CHAPTER 9: POUR AWAY THE OCEAN

"The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good."
(Stop All the Clocks, W.H. Auden)

She runs.

She runs out of that room, to the sound of crashing behind her, the rumble of a roar that follows her down and down and down the hall. Her eyes are wide and blind as she stumbles into walls, hears the shattering of a priceless vase shattering behind her. She thinks, at one point, she hears Rin call out to her in concern, maybe the girl even tries to grab her arm and stop her. But Kagome cannot stop. Her heart is racing, her muscles filled with adrenaline, the fight or flight need to flee the danger behind her, because she cannot stop to see if he is following her. She knows if he is following her, if he tracks her down, if he catches her, he will kill her. She will not be strong enough to stop him, to fight him. She'll just be torn to shreds beneath his poisoned claws.

There's a stitch in her side, but she ignores it. There's a cramp in the arch of her foot, but she ignores her. There's a burning in her eyes as she runs, but she ignores. There is only one thought in her head.

Away.

She has to get away.

When she stumbles down the stairs, twisting an ankle in the process, she does not notice. Just bumps against the wall, slams off the bannister and keeps going. She turns, sees a door, and sprints towards it. It opens easily under her frantic hands and she spills forth like water from a broken bottle onto the broken cobblestone terrace of the backyard.

Suddenly, she has an idea.

She'll find Ah-Un, try and make him understand that she wants him to take her away from here, far away. Anywhere that's not here. The nearest village or wherever. She doesn't care. She doesn't care about her bag, her school books, her clothes, she can replace them all. But only if she survives long enough to go home. Kiara understands her. She has to be able to make Ah-Un understand her, too. She has to.

Trying to remember the path she took the last time (was it only yesterday?) to where she'd stumbled upon the two-headed dragon, Kagome calls out his name in frantic, panting bursts, hoping he will take pity on her and come to her, rescue her from this place. Nothing looks familiar here, tangled, browning plants, broken pottery, fountains that are nothing but stillness and silence and stone. Every path she turns down reveals nothing but more overgrowth and neglect. She sees no sign of Ah-Un, nor does she see a sign of another way out. No garden gates or doors or side paths that led beyond the castle grounds.

She was trapped.

With a wrenching sob, she turns right down the next path she comes to. Then turns again when she comes to a wall made of gnarled vines. Then again when she comes to another.

And again.

And again.

Until her terrorized mind catches up with her racing thoughts and she realizes that she has run directly into an overgrown maze. Then she'd gone and kept running, not paying attention, not thinking about where she was going. She didn't want to say it, didn't even want to think it, but it was true.

She was lost.

She was lost.

But maybe, maybe not… she'd read someone that if you just put out one of your hands, touched a wall, and followed it, it would lead you out eventually. Finally coming to a stop, she takes a deep, calming breath, steadying her nerves, and reaches out to rest her fingertips just slightly against the brambles to her left.

Alright then, here we go.

And she takes a tentative step forward, ignoring the throbbing of her aching, twisting ankle.

She never notices that the walls are closing behind her. Never notices that they are moving at all, continually changing, relocating. There is no way that she will find her way out, not with any tricks or ruses, not even if she had the greatest sense of direction in the world. Because the walls of this maze are moving. She is lost.

And she will stay lost.

It is minutes, hours, she doesn't know, later, when she feels it – there's a ringing in her chest, a feeling deep in her bones that means something is coming, that something is –

The demon bursts from the shrubs in front of her with a roar, staring at her with a salivating grin and a maniacal gleam in its predatory, red eyes. It stalks forward on wide paws, its tail lashing in the air over its head like a snapping whip. Its fangs glint like daggers in the pale light.

Kagome stops so suddenly she falls backwards, scrambling out of the way when the lupine beast springs forward, claws outstretched. They miss her by mere inches, and leave deep tracks in the dirt, cracking through the ground and stone like a warm knife cutting through soft butter. If he caught her, she'd be torn to shreds beneath those talons, there'd be nothing left of her put a patch of blood on the ground in the middle of a maze. No one would ever know what had happened to her.

The demon sits back on its haunches, swaying as it readies itself to pounce on her, eyes focused on her soft and supple flesh. She feels the terror wash through her, feels the swell of spiritual powers within her rise up to protect her, a bubble of energy that feels like champagne fizz in her stomach, in her throat. She feels it increasing, growing larger and larger until she felt like she would burst with it, like if she opened her mouth, bright, white hot spiritual light would shine out.

Instead, she holds up her palm, concentrates her will and forces all of that power into the palm of her hand, pushes the thought forward to send it from her hand in a blast of condensed holy power. The demon, surprise etched on every single hair on its head, as his body started to dissipate under the force of Kagome's miko powers.

Kagome watches the sparks of light float into the air, vanishing in puffs of light, as the demon fades away. She's panting, her heart racing like when she had run from the house, her limbs tingling with the sudden build up and release of so much raw, untrained spiritual power. She feels empty and drained and suddenly she's tired. So, so tired.

Kagome inches backwards, until her back is pressed against the hedge wall of the maze. She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. The light is growing dim over the top of the maze, the sun setting. The air is growing cold and chilly as night begins to come. She shivers and burrows her face into her knees, sobbing as she comes to terms with what she has known for hours.

She will stay lost until someone finds her.