The King is Alive
Kagome was having haunting dreams that made her blood rush in fear, her blankets devious twists around her, yet when she woke all she could remember was silver hair tinged red. This was one of those times, sweat making her clothes cling to her as the image of a dogged ear demon sinking a blade through the other.
In her mulled haze she crept through her still asleep house, the moon heavy in its fullness and lighting through the parted curtains. The fluorescent lights were too harsh on her eyes so she used the moon light to navigate through her cupboard. A single twisted expression stayed in her mind's eye, how the silver haired demon's mouth was wide in sharp fangs and gurgled with blood, her mind breaking away when water overfilled her cup and down her wrist.
"Kagome?" Her grandfather's voice was hesitant, his stout and short figure cutting a darker figure against the kitchen's pane.
"Ah, yes?" With a shift she shut off the faucet and held the wet cup to her chest with shifty eyes.
"Another night terror?" His disembodied voice was probing, a half hint of something in his old voice.
"Yeah-"
"Was it of a slain demon?" A moonbeam shifted through the kitchen curtains, a sliver of light against her grandfather's wrinkled cheekbones. She gripped her cup closer, the water seeping into her night shirt.
"How did you know. . . ?" Kagome whispered, as if speaking any louder it would bring back logic and hard facts instead of the thrumming mystery. Her grandfather shifted, the small light falling to his shoulders instead, beaconing her away from the kitchen.
Her family believed her grandfather partial to insanity with his devout belief in demons and spirits, only having the shrine because it was in her father's legacy. Yet those logical assumptions hushed with weeks of various night terrors repeating the same scenes over and over again, faces she'd never seen before. Together they crept into the chilly night to an offset shrine where her grandfather kept a luticuris amount of texts and objects of the past and mythology, the cup still held in her hand.
Her grandfather stayed silent as he lit small lanterns, the usually cozy glow a little too ominous in the night as it highlighted a saber on the wall. She sunk into the pillow by the low table, her mind once again trying to bring logic into the equation; she must have talked to him about it, there's no way he'd know anything. His knobbed fingers roamed the shelves with confidence and pulled a tattered and yellow scroll, his eyes slowly meeting hers before opening it on the table.
A gruesome scene unfurled on the wizened scroll, the inks faded with time but not any less capturing. The demon she saw in her dreams was there donned in armor, spiked through with thousands of swords, golden eyes angry and splayed hair longer than her own, pinned into an array of thorns.
"He was the King beyond the veil where demons and fae roamed," Her grandfather's voice was hushed but still made her spine shiver. "His legacy was bright and had brought many victories to the demons that lived there. Until his half brother, part fae and part demon, grew a seed of jealousy that became bigger every time his brother the King gained more loyalty and prosperity. The brother believed that he should have been the heir to the demon throne, that the victories were supposed to be his."
"So he killed his brother the King?" Kagome whispered, the flame flickering and casting the demon's face in shadows.
"With the help of his lover, a powerful fae being that could control nature, together they casted a spell and bound him to the land to sleep forever."
"But why would I have such vivid nightmares about it? They aren't real."
"The fae priestess grew fearful as she watched her lover betray his own flesh and blood," her grandfather carried on. "And in one last act of vengeance the King cursed her to remember the betrayal even after she was dead, warning her that she too would be like him. The fae priestess dreamed of it every night and watched her lover with terror, watching for any signs that he'd turn on her as well. Less than a year after the coup she fled past the veil into the human lands, hiding among them and carried out her bloodline."
Her grandfather looked Kagome in the eye, the light making his older form haunting. "That is how her children and children's children were cursed to live through the demon King's death and her betrayal."
"That doesn't make sense." Kagome sternly told him even as her eyes flickered to the demon. "None of this is real- you must have told me this story too many times as a child that I've dreamed it."
Her grandfather didn't say anything with his lips pursed, staring at her with a clear gaze. Her mother was right, he was crazy! Believing so deeply in the mystics that he couldn't tell the difference between reality and his imagination, why did she even follow him out here? She grabbed her cup and left him in his study without another word, swiftly making the way between the buildings through the chilly night air.
The moon gleamed down at her as her slippers pattered against the brick way, it should have strengthened her logic but all it did was cause her to shiver and her hair rose up.
The next morning she talked to her brother at breakfast before she'd had to drive him to high school on her way to her college class.
"Has grandfather talked to you about dead demon Kings by chance?" She asked it lightly, watching her brother closely as he ate his cereal with his eyes glued to his phone screen.
"And fairies, leprechauns and even that egyption god with the head of a crocodile." Souta laughed with his spoon against his lips. "Do you think we can finally convince mom to put in the 'ward yet?"
"Don't joke about that." Kagome quietly chastised him and earned an eye roll.
"Why? Are you starting to believe him now?" Souta waggled his eyebrows with another laugh before clinking his bowl in the sink. "By the way, can you pick me up later today? Soccer practice starts today."
"Yeah." Kagome murmured, it seemed Souta didn't have any of those dreams either. It must be because she heard that story too many times as a child, she reassured herself. Yet a small voice in the back of her mind told her that she'd never heard that story before. . .
She arrived at her first course twenty minutes too early, a downside to commuting to campus, and she watched those milling around her with jealous eyes. What was it like living in a dorm? Living with people her own age? Would she have had more friends if she did? She pushed those thoughts out of her head and opened her sketchbook with the jellyfish on them. In high school she was always surrounded by friends, the centerpiece of many groups that all wanted her input on school planning or even to hang out, here she was too alone.
She doodled those golden eyes thoughtlessly, capturing the pained curve and bold magenta stripe above it. When she realized it she scribbled over it with frustration- it was always there in her mind like a sickness now. After every nightmare the images became more solidified, the memory manifesting in her conscious mind, a sickening replay of nonsense. But. . . her pencil paused in her scribble, if these nightmares happened in every generation then didn't grandpa have them? Did her father? Her brother didn't, did that mean only one did?
Her mind betrayed her during her courses, the professor's voice a buzz that she couldn't concentrate on. One after another from biology to her art history class her mind turned over and over, she felt like she was going crazy with them- how did the predecessor deal with it? With a small ah-ha moment in her head she determined that she had to look.
Without having to pick up Souta she arrived home while the coming winter sun bowed closer to the mountain. A sticky note informed her that mom and grandpa were at the heart doctor and to eat without them, rice still in the cooker. With the house completely to herself she crept back into that small study of her grandfather's- he'd have to have the ancestral records.
With careful maneuvering she sorted through old scrolls and journals bound that threatened to become dust, the method of organization unknown to her. After the seemingly hundredth document she slid to the floor with a huff, where could he even keep them? She slammed her hand down in frustration and met with a sharp pain. She glared down at the hidden chest while holding her pained hand.
"Fucking, uh, stupid thing," She muttered unable to form a coherent insult to the old thing, but then curiosity got the better of her. It was a deep mahogany chest without any embellishments and creaked while she pulled it out from under the low table. It popped open without a lock, it's hinges old and rusty but oiled from constant use.
A bound book laid atop documents and with a tingling stomach she placed it on the table, running her fingers down the leathered binding. There was no embossed title to give away what was in it and she had to be gentle when opening it, a careful mass of handwriting she couldn't comprehend meeting her gaze. With a frown she flipped through the book and noted how the handwriting changed and then slowly became characters she understood, all were names and annotations under it. With a grin she flipped to the back of the book and found her grandfather's name: Daizen Higurashi.
Beside her grandfather's name was another name, Yua Higurashi. Underneath it was the symbol of deceased and Kagome's brows creased- she didn't know a grandaunt. Her fingers slipped over the words of her death but it didn't make sense and she had to reread it:
[passage]:
She had the dreams earlier than those cursed and would often wake screaming. Her young mind couldn't handle it even with the help of the priests, they tried their all to suppress them, but she gave way to them. We found her this morning, the ink splotched at this point, on the bank of the river with a broken neck. She died before she hit the water.
Kagome shivered and then went to the next entry. Again there were two names, her father and another woman. This entry depicted that the young Sara killed herself before the age of ten, her actions those of a horror victim repeating the same phrase over and over again- "The King still lives."
Kagome's hands shook against the parchment and then went up the line where her and Souta's names were printed. Underneath her own name had a few sentences:
No signs at ten. No signs at seventeen like imouto, her grandfather's writing was crisp. She's twenty-two and the curse has taken hold, it's not as strong as Sara's and Yua's, there could still be some hope.
Her stomach heaved at reading her own entry and then she went back while her spine shivered, each entry there were two children. One male and the other female, and again the girl-child died before she got married or had her own child. Only the Higurashi males survived through wives, all the way from the foreign handwriting that she couldn't read. What did this mean? It couldn't be real, she tried to tell herself, but her eyes continued to look at the journal with horror.
"I know what to do," She tapped the table, trying to bring logic back into her life, and began searching on her phone for the death records. Her vision swayed and became hazy, one after the other confirmed the death of each female in the Higurashi family all the way to the nineteen twenties where the records weren't kept as well.
The study's door creaked open and grandfather's face looked back sadly at her with the opened book.
"You've found them."
"You- you could have told me that I'm most likely going to die."
Her grandfather remained silent, his hip popping when he took the seat across from her. "You believe me now?" He asked while taking the book back, his knobbed fingers gripping the pages gently. His eyes held a far away look, one that the family constantly claimed was insanity.
"What am I supposed to do?" Kagome's voice shook and she put her phone down, the tab still open on the family's death records.
". . . The King still lives," grandfather looked up from the pages, his mouth a tight line. "The best way to lift the curse is to free him."
"Why didn't anyone else do that? Why- why did so many have to die? Why am I the one that has to do that?" The questions tumbled out of her mouth in fast staccatos, horror laced through them all.
"We believed the King was dead." He said simply and closed the book, the thud loud between them and silencing any other questions she could think of.
"You have a chance to right the wrongs of our ancestors. . . and save those that come after you." There was pain that rested deep in his wrinkles and aged him further, his usually stout shoulders now fragile like bird bones. Was he remembering his sister? Was he alive when his aunt committed suicide? Kagome licked her dry lips.
"How am I supposed to do that?" Her question was barely out of her mouth before her mother's figure entered the doorway.
"What are you doing? Don't fill my child's head with your insanity." Mother's voice was cold and threatening, distrust and a harsher emotion gleaming in her crow's feet eyes. "Get out of there now Kagome, you have to pick up Souta."
Kagome half reached to touch her grandfather's hands but stopped under her mother's gaze and left him there. Even when she entered the court yard she could hear her mother's harsh words.
"Keep acting like this and I will put you in the 'ward no matter my dead husband's wishes."