Silence reigned over the scene. Quiet, that was all he wanted. Inside, he felt as if he were dying. Well, in a way he was. He had died that day. Everything he had hoped and dreamed for had vanished, had disappeared and left in a single instant. Like her. Her beautiful, pure soul was gone. And so was his life.
Mamoru walked slowly up to the front of the now over funeral. Sunlight fell across his long, midnight bangs that jutted before his cool, sapphire eyes. He was still and silent during the entire service. All he wanted was one last goodbye.
He reached the coffin and looked down upon it. Overwhelming sadness seemed to grasp him and hold him hostage. It was inconceivable that inside this mahogany box, inside that deep blackness, Usagi was there. She was there. And soon she would be in the ground. Gone.
He placed a hand on the coffin, which beneath was a single red rose. Sat there staring at it. Nothing was the same anymore. The sweet aroma of flowers bit at his senses, conjured up emotions and feelings and memories of things they had done. All of those fights they had been in, all in VAIN. All for nothing. Nothing was saved. He wasn't saved. He couldn't save her. He would never save her again…
He wandered out of his sorrow, and a single tear fell. It landed next to the rose and slid down to the grass. He wiped his eye quickly and took a deep breath. He felt so lost, like a child that had been stranded in the middle of the ocean on a life raft. Time should be frozen, and, oh, how he wished it could. Or for time to roll back, so he could have a few more precious moments with her, to feel her liveliness, her joy…
More tears streaked down his face. Life seemed like a great burden. He had no reason to live. It was as if his insides had been scraped out and he was hollow. He leaned over and gently kissed the top of the coffin, his tears pouring onto the glossy surface.
He stood back, looking at the beautiful arrangement of flowers, and sighed deeply. Walking off into the distance, his thoughts kept on reverting back to her…and his new life without her.
Ami sat and cried. She couldn't believe all that had happened. She had seen one of her friends being murdered. She had lost so much. Everything seemed upside-down.
At night, oh, that was awful. She would lay her head against the pillow and stare at her bedroom ceiling until sleep came, and she was tossed into an unending peril of images; Miya's blood, her screaming, the agony, the crying, the sheer pain of the whole ordeal. She felt like she was dying herself; in her dreams, bullets ripped through her chest, her blood staining her white school blouse, her body, helpless and lifeless. Waking up in a cold sweat wasn't unusual anymore. She barely got any sleep, for every time she closed her eyes the scenes would replay over and over and over again, in a cruel form of torture.
Then, she had been so calm, so simply unaffected by what she had seen in those fifteen minutes. She had simply walked out of the library and out on the front lawn of the school, and then to hear the harrowing news. She hadn't cried then; all she had heard were words, words that didn't connect or make sense or relate to anything. Just words. Words that became truer every damn day of her life.
Usagi's funeral had left her numb. She knew she was there, and, yes, she could see her friends crying, but that didn't form anything in her head. Yes, there was Usagi's coffin and yes, there were her parents crying over there, but this didn't mean anything to Ami.
She slowly collapsed onto her bed, staring at the failing blue light that peeked from her window which was covered with white blinds. The air seemed so thick now. It was so hard to breathe. Every day, it seemed like she was choking down the sadness, gulping down air to hold it in, pulling her farther and farther away.
She smiled wryly. Ami closed her eyes and instead of the morbid scenes was greeted with Usagi's smiling face, now an ebbing memory that was squared off somewhere in her brain. Her golden locks of hair bobbed about as she looked for Makoto's hidden treats at lunchtime….laughing at Minako's twisted jokes and insane crushes….talking about Mamoru, and how much she loved him. Her voice was simply an echo now, an echo that pulled at Ami's memories and seemed to be flitting away.
Ami breathed deeply and contentedly, finding peace for a short time. She fell off to sleep, reliving the good days that had passed.
Makoto stirred vigorously. She pulled her whole self into that bowl, that chocolaty mess. She gasped, pressing and mixing harder. With every turn of the wooden spoon she let put a little cry. She finally stopped and sat back on the floor, gasping and crying, then sobbing. The bowl fell from her hands and cracked into pieces, spilling the batter on the floor beside her, but she wasn't aware of the mess being made. She choked on her sobs, fury and anguish pulsating through her body. She had never felt this mush sorrow since she was left orphaned by a plane crash, something so inconceivable. Something so inconceivable as this.
She looked over to the batter on the floor and realized what she had been making.
Brownies.
She was a bit taken aback by her decision of food. That was the very thing Usagi loved to have after Home Economics. Makoto smiled a bit and dipped her finger on a piece of chocolate laying on a large piece of the glass bowl and tasted it.
She hadn't given her any brownies that day. Makoto was kind of remorseful for that act; if she had known what was to happen, she would have been a lot more nice.
She sighed deeply and put her head back on a cabinet behind her and closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. Makoto fell asleep right there, on the kitchen floor.
Minako was lost. She had taken a nap, but she didn't know the reason why. Bleary-eyed, she glanced at her clock and saw that it was 7:30 already, and yelped.
"Oh God! Usagi is gonna be sooo pissed off at me for not telling her about the project due tomorrow…"
Minako stopped halfway across the room to her telephone when reality set in. She stood straight up and sort of looked around, saddened deeply. She bit her lip and sighed, retreating back to her bed.
The doctor had given her some sleeping pills after she had been released from the hospital. She grasped the bottle firmly, and screwed off the top in one swift movement. She poured the rest of the pills into her hand and, with harrowing unhesitating nerve, dropped them into her mouth and swallowed with a swig from the water beside her dresser.
Minako sighed and laid back on her bed quietly, and stared. She looked over at her clock, the red numbers blurring and tumbling from her sight down a dark hallway inside her mind. She took a deep breath and waited, waited for something, anything, to take it away.
To take away the pain.
---------------------
A/N: Wow, I can be such an evil author sometimes XD WHat will happen to everything now? Look out for chapter two!