Title: Fading
Author: Digimon Empress Yaten (de yaten)
Notes: I went through this in 2008 and cleaned it up a bit, adding/deleting passages and reworking some of it. I'm still not 100 percent satisfied with it, but I'm more satisfied with it than I was before.
Disclaimer: Don't own Ring or its characters.
Burning.
I feel as if my entire body is on fire. I've had a fever for several days now. The heat is strange in the frozen waters of my little pond. Pond… it's what I call this well, now. For the longest time I used to only curse it, call it every unmentionable, and throw all my anger, pain, and sadness toward it -- as if smacking the water like a child at the beach would save me.
Well, us, not me. I am forgetting that I am not alone down here.
My only friend, my little sister, my other half. It doesn't really matter what I choose to call her. She is always with me. She has always been with me, she said once.
When she gets lonely, which has been less and less often lately, she talks to me. At first I refused to speak with her. It is her fault that I - we, rather - are trapped here. From our meeting upon the hilltop, to her overpowering my mind and killing those people, everything she did caused our father to put us here. But I soon forgot my resolution to be silent and began talking to her.
I asked her questions. How did she take over me? What is she? Why did she kill?
She killed those people, she said, because they had known too much about us. About her. No one was supposed to know about her because once they found out about her they would begin asking questions about me, and they would, like so many had done in the past, drudge up questions about our mother.
Our mother had strong powers, she told me. But mother didn't know how to control them and quickly lost her mind. I knew this already. I remember coming home to see mother endlessly brushing her hair – my sister would sometimes play tricks on mother, which, I argued, probably didn't help with her mental state.
But I am stronger than mother, she said. I knew this already, too. I asked her why she didn't say we are stronger than mother. She snapped, then, and told me I was the weaker one. I left her all alone with father, and ignored her for a stupid boy. I cried. She softened, and hands that weren't really there ran themselves through my hair. I'm sorry, she whispered. We're both strong.
I think she was lying, but at least she cares enough to comfort me.
Sometimes I find it odd that I let her comfort me. She murdered. (Can she still murder, even though we are both stuck here? She killed Aiko when she was still inside father's house...
Aiko. She was very pretty, as I recall, but she hated me. Maybe because she thought I was more talented than her – I wasn't, of course! I was just a novice. She had been with the troupe for much longer than I had. Aiko was strange, as well. She would always look behind me when we talked. Did she see my little sister there, too?
I wonder how many sister has killed.
Sometimes I feel faceless children keep floating in and out of my memories, like waves that refuse to stay on the shore for long. Sweet, darling things, but they keep screaming. They want to swim, my little sister tells me, but they should not go into the water. Is that why they are screaming?
There is a man who keeps insisting on appearing and vanishing from my thoughts. I cannot recall who he is, but he is so kind and gentle. He has the nicest voice. It's very comforting. Do you know who he is, I asked her. She tells me that he is someone I made up. A dream, probably from a story I read. But I feel like he is real… or was, at some point.
My father appears to me as well. I think he appears to both of us, sometimes. His attitude keeps changing from the caring, strong father I knew into a trembling man, recoiling from me in horror. Why is he so afraid? Is he afraid of me, or my sister?
How long has it been, I wonder, since we were first reduced to this darkness. The only light we see is the tiniest ring from above. When the light appears – daytime, although I'm never sure of the exact hours—I try to climb the walls.
The remembrance of the light makes my fingers ache. Most of the nails have been peeled off by the rock of my walls. The first time a nail was ripped away, I screamed, but clamped my mouth shut instinctively for fear of disturbing someone. She laughed at my courtesy, chiming in that there was no one to disturb her. I fell a few feet into the rotting water and clutched the bleeding digit.
Ah, there it is! The sliver of light is shining unusually brightly today. I reach for my walls and dig my fingers into the crevices of the stone. I can hear the water dripping off my waterlogged dress as I curl my fingers around a block and lift myself up.
My feet teeter on the edge of a stone, and once again I find myself whispering quietly to my little sister.
"Give my strength," I say, voice croaking, "And we'll be free."
She doesn't reply, but her presence rushes into me, and I feel a strange twinge of comfort inside me.
I have tried this route many times, and I barely fumble when reaching for the next block, and the next, and the next. My speed is surprising even to me, and a sudden surge of excitement rushes through me. I could very well be free in the next few hours, few minutes, or even the next few moments!
My hopes are ignited when my hand feels the smooth surface of the well cover above me. I've done it. Finally. I flex my fingers and grip the stones tightly, and begin to push against the well cover. It gives, just a little, and my laugh echoes against the stone walls.
My little sisters twinge of comfort suddenly leaves me, and I feel compelled to look down.
I look back, squinting, and can make out the ring of light in the waters below. The reflection of my sliver of light suddenly bursts red, and everything seems a sickish grey.
The waters begin to ripple, soon they are crashing together violently. In less than a moment, the waters are violently rising towards me.
Confused, I begin to push against the cover harder than before, still holding onto the blocks with one of my hands.
"Why?"
The sudden voice calling out nearly made me lose my hold, and I quickly looked below at the uprising waters.
And there they are.
Aiko, the little children, others I cannot place a face to, and the strange man of my dreams. They are reaching towards me with gnarled hands, clawing their way out of the dim water and towards me.
I scream as I feel a hand on my leg, pulling at it with an incredible force.
I fall, and my stomach lurches. I hit the water and splutter out mouthfuls of the tangy liquid.
My fever splits, and I see nothing but a blinding light.
I try to look up at my sky, but all I can see are the children, Aiko, the faceless, and my dream man.
Soon they begin disappearing, one by one, until my sky replaces them completely. I can hear my heart thumping violently in my chest, and it is getting hard to breathe. The edges of my vision begin to blur, and I feel myself sliding under the water. What is happening to me?
She spoke for the first time since my fever began. My little sister, my little friend, my other half.
"Fading," she said softly, "You are fading."