Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, or any of the characters used in this fic. They all belong to Tite Kubo. I only own any of my original characters that I choose to include, as well as any of my own original plot ideas.
Oblivious
A/N: Pre-series.
She didn't know what it was, this wet sensation that seeped through her yukata and made her hands both cool and warm. It, just like the rest of the realm, was bland, severely lacking in both color and life. There were trees, bent into crooked shapes by the weather until they didn't even appear to be alive. They just stood there, towering high above her head in a menacing fashion. Still, she had no fear, for she was hopelessly ignorant to the world in which she lived.
People on the street simply passed her by, some of them stooping down to offer her little bits of bread from time to time. She didn't know what it was, that feeling that lingered in her belly. She didn't know that it was hunger and pain that would slowly turn into starvation. She had no idea that, were she to stay out in the cold night, she would inevitably freeze to death. It was just luck that she'd stumbled across a large mound of fallen leaves. Young as she was, that was the only thing she'd ever really recognized as a bed, or even a home.
In the dark, the crow of the blackbird and the hoot of the owl were like music to her ears. She'd never had luxuries, never once knowing what it felt like to wear clothes that actually suited the fall season. She'd never heard music, not even the tiniest hint of a brass horn or the tinkling of ivory piano keys. All she knew was the sounds of the world around her. Screams, tears, the sounds of animals wailing at dusk and dawn.
To people who understood that this child, this infant, was going to die, it was a sad thing, watching her crawl around in the mud each day. But she didn't see it that way at all. In fact, she didn't even know what it was she was seeing. She knew close to nothing, being little older than fourteen months. However, there was something in her tiny brain that insisted she take comfort in her world. The one without warmth and color. Had she even the mental capacity, she couldn't have distinguished between her black realm and the white walls of the Seireitei, for she had never once known the latter.
This, the hole on the outskirts of the Rukon, was truly a deadman's wonderland.
But this child, an innocent caught in the crossfire, could never understand that.