DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fanfic, The Vision of Escaflowne is property of Shoji Kawamori and Sunrise, please support the official release.
TRIGGERS: This story has mentions of depressive behaviour, hints of suicide thoughts, self harm and car accident references!
First of all, special thanks to Ivory Byrd (/u/723900) for helping me to come up with this idea and making its gorgeous cover! You should totally look at her tumblr (drkstars-art) and dA (drkstars) for lots of Dragonslayer's art, fanfiction and more!
If I had posted this two days before it could've been part of the first Escaflowne week of all time, sponsored by luminescent-rebirths at tumblr in their blog dedicated to it under the prompt of Day 1: Girl on Gaea / Track and field. More information about it can be found at escaflowne-week . tumblr info just erase the spaces between dots and the slash; I totally recommend you to check the whole blog if you're searching for fresh Escaflowne material!
This story belongs to the same universe as the other ones that have I am in the title; it starts way after the other two and you don't need to read them to understand it although it would be preferable. As I've said before, english is not my first language but spanish, and as I'm self taught lots of words might sound weird; sorry for the trouble. I had never written a depressed character before this fic but the idea was so tempting to try otherwise, I hope to not disappoint you or make you feel uncomfortable with this story.
Without further ado, I hope you to enjoy.
A fateful confession
The sun was in its highest point but that didn't stop the coach to keep with his regime upon his students. As they prepared to another practice race the sound of cicadas invited them to pass their time under a three, after all it was summer and the best time to be out the running track. Instead of resting, they flexed their muscles and waited for the signal for them to start with their competition.
As the echo of the BB gun resonated all around the stadium, they started to run; it was the false shot so at this point around four were out of it. They needed to judge better the situation because in professional competitions there weren't second times. When the real time came, the few who weren't keen to start the first time now ran with the speed of a cheetah fighting with their rivals to reach the goal before them.
The ones who were observing the race got crazy screaming the name of their favourite one. The multitude became a chant of only one name...
"Amano, Amano, Amano!" they cheered the sprinter.
As their champion reached the goal with a triumphal lifting of arms, while breaking the ribbon of the goal in the process, he stopped on his tracks and waited for a minute to catch his breath. Surely this wasn't the most difficult test but they were practising literally for a lot of hours and under the scorching sun.
For a minute, Hitomi's world stopped its spin only for her to clench her fingers around the armrest of her chair. That would've been her, receiving the praise of her classmates, if not for that damned accident half a year ago, the one who took away her ability to walk and with that, her friends; the only one who stayed was Yukari. She even had to be held back a year, when the principal let her to study in 3rd year her grades were poor and for that reason she returned to the 2nd year.
That wasn't what was bothering her, she wasn't a really good student, her most prominent subject was English but relied more into her sports than in her grades, a passing average was enough for her mother because she had more hope in her promising career as an Olympic runner and her easiness with languages would help her if she had to compete in another country. She had never loved something as much as running in the track field and had been good at it since elementary school but only until highschool joined the club; Yukari followed her as the manger and all was too perfect to be truth.
"Thinking of friends..." Three girls were charting quite cheerfully in the grades, drinking water and getting ready for the next race. When Hitomi joined the club they became friends, they looked happy, as if nothing had changed at all. She wanted to say hi to them, to ask them how they were doing in the nationals, to wish them luck in their entrance tests. Yet, she didn't want to do so; from her chair, she contemplated the concrete at the base of the stairs for a minute before the wind flipped her blue skirt up and obstructed her path of view.
By the time the wind caressed her short hair; her friend had already reached the top of the stairs and was looking at her friend with concern for a second to change her expression to one of cheerfulness as if it was natural.
"Sorry for the delay, Hitomi; I lost track of the time," said Yukari in an apologetically manner. "Oh my, look at your skirt! Thanks goodness there weren't boys near" she said, after smoothing it herself.
"Don't worry, I just came to see the practice for a while," the girl in question looked up to her friend with cold eyes.
"Let's go somewhere else," said Yukari while taking the push handle of her friend's wheelchair.
Oh how much she hated people moving her around, as if she were a doll or a groceries cart; she couldn't walk but wasn't dead... yet. She gave a last glance to her friends; they had already started to run as both were leaving. Yukari leaded her to the entrance of the school, they were heading home and she was updating her about how the new manager needed her past notes, most of it was ignored by the silent girl in the chair. She kept her head high using the inner part of her hand while her elbow rested in the armrest until a playful smile formed in her face, her eyes sparkled with mischief.
"You know that I don't like to wait, it will cost you dearly," she used the emergency break and turned her chair around to face her surprised friend.
Hitomi looked at her to the eye and crossed her arms, "A cheese cake of the new cafeteria is the price for wasting my time, take it or leave it," she used a faux angry voice before nodding to make it valid to herself.
"C'mon Hitomi, it wasn't on purpose," she pleaded, with both hands together but ended up agreeing to her friend's punishment and made plans for the weekend to visit the coffee parlour at Kamakura's shopping center.
Both left the school grounds and went to the train station, while riding in it Hitomi took a nap while her friend was listening music. Her consciousness drove her to a memory of her childhood, before her parents divorced and she was part of a happy family.
Hitomi was waiting the train in a Tokyo Station, she was at most four years old and was playing with the hand of her father. She looked at his clock, she had always liked it although little she knew about how to read it; the three sets of needles were appealing to her to the point that she could pass hours just waiting for each time they moved; but this time, they stopped as well as everyone around her.
A beautiful song was being played in the station and when the little girl turned to see where the tune came from, she saw a youngster with strange hair and tattoos; all his attire was foreign to her. He smiled at her when she asked him who he was, then her train arrived and as sudden as he appeared he vanished without a trace.
A mechanical voice made her awake; there had been an accident in another station so their train was going to be delayed for a while. Hitomi stirred in her chair and searched for the backpack in the rearward compartment of her backrest; she couldn't reach it without advancing, which was difficult taken the big amount of people in the aisle even if she was in a preferential place. After watching her dilemma, Yukari undid the ties of the bag and handed it to her friend.
Hitomi watched her with a side-glance before snatching the backpack from her hands a little angry; her friend had made one of the things she hated the most: remembering her that she wasn't self-sufficient. She searched for her water bottle, while Yukari played with her hair; it was a signal that she was nervous. When she finally found the item, drank for around two minutes to leave it completely empty, then she returned it to the bag and hung it from her shoulder to let it rest in her lap; it was like a routine for her lately, to wake up really thirsty even after naps.
After yawning she heard Yukari spoke: "You have been sleeping in classes lately, your homeroom teacher told me so," she wasn't reprimanding her, "are you nervous for the finals?"
"Of course not; I've been tired lately, really tried, do you think I am weird?" her previous anger was forgotten for her to start wondering on her own.
"I wonder why, I feel really drained, all my classmates are pretty energetic, I'm starting to feel old for being surrounded by kids," she said with a pseudo melodramatic voice but her friend was closely watching her.
"For that reason I sleep, and in my dreams, when nobody notices I disappear," her hands mimicked the action of an exploding serpentine ball, "but nothing changes, even if I am not around anymore nothing changes."
"I remember that when we were kids you read me the tarot cards once, have you tried to make a read on your own? I know that you swore to not do it again but-" her friend was interrupted by the train driver again and she was glad of it, her days as a fortune-teller were over for good. The accident in Yoyogi Station had been managed without incidents and both students were heading to their neighbourhoods.
Hitomi lived in an apartment building, when she was a child her house was two blocks far from Yukari's but as her mother income wasn't as high as her father's the small family of three —her mother, little brother and her— had to move to a smaller and further place. The two students were cheerfully talking in their way home, the house of her friend was left behind long ago because she was walking Hitomi to hers but a block before arriving she saw the stadium where she ran her first interschool race.
She wanted to leave it behind like her recent routine, it was like a taboo place for her, but in the matter of seconds every sound around her was silenced to give pass for the chirp of birds and a voice from the past returned to haunt her. A lonely bird was flying in the blue sky and in her mind eye Hitomi saw the track field as if she were in the middle of it and a cloaked figure stood in the other side of it.
"Is something wrong?" asked her friend, taking her out the trance.
"Somebody is calling me," said the girl in the chair more to herself, to state something that might be or not real; the voice of the woman seemed a little different but it was the same until it suddenly faded.
She opened the outer fence and drove inside until reaching the entrance stairs; the situation was so surreal, two years ago a judge was announcing her as the champion for the preliminaries; she could even hear his voice coming out from the speakers outside the track field. Her friend pressed the shoulder strap of her backpack, she knew that something wrong was going on with her; the sky was at this point as orange that both absorbed the colour and her faces looked almost golden.
"Hitomi," she stood in front of her to crouch and put her hands in her shoulders, she was now in her eye level and looked at her with concern.
Before she could lecture her, Hitomi spoke: "Stop worrying about me, you're bothering me, just leave me alone" her voice was cold and had a tinge of commanding anger, "Forget me".
Yukari couldn't believe her ears and looked at her friend's backpack resting in her lap, "I understand," she retired her own hands and walked slowly away from her.
"I can't stand you," said Hitomi with an angrier voice, to scare her and make her walk faster.
"Mother asked me to bring her the groceries for dinner," said Yukari to excuse herself while looking at her feet, "I'll see you tomorrow at school," her voice was starting to crack for containing her tears.
"Disappear from my sight!" she shouted from her chair, while looking to the concrete ground "I can't stand you," whispered behind her teeth while scratching her armrest.
"Disappear, I hate the people that hurts their friends," at this point, she was biting her lip, "Disappear," a trickle of her blood was now dripping in the corner of her mouth, "Somebody..." she looked at the sky before her thoughts were interrupted by and unknown voice.
"That's right, all must disappear," his voice was deep and had an eloquent tone.
She was surprised and looked at her right shoulder when the wind blew in her direction, his voice seemed to come from inside the stadium and he looked so real in her mind eye.
"Leave this sad world, and all that's in it, disappear," he sounded angry and at the same time, sad.
Without noticing when or how, Hitomi was now in the middle of the track field watching this man in a close distance. Contrary to the time she saw the youngster with strange appearance, all seemed to move faster than normal around her, the pace of the clouds was too quick to track and made the most strange shadows in the ground. Suddenly, the image of her first race came to her mind, three girls from other schools were running alongside her; ah how good did the wind felt that day when it caressed her short hair before crossing the goal line.
"You, who share the same wish as me" continued the man, "Come to my distant land, and join me, you're the chosen one," his voice sounded so convincing.
"Are you talking about me?" asked Hitomi, with an incredulous voice.
"You, the Goddess of the Wings," he started to walk towards her, "you must come to my land and consummate your destiny," his voice was so luring to ignore but his face was still far from her sight.
"Come to my world, Gaea" he extended his hand as if inviting her to take it and run away with him, far way from her tragedy.
Suddenly, the wind started to blow so high that nothing could be heard through it and the sky darkened in less than a second; the man in front of her seemed tranquil until the wind changed its curse and he vanished in front of her after looking startled. The stadium's ground became round and the sky had now a greenish colour that surrounded the most incredible thing she had seen in all her life.
"Is that Earth?" the mirage was akin to the photograph she was accustomed to see in books, "Is this a dream, or maybe a vision?" as a child she had all kind of strange visions until puberty, when they ceased.
"No, this is real," suddenly, water started to sprout from the ground and was surrounding her, it quickly covered her waist although she couldn't feel it until it reached her armrests, "My wish has been granted!"
The sky glowed blue and move itself in round waves, as if a rock had fallen into a pond; a whistle was heard when it happened and the mirage of Earth above her was almost fading when the water covered her to the shoulders. She felt how the water engulfed her and carried her on its whim. She couldn't feel her chair, it must've been taken away from her by the flow; she should be scared and yet she wasn't, it felt as natural as breathing when she sunk as a rock into the darkness.
Hitomi felt heavy and wanted to left herself drown to sleep forever until, instead of falling, she was now ascending in a pillar of light that came up from down her, it was warm and made possible for her to breath but it faded and followed its way to the sky. As a reflex movement, she propelled herself with her arms and searched the surface of the water, too desperate to breathe to note that her legs were moving on their own as death was near her.
Her few swimming classes were worth their pay and time invested in them when she saw the starry sky and took a breath of fresh air that her lungs thanked. With all her might she swam to the shore of that water body and using her arms and legs she hold herself to puke the few contents of her stomach before starting to cough violently.
She had almost died by drowning and now was resting on a shore in the middle of nowhere while looking at the sky, where the clouds forecasted a forthcoming rain. Hitomi couldn't believe it, she totally felt like dreaming, all happened too unexpectedly to be truth. Taken the previous facts, she assumed that she was actually dozing in the entrance of the stadium or even still aboard the train, it had happened before, for her to lost the track of reality while sleeping and surely Yukari was droving her home.
Her mocking laugh echoed in the forest as the girl jumped in her spot while hugging herself, only in the dream world she could be using her legs again. She saw her backpack float in the water but paid no mind to it, the damned bag could go to hell for all she knew because it was all just a dream!
She started to run as fast as she could, to the closest big rock the moonlight let her see; Hitomi was so utterly happy in that moment to notice that she was no longer alone in that lake shore but before she could notice it, the girl tripped over a small rock and fell to her left side. She used her hands to cushion the fall and scrapped her knee; she emitted a hurt cry and immediately curled up to look after the wound.
"This hurts!" she was in pain, sure, but was glad to feel so; after her accident she had pinched her legs with needles in search of any kind of signal of it, something that could give her hope but now it have her another kind of thought: This was no dream, it was real!
She noticed the reality of her situation on time; if she had delayed a second the pair of eyes that were now watching her behind the shrubbery was going to be of no importance to her. An animal she had never saw before was now baring its teeth before jumping at her with menacing claws before it. She didn't have to think it twice to rush away from the predator; it didn't matter the direction she just had to run to the other side.
Hitomi ran and ran until her legs screamed for mercy; apparently her muscles weren't accustomed to the stress of the exhausting task. She was sweating like a swine and her white uniform and blue skirt were now marred for the dirt of the plants she passed close to, her heart was beating like crazy to the point that she couldn't hear nothing but her blood crowding in her ears; she fell when one of her feet was stuck by a root and saved her from falling to her death. She was close to the edge of a precipice and had to leave her shoe behind to climb the closest three for her life depended on it, she had no other choice and didn't new if that unknown beast was going to follow her up.
Fortunately, the animal didn't saw that it was running out of ground and couldn't stop in time to prevent its fall to the void. Hitomi couldn't hear when it hit the bottom for she was more interested in how the Earth was now in the middle of the sky, peering behind the moon. She wasn't at home anymore.
Well, I am short of words and surely all this mess sounded better in my head than in actual words; with this one I learned more about the language and how the wording could totally change the vibe of a scene. I don't know when will this be updated but stay tuned!
Myth and legend ride with you