...
Makoto absently ran her fingers across the smooth wall as she walked, tracing the thin veins of quartz.
"Doesn't make much sense," she noted. "Why would a youma have trapped us here?"
"Maybe it wasn't a youma," Ami suggested with a shrug. "Perhaps it was a completely unrelated creature, with its own motivations. We did encounter it by accident, and it didn't seem particularly malicious...until it noticed us," she added, in response to the scepticism evident in Makoto's raised eyebrow.
"Not malicious?"
"It looked as though it was eating the flowers. That's behaviour I'd expect to see from an herbivore. It wasn't attempting to suck the life out of someone, at least, which is usually a reasonably good indicator of a creature not being a youma."
"Yeah, I guess it could be. The whole labyrinth thing just seems a little anticlimactic, don't you think? I mean, what's the point? Drive us insane nice and slow, mess with our minds until we start bashing our heads into these goddamn walls trying to get the crazy out?"
Ami shot her a concerned glance. "What's this about bashing heads?"
"Nothing, I'm just saying, the enemy always has an agenda."
"That's true, although I don't particularly care to find out what that agenda is." Ami sighed and added, "I wish this whole thing had never happened. If I'd just been faster, paid more attention, I wouldn't have fallen in. I wouldn't have dragged you down. But I…" Ami trailed off, fidgeting with the hem of her glove. "I'm glad you're here with me. Is that a horrible thing to say?"
"You didn't drag me down," Makoto pointed out. "I grabbed on to you."
"You shouldn't have had to."
"I'm glad I did. I don't regret it for a minute. And I'm glad you're with me, too," she admitted. Makoto knew it was selfish of her, but she didn't want to be alone.
Ami smiled shyly. "Thanks, Mako-chan."
The conversation fell into a comfortable lull.
Ami pulled out her computer again. The clicking of keys and heels wove together as they walked.
Makoto gazed into the darkness ahead of them. She watched the checkered floor gradually reveal more of itself as they wandered forward, as if it were being laid, tile by tile, just beyond the reach of her vision.
Ami was glad to be with her. Glad. Even here.
Makoto mulled over the implications of this, trying not to grow too attached to the giddiness filling up her chest.
"She's lying," a disembodied whisper confided.
Makoto's head snapped to the right, looking into the granite where she thought she'd heard the voice.
Only her mirror image was visible there. Not sleeping or dead or anything else. Just normal.
Confused, she kept walking, matching Ami's pace.
Lying? Makoto wondered.
"Lying," the voice confirmed, and it sounded much like her own.
Makoto stopped, turning back to the wall, and locked gazes with her reflection in the polished stone. It stared back, like it always had.
"She doesn't want to be with you. Why would she?"
Makoto's eyes widened as she watched her lips move, forming words she knew she hadn't spoken. She brought her hand to her mouth, and her reflection did the same. Her heart thundered.
It was happening again.
She was seeing things, hearing things. Only this definitely wasn't the twisted product of a disturbing dream.
Slowly, she let her hand fall back down.
Her image grinned. Makoto didn't.
"Ami said it because she felt bad for you. You know how she is. She didn't want to hurt your feelings."
Ami had continued walking, engrossed in her computer.
Makoto looked to her, but it didn't seem like she'd noticed anything.
"Of course she didn't," her reflection stated. "She doesn't have to pay attention to you every second, does she? You're exhausting."
She was losing her mind, Makoto concluded. Going crazy. Completely, fundamentally, insane.
She could almost see her sanity as it floated out of reach, like a butterfly freed from its net.
Makoto opened her mouth briefly, but she didn't know what to say.
"What could you possibly say to her? 'Excuse me Ami-chan, you'll have to speak up, I can't hear you over the voices in my head'?" it taunted. "How can she trust you to have her back if you can't even keep your head straight?"
Makoto worried her bottom lip between her teeth.
She was tired, and hungry, and honestly a little rattled by this whole experience. And maybe it wasn't even her, maybe the enemy had concocted all of this and was just watching to see what she'd do, trying to mess with her perception, make her vulnerable.
It was just a hallucination. This wasn't real.
She didn't have to listen to this.
Ami glanced back. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm good." Makoto brushed a piece of lint from her skirt, pulled at a loose thread. She was fine. She'd just ignore it.
Makoto turned away from the wall and jogged to catch up.
The only problem with her plan was that knowing it wasn't real didn't make it go away.
"She'll leave," the voice whispered conspiratorially. "You know she will. Just like everyone else. She'll realise you're a threat, unstable, dangerous. Ami will be scared of you, like all those kids in school. You're a freak. Brutish, violent, batshit insane. But they were right to be afraid, weren't they?"
"Shut up," Makoto warned under her breath.
It wasn't real, she reminded herself. She wouldn't give in.
Her image chuckled, gleeful. "Oh, remember when that little boy snuck up on you," it started, its breath hitching with laughter that rang down the hall and echoed in her ears, "and you flung him into a bench so fast that you didn't even realise he'd only tried to surprise you with flowers? There were daisies strewn all over the place, like a daisy-graveyard. And he cried! Ha! Hey, wasn't that just before your senpai jumped ship?"
She wouldn't hurt Ami. Never. That was completely different, an accident, and she wasn't even the same person anymore. She'd never…
"I'm just saying," it continued, voice dropping to a more serious tone, "you hurt people. It's not a bad thing, really. It can be fun. Satisfying. It's okay to like it. But go ahead and tell Ami-chan you've fallen headfirst into crazyland. Of course, she'll run in the opposite direction and never look back. But at least she'll be safer that way, right?"
It wasn't true. Ami wouldn't want her to ignore this. She'd want to know. Maybe Ami could make it stop.
Yes, this was exactly the sort of thing partners were supposed to share. It would be irresponsible not to. Makoto had to tell her.
"That's a valid point," it conceded. "But then, how do you know she's really Ami, anyway?"
The thought jolted her, like a sharp snap of electricity.
"She's been acting pretty strange."
She had been. A little. Sort of. But Makoto was probably just worn-out, blowing things out of proportion. Of course Ami was Ami. Who else would she be?
"Who, indeed. I don't trust her. Look at her. Doesn't she seem a little…off?"
Makoto glanced at Ami, noting the tired slouch of her shoulders. Blood and dirt coated her skin and stained her fuku. All of that was to be expected…but there was something about her, something that Makoto couldn't quite place and—
No, she wasn't going to entertain those thoughts. This was absurd.
There was nothing wrong with Ami.
Still, Makoto figured it might be best to wait a while before concerning her with this little lapse of sanity. She could give it some time and see if ignoring her reflection would make it go away. It wasn't so unlikely that she could deal with it alone, was it?
Ami didn't need to worry about her. Makoto wasn't a liability; she could take care of herself. There was no reason to scare her off—not that Ami would really run away…but Makoto wasn't prepared to find out what her reaction would be.
She imagined the scenario as they walked, wondering if she'd see fear cloud Ami's eyes, if Ami would back away from her, call her sick or crazy. Call her a freak. If she'd tell her to stay away, don't come any closer. If she'd leave. Maybe that would be best, after all. Maybe Ami would be safer.
No. Makoto could ignore this.
She could deal with it. Everything would be fine.
It worked, at first. Her reflection's comments dwindled with Makoto's lack of acknowledgement, until eventually it sighed and said, "Fine. Suit yourself."
She thought she could still feel it watching her, though when her head turned, so did her reflection's. But that didn't matter, anyway.
It was quiet again.
She won.
...
They walked in blissful silence down hall after hall after hall. Makoto really hated halls. Ami tapped away at her computer, making occasional soft humming sounds that suggested progress.
Makoto caught sight of something fall from her green skirt in her peripheral vision, landing with an almost imperceptible little thump. She looked back, scanning the ground, her eyes falling on a tiny wiggling blue lump.
Pausing to take a closer look, she realised that the lump was a bug of some sort, perhaps a caterpillar. Odd. How had she not noticed that there was a bug on her this whole time? Must have been from the garden.
She ran her hands over her skirt, inspecting it, but found nothing until her fingers traced along the cut on her side.
Another one fell, bouncing like rubber as it hit the ground, rolling to a stop in the middle of a white tile. She pulled back the fabric, still stiff and tacky, perplexed as to how such a thing had been on her without her notice.
The wiggling tip of a caterpillar was visible as it inched its way out of the wound there and tumbled free like the others—and oh god, it was under her skin, it was in her.
Makoto gasped as she felt something move on her arm, quickly pushing her glove down so it bunched at her wrist.
She could see the squirming outline beneath her flesh, bluish and worm-like. Her eyes widened as horror wrapped its cold hands around her throat and squeezed.
She ripped off her gloves, tearing at her skin with dull nails, trying to get it out—she had to get it out.
In her frenzy she couldn't see it clearly, but she felt it, it was there. Makoto was certain she nearly had it, but the blood was making it difficult to tell.
"Mako-chan? Why…wha—stop! Stop it," Ami demanded, grabbing Makoto's hands. "What are you doing?"
Makoto pulled away, scratching desperately, but Ami kept trying to hold her back. This was imperative, and she was getting in the way. Ami didn't understand. Makoto needed to get it out of her now.
"I-It's under…under my skin," Makoto tried to explain, "I have to get it out, I can feel it crawling, I can't…I can't…"
"Slow down, you need to breathe. What's under your skin? Tell me what's happening."
But Makoto couldn't breathe; she couldn't because she felt them, everywhere—burrowing in her legs, crawling up her neck, sneaking beneath her eyelids—and breathing was entirely secondary to getting them out of her.
"I can't…I can't…" Makoto panted, keened. Ami reached for her and Makoto jerked away so hard that she slammed into the wall behind her, but she didn't stop, couldn't stop. "Get it out!" she screamed, her voice razor-edged with panic as it ricocheted down the hall. She wavered for a moment, her head feeling light and airy, but she didn't let it distract her.
She tried and tried but she couldn't find it. Blood caked under her nails, obstructing her search, and she was sure it was thicker and darker than it should have been.
Ami was yelling something indistinct and irrelevant one second, then crashing into her and pinning her to the ground in the next.
Momentarily stunned and winded, Makoto stilled, breathing hard.
Ami restrained Makoto's wrists on either side of her head, as though she could hold her back if Makoto wanted her freedom.
"There's nothing there, Mako-chan, nothing. Please, you've got to stop," Ami insisted.
"But—"
"No."
"On the floor, there were—"
"There's nothing on the floor. There's nothing under your skin. There's just nothing, okay?" Ami nodded to the ground next to them.
Makoto turned her head to the side, the tiles as cold against her cheek as Ami's hands around Makoto's wrists. She sought out the distinctive cerulean colour to present as evidence, but they were gone.
"But I saw…"
"Shh. You're safe. Nothing's there. We've been in this place too long, that's all. Don't let it get a hold of you, Mako-chan. You're stronger, remember?"
Makoto shuddered, still scanning the ground.
She'd felt them. She'd seen them. Hadn't she?
Her arm throbbed, but the squirm of tiny foreign bodies within her flesh was absent.
Nothing, she repeated in her head. It wasn't real.
She finally met Ami's eyes, noticing the dark storm of confusion and fright that widened them.
"It wasn't real," Makoto whispered, more question than statement.
Oh god, what was real?
"That's right. Not real," Ami reassured her in a soft tone. Perceptively, she drew Makoto's less-injured arm to her chest, twinning their bloodied fingers together. Ami's heartbeat thrummed against the back of Makoto's hand, nearly as rapid as her own. "But I am, see? And so are you. This is what's real. This is all that matters."
Ami would know these things, Makoto decided. She could trust her. It wasn't real. Of course it wasn't real.
Makoto nodded slowly.
With tentative movements, as though calculating the likelihood of revolt, Ami got up and offered her a hand. She took Makoto's arm when they stood, studying it with a frown.
Makoto stared at the bare, caterpillarless floor, her exertion and embarrassment betrayed by her complexion. She could have sworn she had self-control when they entered this place. What had happened to that?
"Here," Ami offered, reaching behind her and ripping fabric from her fuku.
"Your bow…" Makoto protested.
Ami smiled, unravelling the satin and wrapping it carefully around Makoto's forearm. Her skin twitched with phantom remembrance, and she pushed down the panic, locked it away.
"You can return it to me when we get home." She knotted it in place just as gently. The fabric had already started to stain, deep violet blossoming across sky blue.
Makoto breathed past her paranoia, bending to retrieve her discarded gloves. She had to hold herself together.
Ami was right, she was stronger.
"You haven't slept much, have you? Maybe we should rest for a while," Ami said.
She hadn't. But dreaming might be worse than being awake, Makoto considered.
She wasn't sure she could handle that.
"No. I'm fine. I just want to get out of here. Let's keep going."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
...
