by Susan Doenime & Mike Loader

Epilogue 1 - Jabberwocky

 I gambled in the graveyards
 Went against the odds
 With the saints and with the saviors
 With the maggots and the gods
 I cursed the things they showed me
 I'd never see them again...
 - The Pogues


	"Son, would you like to learn a very powerful new 
technique?"

	I smile. Of course I would! Does he even need to ask?

	He always asks.

	"Okay, Daddy," I tell him.

	He leads me into the backyard. There is a pit, freshly dug, 
and a stout wooden cover for it. Inside are cats. Lots of cats.

	I frown. I like cats. It seems mean to put them in a pit.

	"Do you want me to get the kitties out of the pit?" I ask. 
That seems a funny sort of training.

	"No, son." Daddy looks uncomfortable. "You're going to go 
down in there with them, and learn."

	"Learn what?"

	"The Neko-ken."

	I nod. That makes sense. I suppose you would have to 
learn the Cat Fist from a cat.

	"What's the Neko-ken? Is it any good?" Cats don't hit very 
hard. I know, cause I wrestle with our cat Kiki all the time. 
Kiki's fun to play with.

	"It's one of the most devastating techniques in the world, 
my boy. If you can learn it, you will have truly started along 
the path of a great martial artist."

	I smile. That sounds good. I want to be a great martial 
artist, just like Daddy.

	"Okay. What do I do?"

	He takes out a string of fish sausage, and carefully 
winds the links around me. Then he daubs fish paste on my 
clothes and forehead. I wrinkle my nose. It smells icky.

	"Just go into the pit, and learn, boy."

	I look down. The cats look up. They have shiny eyes.

	"Okay!"

	I hop down into the pit. Daddy's been teaching me how to 
land right. This is easy, only about six feet, but the cats are 
all over it. I don't want to hurt any of them by landing on them.

	They look at me, and it's not a very friendly look. I don't 
feel so good, all of a sudden. Kiki never looked at me like that...

	The wooden cover slides into place overhead.

	"Hi, kitties... will you teach me the Neko..."

	They leap, they leap as one, and I scream as they slash 
and bite and snarl. They jump on my shoulders, and on my head, 
and they bite and claw. There are hundreds of them. Thousands. 
One claws up my head and I scream, grab it, try to pull it off. 
It rips free, and I howl, and then another one is climbing up the 
back of my neck. The claws rip me. They are all over me, and I 
can't breathe and I throw myself against the walls until I hear 
snapping noises.

	I'm screaming now, and I can't stop, and there's blood and 
fur in my eyes, and they keep ripping their way up me, and my 
eyelids hurt as they claw at my face, and then they're on me 
and I fall down, and they bite and claw at my stomach and they 
want to rip my guts out and I'm scared I want out I want out 
Daddy take them away get them off me please please please 
they're ripping at my eyes stomach my throat...

	I've got to get out, I've got to get out of the pit, there's 
snapping noises and catyowls and screaming and I've got to get 
out, got to make them stop, got to get them off of my eyes, got 
to keep them from eating me, they want to eat my eyes, got to 
GET OUT GET OUTGETOUTGETOUTOUTOUT if I were a cat they 
wouldn't see me wouldn't kill me if I were a cat like them they 
might leave me alone maybe I could get out maybe I could hide 
maybe maybe be be cat pressure in my mind, cats trying to 
claw their way out of my head, in my head, eating my guts, 
ripping their way out, be a cat and help kill Ranma, be a cat 
and...

	"It's okay, son. Snap out of it. You're out. I took you out."

	Cats are around me, I'm still in the pit, got to get out.

	"I won't make you learn it. Okay, boy?"

	Pressure in my head, like when you gotta sneeze and it 
builds up but you never do sneeze, and the cats are trying to 
rip their way out of my head...

	"Are you okay, Ranma?"

	"Daddy?"

	I'm in the pit, but I'm up on the lawn with Daddy.

	"Are you okay, boy?"

	"I guess so."

	Why am I still in the pit? The cats are tearing me up, 
ripping apart my head, I've got to get out but I'm already out, 
how can I escape if I'm already out?

	"Good boy. Go put some antiseptic on those cuts. I'm sorry 
I tried to teach you this so early. Maybe in a few more years."

	"Okay."

	I go in the house, and in the pit the cats rip out my guts 
and eat them. I need to get out.

	I put stingy cream on my cuts. The cats tear out my eyes.

	I go watch TV.

	I watch.

	The cats chew on my bones.

	I'm still in the pit.

	Night, and I sneak out of the house, and I get the hose, 
and I put one end of it in the pit where the cats are eating my 
fingers. I turn it on, and bolt down the cover, and they scream 
and yowl and choke and drown.

	I crawl back into bed.

	The cats float by me in the pit, eyes bulging, fur falling 
off. They dig rotting claws into my flesh, and pull me down to 
the watery bottom of the pit, and tear at me in the mud and 
silt.

	I pull the blankets up over my head.

	They rip out my throat with decaying teeth, festering, 
bursting eyes glowing.

	I'm still in the pit, and I can't get out.

	Waking up, I eat breakfast and do my katas. It helps a bit. 
The cats can't hurt me when I'm in control.

	I stop, and they swim in, rotting flesh over lean, bony 
skeletons, and they tear holes in my stomach and eat my 
breakfast as I scream.

	I train. It helps.

	It's worse when Kiki watches me. I thought he was my 
friend, but he's not. He's just waiting. Waiting until I fall 
asleep.

	He keeps watching me. Watching my throat. Watching my 
eyes.

	But I fool him. I have a pocketknife. And I tear out his 
throat, his eyes, his stomach.

	And then I lose control, and the cats swarm in and kill 
me, rip me apart, bite off my tongue and pull out my intestines 
and I scream and scream and scream...

	Control. Control keeps them away. Got to keep them away 
until I can get out of the pit.

	Maybe if I had stayed in a little longer, maybe, I would 
have found a way out. Maybe I could have been a cat too and 
escaped. But Daddy took me out, and left me behind. I'm still in 
the pit.

	Control. That keeps them away. They can't hurt me if I 
stay in control, if I don't scream and try to kill them, kill them 
all. 

	Daddy found me and Kiki. He doesn't understand. He made 
me stop stabbing Kiki, but Kiki's not dead. He's in the pit now. 
He's in the pit with no eyes and no stomach and no throat, and 
he tears mine out when I lose control.

	I grow up.

	And I'm still in the pit.

	I'm still in the pit.

	I'm still in THE PITI'MSTILLINTHEPITI'MSTILLINTHE

^_-

	Mariko turned away from the observation gallery, 
shuddering.

	"You know how we kept saying we wanted to send him to 
hell?"

	"Yeah?" Koji replied somberly, staring at the writhing 
figure strapped to the table, watching as the white-robed 
attendants sedated him.

	"I think we were too late. He's already there."

	He sighed. "So. What now?"

	Mariko looked uncomfortable. "He's never going to get out 
of there."

	"I know."

	"And he's in more agony right now than anything we could 
come up with."

	"Probably."

	She glared at him. "Okay. Look, I say we call it quits. 
Right now. We don't have any justification anymore. Just 
revenge. And that's not enough."

	"I agree."

	"You can keep going if you want, but... wait a minute, you 
AGREE?"

	Koji nodded. "I agree. I still hate him, and I'd still love to 
see him dead, but I'm not going to do this to us anymore."

	Mariko looked down. "It hasn't been that bad. It's not 
like..."

	"Mariko, you broke an innocent girl's finger and nearly 
killed Akane. I helped. Ukyou's probably dead because of us, 
even if Shan was the one who did the killing. It's that bad. 
We're turning into him." He looked at the screaming boy behind 
the gallery windows with repulsed fascination. "We don't even 
have his excuses. We aren't insane. We don't live in some sort 
of nightmare, not unless we make it ourselves."

	She sighed, seeming to deflate. "I told Ukyou. Damn it. 
I've still got her blood on my hands."

	"But we haven't actually killed anyone, not yet. Not 
directly. I think... I think we might have become something 
unpleasant if we had. We still might, if we keep going. The 
person who broke Kasumi's finger was not my sister. I didn't 
recognize her, and I didn't like her."

	She didn't meet his gaze. "This is why you make the big 
deal about honor, isn't it," she said quietly.

	Koji slowly nodded. "It keeps us from becoming what we 
fight. It helps, anyway. I haven't recognized myself either, the 
past few weeks."

	"So we..." She struggled for words, for a bit, her eyes 
filling with tears. "We aren't letting Ryouga down. We can't be. 
This wasn't about him. It was for us, not for him."

	"It... I guess it was." Koji looked lost for a second, 
confused. "So it's over?"

	"It's over. Let him rot in this hole for however much 
longer he has to live. And if they cure him... god, then more 
power to them. He was our friend, once, Ryouga's and mine. And 
now I'm letting them go..."

	She burst into tears, bawling like a baby for the first 
time in longer than she could remember. Wordlessly her 
brother hugged her, and they held each other up as they both 
cried away the years of hate and revenge.

	"Sorry," Mariko finally said, sniffling. "Don't know what 
came over me."

	"It's over," Koji said, saying the words wonderingly. 
"What the hell do we do with ourselves now?"

	"Back to school, I guess. Didn't you always want to be a 
doctor?"

	He shook his head. "I don't remember anymore." A strange 
look came over his face. "I haven't wanted anything in a long 
time that didn't involved killing him. Is it really over?"

	"It's over, brother mine. It's really over."

	Slowly, still holding each other, they left.

	In the room below, behind glass windows, Ranma 
screamed, and screamed, and screamed.


 Ask my brother to tell me when the sun is high
 Have my sister show him how
 They have tied me down and taken out my eyes
 So I won't be crying now

 The stars I've followed have all fallen to the ground
 Pulling shadows through the air
 You may call my name and gently lay me down
 But you'll never keep me there

 Hold the rope and tie it gently to the tree
 Thirteen twists upon the noose
 There's a hanging man a-trying to get free
 But I will not cut him loose
 I will not cut him loose!
 - Cats Laughing