Chapter Twenty-Six: Fade Out

Why did it have to be a cave?

It's ok… it's ok. I can do this.

But… I couldn't go in there alone. Instead, I waited at the mouth of the cave while Shingen got Good Horse settled under the dubious shelter of the trees. There wasn't much he could do to keep him completely dry, although Shingen rigged a rough lean-to out of tree branches that might at least keep the worst of the wet off Good Horse.

Once Good Horse was taken care of, Shingen walked past me into the cave. He paused, then turn back to me. "Coming?" The subtext was clear - I could walk in under my own power, or Shingen would sling me over his shoulder like a sack of rice and carry me in.

I can do this.

My feet were not convinced. Ok, look feet, we'll keep the entrance of the cave in sight, so there will be fresh air, ok? Fresh air is all you really need. I forced my feet to follow him into the cave and got about half a meter inside before they succumbed to a full body nope.

Shit. It's dark.

My logical self reminded my chickenshit self that it was not afraid of the dark. Dark was never the problem.

Logic didn't work on my feet, which refused to budge beyond that point. They were going to stay at the entrance, where there was still a sliver of light visible on the horizon. "Do you have a lantern?"

"I was more concerned with catching up to you, than I was with grabbing a lantern." His sarcasm was cutting, but I latched onto it as a distraction. At least the internal flinch at his tone gave me something different to think about. I heard him rustling around. "The slightly good news is that I never had time to unpack my saddlebags, so at least I've got a change of clothing." More rustling. "Not completely dry, more's the pity, but the oilskin protected them to an extent."

There was a whoosh, then something cloth landed in my arms. "Get out of those wet things."

I automatically grabbed onto the material before it fell to the ground. Seemed to be the inner layer of his kimono… and one of the furs the trapper had pressed upon us. Focusing on peeling my wet clothes off my body kept my mind off the suffocating dark. The soaking material felt like it had suctioned itself to me. I could hear similar squelching noises from where Shingen was in the deeper, darker area of the ca-

I can do this.

His kimono was huge on me, but I wrapped it around like a hug, then clutched the fur, pretending it was a friendly dog, keeping me company in the dar-

There was fresh air coming from the entrance. I concentrated on the breeze that caressed my face and took a deep breath of it to remind my lungs everything was fine.

I slid down the cave wall to sit on the ground, then turned my face toward the entrance, watching that patch of dimness grow fainter and fainter until it was a small square of light…

The television was a small square of light in the room that had already darkened in the winter twilight. She sat on the sofa, a wool shawl slipping off one shoulder, her gaze pinned to the television. Was she paying attention to it? Was she watching? She seemed equally oblivious to the show and unaware that I was standing over her holding a tray of tea and the strawberry daifuku I had spent all afternoon preparing.

I set the tray on the coffee table in front of her. "Hey… mom… want a snack? Or tea?" Automatically, she picked up one of the pastries and held it in front of her mouth. I didn't breathe until she finally took a tiny bite of it. But there was no evidence that she enjoyed it.

After pouring her a cup of tea I plopped down on the sofa next to her and pushed the shawl back up her shoulder. It wasn't really that cold in here – Toshiie and I took turns reminding her to pay the utilities, so the heat was on – but I couldn't stand to see her all messy like that. In the good months, she was so fastidious about what she wore… about what I wore. Granted, her preference was to see me in pink, a shade I did not love, but she made so few demands on me that it seemed silly to rebel against a color.

"What are you watching?" Stupid question. I could see that it was some retrospective of American? British? music videos from the 1980s. But I hoped my question would remind her I was there. Toshiie had escaped for the afternoon – and likely the night – with his boyfriend, so aside from the television, it was my responsibility to be entertaining.

She turned to me, and then gave a shrug. "Music videos… from back when they were still clever and new." A poppy keyboard riff got her attention, and she turned back to the television. "Your father liked this one."

My father? She rarely talked about him. We'd never met him, had been told that they'd broken up before we'd been born. I sat up straighter, hoping to learn something about the man who had been little more than a random sperm donor. "He liked this song?"

I'd even heard the song, when it got slung into a randomized playlist based on whatever algorithm had decided that I would like it. The chorus, "take on me, take me on," was certainly catchy. I did like it – but I'd never seen the video before.

She picked up the teacup and held onto it with both hands. Cradling the warmth. "The video. He liked the video's concept."

Huh. But before I realized it, I'd gotten sucked into the plot of the video as well, about a girl in a coffee shop who was pulled into a black and white comic book by a dark-haired boy with beautiful cut glass cheekbones. In three minutes, the two had an adventure, before the girl was tossed back into the real world and separated from her comic book love-interest.

*Click*

She turned off the tv and dropped the remote into the depths of the sofa cushions. "I forgot how much I hate that video."

"Because they got separated?" That would make sense… if it reminded her of their break-up.

"No. In the end, he came back for her." She set the mostly untouched tea back on the table and got to her feet. "I think I'll take a nap." With a sigh, she shuffled off to her bedroom, a fifty-kilogram woman moving as if she weighed four times that much.

Once the door shut behind her, I turned on all the lights, unearthed the remote, clicked the tv back on, and surfed around to find a decent movie. I eyed the abandoned snack on the table. No use wasting the food. I grabbed one of the pastries and bit into it.

Blech…

I'd made it too sweet… although all I tasted was sawdust.

"If you can manage to bring yourself closer to me," said Sarcastic Sam, "I've got some field rations of dried rice." There was a dry rattling sound, and then a clink. "And the trader gave us some…" more clinking, "Sake."

If I ate anything right now, I was sure I would throw up. "No thank you."

"Suit yourself." Yeah, he sounded over it.

The first time I had one of these attacks, Aki, who had at least tried to sympathetic about the whole thing, suggested that I focus on counting backwards from one hundred. That had helped a little, but not enough, and when the attacks continued, I worried that he was feeling impatient. That he had given me tools which I wasn't using. That my fear had rendered me useless for any jobs more complicated than delivering messages.

The counting hadn't worked anyway. More recently, I'd tried to deal with things by picturing song lyrics in my head.

Ok brain, give me a song, something more complicated than "Happy Birthday" um, but isn't "Take on Me."

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around…

Really brain?

Fine. Rickrolled beats panic attack, so I continued to picture the lyrics in big neon letters.

Ok, I can do this.

Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you…

The light from the front of the cave disappeared completely and sinking us into total darkness. I pressed my palms against the ground, feeling the grit and dirt under my fingertips. Even the sharp rock that was poking me in the butt was a welcome tether to reality.

Touch… rocks.

Smell… rain… pine needles… dirt…

Sound… rain… Good Horse whuffling around outside…Shingen chomping on rice…

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around…

There was a roaring in my ears and my chest felt tight. I gave up on the song lyrics and concentrated on breathing. It was mind over matter, and I could force my body to obey my brain and not panic. There was nothing truly wrong with me. This was in my head.

I can do –

I can't do this…

My mouth tasted like sawdust. I was going to do something completely humiliating like scream or faint… can't breathe…. Don't be stupid, of course you can breathe, get out of your head...

How much time has passed? It was as dark as ever … my knees and elbows bumped against the side of the crate. My nose was centimeters from the lid. Yeah, I really needed to move around. I grabbed the latch and –

The lid didn't budge.

I tried the latch again, and again. No, it was unlatched, but the lid wasn't moving. It was like there was something on top of the… another crate maybe? I pushed on the lid harder, but I couldn't move it. That's when I started kicking.

Nothing.

My breath started to come out in sobs – was I trapped in here? How many crates was my crate under? How long would it be before someone came to get them? If I screamed, would anyone hear me?

My throat constricted…

Time passed – I lost track. I phased in an out of nightmare filled dreams and dreams of rescues that became living nightmares when I woke up again and faced the emptiness and the dark and the walls. I could sense the weight of the other crates pushing on the top and the sides of this one, shrinking it… in moments, it would collapse in upon itself, upon me and-

"Katsu? Is something wrong?" Shingen's previous impatience… that cutting sarcasm… had given way to concern.

Oh God, this is ridiculous. Embarrassed at my weakness, I put my face on my knees and tried to make myself as small as possible.

Then Shingen's voice was right above me, softer and kinder than it had been in days. "You're really not ok, are you?"

Without even thinking about it, I reached out, found his hand, and clung to it. "N-n-no." My internal voice winced at the need in that tone, but at the same time, I didn't care anymore. I needed someone to hear me and see me.

He sat down next to me, put his arm around my shoulders, and it was all I could do not to crawl into his lap, into his skin. "I'm here."

It wasn't lover-like, or (thank God), fatherlike. He lightly patted my back and spoke in a calm friendly tone, like you might speak to another soldier sharing your foxhole. "When you were wandering around Kasugayama, did you see the bear cub? His name is Koro, and he's a bit… mischievous. Once he even got into Kenshin's supply of pickled plums, and…"

To be honest, I couldn't even focus on what he was saying, but the shape and the texture of the words and the basic… normalcy of the conversation, the story he was telling me unspooled like a ribbon that I could follow out of the labyrinth of my thoughts.

At the other end of the ribbon was Shingen, sitting beside me, solid, and warm, and alive and present. It was exactly what I needed. He was exactly what I needed. I sat there, unmoving, until finally I had my breathing under control and my heart stopped racing and was able to take one last shaky breath that came out as a sigh. "You probably think I'm crazy."

I felt his fingers brush my hair away from my face. "Aside from your habit of flinging yourself out of trees, Devil, no."