Title: Tombs of the Blind Dead
Author: augrah
Fandom: Lost
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 4x09 “The Shape of Things to Come”
Summary: At the Temple, Richard is forced to see what he cannot change. Some Alex/Richard, Ben.
Disclaimer: I am not JJ. I am not Damon. I am not Carlton. As such, I do not own these characters. Don't own much, really.

From a prompt from oregonblondie, and prompt number 3 from pojypojy. Title stolen from a movie I will never see (but has a great title). Also watched Apocalypto while I wrote, to make sure my mind was in a suitable historical and tragic and depressing and inspiring headspace. Because this one is different from most of my stuff.

x-posted to alex_richard and lost_fanfic


~o~

The Temple was a fortress. Once a spiritual sanctuary had since been desecrated into a fortified refuge. Dharma had not understood. So seduced by the mystic power of the island, they had not seen that they were raping it of its power. A lover sold to the highest bidder.

Richard remembered the Temple when it was a Temple. And he led his people there, knowing that despite its violation it was still the safest place on the island.

The place where magic still existed, even if now in it’s spoiled, diluted form.

They set up camp, using the Dharma buildings, Dharma supplies, Dharma sacrilege. The children were fed from Dharma stores, the people comforted by Dharma blankets, seduced once again by their great purge of Dharma. But Richard was not seduced. Richard knew it before it was. Looking around burned within him a sense of loss, of violation.

Here, the island bled. Here, the island cried. Here, the island wept for the rape of its ancestors, for the rape of its future. Her, in the most sacred spot of life was the most wailing grave of death.

So when it was night, when the dancing firelight hypnotized them to sleep, to dreams of peace and fortitude and conquest, when they felt safe, Richard left. He walked quietly through the camp, silent, ghost-like. A spectre without a haunt. He knew where he was going. He knew where the island needed him.

“Richard?”

It was a soft voice, an innocent voice. Richard turned to see Emma, sleep still in her eyes, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Cindy and Zach slept, oblivious, happy.

Richard smiled, kneeling down, helping her tighten her blanket against the chill. “What’s is it, sweetheart?” She moved closer and he pulled her up to sit on his bent knee.

“I’m scared. I can’t sleep.”

Richard smiled, curling her hair behind her ear. “Just try to dream, then. You’re safe here. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

She shrugged sleepily, lying back down in her makeshift bed. Richard pulled the blankets close around her, his hand on her forehead.

“Sleep,” he whispered. “Sleep.”

And he stood. And inside he wept at another daughter being forced to live this life. But still he knew. He knew where he needed to be. He walked quickly, slipping through shadows, through mist.

The Temple was always underground. Dharma never even knew it was there. All they saw was the power, the force of the land. They did not know what they were walking on when they walked those grounds. Did not know what they were stealing from. Did not even believe it was even stealing.

Richard walked by the stars, by the knowledge in his bones of where to go. To a quiet grove. To a forgotten tree. To a steep step, a hidden way. Down. And down.

He knew the way. His steps did not falter. And when he had walked at deep as he could go, his arm instinctively reached to the right, to the torch he knew he would find there. A quick flick of the lighter he always carried and there was light.

He was in the Temple.

The corridor was long, the air thick with dust and earth and pain. It knew it had been violated. Had known, but could do nothing to stop it. The Temple always knew. And it could never intervene.

That was its sorrow.

Richard walked slowly, reverently down the stone floor, the walls rich with hieroglyphs and symbols and stories and legends and secrets and truths. Up ahead, the antechamber, its walls high and wide. As he stepped in the light of his torch flickered, shimmered.

This was the island’s lungs. Her breath. Her air. And all around him stood the ashen shapes, bodies, stone twisted into violent, anguished shapes. The soldiers. The fallen. Preserved. Immortalized. Statues of an era even the island herself had almost forgotten.

But Richard remembered.

And as he swept his torch over the tortured figures, stone faces twisted in anguish, he remembered. He remembered the island before. Before Dharma. Before the Black Rock and its raging sickness. Before the pillaging explorers and their false gods. Before. Before.

But today was not a day to remember. Not a day to reflect. Today, Richard had to see.

Swinging his torch around he found the narrow crevice between two tortured bodies, the entrance to the tomb. And he crouched. And he entered.

The antechamber was the island’s lungs. Breathing in the ash, the history, the sadness.

But the tomb was the island’s heart. Here, Richard didn’t need a torch. Here, light just happened, an afterthought of a living creature.

And in the centre a table, stone, reflecting the unseen light. Richard took a deep breath, crossing to it an a few short steps, leaning his hands heavily on the silken surface.

The reaction was instant. His body clenched in pain as his mind was bombarded with images. Fast, strobe, flickering, painful. He kept his hands pressed firmly to the table, forcing himself through the pain, forcing his heart to slow, his lungs to slow.

Blood pumped heavily through his body, his brain, throbbing in pain.

But as quickly as it started, it was gone. And Richard breathed, opening his eyes.

And he saw Alex. Alex, screaming, begging. Alex crouched, pleading, a gun to her head.

Ben standing. Talking. Doing nothing.

And he saw. Saw in painstaking slow motion the bullet. It exploded through the gun. And even though its target was only inches away it took its time on its journey, making sure everyone saw, everyone knew.

And Alex’s eyes were open. And she felt the bullet coming. And she closed her eyes softly.

And then it was over.

Ben’s silent screams.

Richard’s silent torture.

Taking a deep breath he removed his hands from the table, slumped down, the unnatural light shining down on him.

The curse of the Temple. To always know but never do. Richard had been seeking its guidance for an eternity. Had seen the explorers. Had seen the Black Rock. Had seen Dharma. Had seen a lost boy with visions of a dead mother. Had seen a man grow up with fire in his eyes and the ability to do more. Had seen the Purge, the forming of their new society. Had seen a plane fall, a crippled man walk.

Had seen and had even believed that maybe this time it would be better, that maybe this time it would change. That Dharma could be purged completely and the Temple restored to its place.

He had seen it all. Had seen it, hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t wanted to stop it.

But Alex.

Alex.

Alex.

Richard knelt on the floor. Not in prayer. Not in worship. But it hate. Hate, anger.

He wanted to stop it. He wanted to run from the Temple and stop it, fix it, save what Ben wouldn’t save.

But he didn’t. He knew he never would.

The island didn’t work that way. She would show you her future. But would never let you change it. Never let you even try. Richard knew if he left that, if he even tried to get close to the Barracks that the island would revolt. That she would take even more than he had seen.

So Richard stood. He stood, brushed his hands, picked up the torch, and crawled back to the antechamber.

To the lungs. The air. The weight of all the wrong that has happened. Around him the stone statues of those who forgot, those who turned away. Ashen remains of the fallen. The weak. And Richard sat, sat amongst them, with them, begging inside to have the ability to join them. Join his ancestors, his friends. Join their stone tombs, their blind tombs.

Begged to no longer have to see.

He waited. He waited a day and a night and a day. And from the tomb, the heart, he heard the echo of a bullet, the gasp of a death.

And he stood. And he bowed. And he walked away, walked down the corridors aching with knowledge, up the passageway, into the grove, the mist.

Away from the ashes.

Into the light.

~o~

FIN