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by
Jamie L. Word "A
Friend's Farewell"
Koji looked down upon the battle site from his airborne
position. He saw
the devastation from the battle below him.
The nearby city was in ruins, the landscape was horribly
ravaged, and smoke still wafted on the breeze from the
battlefield.
Something caught his attention.
In the demolished city, he noticed the citizens coming
out of hiding. They seemed to be okay for the most part, apparently having
taken shelter in a city bunker of some sort.
This brought a slight smile to Koji's face as he noticed
a small boy with his parents in the midst of the crowd of
survivors. His
smile then gave way to an expression of regret and loss as he
momentarily reflected upon his own parents.
Suddenly, he seemed to remember something important to
him. With a shocked and panicked reaction, Koji desperately
scanned the battlefield for something.
There, lying in the midst of the rubble, he found the
object of his search: Chih.
Koji landed from his airborne position, knelt beside the
prone Nameccian, and lifted his head up in his hands.
Chih weakly opened his eyes and looked up as Koji, his
vision blurred but clearing enough for him to identify his young
friend. Koji looked
on with great concern.
"K-koji?" the gravely wounded Nameccian
muttered a bit bewildered, and then he coughed up a bit of
blood.
"Chih!" Koji gasped, mortified at the sight of
his best and only friend of the last seven years in this
condition.
"Koji, you little monkey you!" Chih teased with
a weak smile. "You
did it! You beat Tarboz, and you almost became a Super Saiyan in the
process! I'm very
proud of you, my young friend!
You've grown so strong and so skilled since I first met
you. It's hard to imagine the boy I first met growing into the
young man I see before me today.
I never imagined the terror of the galaxy being the hero
of a planet.
Listen, I don't have much time left, and I have something
very important I want to tell you."
"No!" Koji gasped in desperate fear as his eyes
widened in panic as his eyes began to water.
"Don't leave me, Chih!
Not you too!"
"Quiet, Koji!" Chih weakly reprimanded the boy
as his own eyes began watering up.
"I want you to bury my body here, in the place where
you became a hero. Promise
me you'll do this one thing for me. You can do what you like with my space ship.
I don't care. Just do me this one honor and let me be buried in this
special place.
It is here that everything I tried to teach you came to
fruition. It is
here that you delivered these people from the fearful clutches
of the fiend who terrorized them for so long.
It is here that I saw you rise from your shattered youth
and embrace purpose like a man.
That's all I ask of you, my friend.
Please, promise me you'll do this thing for me.
Please."
For a few seconds, Koji was silent as a couple of tears
streamed down his face, his head bowed in painful sorrow.
A couple of tears then flowed from Chih's eyes.
Koji's bottom lip quivered with emotion as he finally
looked once more into his friend's eyes.
"I ... promise," Koji whispered in what little
voice he could muster against the pressing of his emotions
against the back of his throat.
"Thank you," Chih replied with a weak smile
amidst an onslought of tears.
"All my life, I've never really had a friend ...
until you. I want
to thank you for being my friend for these many years, and I
hope you'll remember me always.
I will always cherish my memories of the times we shared
together in this journey, Koji.
I wish I could stay, but, for now, I must bid you
farewell."
With those words, Chih breathed his last breath, and his
eyes closed for the final time.
The tears flowed now from Koji's eyes like rivers as he
trembled, holding Chih's head in his hands.
His tears fell like drops of rain as he struggled against
the tide of emotion for one final word to his friend.
"Farewell, Chih," Koji barely managed to get
out as a whisper through the choked-back emotion.
"I will never forget you.
I too never really had a friend - until you."
With that said, Koji collapsed over the lifeless body of
his only friend and wept bitterly.
It was said that one could still hear his anquished howls
of sorrow and grief out there in the ravaged landscape - when
the light of the full moon shone down upon the land.
A memorial was built, and Chih was interred into the
ground as per his dying wish.
Upon the stone a-top his grave was an inscription, a
eulogy: "Here lies a great Nameccian. He will be sorely missed by all whose lives he touched here through his seven years of devotion to the raising of a boy. I will never forget." |
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