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Merken
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Madoka was two years old when the nightmares began.
She was a normal infant up to that point. A pink-haired ball of enthusiasm and positivity born into the Kaname family, raised by two loving parents. Madoka was almost able to walk all by herself and her number of learned words nearly reached two dozen. There were no medical issues with her, nor did she live in poverty. Her mother played with her whenever she was free from her work, and her father took care of the house and would take care of household tasks.
Madoka Kaname lived the joy of being an infant to its fullest, all with a bright smile that would warm the hearts of even the harshest of people.
However, this all changed when the clock struck midnight on October 3rd.
As Madoka's parents silently worked on a celebration for their daughter's second birthday while she slept; Junko putting up small, shiny paper decorations around the house and Tomohisa putting the finishing touches on a delicious cake, seemingly out of nowhere, Madoka began to wail loudly, fat tears dripping down her saddened face as she sobbed. Tomohisa had gone to put her back to sleep, the whole ordeal taking about an hour as the pink-haired baby seemed like she wanted to do anything but close her eyes or let go of her father. And though the cake could not be fully completed due to this, Madoka still managed to have a relatively great second birthday.
That is, until she once again woke up from her slumber and began to weep that very same night.
And the next night.
And the next night
And the next night.
Though definitely not unusual for a child to cry, what was alarming was its frequency. Not a single night went by without the Kaname household erupting into a flurry of sobs, groans, whimpers and tired attempts at comforting Madoka. Due to the number of sleepless nights the pink-haired infant got, the girl was significantly unhappier. She was more restless, more bound to cry over things she could get over prior, and her lack of sleep led to a lack of balance when attempting to walk and difficulty learning new words.
Worst of all, the bright smile that had once lit the halls of the Kanames had been all but extinguished, replaced with a tired frown, leaving the family cold and miserable.
After nearly a week of this, it got to the point where it could no longer be ignored. Junko hired as many capable doctors as she could to get to the bottom of this matter. The amount of child doctors that had come to perform check-ups on Madoka in that month alone likely approached twenty, with the amount of doctors that Junko had called but had been unavailable double that amount. Though, there was a high possibility that those doctors wouldn't have mattered in the long run, as no single doctor had been able to find a problem with the Kaname's baby girl. Nothing that would cause a child any kind of pain was observed; not physical, anyways. There was naturally no real way to tell if there was any kind of mental obstacles that were keeping Madoka returning to her normal, happy, sleeping self.
One of the doctors, a young but experienced woman with light colored hair, had suggested that Madoka may have been having nightmares, as Madoka's sobbing would only occur in her sleep. Junko and Tomohisa were naturally confused. Was there something that Madoka had seen that would cause her to experience a fear so poignant that it haunted her for weeks on end?
Whether or not she had, Junko and Tomohisa made sure she wouldn't see anything scary again. The house was devoid of anything dangerous, scary or anything that could even remotely resemble something Madoka could fear. Songs and fairy tales that had any negative undertones, no matter how small, were banned from the household. Whenever Madoka slept, small lamps made sure that she was not in complete darkness, with her two parents right beside her.
But even still, Madoka continued to cry the moment she fell asleep. Whenever she was about to about to brought to her pleasant dreamland, a shadowy hand would whisk her away into the realm of nightmares, where her only escape from the intense fear was bawling loudly until she'd wake up.
For about 3 months, this would continue. Any possible solution the Kanames thought up would turn up fruitless. Junko and Tomohisa had no idea what to do. All they wanted was the happiness of their precious daughter, but no matter what they tried, that same night would ultimately be filled with Madoka's miserable weeping, and in turn, the two parents became miserable themselves, possibly the worst they had felt in their entire life.
The Kanames' life were filled with despair.
But then, during one night, a night that Junko and Tomohisa were prepared to be tune out Madoka's cries while they attempted to calm her down…
Her eyes remained peacefully closed.
And from then on, it was as if nothing had even happened. No more tired arguments or sleepless nights for the Kanames. Madoka's nightmare problem seemingly up and disappeared into the air. The shadowy hand no longer bothered her, and her nightly trips to dreamland were calm and tranquil. Junko and Tomohisa never figured out what this problem was, how it came to be or how it suddenly ended, but in the end they couldn't care less; words could not described how relieved they were to have their daughter back to normal.
However, there was one thing that did not revert back to normal after this incident.
Madoka's bright smile never did quite return.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Madoka cried.
She fell asleep.
Sleep meant bad things would happen.
Her dreamscape, instead of being filled with the fluffy, colorful and playful wonders one would expect a two year old to have, could be more aptly described as a hellscape. Odd, out-of-place and utterly terrifying imagery danced around her, cackling with ear-gratingly high-pitched voices at her. Amid the bizarre creatures were things that were slightly more recognizable, such as musical notes, cheese, dark silhouettes of girls, nuts, teapots, candles, among numerous other objects, but they cackled just as loudly as the horrors next to them, if not louder. The scenery whirled around her at headache inducing speeds, rotting wood, polka-dotted curtains and ruined cinema film turning into a blur of unpleasantness. Closing her eyes did not do anything, neither did plugging her ears or attempting to go away, the nightmare's presence could not be ignored.
Some of the imagery, a mix of muddy clay, old moss, bloody butterfly wings, as well as more revolting things, formed actual beings. Though 'being' wasn't exactly the right word. 'Abomination' was a far more appropriate word. A living candle riding a paper horse, a broken clay knight with the bottom half of a fish, a bony figure with hands tied to a pillory, a black and red-dotted snake-like creature who's eyes screamed predator.
Worst yet, they too cackled. They screeched. The sound echoed across the wherever-they-were, haunting Madoka to no end. So loud that Madoka could not even hear her own sobbing.
What she did hear were the words that the abominations yelled.
"witCH"
"hoMURA"
"SayAKA"
"CYCLe"
"maMi"
"kyuUBEy"
"wISH"
"kyOUko"
"MAGICAL GIRL"
Madoka had no idea what these words were, after all, she was just 2 years old. But despite this, these words were etched eternally in her mind, unable to leave her, even if she wanted them to. Which she desperately did. It made her feel hurt and sad and bad and she wanted her mom and dad.
But this scary place wasn't letting her.
One of the abominations, specifically the bony girl, had approached her while Madoka was caught up in her own fear. She picked the toddler up and raised her into the air, making the pink-haired girl even more terrified.
"N-NOOOOO! WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Madoka cried out, too paralyzed in fear to attempt escaping her grasp.
"save you, you will save me" The bony girl muttered to herself, her voice human but also anything but. Madoka was promptly pitched into the air, with the bony girl's screams doubling in volume as she cursed the heavens. Before Madoka could even think of doing anything else, the snake-like creature flew to her and bit into her clothing, keeping the poor girl suspended in the air. Madoka flailed her arms and legs desperately, but the creature ignored her, instead flying around the hellscape, forcing Madoka to stare at the cackling terrors from a horrifyingly high height.
Madoka's sobbing was becoming hysterical. Any louder and she'd lose her voice. But it was the only thing she could do. She just wanted this all to stop. She wanted the scary things to stop.
And, moments later, an explosion off in the distance signaled that that would soon be the case.
Once the blast had cleared, Madoka could see that the scary creatures had in that radius had stopped moving and cackling. They hadn't disappeared, but Madoka already felt better just by them not laughing anymore.
Near where the explosion had occurred, the pink-haired toddler saw four people, dressed in rather extravagant outfits. Madoka couldn't see them clearly as she was in the air, but they resembled girls, and each had distinct hair colors. Yellow, red, blue and black, to be exact.
Madoka wailed louder and stretched her arms towards them.
Almost instantaneously, they jumped into action. The blue haired girl unsheathed her cutlass and began to slash away at the sentient objects one by one. The red haired girl, spear in hand, pierced all of the big abominations until they stopped moving, with the help of the yellow haired girl, who damaged them at a distance with her numerous ribbons and muskets. The black haired girl jumped towards Madoka and grabbed her from the creature's mouth, before pulling out a pistol and shooting the creature, it falling seconds after she and Madoka landed on the ground.
Madoka looked around her previously hellish dream, still crying, but nowhere near as much as before. All of the things that had scared her had stopped moving and were as silent as the grave. The scenery had stopped moving, making Madoka a lot calmer.
The two year old tilted her head up, wanting to see and thank the girl that had saved her. Her parents had taught her to say 'thank you' whenever someone did a nice thing.
"T-than-" Madoka instantly froze.
The black-haired girl's face was blank. Not emotionless or unreadable. There was nothing on her face but skin.
Madoka quickly turned away, only to see the other three girls that had help make the scary things quiet, their faces also devoid of noses, mouths or eyes. The pink-haired toddler's eyes were about once again erupt in salty tears. Before she could, though, the black-haired girl holding her lifted her up into the air, similarly to the bony girl moments prior.
"Thank you." She said eerily. Madoka let out a confused sniffle; wasn't 'thank you' a word you used when someone did something nice? Wasn't the girl the one to do the nice thing to her?
"Thank you." A chorus of those two words came from the other girls, leaving Madoka even more puzzled.
Suddenly, however, Madoka felt something weird on her back. She looked back and saw, of all things, a pair of large and extravagant-looking angel wings. If not for how confused she currently was, she'd probably be ecstatic; she always wanted to fly like a bird.
As though a god was listening to her, Madoka slowly began to rise from the black-haired girl's hands. Though, the toddler's wings did not flap once; in fact, Madoka had no idea what was going on, and was becoming more and more panicked as her altitude grew without her control.
"Thank you, o Law of Cycles."
Madoka finally stopped. Looking down, she saw the four girls that had saved her staring at her, hands clasped in prayer.
"Thank you, o Goddess, for purifying our souls."
A translucent yet dark purple aura surrounded each of the girls. Even more concerning, the same aura formed around the unmoving nightmare creatures. Madoka's blood ran cold just from looking at it; its nature alone felt wrong.
"Thank you, o Goddess, for watching over us."
This time, even the creatures chimed in with the quartet with their sickeningly high-pitched voices, creating a loud chant.
"Thank you, o Goddess, for cleansing us of our sins and taking them upon yourself."
From the dark veil surrounding everyone came forth several tendrils. They all slowly floated around the aura of their respective person, before swiftly jerking up.
Right at Madoka.
The tendrils then steadily made their way to the pink-haired girl, who desperately tried to escape, but she was stuck in place.
"Thank you, o Goddess, for accepting our sins."
The tendrils were halfway there.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! MAMA! DADA! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The tendrils were seconds away.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
All of the tendrils touched her at once.
And Madoka felt the sins of every single being present.
Sadness, loss, pain, despair, fear, anger, jealousy, despair, rage, vengefulness, delusions, regret, hypocrisy, despair, wrath, sloth, despair, insanity, greed, guilt, despair, despair, despair.
All at the same moment.
Undeservingly put on the shoulders of a child.
Madoka could not let out a single sound. The feeling of sheer negativity and sin running through her overwhelmed her, crushed her, deteriorated her very being.
"Thank you, o Goddess."
Why... were they thanking her?
"Thank you, o Goddess."
Thanking people was when they did something nice, right?
"Thank you, o Goddess."
Was this all because Madoka was nice? Did all of this happen… because she was nice? Mama and Dada said that being nice was a good thing, though…
"Thank you, o Goddess."
No! If being nice was a good thing, then this wouldn't be happening! She wouldn't be feeling so bad!
"Thank you, o Goddess."
She didn't want to be thanked! Being thanked meant that this would happen! She didn't want to be nice if it meant she'd be thanked!
"Thank you, o Goddess."
Please! Stop! Madoka isn't nice, Madoka doesn't want to be nice, she shouldn't thanked, she shouldn't have to go through all this badness!
"Thank you, o Goddess-"
"NOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT DO THANK YOU! MADOKA NOT NICE! MADOKA NOT NICE! NO THANK YOUS! PLEASE!" Madoka screamed incomprehensibly, her inner emotions expressed as pure and as raw as they possible could from such a small child.
Madoka's eyes suddenly flashed, memories all too familiar yet not familiar at all carving themselves in her mind; memories of a long-lasting cycle, of magical girls, of grief, of witches, of death, of pain, of sacrifice. Trapped in her mind, unable to be forgotten.
Madoka's eyes then suddenly closed, and everything around her ceased to be.
Madoka woke up.
"Hey Madoka! You should get up now or you'll be late!"
The now-fourteen year old girl grumbled as her father's voice roused her from her slumber. It had been a dreamless one, as had now become the norm, though today was a day where she did not expect her sleep to be so tranquil. Regardless of whether or not she dreamed, though, her body wanted nothing but to remain glued to her bed and let her consciousness fade away.
In fact, she nearly did. The only thing that stopped Madoka from doing this was the sudden weight on her chest. Upon opening her eyes, she saw her little brother Tatsuya's excited face as he playfully shifted left and right on top of her. In the corner of her eye, she saw Junko's sly grin, the woman already completely dressed.
"Come on, Madoka. Tatsuya wants her big sister to go to school and learn more things for you tell him about." Junko commented, picking up the said boy, who erupted into giggles. Madoka gave her an indiscernible expression, but moments later got out of bed.
"I'm going to change. You don't have to wait for me to get ready, you might be late if you do." Madoka said, standing up and stretching her arms slightly. Junko nodded, walking out of the room, but stopped right as she was about to step out of the door.
"Madoka… I know something is bothering you right now. It's in your eyes." Junko stated, without facing her daughter. The said pink-haired girl said nothing, the ground suddenly looking a lot more interesting to her.
"Right on the mark, aren't I?"
"Be quiet." Madoka bit back. Junko gave a small laugh at that, with Tatsuya mimicking her.
"Alright, sweetie. We'll talk about it when you get back from school." The business woman said. She then left the room.
"Have a good day, alright?" The door closed.
Madoka's eyes closed for a moment, before reluctantly opening them back up.
Her floor wasn't too untidy; just some articles of clothings misplaced that she picked up and put back to their proper place. Her bed was in complete disarray, but there wasn't any harm in simply making it up when she got home from school. On the floor was a pink teddy bear with big button eyes, one she distinctly remembers having gotten as a Christmas present when she was four years old.
She sighed. 'I guess Tatsuya came in here to play and Mom forgot to bring this back to his room.'
She didn't really like it, so it stayed in a closet indefinitely, until Tatsuya showed a great interest in it. After intense washing, it was good as new and was given to him.
To her left was a desk, everything that was previously on it packed into her school bag after she had completely her homework. Right next to that was a small mirror. Besides her rather messy hair she didn't pay too much mind; Madoka would clean herself up in the bathroom.
Really, in this bedroom, there was only one thing that Madoka focused on.
The pink-haired girl's eyes snapped to the monochrome calendar pinned to the wall.
March 16th, a day highlight with a word written in all bold.
Cycle.
A date close by, March 25th, was circled numerous time in red, with so many words noted beside it that they all overlapped each other, rendering them all unreadable, except for one.
Homura.
Madoka's fists clenched.
After almost 12 years of suspense, fear, despair, and. most importantly, nightmares…
'The cycle… has finally started.'
Madoka, now dressed for her classes, washed herself up, quickly ate some toast as breakfast, grabbed her bag and left the house.
March 16th was a normal day for most. Perhaps even above average. The sky was without a single cloud, the temperature was that perfect spring mix of cool and warm and the wind blowed nicely and occasionally freshened everybody up. The world on March 16th in Mitakihara was one that everyone enjoyed.
That is, except for one Madoka Kaname.
One quick look at her cellphone.
8:52 AM
MARCH 16TH
Mitakihara Middle School's classes began at 9AM.
There was at least 15 more minutes of walking before she reached the school.
She was going to be late, unless she seriously increased her speed.
This would be the normal concern of a normal girl.
But instead, Madoka's eyes were laser focused on the text below it. March 16th, the current day.
Madoka wanted to scream.
But instead, she walked on as normal, the only sign of her internal conflict being her subconscious biting of her thumb's fingernail.
"The cycle…" Madoka muttered to herself, beginning to space out. "Today, she's going to…"
When Madoka had turned eight years old, Junko had told Madoka about her mysterious case of crying when she had been a toddler. How she would cry every night after falling asleep without fail, for three months, causing the household much grief. Of course, Junko meant no offence to her daughter.
This small period of time that Junko had told her about seemed to fit the timeframe when she had started getting nightmares. Or, as Madoka now occasionally referred to them as, visions.
Not that they weren't nightmaric, far from that assumption. In fact.
Those visions had scared and scarred Madoka. Changed her entire life, even. They had permanently carved themselves into her and influenced her, for better or for worse.
Madoka put her hand back to her side, continuing to walk.
Constant despair and suffering that she didn't know how to stop or why it happened to her. Fear to go back to sleep as even after those hellish three months as a toddler, occasional nightmarish visions would haunt her, with pain and anxiety that would last throughout waking hours.
Madoka wiped a few beads of sweat from her forehead, picking up her pace a bit to get to school.
Dreams that she used to have, that people spoke of so fondly of, no longer existed for Madoka. If she wasn't having terrible visions, her sleep would be exhaustingly devoid of anything. As though her eyes closing for the night and them opening for the morning time occurred but milliseconds apart from one other, with the actual hours in between providing but a small modicum of rest.
Madoka stopped walking, tapping her feet a bit impatiently on the concrete as she waited for the red light to flicker to green.
The visions truly were terrible. Specifically, the moments in those visions where she would be forced to absorb the purple aura of those mysterious creatures, accept their 'sins' as it were. No words could even described how she felt in the moment, or even how she felt afterwards. Nothing.
Madoka lightly jogged across the road as the street light turned green.
She was completely defenseless in those moments. Like a puppet or a rag doll, tossed around without care for her well-being and unable to do anything unless controlled to do so.
Madoka kept her pace, her breathing a touch more uneven.
Those visions imprinted events into her that she couldn't forget even if she wanted to.
About five more minutes at this speed and she would reach Mitakihara Middle School.
Without any ability to defend herself, she was forced to take any possible escape. Anything that could save her. This, however, had no solution. None that were natural, anyways. Her mother had told her already how doctors could not identify any issue with her.
Madoka slowed down exponentially; she was starting to get a bit tired.
The solution that her two year old self had taken was a mental solution; one that she didn't really understand, but one that worked.
"I… made it."
Madoka, now right in front of her school with about a minute to spare, stopped. Her eyes unfocused, she looked up into the air.
It had been another vision; she had been trapped in the air, forced to absorb the terrible aura of the terrifying monsters and faceless girls. She had had a sort of revelation; that whenever she would be forced to 'accept their sins', they had always thanked Madoka, for reasons Madoka didn't know even today. Her two year old mind, likely due to desperation, had managed to make a rather simple connection between their ceaseless thanks and her given despair:
Thanking someone was something you did when the other person was nice.
They had thanked her, and when they thanked her, she would be forced to feel despair.
Thus, because Madoka was nice enough to thank, that despair would be forced upon her.
So Madoka stopped being nice.
And just like that, the visions stopped occurring so frequently, though their effect had long since become permanent on Madoka's mind.
The bell rang, signaling the beginning of the school's activities.
When the visions had initially ended, the shift into negativity in her personality was a result of both her prior exhaustion and a fear that the nightmares would return if she was nice in any way. She'd frown more, throw fits more often and all around be less nice and friendly, all in an attempt to keep them away.
However, as time went on and years passed by, that lack of friendliness just became a part of her personality. Not only did the nightmares occasionally occur later on regardless, but due to the constant repetition of her rather distanced attitude and the nature of the visions, her heart had frozen over and had steeled. She'd have trouble approaching others and was sometimes even mean to others for no particular reason. In addition, she'd become significantly distanced with her family. Her father, her mother, her baby brother…
"Madoka?"
It was all because of those visions. Those nightmares.
"Hey, Madoka?"
They would never stop affecting her life for the worse. They haunted her in the past, lingered on in her present and foretold despair in the future. She didn't want this. She wanted it to be over. The cycle started today. All of that despair was going to start to appear in reality. And Madoka couldn't do anything about it. Not anything. Nothing. The magical girls and the cycle and the Incubator and the Witches and Homura are going to start happening now and there's not a single damn thing I can do about it-
"Madoka!"
"H-huh?" Madoka turned around at the sudden voice. It belonged to the one and only Sayaka Miki, one of the few people she had somehow befriended. In fact, she was probably Madoka's best friend, for all that meant. "S-Sayaka? What are you doing here?"
Sayaka was puzzled at this. "What am I doing here? What are you doing here? You've been standing outside doing nothing for the past five minutes!"
Madoka, in all her monologue, forgot that she was standing right outside the school entrance.
"Oh." She looked down.
"I saw you standing at the entrance through the window, and Ms. Saotome let me come and get you!" Sayaka explained. Her voice then turned into a worried whisper. "Are you okay, Madoka?"
"I'm fine." The pink-haired girl mumbled, keeping her head down. "Let's just get to class." Before Sayaka could even think of a response. Madoka speedily walked by her and towards the school building.
Sayaka sighed. 'It's really hard to tell what Madoka is thinking about sometimes.'' The blue-haired girl followed her not too long after.
And though she moved quickly, Sayaka still saw Madoka wipe her eyes with her arm.
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Merken
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Notes for Chapter 1: This story, once fully completed, will likely be compiled and re-published as a single story, as that was originally my intention. Consider this a beta version of that revised story. Further notes will be added as necessary.