name because they were together.
In spirit, they would always be a pair. A duo.
Duo didn't cry then, at Solo's deathbed. Nor did he cry when they took Solo's body away. It felt wrong to cry. Solo wouldn't have wanted it that way.
But alone in the dark alley, the tears came, and Duo let them fall until they could fall no more.
-owari-
Author's notes:
To ye confused readers *grin* - in Duo's Episode Zero, it was hinted
that Duo met Solo *after* he came to the colony where he was to later meet
Father Maxwell. Since it was never blatantly stated, I took the liberty
of twisting the truth (don't I always?). In my alternate take, Duo and
Solo met earlier, on Duo's home colony, and came to the new colony *together*.
Also, later Solo succumbed to disease and died, even after Duo had managed to steal the serum that managed to save the other street kids suffering from the disease. It had been too late for Solo. It was after this that Duo met Father Maxwell, and the rest is history (or is that 'future'?). It was not mentioned *when* Duo adopted his name but I took this turning point in Duo's life as the moment 'Duo' came to being.
Shirin
Please send comments to: shirini@pc.jaring.my