Disclaimer: These are not my characters. They are the sole property of Squaresoft. I am merely borrowing them for the purpose of storytelling.
Prologue
She wrote the words.
"Dear father"
Then turned, like a leaf in the stolen autumn breeze. Wildly. Discarding the sheet of paper like it was infected with some curse. Indeed, it was.
She had written this letter a million times.
"Dear father, I don't know who you are."
"Dear father, I don't know why you left."
"Dear father, Wherever you are...."
No. The words were never right. The ink was never black enough. It never had enough of a stain to show the darkness of her heart. The blank spot; the hole. That empty pit deep inside her spirit where she had locked away his face. The key had been discarded long ago. She didn't remember what he looked like. Some days she didn't even care. Other days she choked on it. Other days...
"Dear father, I've never had a heart because of you. I've never had the words to tell you. You've never heard. It's as well you have no ears for all the good you'd be."
But the letter would be erased, destroyed. Flung into the pile like all the others. Another unspoken word. Another clump to be added to the massive, swelling void. How she longed to gather all these words, set them ablaze. Watch the syllables melt in the inferno of her confusion.
She had long given up on words. They held no meaning. No comfort.
The truth was written in her displays of paint and colour. Her art. Something non-readable. Something dusty, jagged, indistinct. A medium to catch her outpouring confusion. A confusion of colour and line. It helped, but still the paint would never be bright enough. The ink never black enough.
While she waged war on her words, her blackened pit of feeling, the paint landed in mysterious shapes. She wasn't painting with a vision. She painted to feel the paint on her hands, wet and cold. She drew pictures to have something tangible, that she could hold. Something that would never leave. These drops of colour and light landed in strange patterns, shaping out her portrait.
The portrait of her heart.