Eight Years Ago

Sitting on the laughably called ‘bed’ in my room, it was just a futon on the wooden floor. I thought about what had happened with Valkyr. I was alone in my room again, the faint scent of Valkyr still lingering in the air as if to mock me. My cheeks burning with humiliation and guilt from the tongue lashing I had gotten from whom I considered my closest friend.

At first we had both avoided talking of old times. Too afraid to pick that scab and start the bleeding again. He told me about his modelling jobs, about how the city Arcadia was fully controller by a new Super from about two years back. Crime had settled down and there was less chance for people to die or play the hero.

It was hard for him as I could see him deliberately not mention Levi’s or Levi Prime.

I talked about how Sensei had been guiding me, how I was trying to find a path that I could call my own. About how I had not had a drink or smoke since I had shown up here three years ago. About how I trying to learn to be who I was, to become something new. To fulfil the request I had seen in Valkyr’s eyes when we parted three years ago.

Sensei had stopped in a few times to say hello and to bring us some dinner. It went cold as we kept talking. The Moon showed up to greet us and the scent of Lilacs suffused the room. The wind rose as we talked long into the night.

By a hidden agreement though, once the bell tolling midnight had finished announcing its presence we both knew we had to pull off that scab.

Valkyr went first. He was always stronger than me.

He sat there, his jacket gone and his sleeves rolled up. The moonlight filtering through the trees and window.

“You could come back Yuudai-Kun. Most of the Levi’s have all left Arcadia and gone their own way. Spark has kept Arcadia safe from other Supers. Even Levi Prime has stopped running through the streets playing hero.” Valkyr said quietly, as if I might run away if he was too loud.

Just hearing the name again, Levi, I felt a fist crush my heart, the Mission started to scream in the back of my mind. I tried to shake it loose. “No, No Valkyr, I can’t…” I tried to find the words. I was not even sure what I was trying to say though. I pushed on. “I like it here, I am safe. No one calls me the Seeker, no one gives me the side eye when they realise I am just another Levi.”

I heard the sharp intake of breath but could not see his face properly in the broken moonlight. “Another Levi? It has been three years. You are still calling yourself just another copy?”

It had been too long since we had talked, I could not tell what emotion he was holding back in his voice but it was under a tight leash. Another copy? Had Valkyr not listened to me? I had already said I was trying to change and find my own path, I worked on it with Sensei constantly. I would…

The words erupted from my mouth as my mind shied away from trying to think of what I had actually been doing.

“I left Arcadia and the Drum to stay safe Valkyr. I had to get away from the House of Levi and Prime. That was the whole reason you sent me away! Now you want me to return?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. He had left me here alone for three years. Alone. No contact. I yearned for information about him, for anything. He never reached out. Now? He shows up and says its all good, time to go back to the place where I was killing myself? Where I was constantly shown that I was not a real man? I could just die and you could find another me on every street?

“I sent you away…?” The leash was strained to breaking point. “You stupid….” Valkyr breathed in deeply. “I never sent you away, I offered you freedom. To learn how to be who you really are. To get you away from the cycle of death, to understand that you are not a copy.” His voice was cracking, I was staring at his shadow and it felt like it was growing.

Valkyr didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop now. I don’t know what I had said wrong but I could feel it in the air. I had broken him. The Valkyr sitting here now was not the man I knew, the rage and sorrow was thick enough to fill the room. It deadened the noise as he lost control and unloaded at me.

“The whole reason? To stay safe? What have you been fucking doing for the past three years!?” Valkyr was almost shouting now, the leash had broken. The words poured out at him, pummelled me, beat me down.

“Woe is me. A bunch of people have the same memories. You were created and from that moment on you become your own man. Have you learnt nothing? Have you thought of nothing? Have you been just sitting here, hiding away in the corner of the world hoping that no one would notice you?” Valkyr growled. “You have done nothing but try to kill yourself and wallow in self pity since I met you. Even now…”

I tried to get a word in to defend myself, that I had grown and reflected. He just kept storming on. Which was just as well as I could not find the words to refute what he was saying.

“It was endearing, when you worked at the pub. You were a cliche with an edge. I know, I was a bastard as well. It was fun to get wasted and drown our shit. There was something in you though. A promise of what you wanted to be. However, it has been years! Look where you are! Look at what you are doing. Nothing! It’s the same shit, you’ve not changed. You are not supposed to be a copy of that bastard any more. You should be your own man leading your own life. You are not leading anything, you are sitting on the sidelines complaining about how hard life is without trying to take part.”

He continued, relentless, each word striking home. “I told you all those years ago that you needed to get out, to find yourself and your place in the world or you would just end up continuing your slow suicide. That day when you agreed to take my help and left? Happiest day of my life. Not because I was losing my friend but because I was watching him save his life. Watching him become himself.”

Valkyr finally paused for breath and just looked at me. Sitting in the tiny room together meant I could reach out and touch him. He felt so far away. I could feel the anger and disappointment pouring off him in waves. It took more effort than I am proud to admit to stay seated on the bed and not curl into a ball.

“Look at you.” Valkyr continued quietly, bitterly. “You are the same man you were back then just in a different place. I came here to see the man you had promised me you would become. Instead I found only a memory. Nothing has changed.”

The silence was too loud. He just started at me. The shadows from the moon dancing across his face.

His face. The face I had held so dear in my memories, the one I had turned too when I used to wake up screaming in the night. The one I remember when I felt like I was going insane with my own thoughts, of who I really was.

A source of comfort that I had spent three years yearning for.

That face across from me now was nothing like the one in my memories. His words were enough to destroy my pride, his eyes scarred my soul. I had nothing to say. He was right. It had been over three years since my creation. I was no longer the man who made me. I had been convinced I would not be him, that I would do my own thing, live my own life.

What had I done instead?

Drunk it away. Smoke it away. Run away from it. Avoid even thinking about it.

Valkyr had enabled that while back in the city but I had left to save myself. Had I even thought about why he had stayed with me back then? Why he had become my friend? Why he chose to drink in that shit-hole bar with me? What had I really done on my own?

That was another terrifying thought to add to the list demanding my attention.

Valkyr had stalked out without another word, leaving me alone in my room. So very alone. There was nothing else for him to say. The meeting I had been so longing for had ended with me sitting here in the darkness. I could not even move to turn on the light. I felt hollow and full at the same time. There were tears demanding to be released but I did not know how. The room I had called home for three years now felt so empty, the emptiness was mocking me.

Valkyr’s words kept repeating themselves again and again. I couldn’t stop them. I was going insane. Valkyr had said it. Sensei had said it. I was not a copy of that man any more. I was when I was first created but from that moment on I had become my own person with my own thoughts, my own drives and dreams.

I breathed out. I tried to clear my head and just… be. I didn’t want to feel this pain of disappointing my friend any more. Of him being right. Sensei was always saying that life is nothing but a series of choices. I just keep making the wrong ones.

Maybe, maybe, I could make the right one for once. The sound of the wind outside rustling through the trees and rattling the shutters. Somewhere a bird started calling. I let it all flow over me, through me. Valkyr’s words were still there but growing softer already. He had been so angry but more than that he was disappointed. Saddened to find that I was still the same. Maybe Valkyr had also spent the last three years looking forward to seeing me.

Seeing who I could become. What kind of man I really was. I was not Levi. I never would be again. I no longer even looked much like him as I was shorter due to my legs. The alcohol and cigarettes had both taken a toll on both my face and voice.

I cared for more than just myself. I had let other people into my life. Two people was not a lot but it was more than I ever had. Than Levi Prime ever… I felt Valkyr’s words start to rage again and my cheeks heated up in guilt.

No. I did not need to compare myself to him. I did not need to show how different I was. That had never mattered. I was unique. I was the only one that Valkyr looked at like this. That had spent time with. Had shared with. Had revealed his hated side, his shame, with.

I cared too. I brought back the feelings when I had heard his voice in the temple. Of when he had healed me. I thought of the Watcher and the brief moment we had shared. I had admitted I needed help and support. I was not alone. None of these events were driven by a conscious desire to be different from Prime, they were just who I was.

It was not too late for me. It might be too late for Valkyr. That hurt. Instead of moving on or avoiding it, I let myself feel the pain. The pain of wanting someone else to be there with me. Wanting Valkyr to like me. It might be too late but I would not avoid this pain. This too was part of who I am.

I could still make the right choice, if there was one. Sensei’s voice floated through the pain. “You are not a copy.” This time the words settled into the hole that had been punched in my soul from Valkyr.

I was not a copy.

I felt myself letting go. The memories I avoided, they were all laid bare and I did not flee. The realisation that what had broken Valkyr was me lashing out at him. Of saying he had sent me away. Again I had tried to avoid responsibility for what I was doing. That I was blaming him for my failure to face myself.

I felt other parts of my mind listening to the sounds around me, feeling the thin covering over the hard wooden bed underneath me, the smell of the musty futon and the wood of the room, the ever present incense in the air. Parts of my mind that were so used to being shut down or ignored lest they trigger a memory in me were rousing.

I am not a copy. I am me.

My skull felt tight. Too tight to hold in my expanding thoughts. It was too small. I needed to do something, my breath coming faster and faster. My fists clenched and my muscles tightened. I tried to find the calm from before when I realised that the guilt and shame, the raging voice of Valkyr was no longer swirling through my head and had not been. Pain was there. The good kind of pain. The pain of growth. The pain of discovery.

The pain of accepting that no matter what, the ultimate responsibility for your life is yours.

I am me.

Not because I was made. Not because of who I know or what I look like.

Because it is my choice.

I am me.

The sounds were getting much too loud now. The wind was screaming through the trees. The shutters banging were like a gong in my head. My skull was tingling. It felt like an overripe fruit. I couldn’t take it any more. I was going to break. I was going to shatter. I refused to run from this. I was going to die. I was going to die and I could never tell Valkyr that I was sorry. I raised my fists and brought them down on my legs trying to ground myself. To try and use external pain to balance the internal storm I was going through.

I struck.

It all went away.

Quiet.

Peace.

Calm.

The wind was whispering outside.

“So, this is fucked.” My voice said from the other end of the room.

My eyes flew open.

I was looking directly at a copy myself.