And the World Shall Forget You

[Nayt]

Time had a habit of flying during days like these. Oh well. Etsu had actually been at this project for several hours now, ever since Eld woke up.

Regardless, Etsu nodded her head and turned around in the chair, once again sitting with her her chest against the backrest. She handed her notes off to Eld and made it a point to watch his face. She was, in part, trying to gauge his reaction. See if he was happy with her work.

The first page contained her first sketched out notes. These were now less problematic to read, as she'd since scratched that whole scribble mess out and rewrote it all legibly.

This text is your first warning. You are curious. You think you need to know. But in your pursuit of knowledge, you will forget the consequences of your actions. If you open the grave of memories, there will be no turning back. You will dredge up conflicts best left unresolved. You push the world into Repeat, and by this you will perish. You will become a figment, and the world shall forget you. But if this was a fault not of your own—if the world has cycled into a Repeat by another’s hand—then attempt now to calm yourself and plan for your coming hardships.

The next two pages contained the rest of her notes. These were also legible, and it appeared that the same thing happened: she'd encountered a few errors during the first drafting process, scratched them out, fixed it up, and scratched it all out to rewrite it legibly at the bottom of the page.

Firstly, you must know this: the ghosts demand remembrance. If the grave of memories has already been opened, the suffering of the past will relive in the present. The ghosts will return in kind. Second, and worst, is that Repeats perpetuate by the hands of gods. The temptation for power will come. It will make tasks vastly simpler, but that is the path of gods. That will fix nothing. It is only the hands of man that can put a stop to a Repeat in cycle.

The ghosts can end nothing. They will haunt those that opened their grave until they, and their host, are forgotten. They will sink into the Unreal, and once more they will fragment, lose hold of their reality, and shall wait once more for the same Repeat that bore them before to rekindle their memory and existence, and again they shall be forgotten and their reality revoked. That is the true tragedy of this Repeat.

[Zach Kaiser]

"W-Wow, you did a good job, Etsu," Eld said upon first glancing at it. Even though her grasp of Common was not always the best she seemed to manage to get the message just fine. That she had a multitude of notes and scribbles made him wonder if there had been more to the code than just the first word of every page. And while he wasn't sure what to make of it, that had more to do with the content than Etsu's transcription.

He read it several times, then walked to his desk and searched through the drawers before finding what he was looking for: a small notepad. It wasn't something he'd really needed lately, but with all the strange things being mentioned lately he needed a way keeping track of it all. The first thing he did was copy the message in full, before adding a few things from what Maya told him and then his own thoughts and speculations.

Finally, when he'd organized his thoughts, he spoke them aloud to Etsu. "A lot of this doesn't make sense to mean; I don't really know what it means by the power of gods versus men, or any of that, but...I think Akizetsumei disturbed something by touching of the graves. If this is right, the problem is that she's being haunted by something."

The way he furrowed his brow made it clear he was still a little skeptical of this; of all the supernatural explanations, ghosts seemed like a rather childish possibility.

"Other than that...if this is to be believed, the world will have something happened called a Repeat, which seems like something bad, and there's the "world forgetting you" bit as well. Maya mentioned that as well--it's what this novel seems to be about, and it has the Graveyard of Memories in it as well. A different one, but she description she gave roughly matches the one where Akizetsumei fainted."

But what it did it mean? Was Akizetsumei really in some kind of danger from contact with the graves, caused by some...ghost of an unresolved conflict?

"Are we really on the right track?" he mumbled to himself, rubbing his forehead. Taken literally, this message was saying the world could be facing...whatever a Repeat meant, probably something catastrophic. And that Akizetsumei may have triggered it. And vaguely implied that if he was reading it and wasn't the one that caused it, he was now responsible for fixing it.

Much as he believed something strange was going on, he wasn't quite willing to relinquish his grip on sanity just yet.

[Nayt]

"Sou ka," Etsu whispered.

Before and after deciphering the message, Etsu had troubles understanding what the author was trying to say exactly. It had something to do with a Repeat, something to do with cycles, and something to do with people . . . not existing? Or something to that effect. Unfortunately, even after Eld described his thoughts on the matter, that still didn't make the slightest amount of sense.

There was only one thing left to do, then.

"Per-haps we shour-rd visit the Graves," Etsu suggested.

To her knowledge, Eld hadn't investigated the graves all that much when he was there. Akizets was with him and not much time went by after they arrived there before Akizets fainted. Really, Eld could benefit enormously from investigating this place of interest much more closely-- and Etsu could come along to make sure he didn't do anything stupid, like trigger the end of the world or something.

Because something told her that Eld might just do something like that by complete accident.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld looked at her, surprised by the suggestion, but nodded in agreement. While he'd gone back before, he'd never taken a closer look at the place--he'd mostly just been looking for Remmy then.

"Though, it looks like we'll have to wait until tomorrow," he said, looking out the window at the setting sun. Wouldn't do them much good to go searching through a graveyard without any light. Not to mention he had no desire to repeat getting lost in the woods at night again.

[Nayt]

"Hmn?" she looked outside.

It was night out. So what? They could dress semi-warmly or something. And they'd need light, too. That would make things a little inconvenient at least, but it wasn't like they lacked light sources. They had many options for light sources, all of which were pretty reliable and decent.

Conversely, they'd be completely alone. They'd run no risk of running into anyone-- no one to get in the way of their investigation. And then they wouldn't have to wait until morning. Or afternoon. Probably afternoon. If there was anything they both had in common, it was a love for the physical act of sleeping. But really, Etsu was not adverse to going out right here and now. She was probably going to be awake half of the night, anyways. This'd at least give her something to do, right?

"Naze?" she asked, then pointed at the lantern on Eld's desk. "We have r-right."

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld was tempted...for about half a second. He shook his head vigorously. "No, it's not a good idea. It's dangerous in the woods at night, trust me." One run in with a human-hating wolf was enough reason for Eld to avoid ever going into the woods at night again. He figured the chances of Remmy showing up in the nick of time a second time were really low.

"Besides, it'll be much easier to search during the day, and I can't guarantee I'll be able to find my way in the dark. We'd probably just get lost."

Much as he hated to admit it, he was definitely speaking from experience here. Though in a way Etsu's suggestion was funny; a few days ago Eld doubted he'd ever convince her to go anywhere where they'd be alone after dark...

[Nayt]

Etsu frowned. "Sou ka."

She turned around in the chair and sat like she was meant to, with her back against the backrest. She sat in a slumped position, though, almost as if she were visibly expressing her disappointment. Not that it was necessary. In fact, in a few seconds, it became utterly redundant.

"Yowamiso," she said with true-to-form stoic snark.

Oh well. That was the end of it. She wasn't going to argue it, and was content to just leave it at that and ignore any retort of Eld's, unlesss she was given good reason to acknowledge him.

Given the chance, she'd sit up, stand up, steal Eld's lantern, light it, and make her way to his bookshelf to steal yet another random book from it. If he wasn't going to go out tonight or do anything remotely entertaining, then she might as well get to reading. Again.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld's only response to that was to give her a bemused look. A month ago he would have had no problems venturing into the woods at night, and he reckoned that Etsu would be just as wary as he was if she came across a wolf at least as big as she was.

Wolves don't pull punches and don't fight you in the water, either.

Unlike her, though, the prospect of spending the rest of the evening reading didn't bother him. He lit a candle on his desk after Etsu stole the lantern and started in on the novel Maya lent him...

[Nayt]

Etsu was not content with the book she found. This one was extremely boring. In fact, she'd have rather been reading what Eld borrowed from Maya, and reporting all Eld needed to know after finishing. Not in one night, of course. That thing looked like a tome. Either way, it was bound to be better than this pile of crap. From what Etsu gathered from the first twenty pages of this book was that there was this guy and this girl that had mutual affections for each other, but for some totally silly reason, they could not be together. It had something to do with the girl's father disliking the man because he was poor and living on his own. In Etsu's opinion, that guy would've benefited from a shot of testosterone. What he needed to do was beat the tar out of the girl's father and ride off into the sunset. But he didn't do that. Instead, he was distraught and thinking of moving away or killing himself or something.

This book was incredibly silly.

It was also extremely boring. Etsu wound up falling asleep in no time. She'd only read sixty pages of this and only paid attention to the first thirty. For awhile there, she lay still with her back still up against the headboard of Eld's bed and the book open and flat across her chest, pages down.

---

By the time Eld woke up the following afternoon, Etsu was already primed and ready to get going. She was out in the living room and dressed for a long hike-- a sleeveless blue vest jacket and long tan slacks. She was planning on "borrowing" some of Rebbecca's shoes, too.

She was also reading the book that Eld borrowed from Maya. She had it sprawled across her lap and was calmly reading and at least enjoying this one. It was infinitely better than that history book and horrid romance novel combined. Things actually happened, after all . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

Fortunately, Etsu wouldn't have to wait too long in the morning; when he had things to get done, Eld needed no prodding to get up. Usually. When he emerged from his room, he was already fully dressed and ready. Actually, he was surprised to see that Etsu was as well.

Did she get dressed while I was asleep? No, that wasn't terribly likely; she'd probably change in the bathroom sooner than risk that.

"You're up early," he commented. She usually slept later than him, and while she had even less to do most days than he did that was still an impressive feat.

[Nayt]

Etsu looked up from the book when she heard Eld call to her. She was just at the part that Dagan met the Seeker, and she really wanted to know what the hell that guy's deal was. He, Dagan, and Attis were just talking about this whole big important task, and the Seeker just up and shot Dagan into a wall. It was pretty rude. Anyways, Etsu would just have to find out what the hell was up with that guy later. She took the small slip of ripped paper she'd taken from her notes and slipped it between the pages as a makeshift bookmark.

She looked up to Eld and nodded her head.

"Hai. Wai-ting for you."

The girl was all ready to head out to the Graveyard of Memories-- or whatever Eld was calling it at this point. It was closing in on the afternoon and Eld didn't like the idea of being out in the woods at night, so if they didn't leave soon, she was going to start getting impatient.

[Zach Kaiser]

"I'm ready to go if you are," Eld stated. He paused for a second, though, wondering if he should somehow inform Toushikyo not to come today, but he figured it wasn't necessary. Knowing him, it would take him at least another day to get over himself enough to come talk to him.

He was dressed in an outfit common enough for him: an unbuttoned black shirt over a white undershirt, and black jeans. Simple outfits suited him best, he figured, so he didn't have the most elaborate wardrobe ever. About the only things of interest in it were some Cizokian clothes he'd received as gifts.

They should have plenty of time to search the graveyard, he figured; even counting travel time, they'd have several hours of daylight, and it wasn't a huge place.

[Nayt]

"I am," she said.

Etsu put the book aside and stood from the couch. She was half tempted to bring the book along with her, but it was kind of a tome and would ultimately weight her down needlessly. It wasn't like they were going to stop for a reading break, anyways. That would just be silly.

Without skipping a beat, Etsu started for the door and stared at the few shoes that were lined up nearby. She picked out the ones that belonged to Rebbecca and decided on a pair of canvas shoes. They weren't the best things in the world for a hike (in fact, they were second only to sandals in terms of horrible quality for wet terrain), but they were at least comfortable and they fit her well enough.

Etsu stood at the door and waited for Eld. She was not as energetic of a person as, say, Akizetsumei of Terra, but she was awfully quick to jump the gun right now. This was probably about as energetic as Etsu could get-- which is to say, she was pretty antsy.

[Zach Kaiser]

It wasn't exactly a short trip to the cemetery; they had to make the trek to the lake, go around it, and even then continue for a fair distance into the woods before coming across it. Fortunately, Eld had a good sense of direction, and he managed to find the path again without any trouble.

Only four days had passed since Akizetsumei fainted; it seemed like longer to him. Like the path should have already disappeared. But it was still there, and probably would have been even if he hadn't come back in the meantime.

"We're almost there. Just as a warning: don't touch any of the "gravestones,"" he said in all seriousness. "If I'm right, it was touching one of those that caused Akizetsumei to faint. The fans, specifically, but there's no saying bad things don't happen from touching the others, either."

[Nayt]

She took the walk just fine, just like before. Etsu didn't need breaks or moments to rest; she was just fine to walk for hours on end. Of course, unlike Eld, she'd actually eaten breakfast. She had some energy to go on with. Eld didn't even bring snacks, did he?

She was going to wind up carrying him home, wasn't she?

"Because I wir-rr be haunted, correct?" she asked.

Etsu was kind of half serious about that. If the warning had any bearing on reality, then touching one of the aforementioned artifacts ended in being haunted, or something to that effect. Assuming it was true, which Etsu highly doubted, she wasn't terribly fond of being haunted needlessly.

Once there, Etsu felt . . . strange. Yes, this looked awfully strange, what with the plots all lined up and marked like this, but the look of it wasn't too strange. It was a graveyard, that much was for sure. These plots were all lined up and marked intentionally, and all the grass around it was wilted and dying. Etsu tapped her foot on the ground once, only to discern that the earth was rough for being so close to a lakeside. The true depth of the strange surge of emotions Etsu felt upon stepping through the woods, into this clearing, and viewing the plots of the dead all lined up meticulously under a high noon sun was not the look of it, but the feel of being here. Everything felt heavier when she stood in this clearing. The air. The aura. Everything.

This was not a place that people were meant to visit . . .