Disclaimer: I do NOT own Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, it belongs to Ryukishi07
Broken Reflection
By: goldenblade
Chapter 1: Prologue
As the light of the full moon illuminates everything around the dark and creepy corners of the woods, sounds from several night creatures fill the air with their noise, some with mirth, some with despair, some with amusement, all in perfect tone to the mood of the night and the main stars of it seemed to be the cicadas who were the loudest of this late-hour opera. The bare trees, many of them missing several if not all of their leaves, rocking with the wind in a chilling rhythm giving the place a tense atmosphere accompanied by the eerie sound of owls cutting through the darkness almost like phantasmagoric laments of lost shadows wandering through the mist.
The moon, completely yellow in color, shone brightly and beautifully in the currently cloud covered night sky, the only light with enough strength to be able to penetrate through the dense fog consuming the woods which the darkness seemed so adamant of completely covering in its black cape.
Drops of sweat seemed to leave a trail of exhaustion as he tried to control his breath which he had almost ran out of, the desperate attempts of recovering oxygen, which came out of his mouth in the form of frenetically-labored pants, could only be match by the velocity at which his heart was pounding against his chest in alarm, and even then he could not hope to recover the energy he has now lost as it is becoming a danger to his vision which was now blackening along with consciousness. His aching limbs desperately begging him to stop and accept his imminent fate, this being echoed by the frantic steps he was giving on the leaf covered floor of the woods. He was doomed; he knew that this terrifying environment would be the last sight he would ever see.
He was running. Running for his life.
His time was running out, just as was his ability to stay standing. The darkness of the woods did not help either, he could barely make out anything in front of him, so much so that it was a miracle that his nose was still not bleeding from crashing face-first into some tree, it also did not help that his decaying vision was sending him signals that his exhaustion would cause him to pass out any moment now. But he kept running, for he knew that if he gave up now his soul would belong to the afterlife.
The sounds of footsteps chasing after him had stopped for a while now but that still could not calm his overwhelming nervousness and it only increased his desire to run even faster, at any moment he could be surprised, he was right a prey running from a blood-lusted animal looking for its meal and it was a feeling he hated with a passion, not only because it scared him to no end but mostly because it made him feel weak, because he could not fight back, because he could not get enough strength to suppress his fear, because all he could do was run away desperately clinging to the thought that someone would come and save him.
His throat was sore, he could barely take in breaths and whenever he tried to swallow down his saliva it hurt, his sweat had been immense, ´had´ being the key word as he had lost all water in his body already and sweat wasn't even coming out anymore.
He couldn't stand it anymore and cursing his damn weakness, he stopped running, he bent down and rested his hands on his knees, he panted intensely and shakily and sometimes he coughed for the sharp intakes of breath were a bit too much for his sore throat.
He looked up at the moon, his desperate eyes begging it to show him a way, any way, that could lead him out of this nightmare… And of course, he got no such answer; he bowed his head in shame of himself, tears threatening to start falling out of his eyes. He had failed, his life was over and he would not be able to see any of his loved ones again, all hope was lost for him…all hope…hope.
No…
No… He couldn't give up
He wasn´t going to give up… not now… not now… he just couldn't give up now god dammit!
He wanted to see his family's smiles again, he didn't want anyone crying over him and he certainly wasn't going to die and be remembered as a weakling. He had to return, he had to go back to them!
With enough newfound confidence he drew in his breaths as steadily as he could, he was going to see them again, nothing would stop him from that, not even the monster chasing him would, he stood straight up and prepared-
"Running further will not guarantee your chances of escaping."
He didn't even had time to widen his eyes before he let out a shrill cry of pain as he felt something sharp getting sunked deeply into the upper back of his left leg, he fell to the ground emitting grunts of agony and with the strength he could gather tried to look at his leg only to see a knife impaled in his flesh and his leg getting covered in his blood which was flowing out steadily of the hole the knife had created.
He looked up in the direction where he assumed the knife had been thrown and once more cursed the damn darkness of the woods for rendering his eyesight almost completely useless to him now.
In the distance he saw a shadow.
It was not muscular or tall or anything, it was almost slim and it looked to be average height almost like the one of a teenager, all his features were obscured in darkness and he could make out the face of the assailant, it truly looked threatening and it filled him with terror… Then the shadow started walking, the sound of calm footsteps echoing through the atmosphere making it seem even more threatening than before.
"Not that you had any to begin with."
He could hear the voice clearly, he couldn't gather enough eyesight to fully make out the assailant, but he could hear his voice, it sounded… young, no more than 16 or 17-years-old he would, and it was definitely male, but what intrigued him was that it didn't like the kind of voice of someone that age… it sounded cold, completely cold, almost icily so, and distant like it had forever lost all ability to laugh but most of all, lifeless… so lifeless.
He didn't even register that the shadow was now standing right in front of him until it bent down and harshly took out the knife from his leg making him cry out in pain again; when the scream died he slowly looked up. The moon shone brightly right behind the shadow giving it a very threatening and eerie appearance; he couldn't help but wonder if what he was looking at was actually a demon raised right out of the very pits of hell… But what caught him most of all about the shadow were his eyes.
They were blue, a very deep blue, so deep that in the darkness they seemed to be painted in a supernatural purple color… but they did not seem like the eyes of a person or what could be called a person… Just as his voice was they were lifeless, it was as if his pupils had been replaced by two voids of never ending depth that no light could ever hope to penetrate, those eyes literally seemed to have a power to freeze any lake or sea and turn them into a land of solid ice with exactly the same force that seemed to be doing it to his blood.
And that's when he heard a 'click' sound and his blood stopped as he realized what he had heard… It was the sound of the bell that marked the end of his life.
The shadow was pointing something directly at his face and now he didn't need any light to register what he was looking at. His fear had now left him, and his body had completely stopped it's trembling which was a surprise given the fact that now was the time when he actually wanted to be trembling given to how that could give him the sensation that he still had some willpower left in himself to at least move. Everything in his body seemed to have stopped operating, almost like a machine that had been unintentionally shut-down. He wondered if this what people actually felt just before their eternal sleep claimed them.
And in the middle of it all, he could only make one question.
"Who are you?"
…
…
Silence.
…
…
"Who are you?"
…
…
And the shadow responded.
"Keiichi."
…
…
A whisper
"Why are you doing this?"
…
…
The shadow responded.
"Because I can."
He heard a loud ´BAM´
And the darkness he had been running from claimed him completely.
His deep blue eyes opened like a lightning staring right up at the ceiling, his breath steadily coming in and out of his mouth, he didn't move, nor did he try to.
The young man turned his head around to look out his window. The silver moon was still shining high and mighty in the skies, shooting a beam of ethereal light right at him through his window, covering him in it's beautiful aura. He turned his head once more to look at his clock: 4:00 AM. What was he doing awoke so early in the morning? Why had he even awoken at such an ungodly hour of the night?
And just what the heck had been that horrible dream?
And as he once more turned his vision to the ceiling, the ability to sleep having completely deserted him by now, only one thought ran in Maebara Keiichi's mind.
"What the hell?"
Prologue over.
