A/N:
So I learnt today in scriptwriting class that during the era of the Avengers Peter Parker was supposed to look like some kid. Wow what? And I thought 12-ie looking Peter Parker was weird af... Guess it makes sense now!
Anyhoo...
4: DEAD
Bucky had looked at her funny when Emi claimed she could not watch him steal. Too bad it was all very true.
"Look, that old woman at the store is turning her back on us." She pushed him forward from their hiding spot behind a street lamp and pivoted to face the other way. "Go."
She heard him sigh, and then his presence was gone.
The iciness that settled on the city early morning nipped at her bare, mud-crusted legs. Once upon a time, Emi would have thrown a fit about how her clothes were stained, how hard it would be to wash, how disgusting she looked... She laughed bitterly. She was a dead girl now, and dead girls should be worried about staying dead rather than how lovely they looked in their coffins.
"Here."
Suddenly the weight of warm fabric fell onto her shoulders. She looked up at Bucky, who smiled back uneasily. He had a sweatshirt over him now, concealing both arms, and his hair stuffed up into a beanie.
"You're fast," she said. He shrugged.
She snatched the plastic bag from his hands and examined the contents. Packets of food, a map, some cash, two plums and an apple.
"I got this too," he mumbled and drew a red knitted scarf from his pockets.
"You can wear that." She slipped her arms into the sleeves of the coat he had placed on her. "The coat is warm, thank you."
Bucky shook his head. "No, you-"
"Bucky, just-"
He muffled her mouth with the scarf, wrapping it around her neck and lower half of her face. She tugged it down and scowled, but said nothing. After cleaning up at a public toilet, Bucky and Emi huddled over the map outside a cafe.
"I need to go back to Africa," he said.
"We need to get to the international airport then, or a ship."
"Not an airport, they'll have more security."
Emi nodded. "Okay, a ship then. First we have to travel north to the border."
"Now you want me to steal a car too?" he scoffed. She simply shrugged and smiled back cheekily.
"Just don't let me see it."
They left Osaka at 8:00AM, according to the car clock.
Thank the heavens Bucky knew how to drive, because busting the bumper for a record of four times and attaining multiple speeding fines during her time on a learner's permit had left a dent in Emi's driving confidence.
Her feet were kicked up on the dashboard as she sat in the passenger side, warmed up in woolly socks and boots Bucky had also nicked, and the soundtrack to their windows-rolled-down road trip was a perplexing Japanese synth CD track because of course the car radio was stumped.
With eyes focused directly on the road, Bucky's eyebrows twitched every time a song changed it's beats even by a second. His glare was icy when she giggled.
"What?"
"You look absolutely tragic."
His face was sullen. "Thanks."
She rolled her eyes. "You've had a normal life before, I'm sure you know of sarcasm, Bucks."
"It's Bucky," he grunted.
"You kill my people, I get to call you whatever I want."
His next breath was a hiss.
Was she sorry that she was still bitter? Only a fraction. Her only source of joy for the day was tormenting the demon, poised as a guilt-ridden and unknowing man yet a murderer all the same.
"I didn't- "
"You didn't mean to, whatever," she snapped.
He sighed, and they left it at that with the CD playing over and over until the skies turned dark and they drove along a desolate highway. Emi never really liked any electronic music beforehand, but she had a newfound love for the way it pierced her ear drums and gave her a different unbearable pain to think of.
Bucky was still driving intently. She pulled her feet off to read the clock.
11:38AM. What?
She looked up. Dark sky and dark clouds that didn't even look like clouds - they looked like they were streaked into the sky with black acrylic paint.
She looked down. 11:38AM.
Up. Dark sky.
Down. 11:38AM.
"Uh, Bucks..."
"Hm?"
"Is our clock wrong?"
He gave her a weird, slightly concerned look and read the time. "Uh, no?"
"Bucky, it's night time and the clock says 11:38AM."
"The sun's still out..."
She shook her head. What was wrong with him? "Have we stopped for fuel and food yet? And don't you need a toilet break? And put on the headlights!" She reached out for the light switch and his hands stumbled to fight them off. To say he was alarmed was an understatement.
"Emi, are you okay?"
"WATCH OUT!"
This time her hands grabbed at the wheel and there was a screech so grating it deafened her ears. They would have swerved off the road if not for Bucky's immediate reflexes.
"YOU JUST HIT SOMEONE!" she screamed.
"There was no one there!"
Emi threw half her body out of the window to look back. They must have been driving too fast to see the body now. "Bucky, stop the car."
"We didn't hit anyone."
"Bucky, stop!"
Grumbling, he blinkered left to an emergency curb. She kicked the door open and ran back to where she could have sworn they rammed into the body of a black-clad woman. The sky was blackening fast. Soon she wouldn't be able to find the woman in her blindness.
Emi cupped her hands around her mouth and called out. "HELLO?"
It was getting cold out too. Her toes wiggled in their socks as she tried to get heat into their frozen tips and she rubbed her arms.
"Come on, where are you, lady?"
The side of the car had hit her - she shouldn't be completely dead or unconscious. Yet the road ahead was completely empty, flanked by expanses of flat fields on either side. She pivoted to call out to Bucky to help, only to be met with the same sight of emptiness. A chill shook her heart.
He had left her.
"N-No," she spluttered and pulled at her hair. "What am I supposed to do now?"
Where was the black-clad woman? Was this Bucky's intention all along, to find out where to go and ditch her?
She crumpled to the ground and hugged herself. The concrete was unbearably cold.
Above, the darkness was descending like red curtains after a show. Emi remembered the first show her father had taken her to. It was a puppet show called the Ticking Tale, and it claimed to have toured all across Japan, even in small villages with dwindling numbers. Each show was a new story.
The one Emi saw was about a good man who wanted gold to please his wife, enough to prevent her from leaving him. Of course, the audience booed the wife every time she made an appearance, blind eyed to the man suffering from scraping rocks day-and-night for a single nugget to gift her. One day, he struck a particular core and from it emerged a beautiful, smiling girl.
She felt the love in his heart and offered him her ruby pendant to give. The man insisted he could not accept her generosity. She said, "Simply give me a friend to play with and you have paid me more than this ruby could ever offer."
Unable to sway her otherwise, the man relented and told her of his young son.
From then on, the girl played with the man's son and they became fast friends. Because it was ruby and not gold, the man debated whether to show his wife the girl's pendant or not. What if she thought he was unworthy of attaining her desire? What if she demanded to know where such a gem came from, and he would admit the girl had given it to him?
She would say the girl was royalty and raise her, keep her, loving her more than the man himself.
However, when the wife found the pendant hidden in the drawers, she lashed out and he was too meek to explain. It was not gold, but it was ruby, and ruby was enough value to make anyone stir.
"You have been seeing another woman, haven't you?" she shrieked. "This is why you are never beside me when I wake, or sitting at the dinner table with your son and I to eat."
In a jealous fit, she shattered the ruby.
The instant the ruby splintered, the beautiful girl dropped dead in the field.
By that part, Emi's father had thought the story was getting a little too intense for a four year old so he ushered her away. The next day, her friends told her that the man died of heartbreak, and the son saved the girl and married her.
Emi closed her eyes.
How very lucky was that beautiful girl, to have someone who could save her. The last person she thought could at least help her was now gone. She sighed. Maybe she shouldn't have been hostile to him, then she wouldn't be stuck lost and alone in the night.
No one will ever understand.
Steve would never understand, but he was understanding. The only other man who let the guilt and hatred rightfully puncture him was Tony Stark, but he was an enemy. Bucky gritted his teeth. No matter how many times he tried, he would always be the unforgivable killer. Emi's harsh words should have been like practice darts. Why did he have to be so hurt each time she shot?
His trance was broken by a squawking crow. It landed on the car roof, it's feathers glistening in the sunlight.
Bucky wondered where Emi had gone. He figured she would come back when she realised there hadn't be anyone. It was 11:51AM now and she wasn't back.
Girls... They needed space in their moody fits, didn't they? Maybe he had given her too much space.
He flipped on the hood of the sweatshirt to shade his eyes from the bright rays and started in her direction.
The first signs of life were the thudding footsteps. She stood up. Had Bucky come back for her?
"Konbanwa, Ms. Ina."
She twirled around. She could barely see the figure speaking in Japanese against the darkness. Judging from their skeletal-like lankiness and drooping clothing, it was certainly not Bucky. Every cell in her body quivered with panic.
"Aren't you a little far away from home?"
Only light eats darkness, she chanted. "Hai, I am. W-Who are you? Can you help me?"
"Of course I can," the voice chuckled. They stalked closer and closer, closing the space between them. Emi tried to hold her ground as they leaned their head in, almost resting it on her shoulder which suddenly felt weighted. Their voice was a loud hiss in her ear. "We've been trying to get you home all this time."
"Doko desu ka?"
They chuckled again, then vanished.
Emi didn't even register the pain in her neck when the figure had sunk its fangs deep into her skin and fidgeted while pierced into her veins until seconds later. She screamed.
Shadows darted in her vision as her hands flew to her neck and her whole body froze, as if all the blood vessels in her body were being squeezed. Emi gulped for air greedily, desperately. She couldn't move, couldn't feel as her knees hit the ground and she toppled sideways. The scream was stuck in her throat - there was no more air in her lungs to release a single chord.
"Emi! Emi!"
Please be Bucky, please, please, please.
The shadows cleared way for the sight of clear blue eyes.
Yokatta.
"Emi, are you okay?"
Paralysed, she thought, but glad that he was here. Her whole body flooded with relief.
Bucky's lips were set in a grim line. He pried off the hand she had at her neck and narrowed his eyes. "Did you do something to your neck?"
He pressed the fingers of his non-robotic arm against her throat. For some reason, it seemed to be the key to unlocking her vocals. She felt her neck muscles relax instantly. Her eyes rolled upwards, and she noticed it was morning. Suddenly, the pieces fell into place. "I was chased by a ghoul."
"What?"
"You were right," she said. "There wasn't anyone on the road."
He sighed and scooped her up to walk back to the car. "And what's a ghoul got do with this?"
Her weakened body jostled slightly in his grip.
"Ghouls are evil spirits that aren't exactly spirits. Its not a term we normally use outside of the village. Most people don't believe in ghouls."
Bucky stayed silent.
"They're like a hybrid, between spirits and vampires. If they can be brought out of hell, they feed on certain people - people with a lot of negative energy, or people who are... Well, dead..." Emi... She had never really been a Debby-Downer, and sudden emotional surges weren't known to summon ghouls. Only the negative and the dead. Wasn't she considered dead by her hometown anyway? "So, like me, maybe?"
"You're not dead," Bucky stated.
"Bucks, that ghoul is going to keep coming after me until I'm completely drained."
"If you're dead, how is it supposed to kill you again?"
She shook her head. "They don't feed on humans. They feed on the positive energy we have, until we are completely devoid of it and we become one of them too."
"So it wants to eat you and make you a ghoul. Fantastic. Will it be following us to Africa?"
"I don't know... It depends why and how it was summoned. Only then we can know its motives."
That was either by the idiocy of a summoning or a negative energy so colossal it acted as a portal for them. Unless there was some other magical way. There was only so much that the village knew about ghouls.
"What do you mean there's no more Bucky sightings?"
Natasha's apologetic sigh was what Steve got in response. "His trail ends at Osaka. I'm sorry, Steve. There's not much else I can give you."
"Surely Stark-"
"After that stunt I pulled at the airport, he had to pull all strings to get me cleared. Stark would contain me in a cell if he knew I was on a payphone to you."
Steve laughed, albeit tired. "You would probably find a way out."
"Night, Steve."
"Bye Romanoff."
The cell beeped off.
A/N: I listened to some J-Synth to make sure it was the kind of music I wanted playing in the car, and now I'm absolutely hooked! Then I ended up listening to the Resident Evil and Amnesia: A Machine For Pig soundtracks for the ghoul scene and I do NOT recommend that if you want to sleep peacefully at night o.O
So Emi annoyed me quite a bit in this chapter, but a girl's gotta freak when her life's been turned upside down, right? And you might want to keep the Ticking Tale show someone in the back of your head. Let's say it's inspired by the Clock of the Time Dragon for you Broadway fans. ;)
Please feel free to leave a review, every bit of advice helps. I especially would like to know how you're finding the characters!
May you have a lovely day. 3
ROUGH TRANSLATIONS
Konbanwa - Good evening
Hai - Yes
Doku desu ka? - Where?