SMOKE and MIRRORS
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Theory of a Deadwoman
by Indicaa
"On the ground I lay, motionless in pain, I can see my life flashing before my eyes. Did I fall asleep? Is this all a dream. Wake me up! I'm living a nightmare!"
"Time of Dying,"
Three Days Grace
It's dark.
However, it isn't the type of darkness usually associated with night. It's the type of darkness that exhibits such a strong gravitational pull that no particle or electromagnetic radiation can escape it; a black hole.
And she's standing in the very center of it.
Naked as the day she was born and sporting grotesque abrasions that seemed to glow all over her skin, Namiko tries to make sense of her current predicament. Her body hums with anxiety. It feels as if there were millions of insects crawling beneath her flesh.
Her heart beats erratically in her chest as her wide, frightened eyes search for something -anything- even remotely familiar. A source of light, a familiar scent, anything that could calm her nerves. She has never felt such fear before.
She has never felt so alone.
"Hello?" Namiko whispers into the endless void around her, cautiously taking a step forward. "Is there anyone there?"
A cold breeze assaults her bare flesh and she wraps her arms tightly around her torso. Her skin feels extremely hot, as if a fire is humming idly beneath her flesh. But on the inside it's the complete opposite. Was it possible to feel ice cold and smoldering hot at the same time?
The young woman walked aimlessly for what could have been hours, but felt like years. She wracks her brain for anything that could explain what was happening, but found that her mind was hazy, her comprehensive abilities shadowed by the same thick, looming fog around her.
"Am I dreaming?" She wonders aloud, wincing as the words caught in her sore, swollen throat. Her chest burned.
It feels like her lungs have expanded and are compacted tightly against her ribcage. She stumbles as she walks, sweat pours down her back, blood forms from the tiny lacerations she makes in her skin when a particularly painful cough wracks her body.
Suddenly, her hazy eyes caught hold of a figure in the distance. Someone's hunched over a small pool of water, staring endlessly into its murky depths. "Hey, you!" Namiko sprints over.
It's a sickly, elderly man with gaunt features and tired yet kind bloodshot eyes. His lips are cracked and tinged blue around the edges. He sweats despite the cool air around him. His haggard breaths aren't unlike her own.
Tenderly, he smiles, baring crooked, rotting yellowed teeth. His gums are nearly as white as his visage. His tongue is a collage of pale white discolorations. He meekly reaches out with a grotesque, skeletal hand and whispers, "Please, miss, any spare change?"
Namiko's eyes narrow in confusion. Such an odd request in a place that seems entirely irrelevant to the cause. Then her breath catches.
She feels something brush against her arm that is not quite air but at the same time doesn't have a definite form. And when she looks up, her confusion seems to increase tenfold because she's suddenly looking at herself.
Clad in her favorite Giants hoodie that may or may not have belonged to her father once, her signature pair of ripped jeans, and her gammas, the imposter has successfully mirrored her choice of style, and even going as far as perfecting her signature devil-may-care attitude and pose.
And she understands, although only slightly, she understands.
The other Namiko isn't an imposter. It's her. She honestly believes she is dreaming now because the man, her outfit, his familiar request, it is all an reenactment of an event from the past.
In an act of selfless kindness, she watches herself pull out a crumpled ten dollar bill. She kneels beside the old man and places it tenderly in his hand. "Use it wisely. You can buy a decent meal for half of this or spend it all on drugs."
He flashes her a grateful, watery smile and says, "Thank you." He squeezes her hand tightly and bows his balding head. "Thank you so very much."
He coughs and Namiko carelessly pats him on the back. After a few moments he breathes and she departs. She watches herself walk down the crowded, winding streets for a few seconds before she's suddenly apparated into the equally crowded hallways of Brooklyn High.
Red appears in a flash of golden light. Her lanky form is slouched even in motion, wild carrot-top auburn locks sticking to her slightly sweaty brow that is littered with freckles. She is a real, honest-to-god ginger.
Her past-self and Red idly chatter for a few moments before Red says, "Say, speaking of the Super-bowl, where's the ten you owe me?"
She shrugs and smirks before slamming her locker shut and disappearing into the throng of students, leaving a mildly annoyed Red in her wake. Namiko remembers she had been intent on going to the restroom after the encounter with that homeless man, but during Red's one-sided conversations she had completely forgotten.
At least she knew where the origin of her illness came from.
"And where do you think you're going?"
Namiko's head snaps to the left as another scene of the past erupts from the inky blackness of her mind. This time it consists of her mother, her father, and a much younger version of herself. She looks to be around four or five.
Her hair was still knotted into its soft baby curls, her face, arms and legs still coated in that slight layer of fat. Her father scoops her up into her arms with a fond smile. Namiko remembers this; her father had been leaving for a quick trip to Japan that day and she wanted to go with.
Her tiny self clenches her chubby little fist and fixes her parents with a determined glare.
"To strike fear into the hearts of my enemies!" She cries.
Her mother stifles a giggle behind the palm of her hand while her father outwardly chuckles. She kisses her little girl on top of her curly dark head and smiles apologetically. "I'm sorry, Little Warrior. Maybe next time."
Namiko whines and wraps her arms tighter around Natsuki's neck. "Daddy, don't leave. I'll miss you, and there will be no one to play Cops and Robbers with me."
Natsuki strokes her back. "I'm sorry, Namiko, but you know I have to work. Besides, your sisters and your mother are here. Why not play with them?"
"Keira is always reading and Kaiya is never here. Mommy has to work later too, and you're the only one who knows how to play the robber." The girl whines, her huge silver eyes glittering with sadness. "Can't I go with you? I'll be good, I promise."
Natsuki's expression falters as she gently lowers the kid onto the floor and kneels before her. "You know I can't, Namiko. It's dangerous. What would I do if something were to happen to you?"
Namiko looks down at her feet. Natsuki lifts her head. "A Kruger never bows her head." The woman sneaks a glance at Shizuru, who is watching the scene unfold through gentle, affectionate red orbs.
"Besides, if you came with me, who would be here to protect mommy?"
Namiko's expression quickly morphs from one of distraught to one of determined fury. She hurries over to her mother's side and hugs her leg, pressing her cheek into the fabric of her dress. Shizuru's hand fondly finds its way through her curls.
"I'll protect mommy!" Namiko shouts. "No one will ever hurt mommy ever again while I'm here." She tugs on her mother's dress and the woman raises her eyebrow expectantly at her young child. "I'll protect you, okay mommy?"
Shizuru's eyes soften into liquified cinders of cold fire. She lifts Namiko into her arms and squeezes her tightly. "Alright, my love."
Natsuki pulls both of her girls into her arms and kisses them both on their cheeks. "I love you guys."
Namiko grins, baring her dimples. "I love you too, daddy."
The image bursts before Namiko can even blink and she whines at the loss. She thinks she's dying. No, she is almost certain she is dying. It is said that before the moment of death a person's life flashes before their eyes. She cries out as fear takes a hold of her.
She doesn't want to die. She can't bear the thought of possibly never seeing her family again. The possibility of never being annoyed by Red again. Never being with Layla again.
"You're almost as tall as me now."
"Dad?" Namiko calls, searching for the dark-haired woman in the midst of the black fog surrounding her.
"Language, Namiko." A familiar teasing lilt sounds of the echoes of her labored breathing.
"Mom!" Namiko spots her standing to the far right, and she surges forward with her arms outstretched, fear and relief swirling lazily in the depths of her mind. She doesn't like this place. She hates being trapped in her own mind, where there is no escape from the demons that plague her.
"You're really, really tall." Keira.
"Who're you texting? Do you have a secret girlfriend no one knows about?" Kaiya.
"Bottoms up, kid, please don't tell your mother." Regan.
"Come and give your dear old grandmother a kiss, sweetheart!" Saeko.
Namiko frantically searches for the owners of the voices. But there is no one around except for she, herself, and her troubled mind. The shadows lurk with the sound of wolves growling, hunger at its fucking best.
And then she sees them, her family, her friends, all of them, in the distance, smiling and beckoning her toward them with their eyes twinkling with affection. Red is beside her mother, provoking her forward with teasing grins.
And Layla. Layla is looking at her with such love in her eyes that it momentarily stuns her. She steps forward, her white sundress the brightest in the darkness, and a single word falls from her lips as her features twist into one of agony.
"Please."
The like leaves falling from a tree on a sunday morning, the image is stolen away by the breeze. "No, please!" Namiko shouts as she's shrouded in darkness, alone and afraid once more. "Please don't leave me here by myself."
"She has to learn that she is not alone in this world." Her mother's voice echoes from the sky.
"Call it." Another unknown voice is the hardest to distinguish amongst the noise of her heart beating and the blood roaring in her ears. "There's nothing more we can do."
"Get out of my way, please! I can save her. She's still alive."
"I'm sorry, Dr. Kruger. Call it."
"Time of death…" The voice fades and Namiko screams until her throat is raw and tears stream from her eyes. However, they are no ordinary tears. They are relentless and painful and as red as her mother's eyes.
She falls to her knees. "Please don't leave me."
"Now it falls all around me. Did I think I could run away? Now it's coming to find me, this war that I deserve. Now it burns across this shattered earth. I lift my eyes to fire."
She punches the ground furiously. Her fist sinks into the darkness as inky black, serpentine tendrils uncurl from the floor and latch around her wrists and body, trying to pull her below. She yelped, trying to free herself but the binds were seemingly made of cold iron.
"NO!"
"Under a falling sky, hopeless, there's nowhere to hide. The terror is real this time! Under a falling sky, I'm under, I'm under a Falling Sky."
The threads slowly pull her beneath. The ground feels like wet soil, warm as blood yet cold as ice. Her tired muscles flex and strain, eyeballs wide and pupiless. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want to die.
I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, she thinks fearfully. Something's got to give. Before her head is completely submerged she utters one final, breathless cry, "I want to live!"
"... the cadent drums, the war it comes. Growing thunder… terror… wander…"
Namiko rips the tendrils away from her neck with a furious cry. The need, the want, the drive to see her family again, to see her again giving her the strength to break away from the shackles of her mind.
"Falling…. Falling… It's Falling… FALLING… Under a falling sky…"
They break away like dead vines as she pulls herself from the murky abyss. The shadows suddenly stop humming. The wolves whimper instead of growling. And in the distance, a flash of lightning. She frowns, confused.
The lightning becomes more and more frequent, a terrifying blue in all of its commanding glory. And then, before she can even blink, it strikes her.
"The terror is real this time… It's over now…"
Namiko yelps as her body jolts involuntarily.
"It's over… NOW!"
"I've got a heart beat!" A familiar voice cries near her left ear. Namiko's tired, terrified eyes snap open as she bolts upright, fighting the urge to vomit. Insistent hand push against her chest, forcing her back against the pillows.
Keira's beautiful face, tearful and worried, is suddenly thrust into hers. She cradles Namiko's pale cheeks in her grasp and brings their foreheads together.
"You're okay, you're okay," Keira whispers, "You're okay."
With a frightened cry, Namiko buries her face into Keira's chest and sobs, the fearful three year-old who used to cling to her sister's shirt when the monster's were around once more.
/
Chapter Preview:
Namiko goes through the recovery process with her family and Layla by her side. Miyu completely takes over leadership of the Yakuza. Natsuki tries not to think about her inevitable doom at the hands of the very syndicate she had sworn to protect.