*has tons of free time to deal with responsibilities*
*watches whole season of death parade*
*writes multi-chaptered fic in two days*
This show destroyed me. You do not understand. This fic is short, because I'm still too emotionally wrecked from this freaking anime to write properly, but I hope it gives you something of the happy ending for Decim and Chiyuki we all imagined.
Inspired in part by youtuber forsakenwwitchery's video "Keep Me Alive." Go watch it and cry [even more] tears.
I'm forever chasing after time
But everybody dies, dies
If I could buy forever at a price,
I would buy it twice, twice
But if the earth ends in fire,
And the seas are frozen in time
There'll be just one survivor
The memory that I was yours
And you were mine
~"Immortal," Marina & the Diamonds
Chiyuki gasped for air like a drowning victim, her eyes shooting open as she surfaced from the liquid barrier of a dream. She reflexively ripped off the comforter, knocking something to the ground with a crash.
A flower vase and its contents sat in shattered remains on the oak floor. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the broken glass and disorientation washed over her. An intense dizzy spell knocked her back onto her pillow.
She raised her hands up above her for examination. Was the room wobbling, or was she shaking? She brought one hand to her forehead and decided on the latter.
The dream had been about something important. Vital. Something she had commanded herself to remember in that foggy twilight between sleep and cognizance.
At least, she thought she'd been dreaming...
She attempted to calm her erratic heartbeat. A few shuddering breaths later, she noted that the room- her room- was dark. The curtains were pulled shut in front of the window, dim morning light muted by the merlot fabric. An old skating trophy gleamed weakly from her dresser, situated next to pictures of friends and family. Faint sounds of utensils scraping plates floated up from the kitchen.
Everything was familiar, but...something didn't seem quite right.
Carefully, she eased herself out of bed.
It was like she had just awoken from the deepest sleep of her life. She had to take a few minutes sitting still on the bed to get her senses to clear completely.
Her bandaged knee ached a little when she put her feet on the floor. She stood to shuffle to her bathroom. Switching the light on, she leaned forward into the mirror.
The familiar sight of her peculiar violet eyes greeted her. Her glossy black hair was styled in bangs that softened her sharp, aristocratic features- though the bangs now stuck out in different directions, the natural white streak blending with them to form a disheveled patch of gray hair.
Tear tracks stained her face.
Her shaky hand came up of its own accord and felt the dampness on her cheeks. Her eyes widened in the reflection.
When had-?
She wiped them away and stumbled back from the mirror. The room began to rock back and forth, and she continued to trip backwards toward the bed, anxious hands clutching her head. Something was wrong. She wasn't supposed to be here. She couldn't be here, and someone was missing. This wasn't-
Her foot crushed something soft near the door. The room ceased moving.
The Jimmy doll.
Her heart gave two painful thuds, and she became aware of the leaden cape of despair that had draped itself around her shoulders.
Kneeling, Chiyuki took the fragile doll gently in her hands, looking confusedly to where it normally sat- across the room. She didn't remember dropping it, or even moving it. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she'd even touched them.
When she looked over to her dresser, she saw something that truly sent her reeling.
Jimmy's smiling friend, the little Chavvot doll, was missing.
She raced over, searching frantically behind the dresser, on the floor, under the bed. Panic tightened her chest. She couldn't have lost it. Those dolls were the most precious things she owned.
As she searched, some part of her knew that she wouldn't find the doll in her room.
Some part of her knew that it had been left the same place she'd left her dream.