Just Too Late…
For the best effect, listen to the song 'Unjust Life' or 'Theme of the SSS' from the Angel Beats soundtrack while reading.
"You were too late." The man sneered.
"No, please sir! Just give me a minute more, I'll find something!" Yuri pleaded.
"No more time, got that? We had a deal, and you didn't fulfill your end. Now you have to pay the consequences!" The man placed the cold piece of steel to Yuri's little sister's temple.
"Now say goodbye to your little sister, then go FIND me something!" The man shouted. His finger tensed.
"NOO!" Yuri screamed.
The pistol's report shook the world, tearing it apart. Yuri was now the first child of three instead of four- within seconds, her little sister was no more than a limp doll, with red blood and grey matter oozing from a hole in her head.
Yuri sprinted through the house. She searched frantically, but could not find anything that would satisfy the ruthless men. Every time she brought something back, they would snarl and smack it from her hands. Nothing she could find was valuable enough for them.
"Your parents are well off, ain't they? They've got to have somethin' better than that! Now you go and find it, or your little brother's going down next!" The man said, pointing his pistol at Yuri's younger brother.
"No, sir, please I-"
The second man pushed her away, towards the kitchen, "The more you talk, the less time your brother has to live! Go find us something right NOW!"
Yuri tried to look again, but in vain. She was called back into the living room, where the third man in the group took her arms.
"That was ten minutes. Looks like baby bro goes bye-bye!" The first man growled, placing the gun in Yuri's brother's mouth.
"Stop! Don't!" Yuri shouted.
The man didn't stop. A muffled bang went off, and Yuri's brother shut his eyes forever.
Yuri's eyes flooded, and the man let her go. She fell to her knees. "No… No, no, no…" She sobbed.
The first man lifted her up by the collar, throwing her at the wall. "You've only got one left, you hear me? Go bring me something that's gonna make me MONEY!"
Yuri rushed up the stairs, into her father's study. After a search that seemed to take eternity, her eyes landed on a large vase.
"It's got to be worth something!" She shouted, hefting the ceramic flower pot. She began to take it down the stairs, when another shot went off. She lost her footing, and fell down the stairs. The vase shattered, and she heard the door open and then slam loudly. Another person- Yuri's neighbor- rushed to her.
"Yuri, are you alright? I've called the police, and those men are gone. I heard the shots and came over. Yuri… When I entered the house, the moment they saw me… The moment they saw me they…"
Yuri nodded, placing her face into her arms. "I was too late… I was just too late…" Yuri whispered. As she took a breath, her entire body shook. "They killed all of them… I couldn't save them…"
"Yuri, whatever you do, do not blame yourself for this!"
"How can I not blame myself? If I'd just found something for them, they wouldn't have… My sisters and my brother would still be…" Yuri sobbed. "It's all my fault… I was too late…" Yuri felt a wave of nausea, and vomited. It got all over her, covering her arms, legs, and shirt. Yuri's neighbor wiped off her mouth, slowly rubbing her back. Sirens became audible in the distance.
"It's alright, Yuri. The police will be here soon." They waited in silence as the sirens grew louder.
The door opened, and an officer knelt beside Yuri. He lifted up her face, and she stared into his eyes.
"She's suffering from shock." The officer said.
"Sir, where are my mom and dad?" Yuri whispered.
"They've been notified of the… event. They are on their way now." The officer replied.
"Are they mad at me?" Yuri asked.
"No, Yuri, they're not mad at you. You did the best you could have done in your position, understand me?" The officer said.
"If I did the best I could have done than why are my siblings DEAD!" Yuri shouted. She didn't know where it came from, but she was suddenly angry, angrier than she'd ever been before. Her arm lifted up, and she punched the officer in the chest. Her hand bounced uselessly off of his bulletproof vest, and fell limp. She began to cry uncontrollably, sitting in a pool of tears, blood, and bile.
The officer put his hand on her shoulder, but she pushed it away. "No…"
The officer pulled back, looking down. He stood up, walking towards the living room. There he turned to the walkie-talkie on his shoulder, and said something Yuri wasn't able to hear. The world blurred, someone shouted, and she lost consciousness.
"That's how it happened." Yuri said. Fresh tears came to her face. It had been a month since the robbery. She'd told the same story twenty times to different people, and every time she did felt worse. The more she said it, the more real it became. She wished she could have forgotten it all, wake up one morning to find her little brother jumping on the bed to awaken her like he used to, but that wasn't going to happen.
That day, she sat on her own table in the lunchroom. She wanted some time to be by herself. As she began to eat, something nailed the back of her head.
She looked down, and there was a marble on the ground. She looked up to see a boy turning to his friends and laughing. Yuri's anger flared, and she picked up the marble. She hurled it, releasing a loud scream. It bounced off the boy's head, and he snarled at her. He rushed over, picking her up by the collar.
"You'd better apologize for that!"
Suddenly, the boy disappeared. In his place was the robber that had killed her siblings. Yuri screamed again, grabbing his face. She dug her fingers into his eyes, pushing as hard as she could. "NO!" She yelled.
The boy screamed, releasing her and stumbling backwards, grasping his eyes.
The security officer pulled Yuri away, holding the squirming, screaming girl tightly. Yuri felt her energy spill out, and the world turned black.
"You realize what you've done, don't you?" The officer said.
Yuri turned her face away from him, closing her eyes.
"That boy may never see again, you realize that."
"He won't be able to throw marbles too well anymore." Yuri spat.
The officer nodded, "Listen, Ms. Nakamura, I understand, but…"
Yuri's eyes clouded, "No! No you don't. I watched my sisters and brother die, and there was nothing I could do to stop it!"
The officer sighed, rubbing his face. He checked his watch, then sighed again, "Alright, Ms. Nakamura. It's getting late, and we can't sort out the situation until tomorrow. Go home and rest, okay?"
Yuri nodded, leaving the room.
Stinging.
Not a real pain, just a sharp jabbing at her arm. That's how the knife blade felt on her arm. Everything that she had known had been shattered in thirty minutes, and the only solution she had was this blade. What use was cutting herself anyways? She'd heard from someone that it would release some of the pain, but… It just wasn't sufficient. The pain was not in her arm, it was the deep and terrible aching in her heart, the damage to her mind caused by those gunshots. A huge part of her had died with her siblings, never to come back to life.
Yuri couldn't look at anyone anymore, especially men. Even her father's face would always morph into the sneer of the robbers. All the consolation and pity… It all just killed her more inside. She just wanted to be alone, to never have to look at anyone again…
Yuri gasped. She hadn't been paying attention, but while she had been thinking she had leveled the blade at her own chest.
"Just pulling my arms back a little… That's all it would take…" She whispered. Yuri imagined the cries of her brother and sister as her first sibling was gunned down. The sobs of her brother as the cold steel was pressed to his head…
She'd done it. The blade was embedded in her chest, red blood welling up around the stab wound. She pulled out the blade, dropping it to the floor. It was louder than she had expected it to be. Footsteps approached the door to her room, and her door was thrust open. Her father and mother gasped as they beheld what Yuri had done.
Yuri's mother rushed to her daughter's side, screaming for her husband to call the police. Yuri turned to look at her mother.
"I was… I was too late…" Yuri whispered. The world faded away.
Yuri's eyes snapped open. She was on a cement walkway of some sort. She stood up from the cold solid, looking at her surroundings.
"Is this supposed to be the afterlife?" She whispered. There was a building behind her and in front of her a small stairway leading to a courtyard. She walked into the center of the courtyard, falling to her knees. She was completely alone, no one around to hear her cries.
She faced the sky, and started sobbing, "What did I do? I… I just wanted to protect them. I wanted to be their big sister, the one person they could always look up to! Why did you take that from me? The only thing…" She fell down onto her arms, tears falling on the stony ground. "That was the only thing I wanted! You just… You just took it all from me! And they… They died before they even had a chance at life! Why did they deserve the fates they were given?" Her whole body shook tremulously as sobs racked her entirety.
"What kind of God would do that?!" She screamed.
The white haired girl looked from behind the stairways at the new arrival. "She's not quite ready yet." She said.