Nightmares
{ 23 February 2010 } Written for InuSongfics. Prompt: "Nightmare." WARNING: Implied character deaths and suicide.
"It's not fair!" she screamed, over and over again as her nails dug impossibly, painfully deep into the packed earth at the bottom of the Bone Eaters' Well. Bloodied fingertips clutched nothing but the feeble sparks of magic ignited by her touch. Still there, but never strong enough to start the time slip, brief blue lit up and died like tiny flames, each fizzle taking with it her hopes of ever seeing her hanyou again.
She was stuck, trapped in a place she no longer viewed as home.
"Kagome?"
Her back stiffened. Light swept into the dusty, dank room as the wooden door slid open. Mama entered, haloed in the glowing firelight of a single candle, and as she stuck her worried face over the lip of the ancient well, every crease and every wrinkle illuminated in sharp, bright color.
Kagome almost felt guilty as she gazed upon her face, but in the end, desperation and the need to get back trumped guilt and her countenance froze in a sharp-eyed glare.
"Leave me alone, Mama. I needto do this."
"I'm worried," Mama whimpered.
"Then don't watch me. Go away."
"What?" her mother gasped. She eyed with disbelief the serious and sure look in her daughter's eyes. Those same bright blues that held strength and determination, a will unmatched by any other, dimmed with hopeless resolve. "Kagome, how can you say such things!"
The woman climbed into the well and tried to reach her daughter, a feat that proved difficult as Kagome jerkily backed away as far into the well's wall as she could, fighting it when Mama Higurashi grabbed her by her shoulders.
Her mother shook her.
"I mean it, Mama." Kagome whispered. "There's nothing here for me anymore."
Her mother slapped her.
With her head twisted to the side, the seventeen year old laughed a scary, mirthless laugh. Her mother released her by her shoulders, stepping away. A hand raked desperately through cropped, ink-black hair and she shook her head frantically, refusing to accept that thiswas her strong-willed baby girl.
Just weeks ago Kagome came home smiling and laughing, eager to share the story of her first real kiss. She spoke of hanyou and heroes and plans for a future in the past.
Days ago she came home sobbing about a battle that took place unexpectedly, tearing to bits all her hopes and dreams by taking the man and everything she loved away.
Today, Mama found her like this.
"We mated Mama. When he died, a part of me did, too," Kagome said, her voice a hollow, dried-up thing. "Just accept it. I'm gone until I find my way back to him."
When you're cut short for misery, will you pray it be the end?
"But you can't!" Mama told her, feeling moisture soak her face as the tears poured down. "If he's dead there's no way you can—Kagome?"
Give a look.
Surprised, wide-eyes to me.
Her teenage face lit up in something eerily similar to what it used to be. Happy, peaceful, content, the girl held within her bloodied fingertips an over-sharpened glass shard swirling with coal-black color.
"There is a way," she laughed, sliding it slowly toward her wrist. "I found it."
"Kagome, don't—!"
Then you'll know just what I am...
"Mama?"
In another room, dimly lit by a single wax candle, Mama Higurashi sprang up in bed, coming near eye level with her teenage daughter. Their situations were reversed. It was Kagome who sat there looking concerned, grasping the shoulders of her crying mother who, in the midst of a nightmare, called out to her.
"Is everything okay?" Kagome asked, dabbing the edge of Mama's bed sheets across the woman's forehead. Mama's breathing slowed and she stilled her daughter's hand.
"I'm fine," she assured her, forcing a smile. The teen didn't look too convinced so her mother changed the subject.
"What about you? Did you just get in? Is InuYasha here? Is he okay?"
At the mention of her hanyou, Kagome's cheeks warmed and she mumbled the answer to every one of her mother's questions. Then she shifted, sighed, and smiled. Brilliantly, brightly…
Forebodingly.
The scare that triggers your fear
"Mama, he kissed me."