A:N---- I am sorry for my lack of updates. Really sorry, I have been out of the house and without computer for 4 weeks! I thought I'd die too! But I'm back now. Yay! Thank you for the reviews everyone. I really enjoy them.
Falling into the Toilet
Chapter 7: Where There's Smoke..........
I started to cough like a cat with a hairball wedged in it's throat. The smoke was thickening into a black blanket of sorts. My eyes were tearing and I couldn't see anything. Waving my hand in front of my face trying to clear the smoke in front of my eyes, I tried to make out the fastest way to get out of the bedroom. I looked around and saw the window, but funny thing was, it was open.
Everyone knows a fire spreads faster if the windows open. Did the mysterious shadow person know that too? I was starting to get really worried. Why was everything going wrong for me?
Over the crackling of the building fire I heard loud screams and shouts outside the door, which was currently being eaten with fire. So, I did what any normal human being would do.
"HELP! I can't see anything! Help me please!"
"Kagome? Are you ok?"
"Yeah, but I can't get out!"
"Climb out the window! There is a lattice by your window where a vine grows. See if you can't climb out that way!"
"Ok!"
I started to walk towards the window, dropping to my knees gagging for air. As fast as I could, I made my way to the window, using the sill to pull my body up. Looking to either side of my window, I saw neither lattice, nor vine. Coughing, desperate for clean air, I yelled back to the growing crowd outside my door.
"There isn't anything!"
"What?"
"I don't see any lattice!"
"What!?"
It was becoming obvious that they couldn't hear anything I was saying, so I just let it go, and kept searching for the imaginary lattice.
Looking towards the ground about three floors down, a 35 foot lattice lay snapped in half on the ground. The impact probably broke it. I started to wonder how it fell, this night of all nights.
The fire started to chew on my sock, and it interrupted my thoughts.
"Ahh!"
Stomping, and thrashing my foot against the floor trying to put out the flame, I stopped and noticed how hopeless the situation was. If I jumped, I'd probably break my legs in the process, or become paralyzed. But if I stayed here, the fire would melt the skin off my bones, literally. It didn't take a genius to figure out what I should have done.
But no one said I did either. My feet lay frozen to the ground, I was crying, but the fire was so hot that it probably looked like the other 100 beads of sweat crawling down my face. I don't cry often, at least, that's what I tell myself. I thought myself a strong person, but I think I lied, because strong people don't freeze up in these situations.
I felt a sort of blackness edge it's way into my head, and my eyes slowly closed as I dropped to the floor. I couldn't stop from falling, and as I took one last breath, there was a loud thump, people yelling, and a steamy sound that followed a watery one. I let the blackness consume me, finally shutting my eyes.
At first I was aware of a bitter bloody taste in my mouth, then a hammering ache in my chest. I just moaned and shifted my neck's position. I didn't want to open my eyes, because I still felt like drifting back into the blackness that I came from a few moments ago.
"Kagome?"
Go away...
"Kagome? Are you awake?"
No moron... Go away.
"Kagome! Wake up!"
Something told me that they weren't going to go away. "Mm?"
"Oh! Kagome, thank the heavens you are ok! I was so worried."
The voice sounded familiar. I tried to place the voice with a face, but it was in vain. My eyes were gummed shut, so opening them became quite a task.
"Kagome? Thank goodness you are all right! When Sango told me about the fire and to help get some buckets of water, I got scared. What happened?"
"I don't know," I replied dryly as I finally opened my eyes to the little blonde, Anumi. She was hovering over my body, applying a warm towel to my head and chest area. She looked very tired, and there were dark rings under her sagging eyes as clear evidence.
As if she had read my thoughts she replied, "I stayed up all night helping Sango take care in dressing your wounds. But after she went to bed, I stayed, in case you woke up."
"Thank you." We both smiled, but I had the feeling there was more to the story than she would actually tell me.
"Anumi, is there something you want to tell me?"
"No ma'am."
She looked away, trying to hide her face. I hated it when people lied.
"You can go now Anumi."
"Thank you Miss Kagome. I'll go retrieve Sango to look after you now."
That day, Sango and I really got to know each other. She worked her whole life for Mr. Naraku. She told me about her younger brother that died, and how her whole town had been hung under some madman's request, and she had been taken as a slave to Mr. Naraku.
When it got around to telling her about me, I just made up my life, incorporating lies to make it sound like I was from around here.
Around seven o'clock, I convinced her to go to bed, so that I could sleep as well.
I was dreaming about some type of grand church library when I felt something dripping on my face. I squirmed at first, and then realized that it wasn't just dripping from the church ceiling.
Wiping my face of the wetness, I opened my eyes to a hideous looking figure. As soon as it realized that I had seen it, it yelled in a high- pitch scream that made me scream too.
Waving my arms to shoo it away, it grabbed the blanket off me and dumped a pale of ice-cold water over my body.
That shut me up, but I was in too much pain to move. I was going to scream again, but the doors to my room busted open and a group of dark shadows moved across the room, and captured whatever it was that was in the room, and it started screaming again and didn't stop for the next 20 minutes. I expected someone to come in and explain, but no one came, and eventually I fell asleep.
The next morning I had woken up early, but just rested in bed with my eyes closed. The door creaked open, and I figured it was either Sango or Anumi, so I just kept my eyes closed.
But after several minutes of utter silence, I slit my eyes open. There was no one that I could see, so I rolled over to look at the other side of the room, painful though it was.
I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw Mr. Naraku standing next to my bed.
"Good morning Miss Kagome. I am sorry I did not announce my presence sooner. But I felt I should have let you sleep. It encourages the healing."
"O....k. I see. Well, what's up?"
For a moment, he looked towards the ceiling in confusion. It reminded me of that cheesy joke when you answer "the sky" every time you ask what's up.
"I meant, what is happening. What happened is more like it."
I had no intention of beating around the bush. I was too shaken up, and my suspicions that he set the fire in the first place were high. I mean, he looked like the person who would do something like that, and laugh evilly about it later.
He had long black hair he hadn't bothered to pull into a ponytail yet this morning, and he had a perfect face with no wrinkles from smiling too much, as most people did his age. In fact, it looked like he had never smiled in his life.
His joyless eyes danced across my face in pure silence. I started to feel very uncomfortable. Pulling up the covers a little bit more over my body. I waited for a response.
"I had nothing to do with last nights incident, or the fire. I do, however, know what did happen. I shall inform you of our unhappy state of affairs as soon as the doctor believes you are mentally fit."
I snorted in disbelief. "I'm perfectly fine mentally thanks, and I want an explanation, now."
"Hasty I see."
"You have no idea. Listen, I need to know, otherwise I will go insane."
He looked at me uncertainly for a moment. " I understand."
At first I figured that he would just stand there and tell me, or at least pull up a chair. But, he sat on my bed next to me, gazing intently into my eyes. I swallowed hard and forced my body further under the covers.
Taking a deep breath, like it was the hardest thing for him to do, he closed his eyes enjoying a moment's silence before beginning with his story.
"You are aware of our servant girl, Anumi. She has worked here along side her mother all her life. About a year ago, her mother took a fall from a window on the second floor. She suffered a severe head injury that has incapacitated her ability to think correctly, made her crazy, and disfigured her face."
He continued in a monotonic voice...
"On her way to recovery, the doctor informed us that as she regained her ability to think, if ever she did regain it, she would not be able to understand much of what she has done or would do, and wouldn't remember it. The past year has been a grave one indeed. Many times she has caused havoc in this house. She has set fire to the house previously, and has slipped sleeping weed in cups and meals, she crashes vases and paintings as well. I believe she blames us for her condition and is exacting her revenge on us."
He stopped and unsteadily looked at me, seeing if I registered what he was saying, maybe even looking for sympathy. It sounded a little farfetched that the mother didn't know what she was doing. But, Anumi seemed to have confirmed everything he was saying by her comment she had made earlier on the road. She had said that she didn't know what was going on with her mother, and then refused to explain because the truth was too painful for her. Perhaps there was a bit of truth in what he was saying.
"Mr. Naraku, if she is as dangerous as you say, then why not have her sent away? Isn't what she's done worthy of beheading or something? If she is so dangerous, why do you keep her around?"
He nodded in agreement. "Although I am not fond of beheading people in my own household, I have however, taken measures to secure the woman in the top floor in a locked room. The last couple of nights Anumi has gone to visit her, and takes her for walks, but twice now, her mother has gotten away."
"Oh."
I suppose that's why Anumi was so worried, because she blames herself for what happened. It was her fault though.
"I believe that is the story, I suggest you fasten your door at night Miss Kagome, for protection."
"Yeah, guess so."
"In that case, I must go, I have business in the district this afternoon, and you have held me up long enough. Good day to you."
I wanted to hit him. He was Mr. Cocky for sure.
After he left, I started to try to get out of bed. It hurt, but I was not going to be bed-ridden anymore.
Anumi busted through the doors, scaring me half to death.
"Kagome! Kagome! You have got to hide! Count DeLuke is coming with the Head Executioner! He is sure to find out everything. Oh no. My mother. She will die today, and you will go to prison if he finds you!"
"Anumi. What do you mean?"
"I can't explain now, but come quickly, I have got to hide you! Oh Mr. Naraku will surly strike me for this."
But then it was too late. There was a knock on the front door, and all hell broke loose.