Disclaimer: InuYasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. This is a not for profit fan work.
A/N This is the first thing I've written in forever, so I might be a bit rusty. Please let me know what you think.
Chapter One
Kagome did everything she could to avoid looking down. It wasn't that she was afraid of heights. She had been one of the only kids in her school to climb to the tops of the trees in the school yard. She was the one who leaned over the cliff and looked down while her parents tried to keep her from the edge.
No, she was avoiding looking down so she could see what was above her. Her family. Her mother was crying, the tears streaming down her face, though she held her sobs in. Her grandfather was barely able to contain his tears, though he did remarkably well. Her brother, only 13, was bawling. There was a chain link fence between them and the edge of the wall, with barbed wire above that. And with every second, their faces were getting smaller and smaller, the details fading.
Kagome watched them, burning the image of her family into her memory. She wanted to remember them. She needed to remember she had something to come back to, eventually. Two years. That was all. Souta wouldn't even be out of high school by then. Just two years and then she would be able to return home and hold them again.
It wasn't going to be an easy two years. That was the point, after all. This was punishment for a crime, after all. She hadn't even realized the cat was a demon. She had just seen a hurt animal and had done her best to care for it. Feed it some scraps, clean it's wound. She had thought it was just a cat. But the punishment for harbouring a demon was clear. Time behind the Wall. They took her age into account, and the cat's disguise. They had been lenient, giving her only two years.
If only it wasn't common knowledge that humans rarely lasted even one year on this side of the wall. If winter didn't kill her, the demons would.
She had lived her whole life with the Wall in view, knew that beyond it was the vast expanse of land granted to the demons centuries before so mankind could grow without fear of the demons, and the demons could live in peace without needing to worry about humans encroaching on their territory. Criminals were sent over from time to time. Murderers, mostly, but also those who harboured demons. Even after all these generations, mankind feared the demons, and any demon found on the human side of the Wall was to be reported at once to the authorities.
It had just been a cat. Kagome didn't even know what had happened to it after she was arrested. She had tried to find out. It had been used against her at the trial.
She could barely see their face now. They were just shapes that looked like her family. The Wall was hundreds of feet tall, made of stone and concrete, built up and modified over the years. It stretched from one side of the country to the other, splitting it roughly in half. Planes didn't even fly over it. She had seen images. Forest for as far as anyone could see.
Her mother, her grandfather, Souta, she was going to see them again. She was going to survive and come back. She was going to live. It was only two years.
The basket she was in bumped and swayed as it hit the ground and Kagome stood. She took the bag they had given her, a large yellow backpack, and hefted it awkwardly onto her back. She kept looking up, even as she walked out of the basket. They were just a multi-coloured lump on the lip of the Wall, barely distinguishable. She smiled, even though she knew they couldn't see. A brave face, as if she were just going camping. She was just going away camping for a weekend. She waved, grinning stupidly as she backed away from the wall, and kept grinning and waving even as the tears started to fill her eyes. She kept grinning, kept waving, even after the tears started to fall.
She didn't stop until they were completely out of view, blocked by tree branches full of leaves. She kept walking until her back hit a tree trunk, and then she stopped. As if the momentum had been all that had kept her going, she fell to her knees. At last, she let the tears fall and Kagome embraced the pain she had been pushing back since the judge had read her sentence.
Kagome wept.
The first few days were the worst.
Kagome walked, not sure what she was doing or where she was going. She had a vague plan, find some kind of shelter, find a source of water, and start figuring out how she was going to feed herself. The big bag of supplies that had been given to her had rations, but only enough for 2 months. If she stretched it well, maybe 3. If this was all hey were willing to give, no wonder most people didn't make it a year out here.
She tried not to think about it. She had to take things one day at a time or she was going to paralyze herself with worry. She had enough supplies to get her through for now, and she wasn't going to waste it. She had had a few days between the sentencing and her descent to think of a basic plan. Find a decent water supply. Find shelter. Winter proof it, somehow. Survive. It was only two years.
She had seen the map. There were at least one other human alive in here. She looked at the still irritated bump on her left inner wrist. They had implanted the microchip there. As long as she was alive, it would send her location to the control room and she would show up on the map. There was a man named Onigumo still alive in here, and he had been sent in almost a decade before. The man had been a serial killer, killing something like 20 young woman over a 10 year period. He had been sentenced to life here. She hadn't even considered looking for him. He was as likely to hurt her as help her, if the news reports about him were true.
She hadn't known what to expect. No one really talked about what was beyond the wall. Images taken from the Wall only showed forest, for miles and miles, as far as the eye could see. There had been a few images of demons over the years, massive bugs or furry creatures, or undescribable monsters. Her handler from the time she arrived to the time she had left had told her that there weren't many sightings close to the wall of any of the bigger demons, or the smarter ones. It seemed they lived further away, perhaps to avoid conflict or temptation. The ones nearby were dumb, and they would eat human flesh. Her best bet would be to head north as fast as possible. The woman, named Sango, had seemed sympathetic, so Kagome had decided to trust her.
Go north. Find shelter. Find a way to survive. She could do that. Right?
She had never gone camping before, let alone hiking with a heavy bag on her back. She was sore the first day. One foot got blisters the second, but she kept going. She didn't sleep well at night, with the sounds of creatures in the darkness around her. She dozed, usually leaning against a tree or a rock. By day three, she felt like a zombie, and smelt worse than she had ever smelt in her life. She was sweating profusely, and it was only May. The nights were still cool, but the sleeping bag kept her warm enough. She didn't light a fire. She wasn't sure if that would repel or deter attack, so she decided to just be quiet at night, the wind up flashlight in her hand in case. At the least, it could blind something, if she heard it coming in time.
Day four, her other foot got a blister and every step was painful, but she kept going. North. Shelter. Survive. Day five, she collapsed at the side of a small stream and dunked her whole body in, fully dressed. When she got out, she felt a little refreshed, but not nearly enough.
On day six, she should a hut.
It was old, but the walls were all in one piece. When she stepped inside, it was dusty and the air was stale and musty. She coughed, looking around. It was a single room with a fire pit in the center, and old beat up pot still hanging over it. There wasn't much else, some rotten fabric, an empty chest. She put down her bad and went back outside. It was in the middle of a small clearing. Around the side was a small pile of firewood. She lifted one and held in a scream at the number of bugs under it. She circled again and found a stream only a few minutes walk away. She filled up her water bottle and returned to the hut.
It was a mess, but it seemed sturdy. It wasn't too big. It was in a quiet enough spot. She hadn't seen sign of anything around but a few birds and squirrels. Small animals.
"Well," she said quietly, "I guess I'm home."
That night, she slept well. Having the four walls around her made her feel safer than she probably was, but she had been so exhausted. She slept until nearly midday and woke feeling all the built up soreness and fatigue staring her straight in the face. As she ate her breakfast, she looked at her meagre food supply and decided she couldn't wait to start taking action.
She emptied the contents of her bag into the chest after shooing away the family of spiders that had taken up residence. Food, some basic medical supplies, a knife, a small hatchet, a few changes of clothing and some winter and rain gear, rope, matches. None of it looked especially good quality, but what would you expect the government to give a condemned prisoner?
It was the book she was most interested in. They had given her a little survival handbook, nothing fancy at all, but, it had instructions on how to trap and skin animals, how to prepare them to eat and how to preserve them to eat later. It had a huge section on plants and which were edible and which were not.
She spent an hour or so practicing the traps, figuring out how they worked. She wasn't sure how she if she would catch anything, or what she would do if she did, but she had to try to get more food. If she was lucky, she would be able to save the rations until the winter, in case anything went really wrong and she had nothing else to eat then. She spent another hour looking over the plants section, trying to get a sense of what a few useful plants looked liked. She would confirm anything in the book before she picked it to make sure, but she wanted to have an idea of what to look for.
She headed out, looking around for good places to put her traps and keeping an eye out for any interesting plants. She wandered about, getting used to the lay of the land for as long as she dared. When she returned, she placed the plants she had gathered aside. She would confirm that they were what she thought they were in the morning. For now, she needed a bath. Grabbing the meager personal hygiene supplies they had given her and a change of clothes, she walked to the river.
There was a spot where the water was quieter, and she stood by the bank, looking around intently. This would be the perfect spot for an ambush. Sure, she had seen no sign of anything dangerous yet, but how was she to know there wasn't something lurking out there? Eventually, she decided to was worth the risk and began to remove her clothing.
Piece by piece, she dumped the clothes into a pile on the bank. She felt even more exposed naked. She walked into the water and shivered. The water was cold, but it still felt soothing on her aching feet. She washed, scrubbing the dirt off of her skin, out from under her nails, and out of her hair. Once she was satisfied that she was clean, she gathered her clothes and set about washing them. She was already wet, after all, and she already had the soap. It was awkward, but she managed to get them clean.
Lugging them all back to the hut, she hung them from the rafters and dressed in something clean for the first time in a week. She made a fire and warmed her ration over the fire. It wasn't that bad warm.
Dinner done and the fire banked, Kagome lay out her sleeping bag and fell asleep.
A/N Thanks for reading!