The world seemed to fall still. Like a graveyard. Unnatural tension petrified the three in the room as they looked between each other in silence, save for the shocked, bated breaths of Ichiki Hisako.
She looked up at her mother from where she had fallen to the ground, hands clasping her torn shirt and blazer against herself, then back at her stepfather, who's wide eyes were transfixed on her mother also. The older woman looked between them, trying to make sense of what she'd seen.
Hisako's breathing slowed, she stood carefully, limbs still quaking from the adrenaline as she looked on the scattered few buttons, deciding to follow through with her forced movement and depart the kitchen, heading for her room and closing the door. The raven haired girl crept under her bed sheets and curled into a ball, the faintest sob escaping her as she squeezed her eyes tightly and tried to sleep.
-
Ichiki Hisako. Female. Seventeen. Student at Seika Highschool. Captain of the Katanagiri team. Top of her class in Mathematics, Language studies and Philosophy. Pushing her hair out of her eyes she squirmed her way out of her sheets, eyes adjusting to the darkness of her room.
The clock's stark blue display read '10:17pm'. She'd been asleep for a long while, and based on the sensitivity of her face and the dryness of her mouth, she'd cried herself to it.
Her room's bright interior, colour posters and models adorning her shelves, all lost their splendour in the blackness. The anime characters, posed and perfect, seemed to gaze into the haze, sinisterly and accusingly, as if transfixed in the still, impossible struggle to find their owner. Hisako sat up and rubbed her eyes, suddenly looking up as a fresh bolt of shock exploded to life in her heart: her door was slid open, and there stood her mother.
The older woman looked like hell; her hair was messy, her breathing was laboured as if she'd been running, and in her hand was a half finished bottle of wine.
The faintest twinge of panic sparked in Hisako, seconds before her mother screamed in fury and leapt for her. Closing her eyes, she screamed, holding up her hands to stop the pain she knew was coming.
But it didn't.
There was a scrambling sound, and the panicked breathing of her mother, that Hisako heard before opening her eyes, trembling. Between her and...everything, was a luminous cube, emanating an orange light and encasing her in some kind of field. Her mother took a few slow breaths before raising the bottle in her hand and throwing it, with all the force she could muster, into the shell. Hisako let out a little shriek, arms still raised, the cube's light intensifying as the bottle hit it, shattering on contact.
Her mother took a moment to absorb what was happening. As if in the same state of bemused fear, Hisako looked at her, eyes wide and arms still held up, as if the physical gesture was the only thing keeping the impossible barrier alive. Keeping her safe from her mother's fury. Moments passed in silence, until the older woman's drunken anger gave way to a fresh torrent of malice; she grabbed anything and everything she could; figurines, computer devices, pens, books, and throwing them against the shell. Hisako merely quaked behind its opaque glow, protected by its dense resilience. Eventually, her mother found a framed photo on her desk, looking st the image and screaming as it tormented her before shattering it against the shield and storming out, slamming the door.
It took Hisako a few moments of stillness before she felt safe, lowering her hands as the impossible force field of light faded as quickly as it had appeared. She looked at her hands, still shaking, her mind utterly paused, attempting to absorb the last few moments before she suddenly jumped to life and scrambled to her bedroom floor, sifting through the mess of broken things and sticky glass, taking the photo frame and looking at it.
Her father. Her real father. He smiled at her, trapped in the two dimensional moment, looking on his daughter's crying face with an oblivious happiness, as if to tell her he loved her. She crushed what was left of the frame against her breast, sobbing her heart out and wishing, more than ever before, that she could feel his warmth.
There she sat in tears, flooding her soul with loneliness and despair, until the morning sun burned through the curtains, and she could cry no more. Her body giving way to exhaustion as the peaceful oblivion of sleep overcame her.