NOVEMBER 14, 2050
Under the blanket of the dark night's sky, little droplets of rain fall in their thousands, influenced one way by a gust of wind; they pitter patter harmlessly, despite each individual raindrop plunging at a breakneck speed, as their contents drench the grass little by large.
If anyone had been up at this hour, they wouldn't have seen a figure at the one stretch of the woods.
A second crack of thunder. Perhaps even the keenest pair of eyes would have missed it - even as a wave of light momentarily lit up the scenery. It would have been easier to take them as another slightly undersized tree, the wind dipping between soft and powerful.
A slight, slow incline of their head betrayed their stillness. The next crack of lightning lit up the next clue - a person.
If another wave of lightning had hit, it would have illuminated them better; features that, on closer inspection, would have given away those of a woman. ...No, a girl. Something of Japanese brown eyes accompanied by thin eyebrows, tucked in with a button nose and thin lips; her ears were hidden behind a slick tuft of raven hair that had escaped a loose ponytail. Small face. It didn't pass any further than her shoulders. A thin, rounded hat -something flatter than the shape of a straw hat - of black hue stopped most of the rain from drenching her face, but she didn't seem to mind, seeing as how she had already knelt down and besmirched her trousers and the bottom of a dark trenchcoat in the floor's mud.
But this did not happen - another strike of lightning did not occur - and no-one but herself was there to see it.
A shovel had been messily strewn to one side, seemingly put down carelessly after the amount of effort exerted to have done what she had already done. There was no use holding it any more.
The patch of land ahead of her, hidden just behind a tucked section of the dark forest, had been misplaced - at day, if anyone dared visit the same land as her, it might have looked a bit offputting. Unnatural. Unprofessional. Hopefully the grass grew over before anyone ever set foot here again.
A slab of rock had been pushed sideways in front of her; in such a manner that looked as if a lot of time and effort had been used to place it as perfectly as possible. Little scrapes in the stone had been made, made as deeply and clearly as possible - despite a part of the woman not wanting it to be.
This was a grave.
CARLA D. SHIMADA
Aug. 29th, 2040 - Nov. 13th, 2050
Little Finch.
Upon scrutinization, it would have been obvious that no qualified nor licensed gravedigger dug this messy excuse of a tomb. No, it was far too small to be called a tomb- a mound was a better word. It wouldn't have been a silly accusation to imagine it had been put together by a child.
Nor was that completely untrue.
She didn't know how she knew this girl's birthdate. She just did. It came to her as if in recall she hadn't previously been aware of - learning more of her every day.
But... she also did know how.
I didn't mean to. I didn't.
Upon even further scrutinization, it would have been obvious it had only been recently made.
And if anyone was there with her, it would have been obvious (by the dirt and mess on her face and body, at least) that she had dug, deposited, and covered it.
Little flowers that would probably drown by tomorrow adorned its lithe perimeter- there was even a stick at one end, dug into the ground. A single orange ribbon held tight around it.
Only hours had passed since she had carried Carla's body here.
A hitch in breath was the first sign that she was to leave. Carla could rest well here, under the cherry blossoms of Hanamura. They may be dead, thin branches now, but... they would grow beautifully when summer came.
A moment of silence where she only listened the rustling of the leaves around her; the constant tapping of raindrops; the wind that had softened to caress her cheek, before picking up in pace again and flying powerfully.
And then she was up. A slow shift in her leg muscles, where she returned to a ludicrously short height. Mud seeped from her legs as she prepared for a sure scolding when Sojiro caught sight of her, back in the Shimada house where she did not belong.
...
She pulled the mussed trenchcoat - too large for her, apparently - tighter around herself. The rain had since stopped, the bare edges of the sun just dipping over the horizon; illuminating the sky ever so slightly, but with the darkness of night still present. Early morning. She didn't make much noise trudging back through, and - thankfully - without catching the attention of anyone on the forbidden land she'd since left behind.
Not until now, at least.
Her nerves went spiralling in warning a second too late.
"Carla!"
/
Hi there! I'm really sorry for how messy this fic is. I've wanted to write a few things for a while now, but this is the first one I've got to - I'm treating it as more of a first time test - I don't like writing such small stories so hopefully the next one will be lengthier if all goes well.
For the first few chapters I'm trying to make it intentionally confusing. If I can somehow manage to pull something off whereas it is puzzling, but enough to go off of and keep reading until you can get a handhold, I think I'll be able to make something out of it without making it super cringy lol. Things will make a lot more sense further down the road, and hopefully it's set where the reader can put the pieces together pretty easily.
I'm going to try and upload to this to 'Archive of our own' as well and see how things go. Since I have a rough idea of how I'd like things to go, another perspective and your take on what you think is going on would be amazing. Constructive criticism is great. Thanks for stopping by ^^