Prisoner

Disclaimer: The characters and settings of this story belong to CLAMP, and the song lyrics below are property of Disturbed. The lyrics at the end are property of Evanescence. I don\'t make any money off of writing this.

~*~*`

Sensation washes over me
I can\'t describe it
Pain I felt so long ago
I don\'t remember

~Disturbed, Remember (Believe, 2002)

Chapter 2: Awakening

Umi was lying on her bed and merely staring at the ceiling. As if things weren\'t already bad enough, whenever she told Umi and Fuu what had happened, they simply said something like, \"Are you sure? As Magic Knights, we\'re interconnected and we\'d automatically know if something bad had happened to you. Maybe it\'s just a recurring dream.\"

\"No!\" Umi would say, \"That\'s impossible. It was three and a half years!\"

To make things between them even worse, despite how much they longed to remain friends, they were slowly drifting apart. They would all be going to different colleges soon, and they would lose each other, possibly forever. And Umi could never tell her parents what had happened. They\'d think she was an insane attention whore...if parents even thought like that nowadays.

Maybe Hikaru and Fuu were right, she thought, Maybe it was all a dream.

You hold all the answers, said a solemn voice in her head, But it seems you have forgotten. I can tell you...everything for a price.

Startled, Umi leapt to her feet. There had only been one other person who could communicate with her by thoughts, and that had been...no. It was impossible. I\'m losing my mind Umi thought, Completely losing it...

Though she feared that the dream would come again, Umi was exhausted from fatigue alone. She reluctantly climbed back into bed and rested her head on her pillow. Beautiful numbness flooded into her, keeping her thoughts at bay and shutting her mind down, as if she was going into a coma. Maybe someday she could finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel....

But wait. There was a light in front of her. It was brilliant, yet so blinding that she had to shield her eyes to merely dim the pain down a tiny bit. When it faded away, everything was much darker. She had never seen this place before, but yet she knew where she was.

This room of Zagato\'s castle was different. It was surrounded by a beautiful waterfall, and shadows of now-empty rock platforms could be seen behind it. Stairs from a tall doorway led down to the smooth stone floor, in the center of which was a shallow pool of water...perhaps it was used to see things that were not near...

And standing on the other side of it was Zagato. A taunting grin flickered across his thin face. Umi got to her feet and neither of them said anything for a moment.

\"Let me guess,\" Umi snarled, appearing braver than she felt, \"This time you\'re actually going to try to kill me?\"

Zagato remained calm. \"Or so the illusion your mind has created makes you expect. You have never been inside this structure before.\"

\"I...I have,\" Umi said defiantly. But she suddenly remembered what Hikaru and Fuu had said about it just being a dream...a thought had had invaded her own mind very recently.

\"No,\" Zagato said, shaking his head slightly, \"That\'s not true. Destiny has bound you since the beginning. Everything that happened in the three and a half years you thought you were here was a dream. There was never an Emeraude. The Pillar system was eliminated long ago. Yet all three of you Magic Knights were brought here under false information...and from then on it was all a dream. Duplicates of yourselves filled in for you in the real world, while the three of you dreamt, nowhere to be found...\"

Umi was speechless. Was this all true...?

\"The other two awakened before you,\" Zagato continued, \"With no memory of the incident. Their minds were...programmed...with false images, such as a possessed Emeraude who begged to be slain. Even my own actions were simply fakes, thank the gods...Meanwhile, you remained in your sleeping refuge for more than three more years. Your rather...irregular...vision was caused by the threads of destiny, as well. Perhaps it was to familiarize you more with Cephiro...to prepare for this.\"

\"And why should I believe this is all true?\" Umi said weakly.

Zagato\'s eyes bored into hers. \"I don\'t have to tell you,\" he said quietly, \"Deep inside, you know it is.\"

Umi searched inside herself. Yes...it was true. There was no use denying it, no use denying what she knew.

\"And...what am I here for?\" she asked.

\"A great evil is at hand,\" Zagato said, \"They seek to destroy all of Cephiro, and then Earth as well. I have had many dreams and visions, and from them I know that only Water can save Cephiro. I\'m afraid you cannot leave here until you ultimately save this land. I\'ve been trying to research this evil, but I don\'t have any real background information yet. You must not stray from this fortress. There are windows large enough to reveal the truth - the outside world is under siege. Plantlife is dying. People are getting sick. All because of the evil.\"

Umi sighed deeply. \"If that\'s what it takes,\" she said, lifting her head from it\'s hanging position, \"I\'ll do it.\"

To be continued...

~*~*\'

I\'m too alive,
And you\'re too strong,
I can\'t lie anymore,
I fall down before you,
I\'m sorry,
I\'m sorry.

~Evanescence, October (No album)