Fanfiction:Zipp Dementia Chrono Break 1
Chrono Break
By Zipp Dementia
Crono...
No, he wasn’t ready. He was still fighting.
Crono...
In front of him was a gigantic being. It was hard to make out its exact shape, though it roughly resembled an insect. Most of it, whatever it was, was encased in a hard shell jutting spikes and protrusions. Some of these protrusions seemed to function as kind of feet, jutting into the cracked ground around the shell. Others seemed almost decorative, idly placed to inspire fear and awe. Only one part of the actual body was visible, and this was a crude head formed of three beaks, more a mouth than anything else. The mouth opened and closed slowly, a soft blue light emanating from within.
The light seemed to regard him, as if it were an eye.
The mouth itself was bigger than he was, capable of enclosing his whole body. The shell was even larger, impossibly huge, as large as a city block and tearing into the sky.
And he was facing it alone.
Crono...
As if sensing his fear, the mouth suddenly opened wide and vibrated in a roar so loud and deep that he couldn’t decipher its full range. He felt it more than he heard it. It sent his body into waves of numbness. His only weapon, a wooden practice katana, slipped from his fingers. No longer able to stand he fell to his knees and the blue light judged him.
Crono...
The protrusions at the bottom of the shell gripped the earth, cracking through its hardened surface. The mouth quivered again, but this time no roar came. In fact, there was no sound at all, as if the very world was holding its breath.
Light gathered on the shell. Pooling in the crevices and shimmering out of the spikes like a white mane, it almost looked beautiful. Then it gathered and leapt forward into the air, spreading out to envelop the sky.
Suddenly he realized that he was on the outskirts of a city. What he had at first taken for dead ground he now realized was manmade. A path of some sort, though of a material and structure that he’d never encountered in his life. This road led into a large conglomeration of towers, a cityscape of massive proportions. Flying machines darted like flies amidst the buildings. He could imagine that each was controlled by a living human being.
The light fell.
Fire burned his face and exposed hands. The world turned red. The buildings teetered, then sank into themselves, melted back into their base materials. He heard, or imagined he heard, one heavy sigh, as if from the planet itself; or maybe it was the combined scream of the planet as it was snuffed out. Electrical energy, disturbed by the force of the destruction, played over the sky and the remaining metal hubs where once life had lived out its ignorant journey on the way to death.
He heard a rasping draw for breath and a gasping release of air. It took him a moment to realize it was the sound of his own breathing. His lungs had been destroyed by the heat. The pain was too great for his mind to register. He felt nothing. He only knew that he was dying.
Crono...
The mouth opened again. Again came the roar that measured beyond sound. The blue light washed over his body and suddenly sensation returned to his limbs. His nerves awoke in a spasm of pain and a scream forced itself out of his body, a sound he never would’ve thought himself capable of making.
Still the light washed over him, until he was nothing except pain. The pain was infinite, all he ever was, and all he ever would be. Pain, and a scream that joined the sound of the tortured wind blowing over the destroyed land.
Wake up, Crono!
Darkness creapt in at the corners of the light. The pain dulled, then vanished. Even the memory of it became hard to retain. He could only sense that he’d felt something indescribable. And that, of course, was no easy thing to put into words. Perhaps because it was so inconceivable, he continued to try and locate it. But he could not slip back into the vision.
C’mon... get up!
He grunted, and the baseness of the sound, the normality of it, brought him fully back to himself. The soft bed. The pillows stuffed with goose down. He opened his eyes to see a face hovering next to his. It was familiar and comforting, erasing the last images of the dream from his mind.
Nadia grinned at him. “It’s getting harder and harder to get you up.”
Crono yawned. “Then stop trying.” He rolled over on his side and closed his eyes, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.
“Oh no you don’t.” Nadia began shaking him. The act was so playful, so characteristic of her natural good cheer, that he couldn’t help but smile. He pretended to struggle for a few seconds, then suddenly flipped on top of her and kissed her on the lips. When he pulled away she smiled, then made a face.
“Ugh... morning breath.”
He rolled back to his side of the bed and watched Nadia disentangle herself from the mess of blankets. Sunlight streamed through the one large window in their bedroom, casting her skin in an alabaster shade, making her seem to glow. Though at 22 she was already past the prime of womanhood, she was still as beautiful as she’d been when she was 17, when they’d gotten married. The entire kingdom of Guardia was aware of her beauty, and most people seemed to take it as a matter of pride that their Queen rivaled other women in both her charisma and strength of character. Nadia herself called her looks “cliché.” The Guardia line was known for the beauty of its women, and Nadia hated to be a part of any tradition.
Now Crono watched Queen Nadia stand free of the bed and stretch. Her naked back was to him, and his eyes casually traced the line of her spine until his view was obscured by a golden cascade of hair when she tossed her head.
Watching her, something seemed to nag at the corners of his mind, some hidden anxiety that sought to find his attention. Nadia, unaware, went to a large wooden closet in a corner of the room and opened it to reveal her various options of dress. She paused, as she always did, though only for a split second. Long enough, Crono knew, to let her eyes fall on the stack of clothes stuffed into the corner of the closet, laying underneath a crossbow, unused for the last five years. The moment passed quickly, as it always did.
As she dressed, Nadia went on about the various things they had to take care of throughout the day. Her father had died only a few months ago, leaving Crono the new King of Gaurdia by right of his marriage into the royal family. If he had at one point in his life considered nobility to lead a mostly easy existence interspersed with the excitement of grand battles, being King had proved him otherwise. Gone were the days where men met in armed combat on the field of battle. Instead it had been replaced by a political maze, and Crono spent nearly every waking hour traversing its corridors.
Once he had thought that of the two of them, Nadia was the more carefree and careless. But in matters of state, he found himself more often than not relying on her guidance to steer his decisions. Never much of a talker, he quickly discovered that he simply had no head for politics and the contest of wits that it required.
So he only half listened as Nadia outlined who they’d be meeting in court that day and what the various complaints, requests, and legal ramifications were. He was idly distracted, anyway, by the feeling of anxiety that wouldn’t go away. in fact, the more Nadia talked, the stronger the anxiety got. It wasn’t the usual feeling of dread at having to spend his day holding political court. It was the feeling that he was forgetting something... overlooking something of dreadful importance.
Eventually Nadia’s stream of dialogue died out, and she stood watching him, fully dressed in a full length gown (something she would’ve scoffed at only a few years ago). He enjoyed these moments of silence, but oftentimes he felt required to break them. Now the requirement bothered him, when he was already feeling an anxiety that was all the more irritating because it was so irrational. He said (and was surprised at the curtness in his voice) “Go to breakfast. I’ll join you in a moment.”
Nadia agreed, and although she didn’t say anything about it, he felt that he’d hurt her. This frustrated him all the more. It was frustrating to think that a day could go from good to bad in the space of one person getting dressed, and for no good reason other than a sudden take of anxiety. Yet, as Nadia exited the room, the feeling went away, and he was left only with a vague confusion.
From: Fanfiction