The girl awoke in a dead city.
The girl awoke in her bed, and noticed that she was not in her room. She was lying in her bed, but her bed was in a field, a field of dead, tangled flowers.
The girl tried to remember what happened before she fell asleep. Violence. Pain. Despair. The gnashing of teeth and the steps of marching armies.
She remembered being beheaded. She lifted her hands to her face, and felt it was still there.
Of course it's still there. I'm thinking, aren't I?
The girl sat up, and took notice of her dress. It was a rather simple one: black, ankle-length, slightly-puffed shoulders. She tried to remember more.
Sadness. Confusion. Loneliness. Monsters. Sadness… Darkness… Despair…
Self-loathing.
The girl laid back down onto her pillow, and looked out to her left. The sky was a dark red, the clouds black. The water appeared dark, as if the night sky missing its moon and stars had covered the Earth.
She looked at the foot of her bed. Standing next to her bed was a chair. To its left was a chair knocked over. Looking at the chairs filled her with a chaos of emotions: love, joy, contentment, pain, sadness, misery…
Self-loathing.
Sadness and self-loathing… why does it keep going back to that?
A curious bird sat down onto one of the chairs. It seemed unnatural: large head, dead eyes, an appearance that looked more drawn than natural.
Who are you?
Homura was shocked. Did that bird just speak? How can a bird speak? And…
…my name is Homura.
Homura. What a nice name. Sounds like an anime character.
Huh?
You know, like the name of a character from some dark deconstruction of some sort.
I don't understand.
You do not have to understand. It is best that you do not understand.
Why? Would it explain why everything seems so dead?
No. Because you will understand why you feel…
…sadness and self-loathing.
Homura sat up again. After scanning her surroundings one more time, she got out of bed. She decided that she would go over to the chairs. She did, and saw that the fallen chair had two red ribbons hanging off of it.
Red ribbons…
Pain. Loneliness. Self-loathing. Despair.
Love.
Love?
…love.
She did not know why, but she thought of love when she saw the ribbons. Love of the kind you have for your siblings. Love of the kind you have for a lover. Love of the kind between friends. Love unconditional. Love…
…but not for the Divine.
A girl. She thought of a girl. She couldn't quite imagine her image, but she thought of a girl. She became awash in all of these feelings about this girl.
Love. Pain. Isolation. Love. Sadness. Despair. Love. Futility. Recursion. Love. Love…
…self-loathing.
Why do I feel love for this girl, but also self-loathing?
She began her walk to the city. She did not know why. She just knew that she had to. She must find out who she was. She knew her name. She knew that she felt sadness, love, and self-loathing above all things. But even more importantly, she felt that she had to find out this girl's name, this girl that she felt sadness, love, and self-loathing about. She brought the red ribbons with her.
Red ribbons… love… sadness…
Fear.
She felt fear. Fear not just in recalling the ribbons, but she felt that she was no longer alone. To a bench she ran, and she got up on it, more to get away from the no longer safe ground than to scan the surroundings. She noticed it, then: a simple rodent. A white rat with big red eyes. A rat, and nothing more. But when she saw the white fur, the red eyes…
Hate. Hate. I feel hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.
Did she hate rats? No, she thought that they were cute. But why did she hate this rat?
The eyes… the white fur…
…
…hate. Fury. Anger. Trickery. Lies. Unfeeling. Alien. outsider.
Incubator.
She remembered, then. There was something like a rodent, with red eyes and white fur. It was a rodent, yet it was not from this world. And she knew that it was…
…evil? No… worse… unfeeling, uncaring save for everything but itself.
She felt that she must run. So she did. She ran without knowing where she was running, but she felt that her legs were carrying her to a place where she had to be. She came before a fork in the road. A tall townhouse stood before her.
Home?
She went up to the door. It opened. She stepped in, and looked around. A large room. A circular, red couch. Images. Images floating everywhere. Were they real, or a manifestation of her mind? She looked at them, and she remembered. She remembered the others. She remembered the monsters, both spectral and alien. She remembered… she remembered…
She remembered her.
Homura, upon remembering her, collapsed down onto her knees. She did not remember everything, but she remembered enough. Her hands went up to her face as she shook, and she felt her eyes burst forth. She was crying. Why? Why was she crying?
I… remember… others, and her… and her… and her…
…her…
…love… pain… self-loathing…
…loneliness.
Homura screamed.