The Cursed
Chapter Four
Loners
Disclaimer: Do you REALLY think I would be sitting here, with a ten-inch color television and decidely temperamental cat and computer, if I owned Inuyasha? Eh?
I am SO SORRY it took so long to update. First I was away for so long, then I was starting highschool, then it was marching season, then it was finals, then it was Christmas shopping rush, and then I was on a band trip. Sorry folks, but it has been crazy. I want to thank everyone who reviewed so much. You folks make my day. There is going to be a tiny bit of InuKag fluff and I SWEAR we will get the MirSan. All in due time. Oh, and I am sorry but I'm using WordPad which isn't terribly kind. And I don't mean to make anyone angry with the first passage in her, I have no idea what actual lone survivors have been through, this is just a guess based off what it's like to lose one family member.
Lone survivors.
Funny things, I think you'll agree.
Some people say they're the luckiest. They alone were strong, smart and lucky enough to live.They alone held on those few crucial minutes that got them help. They alone were strong enough, they alone had the will, something within their very bones, heart, and soul that--no matter how badly they were splintered--just wouldn't stop going. Lucky, they call them, for they are alive whilst everything around them crumbled into dust.
Lucky, they call them. How wrong they are.
Some have a completely different idea. They think they wish they had died. They tried to forced the soul out of their body, for they missed their family, home, or perhaps entire clan very much. But, god-damn people who know nothing tried to save them. As if they were doing them a favor by keeping them on this earth. As if they wanted to be hear, among all the pain, crying, blood, and bad-smelling air. Complete morons.
In truth, the lone survivors don't actually think about it much. They're too busy crying.
LINE
Kagome, haired mussed eating fries with gusto--having lasted longer with Sango than Inuyasha, Miroku and everyone else in the office combined--gave Miroku a death glare. "I thought you said she didn't talk."
"Well..." He saw that little vein in her forehead pulsing. Even Kagome's sweetness had its limits. He would have to handle her carefully, as one would handle acid on a bumpy road.
It lucky for him, and though he didn't know it yet, his manhood, that her boyfriend appeared at that moment. Without a word he kissed her on the mouth, then took her by the hand and dragged her off muttering about food.
Well, that meant it was his turn once more. He walked through the door, still managing to look like he owned the place despite the fact he did.
Alas, his luck was still running for he found the girl slumped on the table, breathing soft and careless. The air occasionally crossed pathes with the wispy strand of hair in front of her face, making it fly about wild, in the manner of a kite in gale winds.
The room itself was completely and totally unremarkable. The torquise walls and ferns showed an attempt at decor, but a bad one at that. To the left there was a row of desks, each containing a computer, and each computer containing a vast terminal of every UFO sighting, conspiracy, ghost, haunting and things of that sort.
The table in the middle was solid and cheap, and the chair was comfortable, but old. The whole area was littered with take-out, coffee cups, and chewing gum.
Her face scrunched up in pain, breathing coming harsh, and hands dripping sweat touching an old scar.
That's the thing about scars. In time, they tend to fade, and scab over with time. But never, not once, are they gone forever. If you remember an old wound, you look on the place where it once lay, ragged and leaking red life. Later once, checking you realize there is but a line yet, like something not sown together quite right.
It's the thing about scars. They never really heal.
LINE
Many of us are dreamers, wondering about this and that, what if I was like them? What if I had walked away instead of bending down to help? What if all that is fantasy is real?
"Hello, mother. Dead are you? Why isn't that just the strangest thing? Not one hour ago you were smiling at me as wide as your lips could go. And you, father, I was mad at you for not letting me have a cookie. And now I just wish you would talk back. Funny, I think you'll agree."
The words were meaningless, she knew she had no right to speak to the dead. It was rude, talking to someone who can't talk back. Yet the noise in the car filled her ears, and that was just as well as it would get, seeing as her stomach was going to have to stay empty for some time now.
But many of us dreamers have bad luck, this world will only take workers. 'Tis a great injustice, some believe.
What gives the dreamers the right to lay around and do what they love most? They, fool, ought to be miserable with the rest of us.
Angry words, which you'll come to regret.
Oh, and why is that?
Do you really not know? 'Tis the dreamers that have the real power. They wander where they please while the rest of us stay, stuck in this reality that through our long years we have come to despise.
False.
It isn't. Believe that if you must. I too am a wanderer, and wander I must.
LINE
He watched, entranced as her lips formed the strange words. "And wander I must..." The proclaimation was sluggish, as though the words didn't want to be heard.
The moment ended suddenly, as though cut off with a very sharp blade. There were far too many mysteries within this girl, and he knew--no matter how many beatings or restraining orders it earned him--he was going to have to know every last one of them.
Start with the small stuff, he thought mildly.
"What were you dreaming of?"
"I dreamt I was a cabbage, and my fellow cabbages wouldn't let me leave the ground." She had figured out the situation quickly, and her eyes dared him to disagree.
Smaller, then.
"So you like Chinese food?" He indicated vaguely the various take-out boxes.
"Yes."
He really wanted to have a serious conversation with her. Truely he did. And yet...
The fool grinned with the sudden realization that he was speaking to a single, not-hideous girl...
"So-"
Later he would defend himself by argueing that most people would never notice him going nearer. It was just that girl.
"What are your plans for this weekend?"
She looked stunned. She would later--much later--defend herself by saying she was so stunned by such a ridiculously stupid question--at which point in the conversation she would glare at him until he squirmed to her satisfaction.
All she felt was a hand pressing on an area that no hand--or its owner--had a right to go.
For several moments afterward all Miroku knew was a shoes making sound contact with his head, seeing stars, hearing Kagome's indignant squawk, and seeing a fist out of the corner of his eye...
Closer...
Closer...
He knew now he could not be fast enough to dodge it so braced himself for the impact...
Closer...
He couldn't see anything but the fist now...
Closer...
And he knew no more.