Animal Crossing New Leaf:

THE NIGHTMARE OF AIKA

By Windryder1


Summary: Mel and Kenshin are caught in the maelstrom of wild emotions. Taki and Cecelia use a gift humans don't think twice about to save the sanity of their friends.


CHAPTER 12: Lifeline

Her fingernails clawed into my arm. "I can't hear! I can't hear! I can't hear!" Each hyperventilated repetition burst with her desperate begging of 'help me!' She didn't blink. She stared right at me, or through me, searching in futility for her precious sense of sound. Her lips curled up in a smile, then contorted in sorrow, then to confusion, and she clamped her hands over her ears. "It hurts!"

"Calm down." I took her right hand in mine automatically. "It'll return. Just please—"

She yanked her hand away in a cry of pain, and scooted back, cradling her arm protectively to her chest. The emotion in her round eyes changed from confusion to fear. Fear of me.

I'd only known Mel for one day, but knew I never wanted to see that look directed at me ever again.

Kenshin's right fist shot into my face faster than I could inhale. I hit my side against the dirt as pain jolted through my jaw and up into my head. It fogged out my vision and my world spun. For a moment, I couldn't tell which way was up. "Ah! Kenshin, what the hell?!"

"Stay away from her!" He'd put himself between us as a wall and shot me the death-glare of a furious athlete. "I don't care if you did die. If you hurt her again, I will break your arm!"

Having seen what he could do with the handle of a bug net substituted as a sword, I believed him. Kenshin stood taller than me by a couple of inches, but at that moment, he became a mountain. I saw hatred in his eyes where I had only ever seen calm. "I didn't hurt her! I—" My focus moved past him to the shivering ball of green shirt, blue jeans, and blue sneakers cowering near a boulder. Mel's short hair fell past her face. That's when I noticed her right arm. I'd inadvertently grabbed her wounded hand. "The lightning mark... I didn't mean to. Mel, I'm sorry."

"Back off!" Kenshin closed the distance toward me. His feet slid along the ground, creating piles of dirt around his shoes.

I scrambled back as my heart pounded in my already sore chest. If his back and leg wounds caused him pain, the rage boiling over inside him overpowered it. "H-hold on. Wait a minute!"

He gripped my jacket lapels in his left fist and raised his right.

"What's wrong with you?! Snap out of it!"

My panicked voice breezed around him unheeded. He needed a target, and I'd accidentally volunteered to be a punching bag. Nothing else mattered in his distorted world. In the next second, my face would become hamburger. Everything I'd gone through in this town raked through my nerves and crippled my reaction times despite the adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream. I gripped his hand, knowing I couldn't fight in my condition. I could barely breathe let alone take on a guy fueled by rage. "This isn't like you! Stop!"

"You don't know anything about me! So just shut up!"

I scrunched my eyes shut waiting for the inevitable...but nothing happened. Kenshin's grip loosened on my jacket and the fabric slipped from his fingers. My weight dropped to the ground. I cracked open on eye to see why I wasn't experiencing a crazed beat down, and saw the back of Cecelia's long red hair. She'd wrapped her arms around him.

I watched, confused, as the poker-hot rage creasing his face softened and he crumpled to his knees. "C-Cecelia?"

"He can't snap out of it, you idiot!" She yelled into his shirt. "It's his emotions from the gyroids. He has no control anymore. He and Mel—they're broken!" Her head turned enough to catch me in her peripheral. "You're cruel for forgetting that, Taki. That's seriously mean!"

Kenshin settled down considerably. He slowly looked down at the little girl clinging to him with all of her life, and blinked once, as if waking from a dream.

"The gyroids...right.. I didn't think. Sorry." I looked him in the eye, "Are you...ok now?" I asked, like someone approaching a bear.

He nodded. "Yeah."

I chuckled nervously. "I thought you were really going to break my arm."

"I was," he said.

That did not make me feel better. "You don't have to agree so quickly." My suspicion stayed, not trusting that he wouldn't go for the jugular again. "Why'd you suddenly go back to sorta-normal anyway?"

"I don't know." He regarded the small mayor with curiosity. "Cecelia?"

Cecelia lowered to her knees, but kept his arm tightly in the circle of her own. The doll dangled from her right hand. "I didn't want Kenshin to hurt you. He's a good guy, caring, and smart. Whatever's going on in his head is not him. If I can stop that, then I will."

"Like John," I recounted. "Emerson said he was most likely to survive the experiments because he could chose who to link to." I rubbed my eyes with my sleeve. "I don't get this at all. I've been mayor for four years. I've lived in Leafside for five, and I lived inland before that, and no one ever said anything about this. This is kind of an important detail to know."

"Luna said we shouldn't," Cecelia studied Kenshin's captive right hand and forced her words out like recounting a forbidden truth. "She only told me about it because I noticed I could feel one of my bunny villager's sadness over losing a fishing tournament. They weren't even looking at me. No one else was around, and right before then I'd been really happy that I'd won. I knew I wasn't just feeling bad for her, though, because it felt like I was the one who lost the tournament. It didn't make sense. So, the next time I went to the Dream Suite to take a nap, I told Luna about it. She explained it a little, then told me to talk to Katrina next time she was in town if it happened again. I waited a month for her to come back. It happened a few times before then, but those were light and very short –like a minute."

"What did Katrina say?" Kenshin asked.

Cecelia took a deep breath. "She told me to picture it like a thread whipping out from you to 'plug into' someone nearby at random for a moment, then return. She said with Humans, it happens all the time. Most Animals can't do that, and humans don't pay attention."

"Like how lightning looks for a lead from the ground." Using that analogy right now seemed morbidly fitting. "So, Humans find random 'leads,' connect with one, then let go?"

"Don't mention lightning. That scared the bells outta me." She hid her face in Kenshin's sleeve.

"Why would Luna say we shouldn't know? If this is a gift we have, shouldn't we be aware of it?"

"Because she said if we knew, it would alter the way we lived, that we'd always be wondering if we what we felt belonged to us or not. People might avoid other people completely just to keep it from happening." her shoulders slumped in sadness. "That's a lonely way to live."

My mind glazed over in thought. "Maybe you can do what John can do."

"No, I can't! If I knew I could, I'd know!" Cecelia argued.

Kenshin spoke to her like she was the only person in the cave. "Maybe Aika could."

"Shut up!" She hit him in the side, making him flinch. "I am not Aika!"

"You know a lot of stuff that you shouldn't about this town," I defended Kenshin's point. "Explain that."

"I am not Aika, so both of you quit it!"

A frustrated scream destroyed the argument.

Mel tightened herself into as small a ball as she could become, whimpering and trembling. Her forehead pressed against her knees. I heard her muted laugh, then scream again, and cry. Her palms squeezed her legs so hard, I knew it was taking everything in her power to not move. The pain from her right arm added to it.

"Cecelia," I ventured to voice my idea, "You somehow created a link with Kenshin. Can you do that for Mel?"

She shook her head. "Katrina said we can only form one at a time, except what happened with you. You sent threads everywhere."

"We have to help her somehow." I watched her struggling to remain in control. I didn't want to accept the fact that we could do nothing, that she was doomed to be alone in a horror created by her own mind.

Kenshin stood, slipping his hand free. "I'm ok." The fight to remain sane began to creep over his expression once more. "If it gets too bad, hold my hand ok?"

She nodded, and hugged her doll. She sniffled out an 'ok.' The expression that followed betrayed her need to hold on. She may have formed an empathic link with Kenshin, but it was a security line for her, too.

I stood as he did. "You sure you don't have the urge to punch me again?"

He smiled and laughed. "Not yet. Sorry about that."

"I'll take the apology, but stay on my guard." My jaw still throbbed, but it only mingled with everything else, and paled in comparison to the sensation of thinking my lungs were going to explode.

He understood where I was coming from, so simply accepted it. "I read somewhere that the pain from burns can be relieved by wrapping it with moss," Kenshin shuddered a breath and swallowed as he focused on choosing an emotion to stick with. "There's a type that grows near the waterfalls that's used in medicine. Clean her arm with some water. I'll get the moss."

I watched him head for the falls, then moved to crouch next to Mel. She was trembling so hard I could see it, like she was stranded in the arctic without a coat, freezing to death. "Mel? Can you hear me?"

She didn't respond. I rested my hand on her knee, but that only made her jump and scoot away in a terrified squeak.

"We need to clean your arm." I tried to help her up, but she screamed again and pulled away from me. How was I supposed to help her if I couldn't even get her off the floor? She was locked in a labyrinth of emotions, and I couldn't get her out. I felt helpless –on top of everything else.

"You do it," Cecelia spoke up.

"Do what?" I blinked. "Create a link? I can't do that."

"Not with that attitude."

"I didn't even know that existed until now."

"You're the only one left. If you don't try, you're a loser."

"That's harsh."

"I don't care. I am not in the best mood right now!" She pointed the doll at me in judgment. "Just try it!"

It was worth a shot if anything. I had no idea what I was doing, or how to do it. Foolish didn't begin to describe how I felt. I cleared my throat. "Mel, calm down."

A small pebble hit me in the back. I flinched.

"You have to mean it, Stupid." Cecelia admonished.

I growled in annoyance. "I thought you said you didn't know how this works."

"I...I just know you have to mean it from your stomach!" She blurted out.

I leaned up a little, confused. "Your stomach?"

A strangled sound of frustration pulled her attention back to Kenshin. He'd tucked himself over, clutching a handful of green moss tightly enough to squeeze the moisture from it. She whipped her head back to me. "You're all she has. So you have to!"

I looked back to Mel as she left to help Kenshin. If I didn't do something soon, she would break beyond repair. I exhaled, took her hand in mine, and became serious. "Mel, I don't know if you can hear me yet or not, but I'm gonna try to—"

She slowly lifted her head, blinking once. Her cheeks were tear-stained. She chuckled, then tensed in pain, and her eyes widened. Her pallor suddenly blanched as powerful panic became her dominant response. The gyroid's eerie tone tipped off a domino effect that ripped control away from even her first recovered emotion.

Unlike before in the house where she recognized me as a familiar safe source, she regarded me now as a threat. Panic, the harbinger of manic, survival-fueled chaos, blinded her from recognizing anything as friendly.

She scrambled backward, keeping her right arm close to her body. "No!"

"Take it easy. It's me. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Get away! Help!"

I had to get her back to her senses fast before Kenshin's protective streak geared into overdrive again. From what she'd said before, he was like her older brother, and he filled that role by guarding her from anything that threatened her safety. There were only three humans in her town. It made sense they would watch out for each other.

In order for this to have a sliver of a chance, I needed to commit 100% of my concentration, and mean it. I had to crush any sense of foolishness. The fears I'd faced today, my own mortality thrown into my face, all of it still affected me, and I accepted that. Now I had to use that strength to overcome it to save my friend. She was drowning in her own dark sea. Somehow, I needed to dive in and grab her hand before its cimmerian depths could steal her breath, too.

She pushed out at me with an instinctive cry of fight or flight. Reacting, I snared her left wrist and grappled with her. I became part of the fight. I pulled her toward me and locked my arms around her. I held on through her thrashing to break free.

I couldn't give up now. I had to make sure my thread found the lead reaching out from her. My focus sharpened to that of an artist engrossed in perfecting their creation. For a second, that's all I thought of, all that existed. In my minds eye, I grabbed her hand.

The 'thread' connected.

A flood of emotions rushed through me at greater pressure than what I'd prepared for. It churned like the ebb and flow of a restless ocean. Everything from hatred to love poured into my chest and head, spreading out to take over like her body held the lightning bolt, and I'd offered it somewhere else to go. It pushed with a pulse not my own. No...Control it! I pushed back, using my own strength to tie it down, and secure that thread around her. The rabid, wild emotions all vying for attention settled down. It all softened to background noise within me. Within her, it remained ever constant, but manageable.

Gradually, her trembling ceased. The tension in her left fist loosened around the fabric of my jacket, and she rested her head heavily against my chest. Her eyes remained wide open, staring at the wall.

I heard soft whimpering. She was crying normally. After what she'd gone through, and the tumultuous chaos she'd fought against, I couldn't fault her. Her frustration and fear bled through, but at least it wasn't pent up, destroying her on the inside. She needed this contact, and, honestly, I did, too.

I stayed like that with her for only a few minutes, but each pulse lasted twice as long.

"Don't let go."

The whisper was so soft, I could have imagined it.

She was silent –listening, thinking, regaining her composure. I didn't know which. "Mel?"

Her voice hardly contained sound, but that was louder than what I'd just heard—or rather, I realized—felt. "Taki?"

"Can you hear me?"

She nodded slightly. "B-barely. You sound like you're far away talking through a pillow."

"Good. That means your hearing is coming back. You'll be fine."

"I—I was..."

"Yeah, you were a mess," I smirked and relaxed my hold.

She leaned back and wiped at her eyes.

I helped her to her feet. "We need to wash your arm." She moved like a zombie for the few steps to the water falls. I pushed up the sleeve of her shirt and could finally completely examine the fern-like pattern drawn down the underside of her forearm in crimson lines from her elbow to star burst across on her palm and up her fingers. It was beautiful, like those leaf emboss projects you create in art class as a little kid. She yelped when I moved her arm under the lighter area of water. That instinctive cry for self preservation hit me in a thrum like echo location—if it could be felt, that is. This time, I knew it wasn't mine. That's when it hit me that my experiences I'd let go in the past with a shrug, and Cecelia's with her animal villagers were parallel.

I decided not to tell Mel about the link. She didn't need to have this thrown in on top of everything. She'd just calmed down. I'd explain when we got out of here and she could control her emotions on her own again.

After I made sure her burns were cleaned, we sat back down and waited for Kenshin. He returned and placed the moss carefully on her arm. She grit her teeth, squeezing my hand to keep from crying out.

It was morbid, but I was relieved that she suffered pain. It meant the lightning had only marked her and not destroyed her nerves. She retained her sense of touch. The both of us were extremely, unusually lucky tonight.

"Got anything we can secure this with?" Kenshin asked.

I ripped another strip from the bottom of my jacket. If this was helping me and my friends, it truly owned up to being a lucky item.

"There's not going to be much of that left if we keep getting hurt." Kenshin rolled up her sleeve so the fabric wouldn't fall over the new bandage, and wrapped the blue fabric up around the moss to secure it to her arm. He tied it off at her elbow, giving her room to move.

The moss quickly worked to cool her burns. She flexed her fingers to test the binds and her own senses. "Thanks. I feel better."

"You're welcome," He and I said in sync.

She blinked in confusion at both of us. "So... who's idea was the moss?"

"Kenshin's," I volunteered.

She kept her eyes on her bandage and a small smile creased her lips. "The walking encyclopedia strikes again."

"I learned that from you," he sat back. "You're the one who told me about it when I'd burned my hand cooking that one time."

"Oh yeah," she whispered. "I forgot. You'd made stew that night. It was delicious."

I sat back and watched her press her left curled index finger to her lips to hide a heavy exhale. She was stable. I couldn't believe I'd actually succeeded; I'd created an empathic bond to help her control her emotions. Hopefully it would last longer than a few minutes so she could get professional help from Dr. Shrunk in Hana Valley.

Cecelia helped Kenshin put the extra moss he'd gathered against his own wounds to help heal them and re-wrapped his right leg. There was nothing he could do about his back but let her press the plant to the cut for a few moments.

"Now what?" Cecelia looked up at the cave ceiling, then to us.

"Well, we're in a waterfall cave." Kenshin noted. "I guess we're really in... 'over our heads."

We stared him.

Cecelia's reaction came out dry. "Did that actually come out of his mouth?"

"We're in a bad enough situation as it is, Ken," Mel said as I hid my face in my palm, "I like puns, but don't make it worse with bad ones."

Kenshin jabbed a finger at his chest. "Bad puns are my ammo right now. I am trying not to let all this stuff in my head take over, and humor is keeping me from screaming out of this cave like a...like a..."

"Little girl?" I casually chimed in. I got a hateful glare and an elbow jab from Cecelia. "Oomph! Ok, I deserved that."

"But seriously...what do we do?" Mel got to her feet and walked to the falls, stopping a few feet away from the cascading water. "He's probably out there waiting for us so he can attack again." She slid her foot back and shook her head. Her body stiffened to a plea within her that found its way out in staccato words. "I don't want to go back out there."

My hand slid up to my heart when its beat quickened. Her emotions were contained, but they were like fireflies in a jar—desperate for untamed freedom. I accepted my fate of keeping the lid on that jar. If I didn't, her fireflies would incinerate her from the inside, leaving the Mel I knew as a pile of ashes. I couldn't let that happen.

My gaze drifted to Cecelia, and I wondered if she felt this from Kenshin. If she did, nothing about her betrayed any struggle. She might be ten years old, and standing at shoulder height, but Mayor Cecelia of Sugarpine was the strongest of us here.

Kenshin got up to examine the back of the cave. He ran his fingers over the moist rock in the darkness. "It seems like there was an opening here. These rocks are indicative of a cave-in."

"Think we can dig our way through?" I asked.

"It's a dirty job. There's no telling how far in the collapse continues. It's 'sedimentary,' my friend."

Mel groaned, but I smiled despite our situation. The bad puns were helping.

"Plus, it might be too unstable if we did. We'd risk getting flattened into pancakes.'"

Cecelia shivered. "I like pancakes, but I don't wanna be one."

I slumped. "So there is only one way in or out, and we have to get past Sanity Lost and the Crazy Gang to get back to town."

Kenshin stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Mel touched her fingertips to the closest stream of clear water flowing unhindered and powerful to the pool a few feet below the cave entrance. The strobe of a lightning strike turned the water into a diaphanous sheet that cocooned her hand. Her eyes widened and a second later, the thunder followed. She fell backwards, curled up, and hid her head in her arms.

I walked across the cave and knelt next to her. Her fear surged through the link.

"I don't want to go out there, Taki," she cried. "Don't make me go out there."

I let my hand rest on top of her head, slid my palm down to her shoulders and eased her back up to a sitting position. "The odds of that happening again are seriously slim," I consoled. "Your walking encyclopedia can probably tell you that."

Kenshin opened his mouth to respond when he got a look from Cecelia that said, 'You'd better lie if that's not true, or you're gonna regret it.' He cleared his throat and limped back to the front of the cave. "Yeah. Very slim. And Emerson might not even be out there anymore."

"He's out there." Cecelia peered past the curtain of water as though she could see beyond the barricade of the cliff wall and the burning tree beyond. "He won't quit. He won't stop until he gets what he wants."

"Well, we can't stay here." I said. "They likely know about this place. If they decide to rush us, we have nowhere to run."

"Then we don't run." Kenshin unleafed the ax from his pocket. "We stay and fight."

"'Stay and fight?!'" Mel argued. "Look at us! We're a collective clusterbrush of 'screwed up.' You're injured and your emotions are a train wreck. You can't even put your weight on that leg anymore. We were struck by lightning. Taki drowned, and Cecelia's possessed!"

"I am not possessed!"

"We are in no condition to fight." She paused. "Or run."

Cecelia held up the doll at eye level and stared into its permanently stitched smile. "Then I'll give him what he wants."

Kenshin hobbled over. "You are not giving yourself over to that monster."

"He's after me and not you." She gripped the doll tightly.

"Cecelia," Mel gasped. "You can't."

"If I do, then you guys can get out of here and go to Hana Valley. Kenshin and Mel need Dr. Shrunk. Nobody here needs me." She lowered her arms, but kept a firm grip on the limp doll.

"That's a lie." I gestured to Kenshin. "You're the only one keeping him on his feet. Take what you told me and apply it to yourself."

"But...but I don't want you guys to get hurt anymore."

Kenshin releafed the ax, returned it to his pocket, and shuffled across the dirt to stand over the small girl. He'd picked up something subtle from her –a sense of loneliness the rest of us heard, but he felt. Without wasting a beat, he pulled her into a hug.

She fought back. "Let me go, Kenshin! Let me do this!"

"No." His reply rang with absolute law as he held on. "I don't understand what's going on with you, or why you can't let go of that doll, but you're fighting a battle we can't see. You're suffering. And I'm not going to leave you alone to fend for yourself. Because of you, I can think straight. It's true that I do need you, but more than that, you're my friend. Friends don't abandon each other. I don't care if you are Aika, Alice, or Cecelia. I am not leaving this town without you."

She stilled in his arms. Her martyr's conviction crumbled. She finally stopped acting brave for the sake of everyone and let go even as he refused to do the same as an embodiment of his promise. "Kenshin,..." she whispered. "I'm scared."

"I know," he answered in true empathy. "Me, too."

"Your mental eggs are scrambled." She sniffled into his shirt. "You have a good reason to be scared."

"So do you. He's targeted you. You need our help."

"That makes me sound like an annoying kid."

He smirked. "You are an annoying kid."

She landed her fist lightly against his side. "You're not supposed to agree with me."

He smiled and let her go.

Now that Cecelia was on board with getting out of here together, I put us back on the subject of escaping with our lives. "We're still at step One of how to get past Emerson and Sarah. Not to mention avoiding Octavian at all costs."

"What about that beach past the waterfall?" Mel suggested. "There might be a way back from there."

"I checked while we were gathering moss. The tree is still burning, but the fire looks really low," Cecelia took a deep breath. "It's not raining as hard. We can make it to the beach without being seen."

The beach on the other side of the river inlet to the ocean... This cave didn't extend all the way around. Straight, slick rock stretched too far for us to jump to the other side. Water erosion had smoothed out any hand or footholds on the cliff face, so we couldn't shimmy across, either. That meant going in the water. I knew it was our only option, but my legs instantly cut communication with my brain. My phobia reared its ugly head with gnashing, glimmering teeth. Its power strengthened by the experience of feeling my heart stop. I'd always avoided water that went above my waist because of my fear of drowning. This town turned my fears into reality once. What force existed to stop it from happening again? I didn't want to set foot in anything but a bathtub again for the rest of my...second...life.

Mel froze. Her shoulders tensed, and she slowly turned her head to face me.

A ball of dread dropped into my gut. Oh no. I was still connected to her. Did she feel my fear? Or did she just remember what happened to me?

Mel tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "We're getting out of here together."

"Uh..." I stumbled, "yeah. It's just..."

"Would you like me to carry you?" Kenshin folded his arms in a mocking stance.

That sobered up my bravery. I shot his smirking mug a derisive glare. "Shut up."

Cecelia grabbed Kenshin's hand and lead him outside. He didn't exhibit signs of instability, so this was more to hurry things along.

I stepped out the side of the falls and watched them jump into the water, bob to the surface, and swim to the other side. I forced down the hard lump that formed in my throat. The pool's depth wouldn't allow someone to walk across. It was definitely higher than my waist.

My foot slipped back. I couldn't do this. Not so soon.

I felt the warm pressure of Mel's fingers knit through mine. My hand closed around hers with a mind of its own. If I was her lifeline for her emotions, she was my lifeline against my fear of drowning. Again.

The cold wind chilled our wet skin through the cloth, but the blood pounding in my ears felt like fire. My jaw tightened. I can do this...I can do this...I can do this...

"You can do this."

Her echo of my thoughts surprised me. Thanks to the link, I knew she was scared, but also in control. I felt something else with it: her trust. She trusted me completely without question. Now I needed to trust her.

Her head tilted up to the sky. As I watched her preparing to take on the storm and the terrors of Aika village again, something inside me snapped –like breaking a cyalume in the darkness to see. Its warm, comforting glow brightened. I'd never felt this. Was it mine, or was it hers?

Somehow, throughout the course of our shared nightmare, Mel from Seaside ceased to be another friend I'd made in my life. In that moment, she became someone important to me.

"Take a deep breath," she instructed. Her green eyes returned to keep me in sight. "And don't let go."

I shifted my hand to get a firm grasp on her wrist and her fingers latched around mine.

"On the count of three." Her grip tightened. "One..."

The waters created choppy white crests swelling up and down in the force of the winds and river. It was alive and hungry to take me back.

"Two..."

The increasing need to run sent volts through my veins. I bit it back. She only has one good arm to swim with, and hitting the water will hurt. If I lose my cool, we'll both suffer. I have to hold it together for her. I can do this. I will do this! I won't let go. The muscles of my fingers locked in place to the steel of my resolve. Ever.

"Three."

I forced will power through my legs, cherished my last moments on solid ground, and holding on to Mel as if she contained my life...

I jumped.


TBC