Seven Days of Falling

a fanfiction by andrivette and psychoheidi

chapter four
"The Clouds Marched"

For what seemed like an eternity, his life consisted of long periods of silence and isolation, broken apart by short visits to the woman in that small room.

The cups of water became a regularity, and each time they met, she would touch his cheek with the back of her hand, causing him to move his head away when the contact inevitably lasted too long for his comfort. She made comments about his body temperature, obviously irked about something which he did not understand.

She asked him "why?" about things he did not know the answers to, and after several meetings with her, he began to wonder if her questions were merely rhetorical—if she did not actually expect him to respond.

But however odd the woman's behavior was, he found himself looking forward to her company. Besides the guards, she was the only creature he held a clear image of in his mind, and after the long stretches of isolation in his cell, her companionship was welcome. Sometimes it was all he thought about. He spent lengths of time fantasizing about what the next visit would be like, imagining the feeling of her chilly hand against his cheek and wondering if their next meeting would be different somehow.

It never was.

Sometimes he was so thirsty, he could almost imagine, explicitly, the feeling of the water in his mouth, and occasionally it was convincing enough to help him fall asleep. Some part of him wondered at whether water should have tasted so sweet, but he quickly dismissed the concern. His desire to drink was far too great to be disturbed by such doubts.

When he wasn't thinking about his own bodily needs or the strange woman, he spent his time staring at the gems around his neck. The woman continued to take an interest in them, though she rarely spoke, only stared at them, a seemingly captivated glow in her eyes. Her preoccupation with the stones made him wonder more and more where they had come from, and more importantly, who he was.

One day, when he asked her about his forgotten identity, she told him that his name was Kouta. When he asked her what he should call her, she answered simply, "Masuyo."

—.—

As Kouta lay awake in his cell, he gingerly touched the stones resting just below his collarbone. Taking great care, he lifted one of the jewels up by its cord to examine it in the sparse light. For a time, he stared at the distorted reflection in the pearly surface, but nothing about the tiny face staring back at him seemed recognizable.

It frustrated him—he was certain that he had once put these stones on with their direct significance in mind, but now, he could not even remember where he had gotten them, much less what they meant.

Masuyo had told him that they were very beautiful, and they were—their pure glow was perhaps the only source of beauty within the entire cell.

Next to him sat a chipped bowl which had been given to him ten minutes previously by the guards. It had held a portion of thick, tasteless gruel, which he had finished off in a matter of minutes, and had left him unsatisfied.

There was nothing else in the cell to eat, and right now he was not sure if he could fall asleep in the midst of his stomach's incessant complaints.

A sudden sneeze nearby made him flinch.

Crawling to the edge of his cell, Kouta squinted across to the bars across from him, hoping to see some sign of movement through the shadows.

Another sneeze.

"I hear you." He almost said more, but his voice caught in his throat when, a moment later, he saw a small pair of eyes blink back at him through the darkness.

"Who are you?" Kouta asked, but before the words had left his lips, the eyes had disappeared again, and he was left to stare, confused, into the shadows once more.

But he knew the shadows weren't empty now. There was something—someone there.

Kouta sat back on his bare feet, tilting his head sideways in hopes that doing so would allow him to catch another glimpse of movement.

The familiar sound of stone grinding against stone resonating down the hall, and he visibly flinched at the intrusion, then leaned forward with sudden eagerness. That sound meant that the door was opening, which meant that either the guards were bringing him food or they were taking him to see Masuyo.

He listened to the footsteps as they grew louder and louder, and when they finally stopped, he was staring up at an intimidatingly large ogre-like creature.

His cell was opened and Kouta was ordered to stand and to walk. The stone floor felt cold and dusty beneath his bare feet, and every time he turned around or paused in his steps, he was shoved roughly from behind and told to keep moving forward. He wanted to know if he was being taken to more food, but his questions received no response as the demon accompanying him remained frustratingly silent.

After passing through several doorways and halls, they finally reached a circular room with a low ceiling. Several boys and girls were lined against the wall, and he was told to stand with them and to be quiet. He did as he was told, and within the next few minutes, more girls filed into the room until finally the group of them spanned half the length of the wall. As he looked to either side, he saw that the young demons standing around him held expressions ranging from confusion to nervous apprehension, and when Masuyo walked into the room, several of them edged backwards as though stricken by fear.

He frowned slightly, not understanding the behavior, but deciding that it did not matter because he knew there was no reason to fear this woman. Perhaps she was going to going to feed them all. Then they would understand.

Entering the room as well was a tall man with sharp features and thinning hair. He had a harsh expression, and he said something to Masuyo as they approached, and all she said back was, "All of these came in this week."

The man said something else but it was hardly audible. The woman instructed Kouta and the others to form a straight line, and, starting at one end, the man proceeded to make his way down it, pausing every so often at the boy or girl in front of him and muttering something under his breath.