Slam Dunk is so not mine…"sniff"
This chapter is broken down into the POVs of several different characters. There are so many of them that I thought that maybe I should give a picture on their thoughts. So bear with me through this chapter, because I'll try to make the next one as interesting as possible.
Chapter 10: Breaking Point
Ayako's POV
Ryota. Ryota. Where are you? Have you left me behind just like that? You promised to hold me throughout this dark night. You promised to protect me and soothe me as I go through this passage of fear. And you were all I had. You were all I had that kept me clinging on to my sanity. And now you're gone. You told me I had nothing to be afraid of, nothing to fear, as long as you were by my side, and you were right. I had nothing to fear. But where are you now?
Damn you, Ryota. You and your empty promises. You comforted me with a pack of lies, then you just died like that. So what if it isn't your fault? So what if you didn't mean to just die like that? You left me alone behind. With that thing. Nights are so terrifying without you by my side. Can you imagine all the nightmares that sweep through my head at night, leaving me no peace? Everywhere I look I can only see, feel and taste fear. Every day I live, I feel I'm one step closer to this endless abyss of insanity. What's going to stop me from falling in, Ryota? You're not here anymore, so who's going to stop me from becoming totally insane and paranoid?
Kiyota's POV
A hazy cloud of memories comes swirling through my mind in a nightmarish torrent every time I think of him. Why did it have to be Jin? Why couldn't it have been somebody else? Why couldn't it have been me, instead? That hellish creature just had to have Jin. That thing just had to kill him off and make me feel all the agony here. Everywhere I go, some taunting voice seems to be whispering Jin's name in my tortured ears.
He is…he was, my best friend. All those memories, all those happy times together, gone. Gone like the last sputter of a candle flame, like the last murmur of the wind, like the last rays of sun vanishing behind the hills. And now I try to relive them, I try to play all those memories again in my head, but a more gruesome image mars those joyful images. A picture of his body, soaked with crimson, so peaceful and yet so horrifying in death. That scene…so calm, and yet so agonizing.
I can't relive those happy times because they're all marred and disturbed by this picture. This picture of agony which plays itself over and over again in my mind, and then rewinding back to the beginning again. This torture will never stop. It is never ending.
Sendoh's POV
What is the hardest thing to do in the world? Mitsui, Yoshiko, Rukawa and the others don't know it. But I do. The hardest thing to do is to smile when you least feel like it. Smiling when you are feeling the total opposite of happy. And that is what I have been doing lately. I've been fooling everyone with this stupid smile of mine, but I can't fool myself. In truth, I'm just as scared as they are. This is all just a fake attempt to mask all my fears. I bottled them up within me, and now it is eating its way through me. Fear is slowly destroying my already crumbling self.
Pretending doesn't mean being strong. And a smile doesn't always signify happiness. Especially my smile. Inside, I was crying out loud, wanting to be released from this mounting terror and frustration. But outside, there's nothing. Only a smile riddled with fake cheeriness and eyes glowing with unreal optimism. And behind it all, behind this mask and smile, I'm breaking slowly, my silent cries unheard and my mind slowly giving way.
Rukawa's POV
Damn. What could it be? What was that look that creature gave me using Jin's face? I remember all, especially when my eyes met Jin's, who was under the control of that thing, and I remember the look that creature gave me. It was the weirdest thing that ever happened. That look…it was almost as if that thing knew me. But how could it? I'm sure I've never met it before. Could I have some connection with that thing? No, it can't be. Then what is it? The sooner we get down to the root of this mystery the better.
Fujima's POV
OK, this is seriously frustrating. If I wasn't so polite and all, I'd voice out my thoughts about how we look like a bunch of terrified idiots. This whole experience is one freaky horror story. And not only are we all totally paranoid, but we also look stupid. I mean, come on, nobody goes walking through cemetery after cemetery searching for a nameless grave to send some shadow creature back to where it belongs. It's like a typical horror story people tell their kids in hope of scaring them to sleep at night.
While we visit the burial grounds of the deceased, Mitsui and Yoshiko always hold this strange pouch of crystals under every grave hoping to see them light up for some sign of open doorways to the spirit world. The rest of us just tag along behind. We'd be easy targets for that thing, especially those lagging behind. That's how Jin died and Kiyota nearly got killed. Apart from that we look ridiculous, but we can't help it. We can't find this "open doorway" and it's driving us all nuts. Frustration wells up in our hearts every time our searches turn up fruitless. All I want to do now is to punch walls and bang my head on the floor. Sounds like some bratty kid throwing tantrums, but that's exactly how I feel.
Mitsui and Yoshiko are still searching animatedly for this nameless soul's grave, and we just tag behind. Are we nuts? Are we all losing our marbles or something? No, I don't think so. We're already insane to be doing such stuff like "grave-hunting". And what's all this nonsense about fortune-tellers, spirit worlds, evil souls and the supernatural? We're definitely all plumb crazy.
Mitsui's POV
So here we all are, one forlorn group huddled together. What time is it? I don't know. How many days have we been searching? I don't know. Does anybody miss us? Hell, I don't care. All I want is to go back, and set things correctly. I want things to be normal again, but how can it? We have been so foolish and stupid to mess around with things we don't understand, and this is the result. Miyagi dead. Jin dead. And others dead as well, caused by the evil creature's pitiless hands. Fukuda, Hanagata, Haruko. They are dead, too. We never saw their bodies with our eyes, but we saw them on the news. All our fault.
The rest of us are still trying to hang on to our sanity, but the fact remains that we're all losing it. We're fighting a losing battle, where all of us are slowly dying out. This nightmare we are all going through is not going to end. There's no sign of light at all. We only have each other to depend on. But so what? That's all we have. We can't depend on each other, because none of us have the strength to comfort the other. So, though we are one group, each of us are actually alone, divided by the boundaries of this nightmare. Each of us are slowly drowning in our own realms of despair and hopelessness.
Finally, I have to admit that everyone has a limit, a breaking point. And we are all approaching that point fast.
Tbc.