Thunder rolled overhead as the sky's darkened from afternoon to a sudden night. The busy streets quickly began as signs of an oncoming thunderstorm became more evident. A raven haired girl hurried around a corner of an already empty street and quickly walked down the footpath that passed next to a playground. Dust clouds billowed across an empty playground, whipping around her, making her hair beat across her face as she clutched tightly to her schoolbag.
Cursing herself for not having thought of picking up her hair band that morning before she had left for school, the girl hitched up the strap of her bag over her shoulder and let go of it. She pulled at her wildly beating air into her hands and tried to make a small bun at the back of her head, using a small hairpin to secure it in place. She had stopped walking while pulling her hair back. She cast a glance towards the park to her right for no reason whatsoever.
She had assumed it was empty when she had turned the corner but now as she looked, she could make out a lone figure occupying one of the swings. The person was definitely no child. Wondering why the hell was someone sitting out there in weather such this, she resumed her hurried pace back home before coming to an abrupt halt. She whirled around on her spot and stared back at the person in shock.
"Hey! Are you alright?" she called out as she ran towards the swings. She ignored the dust and the leaves that blew everywhere around her. She even ignored the fact that it might start to rain anytime soon. The person sitting on the swings appeared to be hurt badly. Blood was covering his face and his brownish red hair. His grayish black jeans were also stained with the liquid. Only once she was standing a couple of feet away from him, did she realize that the shirt which she had thought to be maroon was actually soaked up in blood!
"Oh my God!" She gasped as her hands flew to cover her mouth. "You're covered in blood!"
The person, who seemed to have been in some sort of daze, raised his head slowly to look at her- a single lifeless eye met her horrified gaze, since the other eye was hidden behind those reddish brown bangs. The guys seemed to be in some sort of trance, like a shock or something.
"Everyone…" he said so softly that she barely heard him over the howling wind, "is gone." A chill crept down her spine as it dawned on her that his hair was not reddish brown. Like everything else, his hair was also soaked up in blood. Instead of jumping to attack her, though, as she had initially presumed, the guy just lowered his head back to stare at the ground.
Something small hit the top of her head, making the girl jump. She raised her hand to the top of her hair and realized that it was just a drop of rain. Another drop fell on her, this time on her bare arm. Then another, on her face. And another. Another. The rain had started.
"You're hurt!" she exclaimed as she saw the blood ooze out of his arm that he had wrapped around the chains of the swing.
"They left me alone," he mumbled as though if he had not heard her, his lifeless visible eye was staring back at her once more. "They always do."
"You're in shock," The raven-head said as she lowered her bag to the ground and crouched down next to him. "And you're losing blood due to that wound. You should wrap some bandages to stop the bleeding. Here," She offered a small role of white gauze a while of digging around in her bag. "My mom makes me keep some on me at all times." She explained when he made no move to take it.
"If you don't stop it soon, you're gonna drop out cold," she said as she gently unhooked his arm from around the swing. The man just let her do it, not really caring about what she did. She rolled up his sleeve to get a good look at the wound. The rain water was pouring much harder now.
She wasn't really happy about the fact that she was getting soaked but at least it cleaned up the wound. The gash was pretty deep, and it might need a few stitches, but all she could do was wrap the white fabric around it tightly to make it close, for the time being
"There," She announced once she had tied the knot to keep it in place. She let go of his arm and proceeded to stand up. "All done."
"I think it would be better if you got yourself checked at the hospital," she added after a while, observing the man's face without blood marring his features. His skin was pale, almost white, but what drew her in was the eye, the single dull yet for some reason hauntingly beautiful and enchanting blue eye. His other eye, she noticed was hidden behind a black eye-patch of sorts.
"Thank you," he gave her a small, sad looking smile as he picked himself up from the swing and turned around. "It was very kind of you to help me, Masooma."
"Masooma?" she repeated, trying to keep the shock out of her voice. How did he know her name? She never mentioned it.
"You look like a girl I knew by that name." he explained softly as he kept his back turned to her. "She died." He added as he started walking away, leaving behind a shocked girl. She watched him walk away, reach the northern exit of the park (she had come in from the southern one), walk down the footpath before turning around a corner and vanishing from sight completely.
The loud clap of thunder overhead preceded by a jolt of lightning flash across the sky, made her jump out of her daze.
"Damn!" she muttered angrily, realizing that she had wasted a lot of time just standing there. Her mother was definitely not going to be happy about her coming back home soaked through. She quickly picked up her bag; also wet- there went all her lectures and notes. Slinging its strap across her shoulder she turned around and started running towards her home.
-0-
"Ugh! I feel like hell," the girl groaned one morning after the thunderstorm. She sleepily made her way across the kitchen to reach the dining table. "Stupid cold." She muttered as she seated herself, looking out the window to see the sun shining happily in the sky.
"You should have thought about that before you decided to get soaked in the rain." Her mother admonished with a gentle glare as she set down her breakfast on the table.
"Mom, I told you," she whined, helping herself to a warm golden brown toast, applying generous amount of marmalade to it. "I was just helping out this injured guy in the park."
"I know that honey," her mother answered as she went back to the stove. "But you should care about your own health too."
"I'm sorry," she answered, taking a bite out of her toast. "It's just that something about him felt so weird. Like I had to help him. It was kind of weird really. When I saw his face, it felt like I knew him. or at least I was supposed to know him."
"Oh?" her mother raised a brow, a teasing smile on her face.
"Not like that." She protested, quickly reaching out for the morning newspaper lying on the table, hiding her face behind it to conceal the flustered blush darkening her cheeks.
"I'll have to call Maddy later to check about how much work they've covered in my two day absence." She informed her mother with a heavy sigh, carelessly scanning through the headlines, her thought's wandering back to the strange blond she had met in the park, just like they had been doing for the past two days.
Where was he now? Had he gotten his arm treated? The cut had been pretty deep. Hopefully it hadn't gotten infected or anything. Hopefully he was okay.
She turned the front page, skimming over the various article inside, idly wondering for the hundredth time as to what had happened to that guy. Why had he looked at her with such a broken look on his face, like there was nothing left for him in the world?
Had he perhaps lost his family in some sort of accident? But there was no mention of accidents of any sort in the newspaper.
"Hey mom, do you think that you could mayb…" she trailed of as her eyes froze over an article. "No..." she breathed, her eyes wide as she dropped the newspaper. Her mind replayed the small conversation she had had with that blue eyed blond.
Thank you Masooma….
She died…
"What's wrong honey?" her mother noticed Masooma's sudden distress.
"H-he… he's dead." She looked at her mother with a horrified look as fat tears welled up in her amber eyes.
"Who?" the older woman asked in alarm rushing over to her daughter's side, enveloping her sobbing form in a comforting hug.
"…" the girl did not answer.
Masooma's mother glanced over at the newspaper, lying open on the table, next to the plate of a half eaten toast. In the lower left corner of the page was a small article, its heading read: 'Man commits suicide." right next to the article was a colored photograph. The image of a pale man lying in a pool of blood, his hair turned a shade of reddish brown due to the crimson liquid even though their original color had been blond…
"Masooma?" her mother questioned once again.
"Fai." She whispered into her shirt not knowing why she knew his name when the blond had not told her himself.
A/N: I have no idea what tempted me to write this. Erm, actually I have some idea, I was listening to the song called "my world" by "sick puppies" (I think is the band's name). While I was listening to it a sort of story formed in my head, but as I wrote it down, I realized that I wanted to try something new in the way I told the story.
I am actually hoping to write a companion story to this one, explaining Fay's side of things as to why he was depressed and why he committed suicide. That I will probably add to this one as a new chapter and it might be a song-fic (my original plan).
Anyhow, a few things you should know. The rest of the TRC gang is dead. Depending on which one I will chose to make it, this story probably takes place after Infinity arc in the manga or in one of the original worlds of my other fic "Tsubasa Resrvoir Chronicles"(not a very original name, I know).
In either case, this is an AU and will not be a part of my other multi-chaptered fic .
I hope you enjoyed reading this.
Please leave a review to let me know of what you think.
Nims.
PS. Guys, if you people love angst and tragedy and humor all in one fic, you people have got to check out "You are not alone" and "Collapsed" written by "Lilacheart." They are really good and quite well written.