Chaos due to school work hasn’t left me much time to write, but there is still some, and I’ve still got the rest of a story to finish. With that, I present to you: chapter 26.
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Chapter 26
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“Blasted headaches…” Pohatu sighed as he put his hands on his head. He held them there for a moment, rubbed his eyes, then dropped them at his side again, only to see me standing at the foot of the bed. “Whoa!” He jolted awake. “What the…” He squinted; focusing was apparently still difficult for him.
“Good morning,” I smiled and greeted him, trying to come off as non-threatening as possible.
“Who’s there? Are you phantoms? Am I seeing things again!?” His eyes were wild and wide open. His voice trembled; I wondered what he was used to waking up to if phantoms were his first guess.
“No, I’m really here,” I said as I stepped forward, hopefully into better view. “I’m Lis.”
“Oh…” the panic faded from his expression, but he seemed no less uneasy. He eyed me up and down. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“We’re friends,” I explained. “Hewkii brought us here to see you.”
“Hewkii?”
“The Toa Mahri of Stone. Your friend. He comes here to help you sometimes.” When Hewkii’d told me that half the time, Pohatu didn’t even remember who he was, I’d had a hard time believing it. To see it was something else. Pohatu looked up at the ceiling, gripping his forehead.
“Hewkii… Oh!” he looked back and pointed at me. “The yellow one… burly guy… right?”
“Yes…” I nodded slowly. Something about Pohatu’s behavior didn’t seem sincere, and it was bothering me.
“Yeah, yeah…. I know him…” He started to push himself up into a sitting position, but then noticed Kopaka, who’d been quietly sitting to the left of him through the entire exchange. The moment he saw the Toa of Ice, Pohatu’s eyes widened again.
“Remember me?” Kopaka asked calmly.
“You! Every morning it’s you!” Pohatu exclaimed, suddenly aggressive. “Both of you, go away! Leave me alone!”
“I am not one of your… phantoms,” Kopaka asserted.
“Like I’d believe you!”
“You should.”
“No! ■■■■ it, no!” Pohatu shouted, waving his arms and looking away with his eyes closed. “You’re not real! I don’t know you! Leave me alone!”
Kopaka stood up. “I am real. I am Toa Kopaka Nuva. You know full well who I am.” He looked down sternly upon the shaken Toa of Stone, an expression which I figured the latter should’ve been well familiar with. Pohatu looked up, still frightened.
“You’re not… not here to haunt me?” Okay, so maybe recognition was still a ways away.
“I am your brother,” Kopaka replied, “and no, I am not here to haunt you.”
“Brother?… Yeah right…” Pohatu groaned as he lay back down, facing away from Kopaka, and pulled the covers back up. Kopaka looked to me and gave a slight nod with an obvious, implied meaning. Not that I needed a cue: curious as to what exactly was going through Pohatu’s head, especially concerning these ‘phantoms,’ I was already focusing in on him, though this time I’d keep my own eyes and ears open. He was… very different from Kopaka, to say the least. Everything in Toa of Ice’s mind was ordered, structured… in Pohatu’s, signals were darting all over the place, and many of them were pain signals, and not just from his headaches… In fact, from the amount there I could only conclude Pohatu was in a lot of pain.
“No, you do remember,” Kopaka insisted, turning back to Pohatu. “You must.” I don’t think he believed his brother was trying, but from what I could tell he definitely was… but something disturbing was becoming clear to me.
“You’re all fake! Go away,” the Toa of Stone grumbled from under the sheets.
“Lis already told you we are real,” Kopaka argued. “Besides, you should remember us from last night.”
Suddenly, Pohatu turned and faced Kopaka. “I don’t, okay!?” he exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his hand. “I don’t know what happened last night, and I don’t know you, whoever you are! Get out of my house!”
Kopaka didn’t so much as blink. “Keep trying, you will remember.” Though he spoke calmly, something about his demeanor was becoming more… insistent. He needed Pohatu to remember, but the Toa of Stone’s outburst confirmed what I’d already suspected from watching his thoughts dart about; even with pain signals firing all over the place, large parts of his mind remained utterly blank when I should have seen something, a flash or even a single signal, something to indicate it was… working.
“■■■■, I’m tired…” Pohatu covered his face with his hands and gripped tight. “Argh! Stupid headache!” He held them there for a moment, then sighed. “Just… leave, leave me in peace for once…” His voice trailed off as he lay down again and pulled the covers half over his face. Kopaka stood still for a couple of seconds, then looked at me. I gave him a worried look back, after which he made his way along the bed to me. I retreated out of the Toa of Stone’s mind, fully back into the real world.
“Are you seeing anything?” Kopaka asked in a hushed tone.
“He’s trying, he really is,” I replied, “but there’s a lot… missing in there.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know… I’ll need time to decipher what’s there, but it’s possible that he’s seen you as one of these ‘phantoms.’” I answered solemnly. “Could be that your memory really is haunting him.” As far as I was concerned, it was one of the more likely explanations, and having seen the last, tearful goodbye between these two Toa, I was finding it rather hard to watch the reunion in their current state; Pohatu half-delirious and tortured by a decaying body and mind, with Kopaka clueless as to what exactly to do about it.
Kopaka nodded, then made his way back to the side of the bed. “Enough, brother.” He grabbed hold of the cover and pulled it off in one fell swoop, tossing the aged cloth down beside the bed.
“No, don’t!” Pohatu protested, but Kopaka leant down, grabbed his shoulders, and turned him over, locking eyes with the Toa of Stone.
“I am real, brother! I am not one of your delusions! Snap out of it!” Kopaka’s sudden volume had me surprised, but nowhere to the degree that Pohatu was. Stunned, the Toa of Stone remained quiet for a few seconds as Kopaka held his position. Trembling, he slowly reached up and touched Kopaka’s arm, feeling the cold metal of his armor.
“You… you’re real…” he realized. “You’re really here…” Satisfied, Kopaka let him go and stood up straight again. “I’m… I’m sorry about that…” Pohatu continued. “I see things sometimes, things that…”
“Things that aren’t real?” I stepped forward, concerned.
“Yeah, that,” Pohatu nodded. “W-what are you doing here?”
“Hewkii brought us,” I repeated myself.
“Hewkii?..” It took a moment before Pohatu remembered. “Oh, right… him.” He looked back and forth between us. “And… who did you say you were?”
Had Kopaka been inclined to show anything but the most extreme emotions, I think he would have sighed or rolled his eyes in frustration. Instead, he just introduced himself again: “Toa Kopaka Nuva, your brother.”
“My brother…” Pohatu seemed to struggle to remember. “I know… I should know you.”
“You should.” Kopaka repeated himself.
“I know, I just need to remember…” Pohatu looked down and scratched his head. “Blasted headache…” He looked up again, somewhat hazily. “How do I know you?”
“We were on a Toa Team. We fought together,” Kopaka said.
“Fought what?”
“The Rahi, the Makuta, the Bohrok…” Kopaka proceeded down what could only be a laundry list worth of villains.
“Bohrok!” Pohatu recognized. “The things!.. With the staffs!”
“Those were Rahkshi,” Kopaka corrected him. “Makuta’s spawn. Do you remember?”
“No, they were Bohrok,” Pohatu argued, but his voice was wavering a bit.
“The Bohrok had no staffs. They had shields.”
“Oh…” Pohatu looked down, disheartened. “I could’ve sworn they were… the other ones.”
“What do you remember?” Kopaka asked.
“Ugh…” Pohatu shook his head, looking increasingly frustrated with himself. “I don’t know… It’s all jumbled together,” he gave up.
“Lis?” Kopaka turned to me.
“Yeah, what?” I wondered.
“Show him what you saw.”
“What?..” it took me a moment to catch on.
“Mount Ihu.”
“Oh, yes,” I remembered.
“Mount Ihu?” Pohatu wondered.
“I’ll show you,” I stepped forward. “Just… close your eyes.” Pohatu seemed somewhat unnerved by the idea, but obliged, after which I focused in on his mind again, but this time, rather than reading signals, I’d be writing them; implanting the memory, or the bits and pieces that I got from Kopaka, into Pohatu’s mind. At first, it was a dicey process, since I hadn’t done it to this extent before, but best as I could, I tried to channel everything I could recall to Pohatu. When I was finished, I drew back and looked up.
“It’s done. You can open your eyes now,” I informed him. Pohatu did so, looking slightly bewildered at first, then looked back at Kopaka, who was now crouching by the bed. His mouth fell open as, for the first time since we’d come here, I could see that hint of recognition in his eyes.
“Y-You’re back…” he barely managed to say. Kopaka nodded as Pohatu recovered from his initial shock. “You’re here… You’re really here…I know you.” he half-whispered, still scarcely believing what he was seeing.
“I am back, but not for long,” Kopaka said, trying to bring him back into the present. Suddenly, with surprising speed, Pohatu reached out and embraced his brother.
“I – I remember… that mountain, the mask…” he continued. “You… you came back for me?”
“Hewkii said you asked for me,” Kopaka replied, “and I would appreciate it if you let go.”
“Oh, of course.” Pohatu drew back, after which Kopaka immediately stood up. “It… it’s just good to see you again.”
“You asked for me,” Kopaka repeated.
“I did…” Pohatu looked puzzled for a moment, but then his face fell grim as a chilling realization befell him. “Oh, I did…”
“Why?” Kopaka asked.
“Uhm…” Pohatu thought for a moment. “You know, I’m hungry. You must be, too. Please, let’s have some breakfast first,” he offered.
Kopaka didn’t reply immediately, instead looking rather bemused as Pohatu dodged the question, but eventually relented. “If you insist…”
“Of course,” Pohatu smiled, trying in vain to disguise a certain nervousness. Whatever he wanted to ask Kopaka, it was serious. He looked around as if searching for something. “Sorry, but… uhm… my legs don’t really work,” he admitted.
“Should I get the wheelchair?” I offered.
“That’d be nice,” Pohatu smiled half-heartedly. I went and got the wheelchair from the corner of the living room where I’d seen it before. It creaked and squeaked quite a bit, but appeared to be otherwise okay. Kopaka stepped aside as I positioned the wheelchair next to the bed, after which Pohatu proceeded to push, pull, and eventually lift himself into it. From his facial expressions alone, I could tell there was a lot of pain involved; Pohatu grimaced and groaned a few times, though he largely tried to hide it from us. “Right, this way,” he beckoned as he led the way out the bedroom and towards the kitchen, where he noticed the pot sitting upside down in the sink. “What’s that doing there?”
“It’s…uhm, you might not want to move it right now,” I suggested.
“Okay…” Pohatu appeared close to doing so for a moment, then caught a whiff of the odor of melting vomit and apparently decided the pot did not require relocation at this time. Instead, he made his way over to the old fridge. “There should be something in here,” he said, but upon opening the fridge he found it to be disappointingly sparsely stocked. There was what looked to be some remnants of a ruki dish, some fruit in various states of decay, and a nearly empty bottle of some kind of fruit juice. I noted that there was a rather generous supply of liquors on offer, though. “Well, it’s not much, but I’m sure we can get something together…” Pohatu sighed. He opened another cabinet and pulled out a stale looking but otherwise fine loaf of bread. After scrounging up some plates, he divided the ruki and bread evenly; that was our breakfast.
“I don’t have much of a table,” Pohatu confessed as he lead us into the living room, “but make yourselves comfortable.” Taking to his suggestion, I chose the chair. Kopaka preferred to stand. As expected, both the bread and ruki were hardly fresh, but far from inedible. Pohatu offered the remnants of the fruit juice to wash it down, which I gladly accepted. The Toa of Stone preferred to use a stronger beverage for the purpose, much to the disdain of Kopaka.
“So, that trophy…” I attempted to start up a conversation.
“My first,” Pohatu said. “Lotta memories behind that one…” Though proud, there was a distinct undertone of uncertainty, maybe even bitterness in the way he said that.
“Did you always play kolhii?”
“No…” Pohatu’s expression went blank for a moment. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“You did not,” Kopaka reminded him. “Hewkii encouraged you to do it.”
“Right, yes.” Pohatu nodded.
“He told me you were pretty good at it,” I smiled.
“Yeah…” Pohatu nodded again, though there was little authority to any of his replies. I couldn’t help but wonder whether his memories of his Kolhii days were just as jumbled as those from before the Reformation. He took a modest sip from his bottle, washing down the last remnants of the bread on his plate. Kopaka and I had already finished.
“Getting back to your question,” Kopaka said. “What did you want to see me about?”
Pohatu sighed, looked around, then cleared his throat. “It’s… it’s kind of personal…” he said quietly, eyeing me.
“I can leave, if that’s okay,” I got up.
“No, stay,” Kopaka ordered me back down, much to my surprise.
“Okay then…” Pohatu took a bigger drink this time, apparently trying to build courage. “You… look at me,” he began. “I… I’m hurt, brother. I can’t remember how, or why… I just know I hurt. All the time. Sure, I’ve got that thing,” he gestured at the lone trophy on the shelves, “but I’m not even sure where I got that from…”
“Kolhii,” Kopaka asserted.
“Yeah, that…” Pohatu said. “Whatever that is… and look at this place.” He gestured around. “It’s no place to live, you know?” Kopaka nodded slightly as Pohatu took another drink. “Look… what you showed me, what… Hewkii tells me, that thing on the shelf… I was someone, once, and I don’t know that person.” He turned to me. “That… that brown Toa in that thing you showed me… Is that who I was?”
I nodded.
“Yes.” Kopaka answered solemnly.
Pohatu sighed heavily… “I don’t know… I don’t remember… All I’ve got is pain, Kopaka. That’s all that’s left, and it’s getting worse… it’s awful. Every day I wake up, my back hurts, my chest hurts… never mind the headaches and the phantoms…” Choking up, he took a drink again. “I – I think I’m dying.” Kopaka’s eyes widened at the statement, as sure a sign of shock as he’d ever give.
“Dying?” he asked.
“Yes… I’m sure of it,” Pohatu continued. “And ■■■■ it, it hurts so bad. I can’t keep doing this… I’m done. Not anymore.” He stared off in the distance for a moment, then turned back to the Toa of Ice, tears welling up in his eyes. “Look, before I ask, just know that I wouldn’t ask anyone else this… no one I know.”
“Understood.”
“I… I’m gone, Kopaka. I don’t know who I am, who I was… I’m miserable, and it’s only getting worse…” Pohatu sighed, cleared his throat again, then looked Kopaka straight in the eyes: “As a friend, an ally, whatever I was to you… will you help me end it?”
“End it?” Kopaka looked perplexed.
“To end the pain, the nightmares…” Pohatu continued. “This… this shell of a life. I… I want you to kill me.”
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#####author’s note: Once again, material I had planned to fit into one chapter has turned into two. Thankfully, good ‘cliffhanger’ opportunities always present themselves. I’ve gone over this scene a lot of times in my head over the last month or so, trying to refine it exactly down to how I wanted it to go, but I still feel like I haven’t quite nailed the more sober Pohatu yet. I’ll see how that plays out next chapter, though.
I’ll post more chapters as I finish them. Enjoy!
