Coming of Age -- Ending Two of Four is up!

Ending number two! Here we go. Again, reviews are very much loved; not as many people DIE in this one, I promise. =)

When these are all over, I'm considering a sequel, depending on how the feedback from my personal favorite ending is. I guess we'll see. =) Enjoy!

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The water swallowed him whole, a great black beast with ice for fangs. He’d thought he was ready for it, but the cold surrounding him punched the air from his lungs and made him gasp. Water flowed down his throat and he gagged, kicking for the surface. Something in the water below him shifted, unraveled, and began to rise. A sudden, incomprehensible terror struck him, and as the thing below him came closer, the panic engulfed him. When it grabbed him, two long, talon tipped hands wrapping around his ankles, he screamed. The thing pulled him down, its long, pale arms wrapping around him, turning him. He saw long, swirling pale hair and brilliant blue eyes. He knew those eyes. His chest burned. He needed air.

Then a mouth closed over his, just a fraction warmer than the water around him, and he could breathe. He kept his eyes open, his hands coming up to rest on the thing’s shoulders. Some part of him knew it was Jin, but most of him refused to connect the pale, strange boy with this writhing, frighteningly beautiful monster. It held onto him as it moved up towards the surface.

The air above was just as cold as the water below, and Connor took a huge, gasping breath of it. He coughed, spitting water out, as the thing pushed him up onto the ice. He looked at Jin, and for a moment they just stared at each other. Connor saw the changes in him; the brilliance of his eyes, the strange thing his hair had become. Connor studied the subtle rearranging his face had gone through and realized that even though Jin looked even less like a human than he did before, he was even more beautiful. Now. Jin smiled at him, and that smile was full of needled teeth and so much love it hurt Connor’s chest.

“Jin…” Connor whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Connor!” Lila screamed, and he lifted his head. She was half running, half stumbling down the dock, Quinn clinging to her with one hand. In his other, Connor saw their father’s gun.

He wanted to scream, to tell them to stop. His lungs ached still, and he couldn’t find his voice. He turned to look at Jin, who was half out of the water, his nails dug into the ice to keep him up. Jin had noticed nothing; he seemed to intent on making sure Connor was out of the water and safe that he’d completely missed the danger coming down the dock.

“Jin, go.” Connor whispered. He reached for him, intending to push him away. Jin had not heard his words, and when Connor held his hand out, he took it. He said something in his beautiful, lyrical language, a question Connor did not understand.

“Connor move!” Lila screamed, and Connor turned his head. The sound of the gun firing was so loud. Connor felt a bright, hot line along his cheekbone and jerked his head away. A split second later, he heard Jin scream. The sound of it was so painful Connor flinched away from him. He saw the hole open in Jin’s chest, saw the thick, sluggish black flow of his blood, and his heart lurched.

“No.” he whispered, fumbling forward on the ice. Jin looked up at him, his eyes hazy with confusion and hurt. “No, please.” He grabbed at Jin, who had begun to slip back into the water. “Jin, no!”

He missed Jin’s hand by less than an inch. He moaned, a loud, hopeless sound, and tried to throw himself back into the water, tried to follow Jin down.

Lila landed on his back, her arms going around his neck. The ice creaked and groaned beneath their combined weight. Connor began to scream, his entire body flopping and bucking in an attempt to get her off of him. The ice splintered and opened beneath them, and Lila screamed as the water rushed up to meet them.

Quinn sat on the dock, the gun cradled against his chest. He was trying very hard not to pass out; the pain of the infection that was racing through him was quickly becoming too much for him. He sobbed, his shoulders hunched and his head lowered. He leaned back, finding one of the dock posts and leaning against it, his own weight just too heavy.

When Connor and Lila broke the surface again, Quinn’s crying had stopped. Lila pulled herself up onto the dock, gasping and shuddering, and Connor was behind her. He had only one hand to use to pull himself up, the other cradled a bright blue sphere to his chest. Lila turned to help him.

Connor collapsed, panting and shuddering. Lila crawled over to Quinn. “We have to go.” She told him, grabbing his shoulder. “We need to get to a hospital. Connor, help me!”

Connor got up, not out of any want to, or any real worry for Quinn. Most of him has simply detached and floated away the second time he hit that water; Jin was gone. There wasn’t even a body. Just the sphere. He pulled Quinn up with one hand, and Lila helped him drag the still, silent boy to the car. His breath was so faint, so shallow, that it didn’t even mist in the air.

He stopped breathing halfway to the hospital.
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Two Months Later

Lila got out of the car, pushing her sunglasses back onto her head. The hill overlooking the lake was beautiful in mid-October; gold and rust and amber. She walked over to where Connor was sitting, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring out at the water.

“How long until all of this is yours?” she asked him softly.

“Another few weeks.” He replied, and looked up at her. His hair was longer, and he hadn’t shaved in a long time. The scar on his face. evidence of the bullet that had killed Jin, was pale and uncomfortable to look at it; it was like an accusation to her. She saw the glint of something intensely blue in his lap and crouched down beside him. He showed it to her without her having to ask. The sphere had changed; less substantial, it looked more like a soap bubble than a glass ball. The fog inside of it had grown, become thick and almost liquid. She reached a hand out to touch it; it was like ice.

“Do you know what it is yet?” she asked quietly.

“No. Maybe it’s their way of reproducing.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it’s just a souvenir.” He hugged the sphere to his chest and looked back at the lake. “Whatever it is, it’s all I have left.”

Lila sighed. “My father told me you didn’t go to the funeral.” She said.

“Why would I?” he asked bitterly. “He’d been arrested for slave trading, Lila. Fucking slave trading.” He shook his head, disgusted. “I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Is the money going to pay for the land?” she asked, and he nodded. “Are you going to live here?”

He pointed. “There’s a clearing, near the west end of the lake. I’m going to build a house there.”

“It will be lonely out here, by yourself.”

He smiled. “Lila, do you really think that after Jin I could ever not be lonely?” he laughed at this, as though it were a very clever joke.

Lila stood up, dusting her hands off. “You call me if you need something.” She told him.

”I need Jin back.” He told her flatly. “Can you go back in time? Can you stop yourself and my brother from killing the only thing that’s ever made my life worth anything?” he stood up. "Can you make it right, Lila?"

She looked away, angry and hurt. “I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“I know you are.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m sure that if Quinn were here, he’d be sorry too.”

Lila left, and Connor watched her car disappear through the trees. He ran a hand across the surface of the sphere, feeling it shift in his hands. When he couldn’t see or hear the car any longer, he turned and ran towards the lake.

The water around him was colder than his body had expected, but not as cold as he’d wanted it to be. The sphere pulsed and made a soft, high humming sound, the light inside of it flickering to life. He stayed under water with it until his lungs burned and his vision blurred from lack of oxygen. When he surfaced, he kept to orb under the water.

It had to grow, after all.