"No...no. That wouldn't be right." came her soft voice from the bottom of the well. "Shouldn't do that..."
"Who ya talkin' to wench?"
All she did was smile, her eyes looking scared. And I could only give her an odd look as I helped her out.
"To someone special." she replied lightly, a girlish giggle at the end. And all of the sounds she was making sent a freezing bolt through my body.
"Whatever."
She seemed so strange lately...her eyes were always distant it seemed...and more and more she isolated herself from all of us. I remember how a few times Sango tried to see what was wrong...but she never really answered...just smiled, and replied with a quiet 'nothing'. Sango stopped trying after a while...I never asked her...I thought maybe she would get over it and come back to us. Lately though...I had been getting worried.
"Are we going to be leaving the village soon?"
"Tommorow. Some demon in the next village is causing trouble." and when I thought she would say more she said nothing...just walked ahead of me and hummed softly. I only shook my head and followed, things would get better soon.
We had slayed the demon with no trouble, with Kagome acting fairly normal and helping us find the shard. I even saw her smile a real smile, not the strange and chilling one. I didn't realise how much I missed her until I saw that smile I guess. Because when it was flashed my way I felt myself smile a little too, and I got those butterflies in my stomach again. I was so relieved that everything was turning back to normal again.
"Hey Kagome! Do ya got anymore ramen?" and everyone sighed and looked at me oddly except her, she just stared at me blankly...giving me unrest. Suddenly though she shook her head and looked pretty normal.
"I...no... I mean not yet...I yes." she said looking to her hands.
"Ummm...yes or no?" I questioned again...hoping the answer would be understandable this time not just so I could know...but so I could swallow the worry that had developed in my throat.
"Yes. Yes." was all she said before quietly going through her bag and getting out a carton of my favorite futuristic food. I took it timidly from her hand, trying to ignore her doll like stare, trying to ignore Miroku and Sango listening. I was thankful that Shippo was asleep, there was no doubt he'd annoy everyone with questions if he had been awake.
"Thanks." I told her quietly watching as she nodded and laid down with her back to us all to sleep. I looked to Miroku and Sango then, setting my ramen on the ground no longer in the mood for food. They both looked slightly worried, but confusion was the most evident on them both. Glancing to Kagome again I felt something inside me twist...something was terribly wrong with her...something had to be bothering her greatly for her to act like this...
Shrugging it off I jumped into the tree above us. She'd be okay...she'd tell us what was wrong when she was ready.
-----Three Weeks Later-----
We all stared as she wrote feverishly in a little book she had brought back from her time the last time she was there. She had been like that for an hour, just sitting under a tree, writing and muttering to herself. Mostly her face would remain passive, sometimes though it would get this scared helpless look. And at first we all thought we should leave her alone...but after an hour of this...
Since the incident at the campfire those few weeks ago she had been getting stranger...she barely ever talked. When she did her words were always jumbled and made no sense, and she had recently been laughing a little more...and though that would usually be welcoming...she was laughing to herself...never had I been so freaked out by her. She wouldn't ever tell us what she was laughing at, didn't even smile that creepy smile anymore, and slowly yet all too quickly we watched her as she slipped away from us all.
Shippo would cry every now and then, feeling abandoned slightly and hurt because she'd no longer treat him as her little precious baby. Sango grew closer to Miroku as she had seemingly lost a friend and it bothered her greatly...and I...I became more and more worried as the days passed.
What could be happening to my Kagome? What had happened to make her isolate herself from us? I mean I even tried talking to her...I asked her what had happened but all I got was a confused look and a quiet whisper that made no sense.
"Kagome?..." I said as I approached her quietly, trying not to disturb her writing but in a way I was.
"Hey Kagome...what are you doing?" she didn't even look up to me as I kneeled before her, not even a one second glance, just kept writing and muttering, I wanted to shake her, to slap her and say 'WAKE UP!' but all I could do was stare sorrowfully at her, feeling more and more at a loss as the seconds on silence passed. When had this started? When did we just start to notice? When did she just decide to push us all away?
"Kagome...come on...please answer me." still nothing, and as I sighed and turned away I heard her mutter hauntingly. "They never stop." But when I turned to look at her, she wasn't even paying attention to me, just staring past my shoulder at nothing...an empty field. It was then that I snapped. I grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her, not too roughly just enough so her head bobbed back and forth a little.
But instantly when I touched her she screamed. She screamed so loud, and high pitched, it hurt my ears and instantly I put them down and covered them letting her go and trying to scramble away. And even after I was a few feet away she was still screaming, her eyes wide with fear, and I could faintly hear Miroku and Sango call to me and then her. But then their voices faded and I only heard hers. I was so scared...I knew of nothing that plauged her, knew nothing of what she had going on inside her head, and I was hurt. Hurt because she screamed at my touch, hurt because she no longer gave me those warm butterfly inducing smiles, no longer talked to me or sat me.
She wasn't Kagome anymore...she was someone different someone haunting and chilling to the eye. And slowly when I faded back to reality and she stopped screaming I felt a burning in my eyes, and before the burning could go any further I blinked and ran away. I ran away from the strange new girl sitting under the tree, ran away from the couple staring worriedly at both of us. I ran away so I could be alone. So I could be alone and cry...
I didn't know exactly why I was crying...I just knew that everything inside me hurt because she was so freakishly different now. IIt felt like I was losing myself as I was losing her and I didn't like it because then I would hardly have anything of me left. I'd have hardly any warmth...
"I wish she could be normal. I wish she could be like her..." my voice was so weak sounding to me...though it didn't really surprise me. Everything I had been doing lately had been unlike me because of her. I never openly worried, or felt like I had to treat her like she was a piece of porcelain. I didn't know what was happening...and for the first time in my life I really felt stupid...
I didn't return to the others until the sun had gone down, no one questioned me, or said anything at all, they just continued on in their uncomfortable silence. I thanked every god I had known that she was asleep, that her mumbling had stopped and that wed be returning to the village the next day. Maybe Kaede could give us as answer...maybe she'd let us all know that this was just a passing phase some girl go through, or that she just felt sick or something...Something that would make me feel better. It was too bad her sleep didn't last long though... because as the others had fallen alseep and I had taken my place in a tree she had sat up and looked around.
"Do you hear it?" came her worried voice as she creeped out of her sleeping bag, not even bother to look at me as I landed next to her after hopping from the tree.
"Hear what wench?"
"Shhh! You're being too loud...its coming." her voice was fearful now, her eyes looking every where in a frantic way, and pretty soon I looked around a little too wondering if something really was coming.
"Kagome I don't-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" her scream wrang through the slightly chilly night air waking everyone instantly. "I've got to run! I...I need to run!." but before she could take off I grabbed her.
She kicked and screamed, telling me that I had to let her go so she could live. I only held onto her tighter trying to ignore the pain in my ears from her screaming. Everyone in our little camp staring at us with fear filled eyes. I think Shippo even started to cry...or was that me?
"Kagome...nothing is coming...Kagome calm down!" I could hear Sango cry worriedly, Miroku said something along the lines of that too...but nothing was helping her. After ten minutes of her screaming and thrashing about in my arms I let her go, and waited shocked for a minute before running after her.
"KAGOME! KAGOME WAIT!"
She didn't stop though, she just kept running until I saw her fall tripping over an unseen root. And when I reached her it was like all that was real had snapped back into her head. She looked at me...her eyes scared and wide, and as I picked her up and carried her back to camp it was silent. I wanted to cry in frustration at that moment, wanted to simply wake up from this nightmare where my best friend was falling away from me too fast so I couldn't catch her. Everything I saw at that moment simply killed me because I loved her too damn much to be able to stand it.
Nothing like that had happened on the way back to the village, but everyone was silent and I could feel the waves of stupidity and fearing come from everyone. I...was simply becoming numb.
When we reached the village we had told Kaede what had happened but all she did was get a sad, sad look on her face before she turned and walked away. And in anger I cried out after her, I demanded she tell us what was wrong, I demanded that she help her, but she just kept walking, with her head low. Miroku and Sango followed after her and Shippo had run off somewhere to be alone while Kagome sat atop a hill...writing in her book.
She was gone from me now...there was nothing I could do to get her back Kaede had confirmed that when she turned and walked away. My Kagome was dead and this new one was here to haunt me forever. I walked over to her slowly and sat down beside her, trying to ignore her quiet muttering and instead looking in her book to see was she was writing.
From what I read absolutely nothing made sense. Words were simply scribbled, sentences cutt off before they could be inderstandable. Everything in the book had to do with a 'they' everything about 'them' or 'their words', how they never stopped, how they wanted her gone... and I didn't even notcie when I started to cry. I knew what was wrong now...it finally snapped itself into place. How could I have been so oblivious? So dumb? My Kagome was crazy...and nothing could help. And while I sat there and sobbed she just kept writing and muttering.
That night when everyone was sleeping in Kaede's hut I watched her. She was sleeping so soundly, looking like the girl I knew, like the girl I loved, taunting me even more of how I could never truly have her back. It was disturbed though as she got up once again and crawled over to me. I could to nothing but sit in my corner stunned and scared. What was she doing? Was she Kagome again? What...why?
"I can't sleep anymore..." she said tiredly as she laid her head in my lap, her body was rigid and she said nothing more to me. And I said nothing, made no move to touch her or move my body at all. We sat like that for four hours, her wide awake in my lap and me not moving, and finally she snapped out of her trance and went back to her sleeping bag and slept not waking until the late morning hours.
And days passed for us...with Kagome getting worse. People in the village avoided her now murmurs of how she had lost her mind spreading like wild fire, she didn't exactly care about any of that though as she walked around and hummed to herself. Everything was going down hill for me...I didn't want to do much of anything anymore, I'd just sit in a tree and watch her as she wandered around talking to herself, or watch as she'd stop suddenly and spin before running off to somewhere leaving the villagers confused and slightly frightened in her wake.
"InuYasha...don't you think you should take her home? Maybe there is something in her time that can help her." I heard Miroku's voice say.
"You can't let her stay here much longer InuYasha...shes getting worse."
"I KNOW THAT!" I snapped, anger running through my veins. " I know... I just...I don't want her family to see her this way...I mean... I..." I was so fucking broken...so angry and sad and slightly numb. I just wish she'd snap out of it and come back to us.
"You've got to take her InuYasha...it may be her only chance..."
"I'll take her tommorow..." was all I said before they walked away. I was lost in my thoughts when she came running up to me a bright smile on her face her eyes seemingly full of energy. I thought she was back to normal and I smiled at her and opened my arms when she came my way. This was too good to be true. She looked normal again!
"InuYasha! Can you see it! Can you see shikon jewel? Its whole again!" she said with a huge smile on her face, her hands looking like they were clutching something for dear life. And slowly I pushed her away, and turned my back to her...Every hopeful thought for her had been crushed, every happy memory I had for her had disappeared, because even if I had a lot of good times with her I could only look upon them and be bitter now because I'd never have any more with her. I wanted to hate her then, I really did. I wanted to yell at her and tell her to stop being so fucking stupid and act normal again.
"InuYasha? I...you...we should be glad!" she cried to my back, and I whirled on her grabbing her wrist and dragging her torwards the well.
"Lets go!" I ground out as I practically dragged her behind me.
"But...they will...and I can't. You didn't."
"Just shut THE FUCK UP!" I yelled and that was when she reverted to her normal quiet self. And I instantly looked to her with regret. Taking ahold of her form I tightened my grip when she started to thrash about, and jumped into the well. She couldn't stay here any longer...not another day could I watch her.
When I had gotten her out of the well house she looked around like she didn't know where she was, and I knew then I could explain to her mother what happened. So I simply climbed the tree by her window and placed her inside her room. I laid her in bed, and watched her untl she fell asleep her glazed eyes staring at me the whole time, forever burned into my mind. I stayed an hour after she fell asleep before I walked to the lower part of her house looking to see if anyone was home. There was no one though, and so I laid on the couch and fell asleep.
I awoke barely two hours later to screaming, and I ran to her room...but it was too late...I watched her as she fell out of her window, and when I ran across the room to try and catch her I saw how she landed on the ground with a sickening thud.
I wanted to turn away...I couldn't though. I just stared at her as her lifeless eyes looked at me, as a trickle of blood slowly dribbled from her lips. One of her legs was at a wierd angle the other just slightly bent inward, her arms seemed unharmed even as blood coated them, from the wound she'd most likely have on the back of her head. She looked so...cold...so lost and broken, and suddenly I broke into sobs. I could hear her mother screaming as she saw her daughters dead body once she topped the shirne steps. I could hear her grandpa calling Kagome's name softly, and I could hear Souta's sob's. I started to scream too...I lost her. And in a way...I felt like everything was my fault.
I know...this completely sucks, and I probably shouldn't have posted it. This is probably just going to be a rough draft and I might go back and fix everything later, but I wanted to write something like this, a simple little one shot about watching someone you love go crazy.
Someone really close to me has Schizophrenia, and really it is and interesting thing, but its really dangerous when it goes untreated, sadly the someone I know isn't getting the treatment they need. I don't want your sympathy, just wanted to put out there that I know what happens when something like this goes untreated. I'd greatly appriciate your opinion on this though.
Disclaimer: I don't own InuYasha