Night's dark shroud cast over the heavens; the moon failed to exist. Warily, Mei paced deeper down into the all-consuming fog. Artificial lighting collected in pools every ten metres or so along the dirt path, the spattering of illumination mimicking Mei's inconsistent hope.
The thick roots of powerful trees broke the surface of the path at random, tripping and slighting Mei and her unsteady step whenever the tempting opportunity arose. Mei persevered, despite her building irritation at this unnecessary hindrance to her already disadvantaged search. The sirens had reserved an eerie quiet for some time now, though the absence of sound didn't drive their existence from her taught mind. The rain had also stopped falling, the pearlescent shimmer of the loose pebbles and stones at Mei's feet the only indicator of its brief appearance.
'This is ridiculous,' Mei's inner-voice repeated for the fifth time as she navigated further blindness, 'Why am I going back the way I came?'
Mei's mind skittered between a thousand and one solutions to her question. Her brain soon registered her building apprehension towards her current course of action and thus abandoned accuracy and truthful relevance in its list of search criteria. Instead, it began sifting through the list of answers most likely to relieve the uncomfortable emotions she was currently experiencing.
Her mind finally knitted together its chosen denial.
Yes, this was ridiculous. Mei stopped. Harumi had obviously found an alternative pathway up the hill, her reasons Mei couldn't bring to mind, but there could have been plenty.
Mei glanced back at the wall of fog that concealed the area she had just descended. Harumi was probably sat at the top of that hill right now, and wondering where the hell she was too. Mei slapped her palm over her eyes, forcefully enough to bring a flash of the cosmos into vision. It was obvious.
Harumi had planned on a more scenic route up the hill and assumed Mei would automatically use it. It was only common sense, but she, like a fool, had decided to go waltzing straight up the damned footpath almost begging for someone to spot her.
'For goodness sake.'
Mei glanced about herself as she concocted her winning explanation, entirely ignoring the plain fact that there was only a single way up the hill: via the footpath. She continued to snub this fatal flaw in her deduction nonetheless, swiftly adopting tunnel vision as the true explanation leered in her peripheral. She'll call me an idiot when I tell her. Red and blue flashed teasingly at the edges of the tunnel mouth. No, Harumi was fine. The fixed steel separator of the police car loomed. I hope she's at least found a good spot to eat at this time - I've heard eating in handcuffs is rather difficult.
Mei swivelled aggressively and started forcefully ascending the hill once more. She even allowed herself the luxury of mild annoyance at the thought of Harumi impatient and already chowing down on her handcuffs - Onigiri. Jail; rice buns. Jail.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the relent of oncoming tears. She couldn't do it, she was logical, just too damn logical to pull it off. She stopped her ascent; she surrendered. Harumi had got caught, that was the only explanation. Happy?
She took her last step forward; her foot got caught in its final tree root, and then her knees gave way, her body unable to shoulder the burden of her denial any longer. Oh, Harumi, I'm so sorry.
Mei clutched her trembling face in her hands, unwilling to bear any more pain. She was alone, isolated in an icy sheet of fog, suffering on a hill far, far away from the home to which she could never return. This was truly ridiculous.
Anger whipped her in place of despair.
"You goddamn pigs..."
Mei balled the pale hands that cupped her face into fists, gouging the tips of her fingernails into the delicate skin of her cheeks as she did so. Anger finally threw despair to his knees entirely and took his rightful place in her heart.
"Go to hell!"
Mei brought her fists down onto the ground in front of her with pure fury. She wanted it to hurt; she wanted the stones to lacerate her hands; she wanted the physical to outweigh the mental; she wanted her friend back.
Mei's fists hit the ground and then continued to depress the soft surface for a passing half-second before they contacted solid mass with a sickening thud.
Her brain withdrew her hand with a sudden jolt of involuntary panic at the unexpected sensation. She snapped her eyes open. A state of bewilderment met her as her mind struggled to scan the familiar garment before her, the imprint of her knuckles still present in the depression of the fabric of the black jacket. After an eternity, her tears finally bled joy.
"Oh, thank god! Harumi! Harumi!?"
Harumi didn't reply. Harumi didn't move.
"Harumi?"
Harumi lay face down in the dirt. Mei's sudden flood of relief didn't make it past the floodgates.
For the first time, Mei's panicked eyes darted over the gross abnormality of the image before her. She drew them up and over Harumi's unnatural posture, noting, in particular, the peculiar tilt her head took where the ground was disturbed. A small divot, mostly concealed by the shimmering of surrounding gravel stones kindly cupped her resting head. Mei's eyes lingered on the gnarled root of the oak tree that had so easily thrown her to the ground and then flicked back to the seemingly harmless hole. It was filled with less than three inches of rainwater, Harumi's face acceptably submerged; the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The sky had been generous; two inches would have been more than enough to do the job.
Mei jackknifed over Harumi's lifeless form. She gripped Harumi's shoulder in one hand and slid the other under her stomach. She heaved. The wet fabric slipped under her tense fingers, Harumi's deadened weight fighting against her. Mei grit her teeth against the opposition and heaved again, this time successful in her attempt to drag her unconscious friend over onto her back.
Mei's horror doubled as her eyes fell on the purpled hue of Harumi's face. Strands of her damp brown hair stuck to her alien skin in clingy ropes, her mouth hung open awkwardly; this had to be an artist's poor depiction of this animated woman. But it wasn't; this was Harumi, eyes closed, her usual vibrant appearance distorted behind the mask of death.
Mei felt the strangled pitch of her voice burn her throat as she pulled the imposter into her arms. 'Oh God Harumi, oh God,' her tears were falling again, assailing Harumi's distant features with salty droplets, 'Why did I have to be too late.'
Mei brought her stiff palm to Harumi's cheek; she winced at its icy touch. She sniffed, causing two more tears to hit the bridge of Harumi's nose and trail slowly down into the creases of her closed eyelids. She slapped Harumi's cheek and choked her name. No reaction. She was hyperventilating now, losing control of her actions, hitting Harumi's numb face harder and more aggressively. Mei became distantly aware she was now screaming at the reactionless woman, shaking her violently.
"Goddamnit, Harumi wake up!"
She was furious with Harumi's blatant ignorance now. She tried to tell herself she was irrational; it wasn't Harumi's fault that she was dea-. No, she wouldn't say it. She couldn't. Mei looked about herself frantically, searching for some kind of solution. Reasoning gripped her; her eyes left Harumi's glassy face and flew to her chest.
She launched into action, fitfully attacking the buttons of Harumi's jacket. She sobbed with further frustration as the metal fastenings slipped between her wet fingers. With a final ounce of perseverance, she finally undid the top two buttons and pried open the interfering garment. She forced her head down to Harumi's cold chest, her ear gently brushing the bare skin above the rim of her shirt. Her heart dropped two inches lower in her chest as empty silence met her quivering ear. Wait. No, she heard it, it was weak, but it was there: Harumi's beating heart. It stood as the final remnant untainted by the savagery of the unknown artist.
Inevitability relinquished its vice grip and offered Mei a chance. She couldn't tell if it was a maelstrom of panic or erratic hope that whipped her insides as she saw possibility dangling teasingly off fate's hooked finger.
Her hands were trembling violently now, her relentless tears still blurring her precious vision. Mei pushed the wet hairs clinging to Harumi's forehead out of her face as she fought the fog of her mind for the vital set of instructions she so desperately needed. She rifled through databases and filing cabinets scattering every snippet of knowledge on drown victims she could spur to mind. The papers fluttered around her, their multitude indecipherable. A blue sheet drifted achingly slowly to the desk before settling face up to her attention. There it was. Mei acted automatically.
She pinched Harumi's nose between her fingertips sealing off the airway. Her lips met Harumi's more sensually than she intended. She shivered with the anticipation she told herself she wasn't aware she held.
Mei held herself in the stolen moment, just feeling the supple texture of Harumi's lips on her own. Perversely even in her comatose state, they felt even better than she had imagined them to. The hermaphroditic thoughts tickled her at first, but as the third second passed Mei knew the experience would leave her incomplete, she was missing what she desired most. She wished Harumi's lips weren't so cold; she wished she didn't feel so cheated out of their warmth.
Mei drugged herself with focus and opening her mouth began to administer the first of five forceful life-giving breaths. One. Nothing. Two - Come on, Harumi, goddamnit, Please. Three. For Yuzu, you have t- no, for me! Wake up for Me, goddamnit! Four. God, you're beautiful. Five. Please, just get up. Hell! Si-
Mei pulled back rapidly as she felt Harumi jerk beneath her. She fell stupidly onto her rear, Harumi's body still clutched solidly between her arms as the dead woman flared back to life. She rolled off Mei spluttering and gagging thick streams of water. The spray of puddle water and saliva speckled Mei's stunned face, but she didn't mind.
Harumi coughed twice more and automatically took in a large breath of the cold night air. The sudden icy sensation stabbed at her throat, causing a second line of severe coughing fits. She took a further moment to recover from the spasms before finally jerking her head up to regard her unfamiliar surroundings.
Harumi's confusion endured even as her darting eyes found Mei's, who still remained rigid, incapable of even offering a sliver of an answer to the multitude of questions flitting past Harumi's golden gaze. Mei watched, transfixed as sure enough life sparked powerfully, and undefeated back into the amber iris's she was so sure had been stolen from her world forever. Mesmerisation wouldn't release its grip.
"Mei?" Harumi's voice was cracked and hoarse as though the water had scorched the lining from her throat.
Mei soon found her voice was more than equally useless as she dropped her stupor with difficulty and forced herself to mouth a silent explanation of the last two minutes. The confusion that failed to ebb from Harumi's features prompted Mei's delayed realisation that no sound was coming from her constricted throat. She closed her dry mouth and swallowed before placing all her vocal strength behind a condensed version.
"Um, you died."
The deadpan statement took a moment to settle. When it did, a flood of recollection washed away the last traces of confusion scattered behind Harumi's eyes. She raised her hand to her head, dizzy from the prolonged lack of oxygen as she recalled falling over the tree root and the flash of sharp pain as her head collided with the pavement. She traced the rivulets of water travelling down her face with her hand glancing down at the murderous puddle as she did so. The picture came together as Harumi's hand came to a final stop at the valley of her lips. She brushed them unconsciously and looked up to Mei once more.
"So, I guess I'm in your debt twice for saving my life, huh?"
Mei's unruly gaze lingered on where Harumi stroked her soft lips, muffling her still hoarse voice. She flicked her attention back to Harumi's eyes.
"Yeah, I guess life's just a bitch like that."
A hint of a smirk played in Harumi's bright eyes despite her exhaustion. Mei felt furious heat flush her neck as she regarded the reaction her words had invoked. Suddenly, she remembered the urgency of the situation.
Mei rose quickly to her feet and reorientated her direction on the hill. She offered a hand down to Harumi.
"Come on; you really don't have the time to die right now."
Harumi grinned weakly at Mei's ruthless efficiency taking her extended hand gratefully.
"You can say that again."
Harumi winced as Mei dragged her to her unsteady feet and rolled her pained shoulder blade.
"God, I don't remember falling onto my back."
Mei chose to leave that part unexplained and instead strode forcefully up the hill under the guise of urgency. She motioned for Harumi to follow, silently grateful the fog hid her reddened features.
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