Her death had been violent and cruel.
Blood seeped out of the gaping hole in her stomach. The pavement was splattered with her innards and blood.
'Huh, this doesn't actually hurt as much as I thought it would.'
Dim blue eyes stared up at the grey sky.
All around her she heard screaming and shouting.
'Can't they shut up? I'm trying to die in peace here!'
She then blinked as something cold landed on her lashes. 'Wha?'
White fragments of frozen water left cool kisses on her cheeks and hands.
'Not a bad day to die.' She thought. With that last thought, she fell into a deep unawakening sleep.
Or so it seemed.
Lily couldn't explain it.
She had died. But she was still aware.
She couldn't see but she could feel.
After her untimely demise, she'd found herself in this void. It felt like a small pit, but warm and comforting despite being cramped like hell.
And she wasn't alone in this place.
She could feel a presence near her, a soft pulsating warmth that felt so small and delicate. She could neither move nor speak, so she could not address her roommate, but she drew comfort in knowing that she was not alone in this blindness.
…
Lily could not tell if it was day or night. How much time had passed by since her death, she wondered. But, she could feel that she was changing.
While in the beginning, her awareness of herself and her surroundings had been dim and rather hazy, as time passed by, she felt as if she was growing- both physically and mentally.
Her spiritual? senses also grew to be able to reach out to fill the entire void, and she could sense that her roommate was growing as well.
Soon, they would possess a complete human body.
…
For the first time since she'd found herself in this place, Lily felt fear.
She could sense that her roommate was weakening, unlike her who was only growing stronger with each passing moment.
'Why? Why is he becoming weaker, all of a sudden?'
Worried, she tried to scoot closer to the fragile presence.
'Why?'
…
It was then, that Lily learned of despair.
The day?night? had started off normally. Lily would kick the walls surrounding the two in boredom, laze about daydreaming about her past life, and finally, try to communicate with her roomie.
But then, things suddenly took on a downhill, as the presence next to her started flickering like a dying candle.
Alarmed, she flung all her senses towards her anchor in this world, and tried to see what was wrong.
He was dying.
She could feel it. He had always been weak, but this?
Can people die in this void?
Can she die again?
She panicked as the presence grew smaller and dimmer as more time passed, but she could do nothing but watch (sense) him die.
It was only a few moments later that the oh so comforting warmth disappeared from this dark world.
She didn't even know his name.
…
Lily felt disgust.
Towards herself.
Why?
Well, how else would someone feel if they found out that they had killed and eaten their friend?
Because that was what this was. Cannibalism.
Lily only just figured out the cause of her roommate's death when she felt her body absorbing the remnants of her deceased friend.
She could feel every strand of lingering life, every strand of DNA being cannibalized and taken in by her body.
And she could not stop the process.
And then she knew.
She had killed him.
Her friend. Her anchor. Her comrade in the darkness.
He had died because she had been sucking the life out of him all this time.
It had been small in the beginning, too minute for her to realize what she had been doing, but now that his soul was gone, her body was devouring his flesh and blood with a fervor that shocked her frozen.
'I am a monster.'
…
Lily spent what seemed like years in the darkness alone, her body having absorbed everything that had existed of her friend.
During that time, she came to accept what she was… a monster.
She also grew accustomed to being alone. She drew comfort in that there was nothing left that she could possibly kill and eat in this place.
That was when the quakes began.
It started small, but eventually the walls closed in to the point of being suffocating. And she found herself being pushed by the moving walls.
Terrified, she tried to stay where she was, but was pushed down anyways.
With a squeeze- she was hit by the sudden change in temperature, and screamed for all the world to hear.
"Congratulations Kiryuu-san! It's a healthy girl!"
'What?'
She found herself being touched and toweled by foreign hands, much to her embarrassment. She tried to verbalize her mortification, but froze when only a wail escaped her lips.
'What?'
"What will you name her?" A gruff voice asked.
'Oi! Who are you to name me? I already have a name!'
"Shion. Kiryuu Shion, our hope and light in the darkness." A warm, delicate voice spoke from somewhere nearby.
'What?'
Author's Notes:
If you haven't been able to tell from the story above, Shion and her roommate were cursed twins like Zero and Ichiru are. Shion basically 'ate' her twin brother, like Kaien did with his own twin.
This story takes place way before the plot starts. Like hundreds of years before Yuuki is born. So Shion is a distant relative (ancestor?) of Zero and Ichiru.