Short title: Cry
Long title: Cry, just cry and everything will become clearer.
By: Violet eyes Rika
Disclaimer: Digimon doesn't belong to me and this is a different version of Alice Hoffmen's (is that how you spell it?) Green Angel, which I highly recommend.
No, I will never cry. I will not cry until they come back. And then I will cry in happiness and we'll laugh at my idiocy. Me, almost believing they were dead. I open my eyes from my paradise, my only sanctuary from this cruel world I live in. I can scarcely see two feet in front of me. Not because of the eternal night that the ash brought, but because of the embers and soot that went to my eyes because of the fire. I only need to cry to be able to see but I will not. If I cry my last glimmer of hope will disperse into millions of pieces, my hope that I carry for their return to me. I fall back to restless sleep.
I don't know how many days it has been since the fire. I don't even want to know how long or how it happened. Hunger pains awaken me and I get up. I walk threw my almost abandoned home, almost like a ghost. I must look like it too or worse. Fire singed my auburn hair, burned most of my clothes, and covered me in soot. I have gotten to my destination and opened the door to reveal nothing. I walked over to the pantry and looked and it was empty. The robbers must have been very hungry. I know remember back to that moment when I found out what was happening to the city outside.
Wails and battle cries filled the air. I knew they were coming. I had hid myself in my closet not wanting to come out. I could have easily driven them out or worse but did not. They were mostly children with no parents because of the fire. No food and no supervision made them wild. At night they drunk and danced around a bonfire, crying of grief or barfing because of the drink. I heard them scavenging what food was left and I didn't care. They will come back and rescue me from this place and everything will go back to normal again. The children started searching rooms now. They entered my bedroom and found my hiding place. They stared down at me with childish eyes, filled with grief and wanting to forget everything. I stared back with my cloudy eyes, wanting to remember everything. I stood up and looked down or level with them with my violet eyes.
"Join…Come." Said their leader. "Come and forget."
I considered this and watched the scenario in my head. I envisioned me with small braids in my hair filled with beads, dressed torn and tattered, and dancing my memories away with the drink around the bonfire. I would dance and roar with glee, forgetting my troubles and food. I would steal and rob. I would be blamed for the fire that burned the city. I would be blamed for the downfall of Japan, and everything else people would come up with. I would forget Renamon, Mom, Grandma, pain, and Ryo. I couldn't do it, I had not cried.
"No." was my return word.
They left knowing I was different from them and that I still had not come to grips on what happened. If only I had cried would I have seen that Takato was the leader of the group with Jeri by his side wild and free. But I had not and so I lay down in the closet and slept.
I sleep knowing what I will dream about. And I will share with only you of those precious moments before it happened.
I had woken up that morning happy. That day was my six-month anniversary with Ryo Akiyama, the love of my life. Yes, as the public predicted we went on a date and another, and another, and another, until we were full-fledged boyfriend and girlfriend that not even I could not deny. Hours later he came and we had a splendid dinner. We came back to my house and then, this is when it becomes a nightmare, I remembered I forgot my purse at the restaurant. He, being a perfect gentlemen and Hero Boy, said he would go and get it back to me. I waited inside alone. Mom and Grandma got out of the house as soon as we left so when we came home we would be alone. What a mistake that was. All I remember was a big bang. I looked outside to investigate and then I saw the fire. Ash started to cover the windows, and embers came under the door. I shut the place up and being unable to see I went to sleep whimpering. Day by day I waited for their return. I never left the house of fear they came back and I was not there. And that was how I got in this predicament. Now I just wake up, eat, and sleep again.
Stomach pains me but I have no food to give it. There is a knock at my door and I immediately wake up and rush towards it. There is a man hooded on my step, begging for food. I say I have none. He doesn't look surprised at that and asked me if he could spend the night instead. I let him in. He walks in and directly goes into the spare bedroom and I wonder how he knew where it was. I walk towards him and ask. He doesn't answer but sits on the bed and looks down into his hands.
"My sister died in front of me in the fire. I saw my friends burn alive. Two friends who were sometimes annoying and know I have come here and you don't know me. I expect it though. I don't even know myself." Tears started to come down to his hands and the hood still covered his face.
I was confused. The voice was husky and his speech was broken many times because of coughing on his part. I knew then he was near the fire and he was telling the truth.
"My name that once was mine was Henry Wong but know I'm just Henry."
I think I gasped but I don't remember. I was shocked to find out that one of my old friends was alive but not well. I didn't know why but I felt he changed and I knew then and there that he had something to do with the fire.
"What did you do Henry?" I said knowing secretly I knew the answer and wanted to confirm it.
"I helped start it Rika. Kazu, Kenta, Suzie, and I destroyed this town and reeked havoc on this country. We really didn't mean to do it. We just protested against weapons in this city. Then, Kazu and Kenta had this crazy idea that if we threatened to activate the bombs they would ship them out of the town. Kenta, being clumsy, accidentally set one off and the others blew too. I was the only one that survived. But not without a price."
He lifted his cloak to reveal his burned body. His body was manipulated by the blaze. This time I know I gasped. Anger boiled inside me. He did it, he made Ryo missing, not dead, but missing. I slapped him hard and his face was astonished. He gently lifted his hand and touched the now red mark. He then…smirked! Then he smiled! My anger rose to its maximum. How dare he smile when he killed so many people! His next sentence even shocked me, the person who was never shocked on the team.
"That's the old Rika. The Rika who didn't pity herself and was sad, but the angry Rika who punched the living hell out of anyone who just stared at her. Stop self-pitying yourself and make your life better Rika. Let your loss make you strong and carry on with your life."
"I have lost no one Henry! Ryo and everyone will come back here and everything will be normal again. You'll see with your own eyes when they come back." I said hysterically to Henry.
"Fine Rika but first lets make this place presentable to everyone. Is that a deal Rika?"
"Deal. But you will have to work for your food. When we of course get some." I counterattacked to him not wanting to look weak because a man was helping her.
"You will have to help Me, Rika."
I snorted. "Of course, Henry."
This will not be a Henry/Rika story. It will be Rika/Ryo story. Yes, Ryo will actually appear in this story but later. I would like to say that I know a run on sentence is still a run on if you don't put a comma plus ,and ,or, and so on and so forth. But for this rhythm, that I'm failing to create, it's hard to put the run on to a sentence. And if you haven't read Green Angel I'm trying to copy the person's writing style. And if I slip into past tense and then present tense I'm VERY sorry. Please review!