Orihime once heard a story about a girl who was lost in a very strange land, a land filled with monsters and other scary things. Orihime's new world is filled with scary things and things that are strange, but the world itself is familiar. There is the same school where she goes, the same house where she lives and the same faces she sees.
The girl in the story met people who would help her on her journey; a lion, a scarecrow, a tin man.
Orihime does not meet new people. The people who take her hands and pull her along are ones she already knows. Ishida-kun, the mind, Kurosaki-kun, the heart, Sado-kun, the hand...they are her friends, she already knows them. They change and she wants to tell them, no, please, stop. I know you now, I might not when this is all over.
She wants to go back. It is not that she was happier then, not knowing. Orihime maintains her happiness with an almost alarming enthusiasm. She fights off sadness and doubt and regret through sheer willpower because she doesn't want anyone else to worry or anyone else to see her cry.
But back when things made sense she was...whole. What she was was clear, who she was, what the world was. Now, it is as if someone has reached a hand inside her chest, taken that certainty that she felt and scooped it neatly away. It doesn't hurt, the empty space inside her, but it is there and it is constant. She can hardly remember what is was like to be someone who did not have a constant feeling of dread and loss inside of them.
When she thinks about it, she realizes she isn't actually like the girl in the story at all. She has changed too much, she cannot go home after all this, cannot even remember what home looked like, what it felt like.
This new world, this place with ghosts and loss and pain, is home now. She is not alone here with the mind, the hand, the heart to guide her. They have changed, changed so much that she might not recognize them.,
But she had changed too. She is different now. She can fight.
She wishes she didn't have to.
But this is the world now, this is home now. Orihime is not like the girl she once read about. She tilts her chin up and even if she can't be brave or wise or strong, she will stand and face what she must face.
Orihime forgets the story and does not look back.
A/N: Just a quick little Bleach oneshot.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
